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Many wishing-wells have decades of history, of toddlers and schoolchildren, young adults and adults alike making all sorts of wishes into their waters.
Over these decades, stories became twisted–the first wishing-well was not created because a young girl fell into a perfectly normal well and her parents and sister spent the rest of their days sobbing into it, wishing for her to return, though that will be the tale one hears.
The first wishing-well was created because a young girl did not fall into it, her skirts caught by her older sister before the tragedy could become truth. The girls’ embrace after, the wishes they held in their hearts and minds as they clung as if they intended to never release the other, held enough magick to create the wishing-well. Once one was made, the little creatures whom are the caretakers of magicks took up the duty of spreading them as far as they could reach.
Some say that the young girl in the first wishing-well story saw something in the well before it became a wishing-well. Perhaps she did.
What many do not remember is that the magicks of a wishing-well are fragile and tricky. Wishing-wells may show what one desires more than anything, or they may show a passing fancy. Wishes keep the magick from fading–without them, the wishing-well would return to being a regular well.
The young girl who nearly fell into the well, if asked, would have told her parents and her sister that she saw the future while she was drawing up their water for the day. She would have insisted that she saw her unhappy marriage and her sister’s early passing in childbirth, leaving behind a widower and three young children.
She told her daughter of this, in whispers, but her daughter had only seen good in that very same wishing-well, so the truth was discarded and spun into the sensational.
What one must not forget, reader, is that wishing-wells can show the truth alongside one’s desires.
Even on stormy days, Harriet would insist on going to the wishing-well. Before her days clutching at her mother’s skirts ended, it became her greatest source of comfort, and her parents’ greatest source of worry, for she would not come away from it for anything.
Harriet knew only the children’s tales of the wishing-well; she, nor her parents, knew what a wishing-well could truly do.
As a toddler, she babbled endlessly about what the wishing-well showed to her–pretty dresses and amusements; her parents, dancing; her playmates never having to leave her side.
As a child, she selected fewer of her peers into her confidence, though perhaps not wisely. For Harriet, there were no less pretty dresses than before, though she saw more dancing, and the dancers were not always her parents.
As a schoolgirl, she kept her own counsel about the day-trip amusements the wishing-well showed to her, for they never properly matched the ones she attended. Her wishes shifted alongside her understanding of the world, as she made her way through her arithmetic and grammar.
As a young girl, she caught flashes of a face she’d never seen in town; of hair and eyes that were not her own in her reflection. Her friends spoke of the wishes they made; little things, like taking the top of the class or getting a new dress for their birth-day. Harriet did not make those wishes, because she did not see those things. But she pretended, desperately, that she did.
As a young woman, she saw her own reflection–her hair braided in rows and the length of it gathered to the top of her head. The flashes of the girl–for it could be none other than a girl her age–grew longer with each visit to the wishing-well. Sometimes, she would see herself dancing at a party, or wish for the rain to cease for a week-end. Usually, though, she found herself wishing to meet the girl whose visage she could not escape.
“You’re going to waste away over the wishing-well if you don’t stop staring,” Minho put his back to it, as was his way–he swore off staring into it for the rest of the year. Harriet has caught him at it, though he refuses to admit to it.
“You’re going to ruin my reputation,” Harriet says dryly, “Behaving as you do.”
“I could never. The whole town knows that your parents would never allow a scoundrel such as myself to ruin you.”
“If you’re not looking into the wishing-well, then leave me to it.” Her temper is usually more in line with Minho’s little games, but today she finds herself wanting peace.
Minho glances over his shoulder at the well–she catches him, but leaves him to it as long as it means he’ll leave her be–before he strides away from her.
Her days at the wishing-well will only grow shorter as her responsibilities become more numerous.
Her parents no longer speak into the wishing-well; Harriet cannot recall ever seeing them do so. Not even when she was still below their knees and had to be lifted to see into the water.
She is determined to never stop visiting. She does not make wishes often, despite all the things the wishing-well shows her–she knows her desires, at this age.
There’s a girl in the wishing-well, one whom she is sometimes allowed to glimpse.
Harriet wants to know about her.
She dares not wish for it, but the wishing-well serves its purpose all the same. It shows her the girl just often enough to keep her coming back, and never more.
When Minho passes by her again and she has not spotted the girl in the wishing-well, she knows it’s time to go home.
Harriet does not see the girl in the well that often–not often enough to justify going every day for as long as possible–but it is what she has done since she was young, girl or no girl.
So she continues the habit when she can–there are dinner parties to attend, and visits to be made, she is not permitted to ignore the company of her peers whenever she chooses.
She brings a book to the wishing-well, sometimes, and reads while she listens to young children make their first wishes.
There is no shortage of questions about what she sees in the wishing-well, but Harriet doesn’t answer any of them. Not even her parents, who are determined to discover what has her so distracted from her chores and schooling.
After some time, the girl’s visage vanishes entirely, and Harriet’s daily visits lessen to every other day.
Then she sees the girl.
Not in the wishing-well, but standing in front of it.
The girl looks at her, and recognition lights up her face.
She’s a handsome girl, proper posture and a pleasant face.
Harriet almost speaks into the wishing-well, but she’s not certain if she wants to be this girl or love her dearly.
“Did you come here to find me?” Harriet cannot stop herself from asking.
“I am accompanying my brother; he has business on behalf of our father here. I see you in every wishing-well I look in.”
“And I you,” Harriet says, though she only ever looks in one.
“Wishing-wells are tricky.”
“Yes.”
“But I imagine you must be as clever as you are beautiful, so any wishing-well would have to work hard to trick you.”
“Is it really a trick if we’re standing before each other?”
The girl smiles, prettier when it’s not distorted by the water.
“Sonya Collins, from Netherfield.”
“Harriet Woodhouse.”
“I don’t expect my brother to return for several hours. Would a long walk suit you today?”
“I think it would, Miss Collins.”
“Sonya, please, Miss Woodhouse.”
“Harriet, then.”
There is no one around, so they don’t need to stand on so much formality.
As they walk, they find they have no shortage of topics to discuss, something Harriet does not get to enjoy with many.
Sonya cannot stay long, though, and within the week she is traveling again. They write when they can, though sometimes their letters are not reliable. The wishing-wells are.
Whenever they can, they catch glimpses of each other in the waters, though they cannot speak through them.
On their return journey, her brother extends an offer to Harriet’s parents–he is taking Sonya to town for the season, and wouldn’t it be nice if Harriet could join them?
Sonya and Harriet are not seen outside of each other’s company throughout their stay in town, and though they become acquainted with a number of potential suitors, none quite catch their eyes.
The year Sonya’s aunt passes and leaves her with a small house and a piece of land, she and Harriet move in to ensure its upkeep.
The first thing they do is dig a wishing-well.