#(agsgdg i appreciate grace and i haven’t talked abt her backstory much so! yeah!!)

[pinevalley]

“It’s called the Future Well,” Francis said, sitting cross-legged beside the hole in the ground. They ran their fingers along the boards nailed across it. “My grandad said that his grandad said that if you jump into the well water, you’ll see the future.”

“That’s a kinda lame name.” Grace dropped a pebble through a crack in the boards. She counted five seconds before it clattered against something. No splash. Grace stood, took a step back, and frowned at the well. “And now it’s a dry Future Well. They’d only see their death coming up to meet them.”

A morbid joke, but a chuckle still left Francis. Grace smiled. Her friend’s grandad shared many strange stories, either from his own experiences or passed down from others. Grace knew Francis found them fascinating. She also knew Francis tended to believe them. Or they said they didn’t believe them, but she still caught them casting a wary glance at the antique shop their grandad had warned them about, or carefully stepping over a dry patch of grass at the edge of one parking lot, which their grandad claimed would bring danger to anyone who touched it.

Grace found the stories interesting as well. She didn’t believe most of them, though. Her mind pointed out their many flaws and inconsistencies. True, the valley’s logic was peculiar by nature, but Grace was also skeptical by nature. She believed her friend’s grandad twisted truths or invented details to add to the intrigue. Rumors likely influenced the stories as well. She also guessed the truthfulness of older stories had faded over the years, their details shifting and reality blurring with each retelling.

Still, they inspired conversation and adventures between Grace and Francis. The sixteen-year-olds often went exploring when they weren’t in school.

A few days prior, they’d found the well in a clearing in the woods. Francis had consulted their grandad, learned the ‘truth’ behind it, and invited Grace out to visit it again because they’d discovered it was special. A typical start to adventures for the duo.

So they’d returned.

“So,” Grace continued, “back when there was water and you didn’t die, you jumped in the well and saw the future. And then you were just... fine afterward? You climb out and that’s that?” Sometimes strange things happened to people in the valley, and they had strange effects. That much was true. The effects tended to fade within a few hours or a few days.

Francis shook their head. “No, it’s like, a permanent thing.” They chewed their lip, their voice grave when they went on. “My granddad said you look around and see bits of the future everywhere. Forever.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad. I bet it would help you get better grades on your math tests.”

Francis sighed at her teasing, but amusement still glinted in their eyes. “Yeah, maybe.” Their gaze returned to the boards. “But like… it sounds kinda creepy, right? Getting glimpses of what’s gonna happen? And what if it’s like in the movies? Where somebody can see the future but they can’t change it, no matter what, even if it’s something bad. Seems like it would be better to just… not know.”

They shivered and pushed themself further away from the well — as though worried that if they stayed too close, an unknown force would smash through the boards and drag them in. Grace bit back a grin.

Something rustled behind her. She turned to look, expecting a squirrel or a deer rummaging in the leaves. Or maybe some weird valley animal.

Her mind stuttered.

It was a deer, grazing at the edge of the field. Or something vaguely shaped like a deer. Its spine rippled as it stepped forward and tore at another clump of grass. Its dark coat appeared rough, covered in small ridges and uneven bumps, and glossy, as though drenched in water. Grace imagined running her hand along it and the sensation of cold, damp gravel shifting beneath her palm.

It lifted its head. Its depthless eyes met her gaze. A heartbeat passed before it ran straight toward her.

Grace stumbled backward and her shoes thudded onto wood. The boards creaked, old and rotted with age. Panic shot through Grace; instant realization.

The deer leapt over Grace as the boards collapsed. She fell; her heart leapt into her throat; the brick walls rushed past. Francis’s shout echoed after her.

A split second thought crossed her mind: “I’m going to die.” The future, but she’d misspoken when she’d mentioned it to Francis — death wouldn’t come up to meet her. She’d plummet down to meet it.

And then she hit the bottom of the well and pain shot though— no, she plunged into ice cold water and sank. The shock left her frozen before her lungs fought for— no, she didn’t need to breathe.

