Something caught her ankle. Something pulled her down.
It was like being caught by waterweeds, slimy and clinging but stronger by far. She was pulled into a blackened world, and even when she opened her eyes, her vision was filled only with stinging murk. She struggled and kicked at whatever held her, but to no avail. Her sumptuous underdress weighed her down, and she sank farther than she would have thought possible into the coldness of the well. She thought her lungs would collapse with the need to breathe.
First, there were bindings upon her wrists. Second, she found that air was given her, though she did not know why or how. She breathed it in desperately, then opened her eyes.
Two white lanterns pierced the darkness of the well. Daylily looked into the face of Mama Greenteeth, who grinned, her fangs gleaming in the light of her own expressionless eyes. Then the apparition swam away, and Daylily followed the trail of light left by her eyes to see where she went. Across from her, not many feet away, was the stone wall of the well, perhaps man-made, perhaps lined with homey care by Mama Greenteeth herself.
The child was bound to the wall. Daylily saw he wore over his mouth a flower gleaming pale green in the light of the monster’s eyes. A similar flower covered her own mouth, and she wondered if this provided the source of air. The little one was unconscious, she saw and was grateful for his sake.
Mama Greenteeth made certain of his bindings, then poked him cruelly. With that, she pulled out from some crevice a handful of wafers and began to eat them. But the light in her eye as she studied the child said that she preferred warm meat to wafers.
Horrified, Daylily strained against her bindings. She could not see her hands, tied above her head. Her hair floated across her face, blinding her still more. But as it waved to and fro, she caught a glimpse of something at the very bottom of the well.
A leafy plant grew in the center, its big leaves stirring of their own volition. And from this grew, like a stalk or stem, the sinuous body of Mama Greenteeth herself.
Daylily’s eyes stung with the murky water, and she could see nothing else clearly. But this she saw with the clarity of noonday, and she fixed her gaze upon it even as she worked her hands against her bindings.
Dive and die! Dive and die!
Daylily gnashed her teeth, tearing the flower the monster had secured over her nose and mouth to keep her alive and her blood fresh. Mama Greenteeth was still gnawing at her wafers, but one long finger and longer thumb pinched the child’s arm, testing.
The time must be now. Now!
Daylily pulled. With strength she had never before possessed, she tore her hands through the bindings, shredding her skin and filling the well with the taste and scent of her blood.
Mama Greenteeth’s slitted nostrils flared. She dropped the child’s arm and turned. She saw her prisoner, struggling against the encumbrance of her wedding rags, swimming for the rooted plant at the well bottom.
Daylily grabbed a stout leaf, and though it waggled against her hold, she pulled herself down and wrapped her hands around the very base of the plant, right down to the roots. She did not look up, even when the roar of Mama Greenteeth reverberated through the water and struck her with a hammer force. She braced herself against the muddy floor and, using her own weight as a lever, pulled.
Mama Greenteeth reached her just as she pulled, and a clammy, claw-tipped hand struck Daylily across the face, tearing streaks down her cheek. But Daylily did not lose her hold, and she pulled a second time. Mama Greenteeth screamed and shuddered as the plant came partially loose. She lashed out again, tearing the flower from Daylily’s face.
Immediately all was dark and drowning and the life-ending pressure of deep water. Even the lantern eyes of Mama Greenteeth vanished, and Daylily felt she was alone in the well, and her last moments were upon her.
A wolf in her mind. Bound to four stakes. Paralyzed by a stone of bronze. Only the red rolling of bloodshot eyes.
And then—a snarl!
Daylily snarled. One last time, she hauled on the plant, putting all the strength of her remaining life into her effort.
Roots sprang up from the mud.
The wail of Mama Greenteeth exploded from the well in a geyser rush. The sobbing women around the well clutched their children and pulled them back, and the men running from the village stopped in their tracks, eyes wide at the sight. Sun Eagle stood hidden in the jungle shadows, watching all, and his face was like a rock, but his mouth moved as he whispered: “You’ll live. You’ll forge the bond.”
The great fountain of Mama Greenteeth’s shriek fell back in a splash all around the well. And when it flowed away and the people gathered dared look once more, they saw a strange figure lying partially draped over the well stones, clinging to land.