Work Text:
While playing with his brother, the boy fell into a well behind the house.
He was seven years old. When he woke up in his mother’s arms, the boy remembered a few things about that long night.
- In the well, he had returned to a house - his house. It had been empty.
- He hadn’t been scared of the dark because the moon was in the sky.
- He had eaten more meals than he could count, but the night never ended and the moon never lost its fullness or shine.
- There had been another boy he’d never seen before. Which was strange because his parents kept their estate barred to deter robbers, so how had a boy smaller than him gotten inside?
- The other boy fed him whenever he got hungry and painted birds that took life whenever he became anxious.
- The other boy’s name had been Huaisang.
The boy’s parents found him seven days later, when the well inexplicably dried up. Asleep and unharmed, curled over dirt.
Soon, the boy forgot all but the pain across his parents’ faces whenever someone brought up his disappearance.
By the time Jiang Cheng turned twenty, his time at the bottom of the well was more a dream than a memory.
The well was sealed by his father’s order, and the children were forbidden from venturing too far from the house.
The children grew, never once peering into the well to check if it was truly filled.
“Where do you live, Huaisang?”
“I live here. Isn’t it obvious?”
“You can’t live here. I live here. This is my home.”
Huaisang only laughed. His eerie green eyes opened wide and cut sharply when he threw his head back. For the first time during his seven days of night, Jiang Cheng felt a chill crawl down his back.
Growing up, Jiang Cheng often glimpsed birds fluttering inside shadows.
Strange birds he had never seen before — bearing edges, sinuous beaks, four pairs of eyes or legs. He once described them to his sister, but despite her keen interest in knowing and loving creatures, she could never identify them.
Growing up, Jiang Cheng watched his mother repeatedly admonish his brother for stealing rice and food from the pantry.
The knowledge that it wasn’t his brother who stole the food burned at the tip of his tongue. And was stealing the right word for it?
“Do you miss your family?”
“I can’t understand why they left me.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Of course I miss them. I can’t live without them.”
“Do you want to see them again?”
“More than anything.”
Huaisang’s hair, woven into a braid with twigs and roots, flew back and forth in the wind. A raven perched on his shoulder.
“Oh, A-Cheng,” Huaisang sighed.
seven days of night were all I needed.
i could return, and he would stay in my place.
if he leaves, he’ll forget me.
how many years have I looked up at the moon like this?
“A-Cheng?”
“What is it?”
“Promise to take me home.”
“Huh?”
“Please. Promise?”
“...I promise.”
Jiang Cheng turned thirty. With his parents passed, and his siblings on their own paths with their own families, Jiang Cheng hadn’t returned to his childhood home in nearly ten years. On his second day back, the sky was bright with the sun bobbing gently across the clouds.
Something black shivered in the corner of his eye.
Jiang Cheng tore away from his book. In the garden through the window, a raven sat on the well.
It stirred old memories, unseated something strange and urgent, a promise forgotten and unfulfilled.
Jiang Cheng left his seat, face pale and inexplicably clammy, and cut through the garden towards the silent bird. As he approached, the raven took flight. And his heart rose to his throat when he saw that the well was hollow and extended deep into the earth.
For a moment, he remembered.
He held on tight to the memory.
His voice echoed down the well. “Huaisang!”
I’ve come to bring you home.
Jiang Cheng woke to a chirping bell, eyes swollen and aching. He'd fallen asleep in the garden. Gingerly, he rubbed at his face and made his way around to the front gates.
“I’m coming, so stop ringing the damn bell,” Jiang Cheng called hoarsely, peering through the bars while he unlocked the gates.
Raven-black hair in a flowing braid. Jiang Cheng froze in place, awash in memories.
The man across the gates stepped forward. He was smiling, though there were circles as deep and dark as caverns beneath his eyes.
Opening his arms wide, Jiang Cheng returned the man's smile. “Welcome home.”