The Holland Press

Jonah was at the well, examining a shard of the old bucket as if there were any possibility of reassembling it. He dropped it and turned toward the house. Immel followed him to the back porch, where the extinguished lamp still stood beside the matches she had left there. He lit it and entered through the open back door that needn’t be closed again, looking around for some makeshift bucket.

He picked up a vase but judged it too small to be useful.

“There’s another well,” Immel said.

He turned with the vase still in his hand.

“Follow me.”

She walked around to the steps leading to the basement. She didn’t wait on the light; she had once known her way blindfolded around the old home place, although her hand now found the wall where a step felt uncertain. Jonah followed with the lamp. Their steps made a rhythm as the old staircase complained with creaks and squeaks.

Immel went straight for her old bookshelf hiding place and ducked down on hands and knees.

“You remember this spot, no?”

He gave her a look of mock surprise. She pushed the loose bookcase section farther aside and slipped into the recess where her cache had been. Then she pushed through its back wall and disappeared.

“Coming?”

Jonah crouched in the opening, looking for a knob or handle. Finding none, he pressed where she had pressed. The wall gave beneath his hand. Leather curtains, stiffened and colored to resemble the surface around them, split to allow his body through. Once past, they fell back into formation, pretending again to be a solid wall.

“I’ll have to remember that one. You are full of surprises.”

Immel reached for the lamp while helping him to his feet.

“Gio built the main house over the first well and kept it in repair. The first home was much smaller. He built it when he was young and raising his family. It’s where he began his olive enterprise.”

“Impressive and practical. Sounds like my kind of guy.”

She looked at him across the lamplit room.

“Yes. I think you two would have understood each other.”

Five steps down and to the left was a small hand-dug well, formed with stone and covered with a slab of sawn tree trunk heavy enough to discourage a child from moving it. Jonah worked the chunk onto its edge and rolled it aside, stopping a moment with his hand against the wall. Immel held the lamp over to get a look.

She felt his hair touch hers as he leaned over beside her. They saw a reflection of themselves in the smooth water below, faces inches apart with a lantern in her outstretched arm.

“That’s a welcome sight.”

He tested the pail’s handle and the rope before lowering it. Immel rested the lamp on the wide stone edge and unbound the top of a waterskin as Jonah steadily hoisted the three-quarter-full bucket. Working together they filled four skins, leaving a little room at the top of each. As she reached for the last one, a sizable thud sounded above them.

Immel froze with the empty skin in her hand.

Voices followed. Footsteps crossed the wooden floor overhead, and something heavy scraped along it. A man was giving instructions in French.

They moved back to the leather wall and listened.

“How is your French?” she whispered.

“Good. Not great.”

Through a narrow gap she could see nothing but the dark basement. The voices above were clear enough to tell her there was more than one man, and that they intended to spend the night. She heard the word for wagon, then an impatient order to bring the rest inside.

Jonah extinguished the lamp. The little room disappeared around them.

“They’re coming down here,” he whispered.

He reached through the curtain for the bookcase section, using precious seconds to wiggle it into its former spot. Immel helped guide the lower edge so it wouldn’t scrape. The curtains fell back into place, giving them a second layer of camouflage, although it was small comfort to either of them.

“Do you have another way outside from here?”

“No. Nothing. The walls are rock. We couldn’t break out if we had to.”

“I’m surprised,” he whispered. “Just when you seemed always to have another card up your sleeve.”

Torchlight reached the basement. Through a slit between the curtains, Immel saw three men looking about: a bearded one carrying the light and two younger companions. They had packs and long guns. She couldn’t make out anything that told her whose men they were. French voices were enough to trouble her without an answer to that question.

She let the slit close and moved until she found Jonah’s arm in the darkness. He turned his head toward hers, causing a silent collision of lips before finding her ear.

“They’re staying all night,” he breathed. “I think they expect more men in the morning.”

His lips tickled her ear and sent a shudder down her spine which she couldn’t make a sound to acknowledge. She decided to return the favor, rising on her toes.

“We have to get past them tonight. Perhaps as they sleep?”

They would have seemed comical or appeared lovers to anyone watching, but in the darkness no one could see, not even themselves.

“They’re talking about a watch. They won’t all sleep at once.”

Outside the curtain, one of the younger voices became sharp. The bearded man answered, and the other laughed without sounding particularly amused. Footsteps turned toward the stairs. Immel opened the slit just enough to watch them go. Torchlight seeped into the chamber, revealing the waterskins, the lamp and the steps to the old well, then withdrew.

“They’re superstitious,” Jonah whispered after the three had gone up. “At least the boys are. Talking about this old spook house. Their leader doesn’t sound much happier.”

Immel was silent for a while.

“I have an idea. Relight the lamp.”

He felt for it.

