Victoria's Secret

It always was my duty to fetch the water from the well. My brothers got stuck with the harder jobs: helping out on the farm. I was still young, so all I had to do, each and every morning, was fetch a pail of water. It seemed difficult at first; I was so tiny and the pail was so heavy when it was full, but day after day the burden lessened. Before long the hardest part of the job became pulling the rope that the pail was attached to, up. My seven year old self would have sworn it was a million miles to get to the water, and that’s why it took hours, though only minutes in reality, to pull it up. Soon, Mama told me, I would have to do more to help.

It was on my eighth birthday that I got the most amazing surprise I couldn’t have even dreamed of. Once I finally managed to get my water bucket back from the well, I noticed something different. There was a beautiful fish swimming around in our drinking water! That didn’t make any sense though, wells weren’t supposed to have fish living in them. Were they? I set the bucket down on the edge of the well wall and leaned over as far as I could, balancing on my petite hips, to try to sneak a peek at the bottom of the well. No such luck. I sighed as I started to move myself back toward the ground, when I lost my balance! My arm knocked the bucket with the fish in it down the well after me as I toppled in. I screamed as I tumbled down the dark hole, before smashing into a hard wet surface.

I did my best to keep calm and try to orient myself, so I wouldn’t swim deeper. I got lucky when I took the chance and started swimming up, and it was actually up. Once I got my head above water I was in awe at the sight that lay before my eyes. There were fireflies lending their illumination to this beautiful underground oasis. I was in the middle of a lake. I swam to the nearest shore and climbed out of the water. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that, while from above this looked like a dark well, it actually let a lot of light inside and I could see quite a lot. The mossy rocks I was sitting on cradled a gently flowing creek. This creek ran into the lake I had fallen into, which was now a crystal clear blue beauty with colorful fish swimming about. Looking up I saw my water pail hanging from its rope; I had done a good job of tying it up before falling in, I would have to get creative to get back out.

I started really taking in my surroundings then. At that moment, this beautiful, wonderful place had once again become a place of horror. How would I get out? What if Mom and Dad never found me? Would I die down here? Would I live but be some crazy wild well girl? I couldn’t let those thoughts cloud my mind. Searching the ceiling of the cavern, I saw many thick roots and vines. I was sure I could climb them, but the pail was still hanging too far away. I turned my attention to the ground I was sitting on. There had to be some sort of plants, maybe at least some dead sticks, I could use to pull the rope toward me once I had climbed up the roots.

Behind one big moss covered rock, there were a few ferns, and some dead root bits. I grabbed the longest pieces I could find, and used the softer fern stems to tie them together. It took a bit of finagling but I managed to make something long, and hopefully strong enough to reach my only chance of seeing home again. I crossed the creek to the best looking place for climbing, put the stick in between my teeth and started on my way. Once I was almost upside-down, I held on tight with my legs and left arm, took the stick out of my mouth with my right hand and reached out as far as I could. It took a couple of tries but it worked! I had a hold of the rope and pulled it toward my body, slipping it over my right leg but hooking it under the foot, so as to straddle it. Once I felt confident that I would have a steady hold of the rope, I let go of the roots and held on tight to the, now, seemingly very small rope. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves as the rope swung from side to side like a pendulum from the force of my weight. After a few moments the rope stilled and I climbed my way to the top and out of the well. I even managed to do so both without being seen, and before I was missed!

No other surprise that birthday, or any other, would compare to what I found at the bottom of the well. I would go back from time to time within the first couple of weeks of the incident, just to make sure I had truly experienced what I thought I had. It became my favorite place to visit while I was growing up. It was especially my sanctuary during my teen years, I had even managed to set up a system to amplify the sound from above ground, so I could hear when my parents finally noticed I had been gone for too long. One shrill of, “VICTORIA!” and I was on my way up, always careful that no one discovered my secret.