Somni Prologue

“What’s past is prologue,” Professor Dallwood turns back to us, “even Shakespeare knew then that we could affect the future,” she says brightly, “even your final grade if you’ve gotten started on that final paper,” on that flat note everyone jumps to gather their belongings bustling to shuffle to the next part of the day.

“Well, I’m sure Miss Tane has nothing to worry about,” she says to a class leaking out into the hall. With an ear to ear grin she says, “I received your submission this morning, can’t wait to get started on it,”

“Well,” sighs Monica, “since you’re curious, I’m writing about the well woman.”

“Oh?” Professor Dallwood’s laugh tips as she glanced down at Monica’s empty notebook, “the Well Woman of Somni Bay is an urban legend.”

“You never said history had to be factual! It just has to happen in the past.”

“I guess technically that is still history.”

“Miss Fount, maybe you should watch where you place your beliefs?”

Bag in hand she slowly files behind the last of the students.

“Hey, it’s important to me and T!” Monica shouts as our professor walks towards the door

“I’m sure you and Miss Tane find your wild ideas very important Miss Loam,” throwing her dark eyes over her shoulder, “but I on the other hand...” Professor Dallwood drifts out the door and swiftly closes it behind her with a dull thud.

“Unbelievable! Is that what I pay for?” Monica gasps, snatching her phone from the desk.

“Maybe if you actually took notes she wouldn’t care so much.”

“Lady Somni can drag Dallwood to hell herself,” she mutters to the empty room as we make our way to the closed door.

—

“So, she haunts all the old wells?”

“Yep, she walks around looking in them, if you get too close she’ll throw you in!” Monica wiggles her fingers at me like spider legs stuck in the air.

“So you are writing about a scary story?”

“Not you too! It’s real, I have proof!” She says while pulling out a wrinkled leather book from her bag.

“This is an old ledger my grandad kept when he first moved here.” She opened the cover unleashing the smell of smoke that came up so thick I thought I could see it. “See, look even your grandma is in here.”

She flipped past family names and numbers quicker than I could read but stopped on a page filled with news clippings.

“Tragic Fire at Somni Mansion” was all it said in bold print over a picture of what looked like crushed rock in front of a shack.

“She didn’t die in a well?”

“Nope, she died in that house fire but they never found her remains.”

“Then why does she haunt the wells?”

“Now who’s interested in a scary story?” Monica snorts. “That’s where they think she threw her fortune after the fire. It’s said a founder’s well is on her property but nobody’s found it.”

—

“Welcome ho-what’re you looking for Talia?” my mother asks, finally poking her head into the living room.

“Trying to find some old newspapers so I can help Monica with a project.”

“You’re better off just asking your grandmother, those papers are practically dust now,” she says with her head slinking back in the office.

“Well, I didn’t want to scare her so I-.”

“Jesus Tal!” jumping fully into view she asks, “why do you want to scare the poor woman?”

“I just want to ask her about the woman in the well, like if she knew her or something.”

“Oh!”she says with her eyes matching her mouth, “you mean Lady Somni? Is that who Monica’s project is on?”

“Yea apparently she lived in town before-,”

“Her house was insane! Your grandmother took a few pictures before it turned to ashes. I’m sure she still has them up.”

—

The old frame was on the mantle beside a chipped vase of white flowers. The photo itself was tattered along the edges, a whole corner was ripped away but my grandmother’s bright smile broke through it all in the center.

“I was ten or eleven then,” she says holding out the picture to me.

Evie Tane at Somni House, 1966, was scribbled on the back.

“Somni was the house?”

“It was just a pet name the founding families used,” waving the idea from the air, “the family chose one name to go by.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I knew her, Lady Somni,” she said slowly

"Grandma?"

“Lady Somni was strange but she was always kind to us…

Long before now, this town was built on a rumor that the salty water flowing into the bay would turn sweet by the time you brought it to your lips. The founder, Fount, had heard of this rumor and took his seven brothers to see if it was true. All the men brought their wives and children, hoping Fount had found them a new home. They arrived at the bay where they found the water to be saltier than any ocean. Before departing, it’s said, a child, walked into the field and laid down to sleep. This little girl was Fount’s daughter and he would not leave without her. They searched for many days and nights. When the family finally found her in a clearing early one morning they were shocked to find her still sleeping. Upon waking the girl admitted to running off for flower picking only to find a little stream with sweet water that had sprouted out from a hole in the ground. She apologized for scaring her father claiming that it had been too peaceful for her to do anything but rest after. Her father could not have been more proud of her.

