Prologue #3
‘Right,’ she murmured, looking around her.
She inched closer, so close her belly was now balancing on the side of the well, her body almost at a right angle, so the blood rushed to her head, making her dizzy and sick all at once.
Bloody hell . It still wasn’t enough. She rattled off a quick Hail Mary – an insurance of sorts – then she steadied up, before stretching as far as she could.
She reached her hands down, down, ignoring the pull on her shoulders; still she couldn’t feel the animal near her grasp.
She leaned further over, her head spinning as if she’d just stepped off a carousel; she was bent way across the edge of the rough wooden frame so its jagged splinters grazed beneath her belly button.
Taking a deep breath, as if about to dive into the water, she reached as far as she could, feeling her muscles tighten all along her spine and down the sides of her body.
One more stretch. Fur. She could feel it, soft, wet, downy beneath her hands.
She grabbed the cat by his neck, yanked him up in a flash and swung him across behind her back, so he could land on the safe ground.
Maybe not the gentlest rescue, but he was alive.
It was as she was swinging her arm back again to place her hand on the rim of the well that a crow screeched over her.
It was so low, she felt the breeze of its flight almost lift her dress from her skin.
The jolt caused Constance’s whole body to jerk and before she knew what was happening she had lost her footing.
For what felt like an eternity, she swayed back and forth, her head tipping further into the well, her hands before her face, she couldn’t right herself around to grab the sides of the well to keep her balance.
She tried to bellyflop her body backwards on the grass.
On the second attempt, she thought she felt the earth beneath her as if she might have shifted her weight so she was safe, but then something silky and writhing brushed up against her – the cat, startling her – and she lost her purchase on the ground.
Falling into the well seemed to happen in slow motion.
Constance reached out, trying to catch onto something, perhaps another ledge just as the cat had.
There was none. Something rubbed against her back: a rope against one wall.
She grabbed it, wrapping her body around it.
Her hands, covered with sweat, betrayed her by slipping too easily against the braids and losing purchase so holding in one place was impossible.
The tighter she held on, the more the rope cut sharply into her skin, peeling it coarsely, which might have made her let go, but for the drop beneath.
She slid down it, desperately fighting against fate and gravity; gripping hungrily to descend as slowly as she could, clinging to the narrowing shaft of daylight as if it could save her from what was clearly unavoidable.
She wanted to scream – tried hard to call out for help – but her voice caught somewhere in her throat, her breath halted in her lungs, she was beyond making a sound, too petrified to do much more than hang on.
Inch by inch she slid down into the blackness, too engrossed in the task of holding on to think about what waited at the end. She must have fallen from the rope, but even years afterwards she wouldn’t remember what had happened next.
Forty foot or was it yards? That was the first thought she had when she woke.
She’d heard the grown-ups discuss the well a year earlier, but she couldn’t for the life of her guess at just how far down she was.
It was dark, but still, she could see the sky, just a glimpse far above her in the narrow well mouth.
It was as much as she could make out and she lay for a long time staring at the clouds and sobbing miserably.
She tried to think of a way out, but her head hurt, her body felt as if it had been broken into a thousand pieces and she was too scared to move much in case of what might be lurking in the shadowy walls above her.
Later, she remembered Dotty’s father – Mr Wren. He must have been near his garage, but he wouldn’t have heard her scream, not from two gardens up.
She tried calling for help, when she woke up later.
By then, she had no idea if it was morning or afternoon or even how long she’d been there.
It was no use. She stood up, reached round, searching the air above her head for the rope she’d clung to earlier, maybe she could climb back up again?
It was no good. It was not there, it must have ended somewhere above her reach.
There was only one thing for it. They would have to find her, maybe just like she’d found that kitten, maybe someone near the fence at the right time would hear her call.
And so she began to call out, her voice quickly ascending to a frightened scream which only fed her terror.
In the end, her voice grew hoarse and her sobs overtook her calls for help.
She was lost down here in the darkness and soon even the slim shaft of light that penetrated from so far over her head began to fade.
Later, much later, she thought she heard them calling her. Constance. Constance. Constance. Her mother’s voice had a strange musicality to it, as if keening her daughter’s name. But Constance was too tired for any of it to register beyond a mere whisper. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
By the time night came in, she had fallen asleep as much from giving up as exhaustion or fear.