The Wishing Well Pt. 3

The Wishing Well

Part 3 of 4

Part One :: Part Two :: Part Three :: Part Four

The third installment of my ongoing work-in-progress, "The Wishing Well" Trouble is stirring in Gwen's hometown. The cause seems to  be some big secret the older folks are keeping to themselves. A not-such-a-stranger after all shows up with warnings and answers.

Note: Hopefully, the parts that come after this will begin to reflect what I have learned so far from the feedback on this and other pieces. Also, the first person to guess correctly the identity of the stranger gets to make a writing request. :)

Gwen woke with a shudder to find her nightclothes plastered to her skin with sweat. She could not recall what she had been dreaming but her racing heart told her it was not something she wished to. From the other room, she could hear her mother's voice discussing something in low tones with Gwen's aunt. She couldn't help but wonder what could possibly bring the woman from her home on the other side of the square at such a late hour. However, the nightmare had taken its toll on her and she fell asleep before she could decide to move to the door to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Morning was met by the frightened faces of  both villagers and newcomers alike. A group of men had been found at their camp in a frightening condition. Although they were uninjured and living, their eyes held no humanity or recognition behind them. They walked about in a stupor that no one could break them out of. The event had driven fear so far into people's hearts that a meeting was to be held in the town square at high noon to decide on what was to be done.

The treasure-seekers loitered at the edges of the square as if they were uncertain whether they were meant to be there or if the meeting at all concerned them. The villagers, the elders in particular, had a different air about them. They had the look of people who knew what must be done but were unwilling to voice it. Fortunately for them, they did not have to.

"There's nothing I can do to help you this time," a woman in a bright purple cloak yelled down from a rooftop, "I don't understand why you people don't just move."

Elder Gwyn, incidentally Gwen's own grandmother, stiffened at the sound of the voice and Gwen could see recognition in the old woman's dark eyes. The woman in purple leapt from the roof and landed on the grown without the slightest disturbance to the air around her. The crowd parted as she walked and Gwen had the slightest suspicion that they did not do so of their own will.

"What do you mean?" Gwen's grandmother asked in a hoarse voice, "you could before," she added with some accusation.

"I will explain," the woman said as she pulled back her cloak to reveal sandy-blond locks of softly curling hair.

Gwen, from her seat on a nearby fencepost, felt that she could stare at the woman's hair for hours on end. She shook her head to clear it and glared at the woman suspiciously. The woman responded with a warm smile and the girl felt as if she had seen her somewhere before.

The woman tilted her head to the crowd before her voice carried the words," But first I must give all ye who seek this phantom treasure a warning. Leave this place and never return or remain and abandon your greed. If you do neither, your life and afterlife are forfeit," clearly to every end of the square.

Some of the treasure hunters, headed her warning right then and made haste to put as great a distance from Welton and the Wellwood as possible. The vast majority of them remained, some impassive and others in challenge.

"Honestly," the woman said just loud enough for it to carry over to Gwen, "I don't know why I bother!"

The old woman was not known for her patience and  fixed the magic-user with such a stare that even Gwen shuddered. The blond merely raised an eyebrow at this and smirked to herself. At this, Gwen got the impression that her grandmother had not changed much from her youth but she didn't understand where the thought came from.

"You said you would explain," the woman said as her wrinkled face became more tense from her impatience.

"I can undo what the well has brought about, as I did when you were a child, simply by severing the flow of power. However, when the well becomes an amplifier of another power, the solution is not that simple," the woman said gravely.

The old woman's brows came together in anger and in a cold soft voice she said to the blond, " Did you lie when you told us that it would not bend to anyone's will?"

The blonde's eyes couldn't hide the melancholy if they were looked directly into. Gwen realized then that no one besides herself had looked the woman in the eye. Perhaps it was foolish of her, but she couldn't imagine that the woman would put her under a spell without provocation.

"There were things that, in my arrogance, I failed to take into account," the woman said with a fallen gaze.

Gwen's grandmother looked as if she would burst from anger but the woman was gone as if she had never been there at all. Before the elder could turn in her direction, Gwen decided that it was a good time to make herself scarce based on past experience with the old woman's temper.

So, it was that the girl found herself weaving through the restless crowd of the square. She was certain, that there were more people there than lived in the village and upon further inspection she realized that the people of the wood were in attendance as well. The curiosity that arose at the knowledge was swept away by her suspicion as to where the woman could be found and it wasn't long before she escaped the noise of the crowd in favor of seeking her.