So, that was where the first well was built. They built the first great houses of the town around that well.”

“Not long after that other people came to settle in this unnamed town. The newcomers were told the story of the girl who found the well and of her deep sleep. Then those newcomers became regulars who retold the story and so on. During those days everyone called the little girl Somni, the dreamer who brought the town to creation.”

“A few years passed and I was born. I grew up here, the first group of kids born in the town of Somni.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“She was much older than me, but she was like a big sister to us all. She would even come out of that little shack to give us sweet water and flower candies when we played in the bay.”

“I thought she was rich? She lived in a shack?”

“Huh, oh yes, or the real Somni house had burned down the year before. It killed Founder Fount and his wife,” she says firmly.

“Where was I? Well, one mother was so horrified that a disgraced heiress had given her child something they could never pay back. Her fear soon crept into everyone’s home. Then many who believed the Fount’s wealth should be shared with the community joined in too.”

“They wanted her away from the fortune!”

“It didn’t help that she had a strange habit. When she would come to one of the wells she would reach into the empty water bucket she carried and pull out a stack of paper bound with black string. She’d write for a while and then toss it into the well. They said she was trying to curse the water.”

"They thought she was a witch just like that?"

“By then the people had enough. The fires, the money, and the harassment of the late Fount’s family drove a mob up the hill to what was left of the Somni house. I saw everything from the beach. That’s when the second fire started.”

“I’d only visited her house once before the first fire, I had only wanted to check on her after what they did to her shack. When I reached the top of the hill I could see the kids that looked like ants playing in the water below me. The house and the shack were the same fuming heaps now.

I walked around the rubble until I saw the clearing full of white flowers. They were so tall they tickled my neck, but I could still see her off in the field.”

“It took a while to reach but it was like the clearing had been fertilized with hundreds of papers. Some were torn to shreds and others still steamed from the blaze. I couldn’t understand it. I saw her looking through the papers for something so I started looking too. I just wanted to help her. She was looking up at the sky while I looked down for more papers. When I looked up she was looking deep into the well. I blinked and for a second her head was already gone and when I realized what happened I was already standing at the edge, her toes were the last thing I saw fade into the dark.

Gramma rises from her seat, “if she was really gone then I wanted a piece to remember her by.”

She goes to a small dresser and pulls out a worn journal. Its black cover was partially torn revealing plush grey felt under the rippled skin.

“Was that her notebook?”

“No, I just collected some of the paper I found that day and put it all here,” she whispers

She hands it to me with a soft smile on her lips, “for whenever she comes back.”

—

Monica’s voice leaped through the phone’s receiver, “Your grandma knew all of that? I wish I’d asked her first!”

“Yea, but she wasn’t happy to talk about it”

“I’m not surprised, by the time that house burned down she was still a little girl, did she talk about that?”

“Actually no, she didn’t even mention it.” Why couldn’t I bring myself to tell Monica about the notebook?

“Really? So what’d she tell you?”

“Uh, Lady Somni was born before the town was discovered, that’s why she’s not on any original documents.”

“Oh of course! But there’s nobody with the last name Somni here.”

“That’s what grandma said too, after the fire that’s the last anyone ever heard the name used.”

“I’m sure the townspeople were glad she was gone. They would’ve set the lighter under her tail to get her out of their hair!”

I couldn’t tell her about the fires.

—

Somewhere at the top of the hill in a clearing of human-sized flowers with petals like sheets of paper sat the original well. I followed the scattered white petals that drifted over each other until a large hole opened up swallowing the few papers that drifted too close. The only thing left was a single row of stones. I came to toss the heavy notebook in; returning Somni’s only possession. The book flipped open one last time and I saw it flutter. Stopping short of the well’s mouth, a black strand of braided yarn was caught on a piece of metal jutting out from under one of the stones. To L. Fountane flashed across the rust. As I bent to grab it a little scrap just like a white flower petal wedged between the last stones caught my eye.

I pushed the last of the rocks away to see a full sheet of family names and balances. A ledger with a $2500 total was signed and dated June 1966.

On the back were two notes that read: To our little flower, you made this bitter land sweet. Our families would have nothing if not for you. Dream of us always, Fount & Tane.