The Girl Who Fell in a Well

She had been The Girl Who Fell in a Well for as long as she could remember. She hated the nickname, but partially understood it—she’d found herself trapped in a well not once, not twice, but three times in her life. It was the sort of fact that strangers seized on, conversations revolved around, and identities were defined by. She was the human equivalent of a car accident on a busy highway—once people heard about one of the well incidents, they couldn’t tear their attention away, rubbernecking be damned. They always demanded more, too. More of her story, more of herself. She was a spectacle, an oddity, a roadside attraction that fascinated everyone she met.

With a ferocity that should have let others know this was not a subject for polite conversation, she always insisted on pointing out that while she had technically been in a well three times in her life, she had only fallen once. The first event happened when she was six months old. She was swaddled and sleeping, tucked under her drunk father’s arm as he stumbled around a backyard party, tossing back the dregs of every abandoned cup and glass he could reach. As he slurred through another happy reunion, he lost his balance near the family well. He was quite pleased with himself for saving his drink; not a drop of amber was spilled, despite the tumble. While contorting himself to preserve the stolen beer, his daughter somehow went airborne, sailing through the air and landing deep inside the well with a small splash. Partygoers simply fished her out with a galvanized bucket and resumed their festivities. Through it all, she slept.

Her family loved that story. By the time she was in elementary school, she knew that when it came to large gatherings, any story that began with Y’all remember that time on the Fourth of July… or Little Miss over there was such a good baby, wasn’t she? would ultimately end with her swaddled self being rescued once more by a tin bucket. Her older cousins seemed to never tire of threatening to push her into pools or tubs or down a well, even if one wasn’t nearby. Ignore them, her mother told her. They’re just jealous. They wish they had a story as exciting as yours.

At a family reunion when she was seven years old, her cousin Michael bet her ten bucks she wouldn’t sit on the edge of that same well. In retrospect, she should have seen his offer for the set-up it was: Michael never had any pocket money. But she was eager to prove herself to her cool older cousins, so she marched over to the well without hesitation. She was just inches away from the uneven, mossy bricks when she felt a pair of hands dig into her shoulder blades and send her forward. Her knees hit the low stones and she sailed down the black tunnel, screaming the entire way.

She fell deeper this time, much deeper. And when she landed, it wasn’t with a soft splash into water, but a painful thud onto a moving carpet of spiders. Somehow, in the years since her last visit, the well became home to an untold number of arachnids. There were large, wooly things with legs as thick as pencils, waxy black spiders with ballooned abdomens, and near-microscopic red ones, tiny smudges crawling up her arms. She spent every minute of her four-hour wait to be rescued stamping, stomping, slapping, and squashing her saviors to oblivion.

This time, she could not be saved by a rusted bucket and rope. When the fire and police departments showed up, so did the local television stations. You know, this isn’t the first time my girl’s fallen down a well, her father eagerly told the cameras, before reliving his moment of glory with the beer. By the time she was hoisted to safety, her story was shared with first responders, journalists, and everyone watching the local news that night. She was The Girl Who Fell in a Well. Twice.

She hated that name. Whenever it came up, she insisted that she had never fallen. She was dropped; she was pushed. Neither well-visit was borne of her own misjudgment or error. She was betrayed by the men in her life and somehow, came to be defined by their actions. It was maddening.

When she was a teenager, her parents signed her up for an adventurer’s group to teach her survival basics. We don’t want you falling down another well, Little Miss, her father teased with a wide smile. She mostly enjoyed the group, except for when her fellow adventurers would exaggeratedly warn her away from water. She was sixteen when she was tasked with a solo overnight trip: could she apply everything she learned to keep herself safe for twenty-four hours in the woods?

The answer was yes and no. She hummed happily while setting up her camp, erecting her tent, and building her fire. During the sixth hour, she was traipsing through the woods in search of edible plants when she felt the earth give way below her feet. She didn’t have time to register what was happening. One moment, she was confidently walking through the peaceful woods she loved; the next, she was splashing into thick, slimy water, hoping like hell no one would ever find out. She spent only a few minutes treading the oily water, screaming for help, when a man’s face suddenly appeared in the halo of light above her. He wordlessly lowered a rope to her, then quickly pulled her to safety. If she wondered why the man was carrying rope and close enough to come to her aid in an otherwise remote part of the woods, she didn’t ask. She gratefully accepted his offer for a ride to town and the use of his phone. She didn’t want to spend a minute more in her wet clothes, smelling of sewage and mold and rot.

It was a long drive into town, much longer than she remembered or expected. She fell asleep but awoke as the man unbuckled her seatbelt and gently lifted her into his arms. He carried her into the house, down a set of stairs, and deposited her in a darkened basement, where she belatedly realized three other young girls, all with wild eyes and in various stages of neglect, watched her crouched from the shadows. The survival instincts her parents had hoped would emerge, if only they spent enough money and she earned enough embroidered badges, flared bright in her chest. She threw herself at the man’s retreating back, wrapping her limbs around him and digging her fingernails, which were still caked with mud and grime, deep into the soft flesh of his face. He tried to throw her off, but she clawed deeper, harder. She hooked fingers into his eyes and nose, pushing, scratching, pulling with all her might. He threw himself backwards against a wall, pinning her, and she thought she might die right there from the fiery pain in her chest and lungs. One of the wide-eyed girls tiptoed over to them and shakily handed her a small stool. She unhooked one hand from the man’s face, grabbed the stool, and brought it down over his head. He crumpled in a heap. She ushered the girls upstairs, carrying the smallest and dirtiest of the trio. She locked the basement door, found the man’s phone, and dialed 911.

Whenever she looked back at that night, she always believed the terror she felt and injuries she sustained were worth it—she saved those girls. If she did nothing else with her life, she would know that her greatest achievement was rescuing them. She thought others would see it that way, too.

And yet.

And yet when the local papers and television stations and blogs began reporting her story, they all led with the same fact: She was The Girl Who Fell in a Well. And this time, she couldn’t even deny it.

***

Jamie Orsini is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and MA in Writing candidate at Johns Hopkins University. Her short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Birdseed, and The Furious Gazelle. You can follow her on Twitter at @JamietheBookie.