The Promise Well — Andrea Zhang
It was Christmas Eve at my parents’ house. The family gathered around the large round table where everybody seemed to be at perfect distances too far from each other. There was Grandma’s creamy onion soup and Aunt’s honey ham, all to my left; mashed potatoes with too much cheese, Napoleon cake, to my far right; beef stroganoff, Costco rotisserie chicken, and garlic stir-fried greens in the center; honey-baked bread, flatbreads, and an untouched cheese board on the opposite end. My older sister, Teresa, sat at my ten o’clock with her boyfriend to her right, a loud-laughing brown-headed boy, and my cousins huddled next to them, hands trembling from too long a separation from phones. My mom sat two seats to my left, between the cousins and Dad, and across from them were my uncle and his wife, who were consumed in their own conversation. Grandpa sat next to me, his breath bubbling through phlegm and the dry walls of his throat. His sister sat to his right, eyelids heavy with purple-powdered makeup and thick, creasy eyeliner, and her hair put up in a marble-patterned claw clip with her bangs set with choking vanilla-smelling spray. Then, finally, Grandma, who sat next to the sister, her shoulders hunched toward her plate as if guarding it from others’ gazes. She wore her pearls again, the ones with brown silver pedals stiffening out, the ones she always said were “Pacific,” though no one remembered why that mattered anyway.
Grandpa reached for my hand with his rough left palm, then his sister’s, and soon the whole table was encircled by sweatered arms and fancy rings and thick metallic watches conjoined. I looked toward my sister. She gazed down at the patterned tablecloth and didn’t close her eyes before I did. Grandpa coughed violently into a napkin and bellowed.
“Dear Father, thank You for conjoining us here on this blessed evening. Thank You for the hands that prepared this meal, and for the roof over our heads. Thank You for family, those near and those far, and for the grace that carries us through another year—”
I peeked through the tight slit between eyelids. Teresa’s pupils reflected the round white bowls in front of her. I shut my eyes again.
“We pray You remind us of Your goodness, even when we forget, and keep love in this home, even when it’s hard to find. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen.”
The word left our mouths like relief before the next hiccup.
The clatter of forks and knives ensued: heavy ceramic spoons scraping against the bellies of bowls, large chunks of colors hoarded in neat designations on plates. Grandpa lunged for the mashed potatoes, beef stroganoff, honey ham, and honey-baked bread. Ma waited patiently for the greens she made. The two cousins tore up the Costco rotisserie chicken. Dad went for a flatbread—inelegant as it kept sliding off, coming undone by the repeated punctures of the awkward prongs. Teresa didn’t eat, looking somewhat disgusted by the stringy mashed potatoes, her fingers folding the same tissue but in a different pattern. Grandpa’s sister went straight for the Napoleon cake, despite it being dessert. The clinking and scraping of plates almost sounded like running water, constant yet thin.
“Sharon, why don’t you go grab the gin?”
“Gin? You know I hate gin.”
“Then what you got? Just give me anything to loosen up.”
Mom sighed, stood, and disappeared toward the kitchen. The table kept moving in circles with small laughter, persistent clanking, and the muted Christmas music in the background. She returned with two bottles of wine and glasses that weren’t meant for it. The cousins, having wolfed down their dinner, were sent to my old bedroom to play video games. She poured too generously, each glass filled to the rim.
First sips softened everyone: Grandpa reclined, Dad laughed at something no one heard, Mom and Grandma and Grandpa’s sister drifted into the things they used to do as little girls. Teresa’s mouth bent into a quaint smile.
“You know, you used to tell your sister that story about that well. You remember? She loved that one.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I pretended she didn’t imply wanting me to tell it.
“C’mon, Tommy, you hafta tell it. C’mon, just––”
“I’m not––”
“The whole family’s here, Tommy. Don’t dampen the mood. I mean… c’mon, sweetie.”
The entire table looked dreamily at me, eyes pink and eyelids drooling, corners of mouths lifted unnaturally. I shook my head, letting out a short, sprained laugh. Dad wheezed.
