The Harrow: Wishing You Well

"I don't want to go home yet, Roots. Dolores won't even let me walk the three blocks to the rink by myself."

"Will you guys keep it down," Roots scolded, sweeping the path with his flashlight. "We're almost there."

Untended and ignored for years before Roots had discovered it, the trail they followed was overgrown with prickly weeds and jabbing twigs that could easily leave a rip in their clothing or a skin tear to expose their unsupervised excursion.

With the light of the moon peeking from between overhead branches to lead them, they still needed to pay close attention to where they were going or they could end up lost, maybe for good in the unfamiliar forest, or at least until one of the camp counselors came to rescue them.

"You just better know where you are going," one of the boys from near the back of the line grumbled. "And it better be worth it."

Roots, known to his parents as Bill Demney, was the group leader in Green Cabin. The six other boys who bunked with him did what he told them and reaped the benefits of his protection when one of the kids from another cabin tried messing with them. Roots was from downtown. He had street smarts and a rugged toughness from years of pounding the pavement, and while the whole outdoorsy nature-camp thing was something new to him, his concrete confidence and adventurous spirit kept the boys enthralled.

They followed along, trudging through the tangling bush with keen curiosity and excited anticipation gnawing at their guts,

Not one of the boys had believed Roots when he'd first told them about his find. They had wanted to believe him. It was obvious in their brightly shining eyes, in the nervous shuffling of sneakers wanting to run out and see, but most of them were past that pivotal age when Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were no longer real.

"There's no such thing," Melvin White said from his bunk without even bothering to look up from the copy of Mishmash: The Magazine for Modern Thinkers, that he was reading. While the rest of his cabin mates were still satisfied with the crash-boom-pow of Batman or X-Men comics, Melvin's reading more resembled that of a college undergraduate than a boy of twelve. Surprisingly, he rarely stepped in to try and tame Roots' voracious appetite for exploration. In fact, quite often he was the first one in line to follow the charge. Melvin's quick-thinking had gotten them out of a couple sticky spots during their three-week stay, including a kitchen break-in that was foiled by Counselor Kinney when he'd caught them red-handed with a week's supply of chocolate pudding stolen from the fridge. Melvin had dropped to the floor in a spasmodic fit worthy of any one of those fancy acting awards and actually won over Kinney's sympathy enough that the attempted heist wasn't mentioned again. Not that it was forgotten.

"There is such a thing," Roots replied without the slightest hint of desperation. "And I can prove it."

"How do you know it isn't until you've seen for yourself? You guys can't imagine this place. There's this old stone hut falling in on itself, carvings of snakes and birds on a totem pole...."

"And an actual wishing well?" Dean Toy asked. At ten, he was the youngest of the bunch but hardly the most timid.

"That's what was carved into the stone," Roots said, and then recited what he'd read.

"Casper Jenkins wishes you well,
drop something in and it goes straight to hell,
get it back,
your luck will be,
like Casper Jenkins, totally free."

"Sounds like a warning," Melvin suggested. "Isn't Casper Jenkins the one Kinney talks about in all those old stories about Camp Wallemenjaro?"

"Sure, but those are just a bunch of campfire tales to scare the kids and keep them from running off in the middle of the night. Methinks we should go and see what they are hiding out there."

The others were hooked. It was decided that after lights-out they would sneak off to the abandoned site.

Sneaking from camp didn't prove much of a challenge. The raucous shouts and blaring music from the counselors' cabin promised their attention would be otherwise occupied for a good number of hours. The boys crept into the thickening trees rimming the retreat, the beams of their flashlights illuminating the barely recognizable path until they emerged into a small clearing.

To the left was a decrepit stone building, barely standing after years of battling the elements. Tangling vines grew from cracks in the walls and roof, and the door had crumbled in on itself. Behind the hut, a huge stone totem pole stood guard. The boys shuffled closer in a huddled bunch and saw strangely twisted creatures carved in coiling etchings up its length.

To the right, behind a large mound of dirt and just before the edge of the clearing, sat the well. Covered by a large slab of rock into which the inscription Roots had recited at the cabin was inscribed, it jutted from the earth like a gigantic turtle shell.

"Wow, he was right," Dean Toy marveled as the boys gathered around. "Just like he said, a real wishing well."

"Only someone covered it up, so how are we supposed to drop anything in?" Melvin asked, always the skeptic. Roots might have impressed him, and there was something excitingly creepy about the place, but he wasn't yet ready to concede the number-one spot for adventure of the summer.

"I say we let Sammy jump on top of it," one of the boys suggested. "It'll cave under his weight for sure."