The water enveloped her. She found herself unable to close her eyes, let alone swim upward. The slightest movement proved impossible. She might have been a stone dropped into the well. She continued sinking, her descent slow and her surroundings dim yet strangely still visible, as though weak sunlight streamed through the water at every depth.

She couldn’t turn her head, but the brick wall in front of her appeared further away than it should have been. She sometimes glimpsed things in crevices. Coins. Some dull and some bright; some coppery and some silver. The brighter ones glimmered before she sank past and they vanished above her.

She couldn’t look down, but she sensed something far below her. A presence. Waiting.

It felt cold and ancient; solid yet shifting. She sensed depth beyond comprehension; water slipping through a vast labyrinth beneath the ground; wishes ingrained into coins threading through the same maze; forgotten spaces concealing forgotten secrets; time fraying between rocks; time worn thin.

Aside from the pressure and the smooth current that rippled over her skin, she could barely distinguish the water from the sensation of freezing air. The presence stayed fixed below her, growing stronger as she sank deeper. Her dread grew. Again, with remarkable clarity, she thought: “I’m going to die.”

And then another voice came, a low voice, a voice that welled up from rocks deep in the earth and surrounded her and pressed into her ears and mind.

‘You will not die.’

The rocks far below Grace shifted and sank and scraped against one another in the darkness. When the voice welled up again, it matched her own.

‘You will not die.’

A sudden surge in water pressure, and her ears popped in a burst of pain. Her hands raised to cover them and grazed the walls instead. The well had returned to its proper width. Her muscles also obeyed her desperate need to escape — at last, she stopped sinking and began swimming upward.

Seconds passed with no daylight in sight. Her need for air returned with a vengeance; her lungs burned. Exhaustion weighed her down. Her vision darkened; the coins in the walls glimmered like starlight in velvety blackness. For someone not going to die, it felt an awful lot like death was closing in.

And then the passage tipped over backward, from vertical to horizontal, and her back slammed against the wall. Dizziness swept away her thoughts. Her fingers clutched at the bricks at her sides and—

Grasped handfuls of soft grass instead.

A waterlogged cough left Grace before she could gasp in air. Brightness blinded her, and she shut her eyes against it. Dizziness still washed over her. Her skin prickled and begged her to move, though, so she unsteadily pushed herself to a sitting position.

A muffled sound came from nearby. Grace looked toward it to see a blurry figure kneeling beside her. She blinked. Francis. Crying. Grass and trees around them; the clearing. The well; the boards gone.

She shook her head to jostle the water from her ears. She almost regretted it; her friend’s ragged sobs brought a sharp ache to her chest. They hugged her, and though her mind still struggled to catch up, their tight embrace lessened the lingering numbness. A few seconds passed before she regained her senses enough to wrap her arms around them in return.

Dry arms, she realized. Her clothing was dry. She was dry. A ghost of pain lingered where the walls had scraped her hands, but her skin had no scratches.

She’d died, Francis told her once they’d calmed down enough to speak, their voice still hoarse and their words jumbled. Or they’d thought she died. They’d seen her fall and lunged to grab her hand. Much too late. They’d looked down the hole.

And seen her crumpled at the bottom.

They’d shouted and she hadn’t moved. They’d ran toward the edge of the clearing to get help, but before they reached the trees, a sudden impulse had caused them to glance over their shoulder. Grace, unbroken, lay beside the well. She’d sat up by the time they’d ran back and knelt beside her.

Despite her friend’s protests, Grace peered into the hole. Dry. Rocks and broken boards at the bottom. Still, something pulsed in her chest at her closeness to the well, so she moved away again.

She tried to explain what had happened, but she could tell Francis was too shaken to process her words. Their face was pale and their gaze intense, fixed on her, as though they expected her to vanish or fall to pieces at any moment. Which made sense. They’d seen her dead or close to death. Now she sat beside them, discussing her not-death, unscathed.

