The Well

When she had first moved into this house with her family as a small child, she had been curious about the well in the garden. The garden itself was a sight to behold, flowers of all sizes and colours surrounded the house. This was the reason her family had moved into the house in the first place, her mother loved magnificent gardens.

In the centre of the backyard, almost as if being the point of the garden, was an old brick well. It was maintained beautifully, barely any decay despite being, apparently, over a hundred years old. A small wooden awning hung over it with soft sounding windchimes hanging from either end.

She had been seven when they moved in and she had been quickly drawn to the well. As an adult, she could understand how it had been so mesmerising to a little girl, but some of that wonder had subsided over the years.

After all, little children do not really understand the nuances behind legends, and this well had one. The sort of legend that piqued a child's interest, but makes an adult scoff. She had wanted to see if the legend was true when she was little, but her parents had told her it was unsafe.

Now as an adult, that want to explore had waned. Even still, as she sits in the backyard, visiting her aging mother for tea, her eyes are drawn back to the well. Was there really a gateway to another world down there?

Seven year old her would have said there was. Twenty-seven year old her was skeptical. Only children believed in such things.

Even so, there was something about the well that seemed otherworldly. Something that just made you want to go down there and check. "I see you're still interested in the well," she hears her mother's voice from beside her.

She pulls her eyes from the well to look at the older woman, "I guess part of me is still curious," she replies, giving her mother a tight smile.

"You always insisted the legend from the realtor had to be true," her mother laughs. "But at least you were a good child and never did anything we told you not to. You're probably still interested because you never got the chance to go down there."

"Maybe."

"You're an adult now, if you want to go down and have a look, relieve the curiosity, I'm not going to stop you."

She rolls her eyes at the teasing tone in her mother's voice. "I'm no longer a child, I don't believe in fantasies created to build interest in a child's mind."

"Suit yourself," her mother shrugs. "No skin off my bones if you don't want to sate the curiosity you can't shake."

She has no response to that, only sighing. Her eyes trail back to the well, even now being unable to stop thinking about it. What was it about it that made her incapable of looking away for long?

Prompt: There was a legend about the well in the garden

This here will be my first words for July CampNaNo, so that's nice. Maybe I'll eventually do a continuation for this, but we'll see.