"How do we get him up there, stupid? Even with all of us to lift him, we'd never do it."

"Both of you shut up," Sammy, the boy with the hated stepmother, said with a doughy-faced pout. Despite his habit of stealing from others' plates, he didn't think it was his fault he was so heavy. "Or I'll jump on you instead."

Something in the woods behind them went crashing through the branches and flapped off into the starry night.

When no growling grizzly or snarling, foam-muzzled wolf came charging for them, a collective sigh was breathed and their attention returned to the mysterious discovery.

"If we all get on one side and push with everything we have we should be able to slide off the cover." Roots moved around behind the well and shoved at the stone slab.

It didn't budge an inch, at first, but with the combined and determined effort of the boys from Green Cabin, they eventually managed to wrestle it off. The stone covering flopped to the ground with a solid thump and then toppled over to lay flat, almost catching little Dean under its weight.

Any hope of putting it back was lost, but only Melvin seemed worried by this. The other boys crowded around the opening and used their flashlights to peer down into its depths. Delicately woven spider webs, aged with dust and grime, made it look as though the well was filled with a milky smoke but the flashlights weren't powerful enough to reach the bottom.

"We're not throwing anything in, dumb-wad." Roots rolled up his sleeves as Ricky Redmond produced a long coil of rope from his backpack.

With his curly red hair, pasty complexion, and fire-truck red lips, the other kids insisted on calling him Ronald instead. Ricky despised the nickname, and Melvin had suffered through enough teasing of his own that he was the only one who didn't call him that. Roots referred to him as Mickey D, which was at least a little better.

Taking the rope, Roots found a stump to secure it around and after tying it off, he fastened the other end around his waist. Climbing up onto the edge of the well he said, "We're here to see what treasure lies at the bottom. Now grab up the slack. You'll have to lower me slowly."

"You are not going down there," Melvin said firmly. He stood slightly back from the others and had been watching the stone hut with furtive glances over his shoulder. Something was in there. Watching them.

Roots wasn't about to be stopped. They had come all this way, after all, risking expulsion from Camp Wallemenjaro if they were caught and none of the boys would willingly give up their final week if it wasn't worth the risk. For each, the three-week camp was an escape—some from abusive or controlling foster parents, others from broken families down on their luck. They all had a different reason for being there, but even in the dark, with the dense forest closing them off and the creepy stone building looming behind them, Melvin could see they were already hooked into the adventure.

"I'll go down first and make sure it's okay. You guys can lower me and then climb down after."

"Did you read the inscription?" Melvin asked as he approached the edge. Peering over the side, a gaping black hole that could very well lead to the center of the universe for all they knew. He dropped an egg-sized stone over the side and listened for it to hit bottom. The expected thump never came. "You don't have enough rope to reach all the way to hell."

"There's only one way to find out," Roots said. His face gleamed with maddening delight under the flashlight beam.

Before Melvin could voice any further argument, Roots stepped over the edge and dropped from sight. The boys scrambled over each other to get hold of the unwinding rope. The coarse material tore tender palms, biting into skin to leave a nasty burn, but they managed to slow his drop.

As they neared the end of the slack, Melvin called over the side, "Find any lost treasures yet?"

"You better hope that's the only reason they covered the well." Melvin shivered. In the excitement he'd managed to momentarily put aside his apprehension of being watched, but the feeling never completely left him. Now he felt an unknown stare burning into his back, studying them and sizing them up.

Faint wisps of light filled the surface, a haunting glow from below that rarely broke the surface; Roots was really far down there. The well ran much deeper than was normal for the design. Melvin knew this only because he'd worked on a report on early settler customs for an advanced social studies class at school last year. Not that he was about to brag about it to his buddies.

Roots' voice echoed up the sides of the tunnel. "I can see the bottom. If I untie myself, I think I can make it."

"How are we going to get him back out if he drops?" Melvin asked. "If he hurts himself, we'll have to get Kinney and that tight jerk wad will fry us with the morning fish if he finds us out here."

The hard-assed camp counselor had been riding them ever since the pudding incident. Extra chores, the worst of which always seemed to fall on the Green Cabin, unannounced mile-long hikes to "enjoy" the sunrise ... Kinney went out of his way to minimize their free time. The boys hated him and he seemed to take great pleasure from knowing he had united them together. From their hatred, a tight bond had formed, bringing the group closer together than any of the other cabins. Despite their hard upbringing, the boys from Green Cabin excelled at the daily games and weekly contests and had taken a firm lead over the others in the camp standings, a three-week competition with the winning group getting to spend the final three nights on Whiskey Island, and they owed it mainly to Kinney. Of course, none would ever admit it without the threat of a hot-tipped poker staring them down.

