The Girl from the Well

I believe that I could have destroyed her right then. But the stifled sounds of pain coming from the boy are the reason I do not.

The boy is cradling his wrist, in the same spot I injured the woman. He stares at me, fearful that I, too, have come for vengeance.

Instead, I sit on the floor several feet away from where he still cowers, legs folded underneath me and hands on my lap. I watch him. My physical appearance does very little to redeem my intentions, but it does not take long for the boy to realize I mean him no harm.

“Thank you,” he manages to say, still rubbing his wrist, which has begun to swell slightly.

I say

nothing.

Tentatively, he emerges from his hiding place and walks toward where I am kneeling. He hesitates for one long moment and then, with the clumsy fingers of his uninjured hand, reaches out to touch my hair, to convince himself of my corporeality. I let him, though he soon retreats, afraid such action would merit him some offense.

“Why?” he asks.

His is a question ripe with possibilities.

Why, indeed?

For so long I thought that wreaking my vengeance upon murderers and killers was the only path I had left to take, my mind closed to other alternatives. Only now, I discover that preventing the deaths of children has as much potency as avenging them.

For three hundred years, I have rescued countless souls. But I never bothered to learn their names, to understand their hopes and their dreams, to know who they were and what they might have become. To me they have always been nothing more than fireflies that give me brief moments of comfort.

It was never in my nature to be interested in the living before.

I take his hand and examine the wound I inflicted there. It is not in my nature to heal, so instead I press the tips of my fingers along the base of the wound, a quiet apology. I do what he is afraid to do on his own, and lift his palms and let him touch my cold, clammy face. The lamppost continues its solitary flickering, winking at us like a fiery eye. With each flare, my features change abruptly, from young girl

to dreadful spirit

and back again.

Then the light disappears for several seconds, leaving us in darkness. When it finally returns, no longer quivering but shining strongly, I have settled into my former human shape. When I was alive, I had shining dark hair and brown eyes and skin light enough to be considered delicate by some. This is what he sees now.

I am not always a monster.

And when he sees this for the first time, I hear his breath catch in his throat.

“You look…you don’t look anything like what I expected.”

There is little to say to that statement, and I wait for him to calm down, to break the next bout of silence. He slides to the floor beside me, glancing back at me every so often to assure himself that I do not mind.

“You’re a ghost, aren’t you?” Then he answers his own question. “Well, of course, Tark. Stupid question. Nothing in the movies ever mentioned anything like this—” The sudden, stricken look on his face quickly tells me he regrets sounding so cocky, still fearful I may not comprehend how he hides his uncertainties behind his banter. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound… I’ve always been told I’m a smartass.”

But I know now that his habit of sarcasm is a part of his nature, just as my malice is of my own, and for the first time in centuries I smile so very slightly.

“My name is Tarquin,” he says after another hesitant pause, though emboldened by my reaction. “Tark.”

It has been so long since I have heard anyone speak my name or have allowed it to pass through my own lips. In a moment of weakness, I find myself replying, my unused voice issuing from cracked, unmoving lips, my own name tripping on my tongue from disuse.

Okiku.

Oki-ku.

O

ki

ku.

“Okiku,” I whisper.

“Okiku. That’s a nice name—”

He looks up again, only to realize he is sitting alone on the floor of his room with nothing remaining for company except the moon looking in through the windows, shining and bright.