“One of Gio’s Florentine ghost stories may send them out the front, and we’ll run for the back and over the hill. We can double back to our—I mean your camp.”

“Florentine? Yeronica?”

“No. I was thinking about the La Croce Witch. Do you know that one?”

“The skull and candles?”

“Yes. I’m going to cut holes in this last skin, hoping it will save ours. Your knife?”

Jonah handed her the blade from his belt. He looked at the skin a moment longer before turning to tie the full ones together two by two. Immel watched him as she worked.

He lifted a pair over his head and arranged them to hang against his chest.

“I’m not greedy for water, mind you. If they shoot, I’d rather have something between me and the gun.”

“Will that stop a bullet?”

“Wouldn’t care to promise it.”

Neither would she. They would have water if they escaped, which was reason enough to carry it, and they could throw the skins off if they needed more speed.

“It’s ready.”

She held up a pale deerskin with holes cut for angry-looking eyes and an elongated mouth. Draped before the lamp, it gave every appearance of the last thing anyone spending the night in a haunted house would want to see.

“I’ll scare them with it,” said Jonah. “Whatever happens, you run back to your mare and ride hard.”

“Wait. Listen to the rest of my idea. Sometimes Gio allowed his grandchildren to come down here when he fetched water. They loved to scream into this well. It echoed all over the house, like it was coming from everywhere. It always scared the wits out of his wife.”

“And you intend to stay back and scream into the well?”

“For a bit. As you slowly walk up the stairs, they’ll hear the witch screaming and coming up to them on the creaking stairs, then see the floating skull. They’ll run. I would run.”

“So would I.”

He gave her a look that implied she was much scarier than he had realized.

“Wait at the bottom of the stairs. You’ll know when to go up. Step loudly.”

He hesitated only a moment, until she gave him a This is it glare. He answered with a serious nod and slipped through the wall, slowly pushing the bookcase aside enough to make an escapable path. There were armed men between them and the door; a ghost story was the best weapon she could find.

Immel stepped down to the well, finding the rocky curved wall by the lamplight retreating with Jonah. She secured her pair of waterskins over one shoulder, leaned over the opening and imagined the old story of the witch burning in a pit. Then she took a deep breath and began to scream as she never had in her life, as if she were on fire.

The sound returned to her from the stone, larger and stranger than the one she had made. She screamed again. Somewhere beyond the curtain the stairs began to groan.

She left the well and felt her way back to the opening. Jonah was ascending step by wooden step, holding the hideous face before him, with the lamp well clear of the skin behind it. His shadow rose and broke on the wall. She could see his hand trembling around the lamp’s handle, but his feet kept moving.

A young voice shrieked above him.

“Un fantôme!”

There was a crash, then a rush of feet. Immel kept screaming, crossing the basement floor behind Jonah as he climbed. At the top of the stairs, two figures crowded the front doorway. One stumbled and disappeared; the other shoved through after him. A third was already outside.

Jonah reached the main floor and dropped the butchered skin. Through the open front door Immel saw the men retreating toward their supply wagon, one looking back with his gun clutched across his body. They hadn’t gone far. The trick would only need to last long enough.

Jonah set the glowing lamp on the floor, caught her hand and ran for the back door. As they passed the shards of broken bucket wood, Immel stopped, turned and screamed at the house with all she had. The last scream changed into a whistling sound as her voice gave out.

He tugged at her arm. They scrambled up and over the hill behind the house and down the other side to a creek bed. Jonah led her to the right, away from his camp. Twenty water-soaked paces later he stepped onto the bank and circled back through the trees.

The skins pulled heavily at her shoulder. She couldn’t have called to him if she wanted to, and he hadn’t let go of her hand. His breath came hard; once he stumbled against her and stood a moment with his head lowered before pulling her on. Spiderwebs and low branches caught them as they made their way back to the creek. A right turn put them in line for the camp and Angel.

They didn’t stop again until they were with the horses.

Jonah began throwing inventory into his cabin haphazardly, more than willing to straighten the mess out later. Immel set down the waterskins and reached to help.

“On your horse and away, girl! If they come this way, I’ll stay between you and them. They may never know about you at all if you go, but go now!”

“I’m not a girl.”

She mouthed the words, but her voice was missing.

“What? All right, woman. Move now!”

“Come to the farm,” she whispered with strained vocal cords.

“Are you serious now? You have to go!”

She planted herself stubbornly in the moonlight, arms folded and throat burning.

Jonah stared at her in bewilderment.

“All right. I’ll come.”

“Promise.”

She mouthed it slowly without sound.

“I promise. Now on your beast, witch! Away with you!”

Satisfied and smiling at the joke, Immel fetched her traveling bag and secured it with the blanket behind the saddle. She mounted Angel and rode east, the mare gladly obliging.