But if Kinney found them out after curfew, especially so far from camp, their hard work and combined efforts would be wasted and they would be sent home to lives much worse than what they might find at the bottom of the well.

Roots wasn't about to turn back now. He had spent most of his young life trying to avoid the responsibilities imposed on him by others. His parents. His teachers. And especially Counselor Kinney. "I'm dropping down now. When I give the okay one of you will have to climb down so I can grab your feet and then the rest can pull us out."

"Good," Ricky chortled. "We'd never be able to pull you back out. Melvin's the tallest and he's too skinny to weigh much. I say he goes."

A general murmuring of agreement decided it. Melvin wasn't completely opposed to the job, though he hardly cherished the idea of Roots hanging all over him. At least he would be out of sight of whatever was watching from the stone hut. Melvin considered warning the others, but they would only call him a sissy and likely leave him hanging in respite.

"There's nothing down here," Roots called disappointedly. "It's been cleared out already."

"Does it matter?" Ricky Redmond asked, his curly red locks dampened against his brow despite the cool night.

"Pull the rope back up and send someone down. I'll try climbing up high enough to reach you."

Ricky pulled the length of rope from the hole and then it was fastened around Melvin's waist. He made sure it was secured tightly before climbing up over the edge. He hardly possessed Roots' dignity or grace as he grunted and wheezed his way over on his belly.

"Suddenly caution becomes important." Melvin slowly lowered himself down. "Just don't let go."

The aged stone tunnel reeked of mildew and something much more rotten that Melvin couldn't identify. It was a pungent odor, that of a sunbaked swamp or a brimming cesspool, except it wasn't a stench nature could create all on her own. Evil was the best he could come up with as he went lower, the wicked smell of hellfire and brimstone.

He hadn't brought a flashlight and so couldn't see much more than the dim swirl from Roots' searching beam from the bottom. Fluttering cobwebs tickled his ears and sent shivers along the back of his neck, the cold fingers of the damned clawing for escape. Melvin lost his concentration and his foot slipped against a loose stone, sending a shower of chips and dust onto the defenseless Roots, who cursed him with a foul tongue and warned him to be more careful.

"I think we can go a little faster," he called toward the top, quickly gaining the hang of the whole rappelling thing. It wasn't all that hard and they had found a good rhythm, Melvin pushing off with his legs while the guys let out a little more rope. Support beams built into the walls helped him find leverage to give them a rest every third or fourth jump.

"Hey, I think I found something." Roots pointed the beam up toward Melvin and then back at the wall by where he was standing. "It looks like a tunnel."

Oh great, now Roots would want to explore it and Melvin would be left dangling in the darkness for who knew how long. Why couldn't he be the one to go first, just once?

As he started to object, a terrified scream sounded from above and suddenly the tension on the rope let go. With panicked, scattering chatter echoing into the night and Roots curiously examining the hole below, Melvin tumbled down the side. Picking up speed, faster and faster, his fingers burned and then became bloodied as he clawed to gain purchase. His feet kicked wildly, sending bigger chunks of stone down the shaft.

When the rope reached its end, Melvin was violently jerked into unconsciousness.

He heard the voice from far away. It sounded scared and desperate, though it was fighting hard not to. Melvin figured the owner must be in a bad spot.

A swarming wasps nest filled his head and at first he didn't realize he was the one being addressed. Melvin, huh? It had a nice ring to it, a certain familiarity he thought he liked. He shook his head to clear the noisy buzzing from his ears and opened his eyes ...

... and was completely surprised to find himself hanging in midair, held up by a rope tightened under his armpits. How he had ever managed ...

... and then the last of the buzzing flew free and Melvin remembered why he was dangling in the cold, damp shaft with the only light coming from below.

"What happened?" he asked as he tried to wiggle a little higher up so the rope wasn't pressing in so tightly.

"At least we still have the rope. Maybe we can pull ourselves out and get back to camp before the others."

"They wouldn't just take off." Roots didn't sound at all confident in his conviction.

"Not unless...." Melvin held his breath and listened carefully for any sound from above. Had Kinney found them? Had he been watching from the hut all along?

"Shh ... there's something moving up there." Melvin strained to hear what it was, but like the smell from the abandoned watering hole, he couldn't quite make it out. A snuffling, snorting, like a bear but the breaths came at a steady pace and not as if it were following a scent.

He needn't have bothered. The other end came loose and he was unexpectedly sent plummeting toward the bottom.

