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Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl and a handsome little boy. They loved, more than anything, to play in the gardens around their grandmothers’ house. Their father had taught them about the garden gnomes, their aunt showed them how to ride a broom. But their favourite person—their uncle—showed them a hidden well where they could find the Pixies.
One day, when their grandmother had decided to have a nap, they strolled deep into the meadow behind the house. They crossed the little bridge, went past the old Oak and found themselves at the well.
Like a good uncle, he had taught the children never to go into the well. They could play with the Pixies that came out of the well, and they could talk to the ones in the well, but they were never to go into the well.
Of course, the Pixies would try to tell them to go into the well, and they would offer lovely things like chocolates and toys. Even so, they were never to do it.
Well, that day, the boy decided he wanted to go into the well more than he wanted to do anything else in the whole world! His older sister pleaded with him not to go in. She told him it wasn’t safe, but her brother wouldn’t listen.
The older sister wasn’t sure what to do. She couldn’t very well leave her brother to go alone. She was the oldest. She had to protect him. She wanted to run for help as her brother stepped into the ledge, gazing deep inside. She wanted to howl for her grandma, yet all the while she stepped up onto the ledge beside him and gripped his hand in her own. Then they were falling.
It was like drifting through space. All around them were stars; powdered blues, purples, and pinks on a wall of darkness. It went on forever, continued falling, the girl's hair whirling around her in a mess of frizzy red tendrils. When she tried to reach out and touch the stars, the two children were dropped into a pool of water that wasn’t wet. Water that they could breathe in. Water they could speak in but couldn't taste.
A pixie materialized before them waving them to follow it towards a brightly lit up cave, so the two swam towards it. As they neared the cave the girl remembered another warning, never go into a Pixies home. She stopped her brother and made him look away. She jerked him towards her, looking into his eyes that looked almost glazed over. Her brain telling her this isn't right, we shouldn't be here. But her mouth frozen, unable to say the words.
Her brother demanded that he keep going, to break the rules, to go headfirst into danger like a real warrior would, to boldly go into the unknown. He cautioned his sister to go home if she wouldn’t go with him, and he began reaching out to take the Pixies outstretched hand. The sister realized then that they had come too far, and broken all the rules they had been taught would keep them safe.
Summoning all her strength she swam as hard as she could to get to the surface of the water. Try as she might, she couldn’t swim away. No matter how far she swam, she had not moved an inch away from the cave, but her brother was gone inside. So, the little girl did the only thing she could, she reached out and took the hand of the Pixie that came back for her. She disappeared into the cave as well.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed down there. Days felt like minutes passing so quickly that in a blink of an eye the little girl and her brother were taller, with longer hair, stronger bodies. They were adults, dancing, singing, and eating treats with the Pixies.
Suddenly, there was a racket outside the cave and a man the boy and girl recognized appeared before them. All the pixies were- with the flick of a stick in the man's hand - captured in cages. She knew that man from somewhere. He looked so familiar but the girl hadn’t a clue how.
Wasn’t she a Pixie? She lived with Pixies. She played with Pixies. She couldn’t remember ever not being with the Pixies. Admittedly, she didn’t look the same as the Pixies but then, in a world where water was not wet and the dancing never stopped, she didn't question why she looked different. Someone had taught her long ago that it was their differences that made each and every person who they were.
The man, red-haired and tall, looked an awful lot like her brother. He begged them to follow him, to leave that place and never look back. Why, though, when they had so many wonderful things? The brother then nodded in agreement. He took the man's hand. Her brother was ready to leave but she was not. The man ignored the girl's protests and pulled the brother and sister from the cave and up through the water. They travelled through the stars and the powder and the darkness. Then brightness and sun touched their skin and it was like breathing again after breathing in a bag.
Fresh cool air and warm sunbeams cascaded around them as the girl and boy were pulled from the well and into strong shaking arms. Wetness landed on their cheeks and hair as a woman—oh yes, their grandmother—cried. She remembered her. How could she have forgotten? The girl looked at her brother and realized they were no longer tall and strong like their mother and father. No, they were children again. Their uncle loomed over them.
“I told you, never to go into that well.”