Unscathed and… seemingly unfazed. Realization struck Grace — the proper response would be panicking, crying, but an eerie calm had settled over her. And that realization should have brought alarm, she knew, but instead it brought interest. She could talk about this as easily as commenting on the weather. Logic had always kept her levelheaded in crises — she could layer facts and observations over her emotions until those emotions smothered, a useful defense mechanism against the valley itself — but this felt different. Deeper. Foreign.

Like the water — or a piece of whatever presence lurked beneath the well — had sunken into her, wrapped around her lungs and bones and muscles, blanketed her nerves and made a home within her, inextricably twisted into the very fibers of her being.

Unreasonable. Illogical. Impossible. But why had she coughed up water? Had she ever opened her mouth as she sank or swam? Moreover, her clothing and skin had been dry when she woke up beside the well. So why had water clogged her ears and muffled her hearing; stung as it blurred her vision?

She pushed those thoughts aside. Smothered them beneath the fact that right now, she needed to reassure her friend. She told Francis she hadn’t seen the future, hoping to spark their curiosity, but they only acknowledged the comment quietly, their fingers pulling at each other. The remnants of their fear and panic shone through when they lifted their gaze — tears still brightened their eyes and flushed their face. She didn’t want to scare them more.

Maybe staying quiet was for the best. Maybe they needed to respond the way many locals responded to terrible things: shove the incident behind them. Never mention it again. Pretend it never happened. They’d already done that a few times in the past.

Grace still asked about the deer. A glance around her had revealed no trace of the creature — no hoof prints stamped into the grass, no glimpse of its dark coat and pitch black eyes between the trees.

“What deer?”

They hadn’t seen a deer, they said. They’d only seen her turn around for some reason before she’d stumbled backward and fallen into the well.

Confusion and worry had spread across their face, their brow furrowed and teeth digging into their lower lip. Grace knew she needed to respond before their concern spilled over and they asked whether she’d hit her head, whether they should find a doctor. Grace did not want to see a doctor. She imagined them looking down her throat, giving a solemn hum, and informing her with calm professionalism that they’d spotted groundwater and that she ought to consider visiting a specialist in well entities.

Grace could have sworn she heard gravelly laughter in the back of her mind.

Francis was staring at her. Grace spoke quickly. “Never mind. Just imagining things, I guess.” She managed a smile. “Really, I, uh… I kinda just wanna get a milkshake at the diner. I’ll feel better then.” And Francis would feel better then, she hoped. They liked milkshakes more than her. The diner also offered normalcy; milkshakes and jukebox music and laughter would wash away the memory.

Relief swept over Grace when her friend’s shoulders relaxed. They helped her stand. Or rather, they held her hand as she pushed herself upright, their grasp loose and trembling. They squeezed her hand once. Grace remained intact under pressure. They seemed to find solace in this, more tension leaving their form, and they released their hold and stepped back.

Her dizziness passed. Briefly, they debated what to do about the well — a danger, clearly — and decided to tell their parents about it so they could replace the boards. Hopefully with much sturdier ones.

As they walked away from the hole, Grace spotted a patch of clovers. Nothing unusual about it. But the moment her gaze fell upon it, the well’s voice spoke in her mind again; groundwater slipped between rocks; time frayed and slipped along with it.

‘It will rain soon.’

A casual statement. Commenting on the weather.

Grace swallowed hard. She tugged her gaze away from the clovers and focused on walking, on Francis insisting on paying for the milkshakes. It meant nothing. She’d likely imagined it — the prior terror playing tricks on her mind, twisting her experience with the whole ‘future well’ business Francis had described. And if she hadn’t imagined it, the effect would likely fade within a few hours or a few days. She needed to get over it and move on.

“Seems like it’s gonna rain,” she heard Francis say from beside her. Grace tilted her head upward to see the sky. It had been clear and sunny the last time she’d checked. Grey clouds now darkened it.

And a drop of rainwater fell onto her forehead.