Luckily, the drop wasn't far and he managed to land safely and not on top of Roots. The rope followed him down, flopping like a slain snake at their feet. Looking up, he couldn't see clearly to the top but both heard the grinding of stone as the covering slab was replaced.

"Well, as far as pranks go, this one has got to rank right up there. Think Kinney put them up to it? Or maybe one of the other wardens?"

"You think this is a joke?" Melvin asked in complete exasperation. "Are you serious? You're the one who brought us here."

"Right. Then they aren't just messing with us. We're really trapped." The realization hit with the force of a clubbing blow and Melvin had the brief satisfaction of seeing Roots' tough exterior crack, if only a little.

On hands and knees they wriggled into the opening. Barely wide enough to fit them, Melvin figured it must have been the feeder source from when the well still worked. Roots was a little wider across the shoulders and thicker through the chest so it must have been a tight squeeze for him. Their progress was slow and Melvin found himself wheezing and gagging against the stagnant air.

"Listen." Roots' voice was frigid with fear in the lightless tunnel. "There's something coming toward us."

Doing as he was told, Melvin cleared away thoughts of what he would do to Roots if they ever managed to find a way out, and concentrated on the sounds from the tunnel. There weren't many. The air here was lifeless and still, any lingering dampness long ago evaporated. The dried soil packed tightly against the jagged stone on which they crawled muffled almost everything out. But faintly, from somewhere just up ahead, Melvin thought he could hear ... something.

He wasn't sure exactly what it was. A hurried scraping sound steadily growing in volume from a barely distinguishable rustling into a crushing roar as it sped toward them. Faster and faster, the sound getting louder and louder until the dirt walls shook loose clumps of dirt that showered Melvin's head.

Roots figured it out and flipped the button to send a dim and seriously faded beam that barely pushed back the darkness. But as soon as he did the scraping sound stopped just a few feet in front of them.

Judging from the strength of the light there wasn't much juice left in the batteries. They would have to hurry if they were going to find a way out before being swallowed by whatever traveled unseen through the shaft.

"How long before the others decide to come clean about our breaking curfew? How much longer will it take until they figure out where we are? I say we keep moving and hope there's an opening we can crawl out."

Melvin couldn't say and he wasn't about to guess. Whatever it was, they could only hope their light would keep it safely away in the shadows.

Of course, they wouldn't. Inching along only a few feet further, each jerk Roots made as he pulled himself forward caused the flashlight to go out. And then come back on. Then out again. Each time darkness closed around them the slithering scratching sound crept in a little closer. Then vanished. Then closer still.

Impossible to distinctly distinguish as it faded in and out—the wet sound of slimy webbed feet flopping in small leaps, the dry crackle of petrified leaves, the whispering touch of bristly whiskers brushing against the rocks. Melvin felt spidery legs crawling across his back, running down his legs, and up under the bottom of his shorts. They weren't really there, he tried to reassure himself; it was only his imagination.

Roots moved ahead and finally the flashlight died out and refused to come back on.

The sound echoed off the tunnel walls, triggering the hidden swarm to surge forward. Suddenly they were being covered by a stream of scampering bodies, the imagined spiders and centipedes now all too real and rushing over them in a sickeningly tickling stampede of escape. Clawed feet and hairy legs scraped across his exposed skin. Melvin stuck his head against the dirt and threw his arms up to cover it. Wave after wave, the mad scramble seemed endless. Piercing squeals sounded right next to his ears. Something bit his finger hard enough to draw a trickle of warm blood. A fury body stopped to investigate the scent but resisted the temptation and scampered off.

Finally the flow slowed to the last few stragglers being left further and further behind. When the sound had almost completely faded behind them, Melvin lifted his head, sweeping away a layer of the smaller bugs that had been crushed in the stampede from his back and called out to his friend.

Melvin didn't let him finish the sentence. They didn't need to think about what had just stampeded over them. Or what they might have been running from.

It was probably better that they were left with no light. The hard dirt and rocks beneath their hands grew slick and gooey as they continued along. Every once in a while Melvin's hand would come down on something that squished with a sickening pop as his weight pressed on top of it. He was thankful he didn't have to see what it was.

Roots led at a slow but steady pace. Melvin followed the sound of his shuffling, never allowing any distance to build up between them. He concentrated on Roots' grunts and labored breathing, quickening his own crawl when it began to get too far ahead.

Still, he didn't notice Roots suddenly stop and ended up bumping squarely into his back end.

"What's the big idea? What'd you stop for?" Melvin asked as he backed up in case Roots decided to suddenly blow.

To Melvin's disappointment, the tunnel split into two shafts before they found the way out. One continued on a fairly even slope while the other seemed to angle slightly upwards.

"I don't know, Mel. The opening feels even smaller. I'm not sure I'll fit and what if it doesn't even lead anywhere."

"Oh no, we're not," Roots replied emphatically. "Whatever happens, we stick together."

Melvin wasn't sure this was the smartest thing to do. He couldn't tell for sure but it felt like at least an hour had passed since they'd entered the tunnel. Maybe even longer. It was impossible to tell in the dark with no way to judge how far they'd come and any of the nightly noises from outside were buried deep somewhere in the dirt above their heads and lost before it reached them.

The other boys would likely be back to camp by now. If Roots and Melvin were much longer someone would likely report them to Counselor Kinney. Besides, they could cover more ground if they separated. And yet, Melvin was as unwilling to leave his friend as Roots was to see him go.

"For getting you into this," Roots said. "When we first decided to try the tunnel I kind of wished that the worst we would find would be some spiders or maybe some rats."

"I wasn't sure what might be down here. I know it's stupid, but I just didn't want anything to happen to us and figured we could handle a rat or some creepy crawlers."

Of all the things Roots could have wished for he'd chosen bugs and furry disease-traps. Not for an easier way out, not for someone to find them, but that they wouldn't be attacked by anything more fearsome than a spider or rat while fumbling through the tunnel. It wasn't what Melvin had wished for. His wish had been more selfish.

He was about to admit it to his friend when a tremendous vibration made the tunnel rumble around them. Unlike the mad dash from earlier, the vibration continued to crash along with a constant and relentless pounding until it was right on top of them and their decision was made for them when a wall of water rushed down the side tunnel and swept them up in its current. Foul and rancid, the water was thick with mud and decaying debris. It pulled Melvin down, swallowing him and pushing him along at a dizzying pace. Bounced off the sides, his arms and legs whacked against the hard dirt and stone but he managed to hold his breath, refusing to suck in the disgusting liquid though his lungs burned for fresh air. He wouldn't get it, he knew. One mouthful could mean his death, and he fought the urge until a blanket of darkness more pure than the tunnel where he was trapped him began to wrap around him. Cozy and comfortable, Melvin wanted to let himself drift deeper into its warmth where he could escape the chilling cold of the rushing water.

And just as he was about to give in to the call of eternal slumber, he felt himself suddenly stop moving along with the flow as something latched onto the back of his shirt.

Effortlessly plucked from the rushing water, Melvin was dumped to the ground. Sputtering, coughing out a puddle of brownish liquid, Melvin tried to sit up but a weight held him to the spot and wouldn't allow him to budge.

"Easy now," said a voice that could only have been born in the dark tunnel. "Take a minute to catch your breath."

An affected stillness froze the forest around them. Terrified at the bearish weight pinning him down, Melvin gasped and gagged as he tried to find the words that would spare his life. Too dark from him to see much more than a looming figure cut out as large as the moon above them, Melvin was glad he didn't have to look at what the legend described as a horribly disfigured face.

He had no doubt who had found and saved him. Like the well, the thing the stories had named Casper Jenkins was real.

Once a man, Casper had fallen down the well and had to survive down there for years, living off of frogs and insects. Cut off from the light, Casper had gone crazy and eventually all remnants of the man were lost. But he still roamed the woods, or so the stories told, chasing people away from danger and protecting his home. To cross him could prove costly for he could be quite dangerous for those who stumbled onto his path, for he was prone to violent fits of rage for those he found trespassing.

"You made a wish when you went into the well. Surely you understand what you have found."

"That's the trouble with you kids. Your curiosity always clouds your judgment. Just because you chose not to believe doesn't make it less real. I've spent many years watching over the well, warning away mischief and doing what I could to help people realize their desires. So, I ask you again, did you get what you wished for?"

"I didn't make a wish," Melvin said hurriedly. "I didn't really want it to come true."

The truth hit home hard. Melvin had wished that he could take Roots' place. That just once, he could lead the group or win their swimming races instead of always coming in second. He had wanted to be the one the other guys came to, to just for once be better at something than his friend.

The well-watcher seemed satisfied, even though there was no answer. "I suspect you were granted what you were after. I'll warn you against ever returning to this place. You won't find it so easily should you decide to ignore my warning. Now off you go. Your cabin mates will be missing you."

"Ask of the great depths,
Only the heart will know,
Should you get your wish,
Or in disappointment go.
Should you not,
That's okay,
Old Casper wishes you well, anyway."