“Now we’re talking.”
“Alright.”
Teresa pressed her index belly along the rim of her glass, tracing a slow circle. I looked at her, then at the table: Grandma’s floral tablecloth snagged where the wood underneath was nicked and uneven. The patterns were a duller color than I remember, though their name hadn’t changed. I began.
There once was a well at the bottom of a hill, in view of a village with no name. The well was said to have been there since eternity, its stone walls eroded by rain and wind and the etching of initials. The water of the well was said to be the kind of blue you only saw thirty minutes after a sunset, a color a young boy thought looked like forgetting. And so, the villagers assumed it was sweeter water, though they never tried. One day, the little boy decided to go to the well and fetch a pail of this sweet water. His parents warned against it, as the village witch used the water in the well to conjure wicked spells, but he didn’t listen. He ran down the hill at dawn, his shoes muddied and legs cramping as he rolled his ankle while trying to get there. Reaching the well, he peered down its deep shaft, watching faint shimmers emerging from darkness. He grabbed his pail, double-knotted to a thicker rope, and tossed it down the opening. There was no plunk or echo. The boy looked down, puzzled, before pulling the empty pail up. He gazed panic-stricken at the rising sun, and, facing away from the blinding light, pulled the dry rope up bit by bit until a dampened part caught him off guard. The pail was filled to the brim with blue water, yet had no weight. Thirsty, he set the pail on the ground and sent water down his throat with cupped hands, the water so refreshing and cold he could not stop. By the end of his drinking spree, he looked around the pail where the water must’ve trickled down his elbows to the ground. In small bundles where the water met the land, the grass emerged greener than ever, small wildflowers budding and blooming. The boy’s eyes flashed with awe as he touched the newly born life, before he threw the pail back down the well and pulled up another full bucket of water that had no weight. I wish this water could help Ma, he thought to himself, before walking as quickly as he could back to the village, his limp no longer there.
A chair scraped beside me. Teresa pushed hers back, napkin pressed to her lips.
“Bathroom,” she said softly.
No one moved until the door clicked shut down the hall.
Mom laughed. “Keep going, Tommy.”
Grandpa coughed into his right palm, nodding.
I took another sip of wine. “Right,” I said. “So the boy brought the water home.”
Holding the water firmly against his chest, he arrived back home to a small stone house near the middle of the town. His mother laid pallid in bed, diseased from something no one in the town could name, and both the doctor and the witch said she couldn’t make it. The boy grabbed a small cup from the cupboard, scooping it full of water and placing a straw which he directed to his mother’s lips. “Drink, Ma,” he said softly. The puffy-eyed woman sipped cautiously, though each sip grew exponentially in size. The boy couldn’t look at his mother like this—so frail and defeated in demeanor—so he looked at the floor, lightly sobbing. The floorboard creaked beneath his feet, and he turned to see whether it was his brother or father at the door, but felt a caress from behind. He turned back slowly, first seeing luscious dark locks of hair, smooth, blemishless skin, glistening umber eyes, then red cheeks. “Ma?” he asked, turning to the miracle. His father, hearing the commotion, ran down the stairs with the boy’s brother. The family conjoined in a long, reviving embrace.
From down the hall came the sound of a door unlatching. I paused. Water was running somewhere, steady, thin, and polite.
“That her?” Dad said, half-whisper.
“Keep going,” Mom said, almost shrieking. “Don’t stop there.”
I nodded. I stared at the red in Teresa’s glass, bruising blue under the white light.
News of the well quickly spread despite the family’s attempt to keep secret, and they called it the Promise Well, both in the literal and metaphorical sense—similar to a wishing well that “wishes well,” the only difference being that the word “promise” guarantees it. Despite it being winter, the men of the town ran, trudging in deep snow, to the well with their big buckets. They dropped them down until intuition told them to pull. They heard no plunk, no echoes. Hoping to see the blue splash in front of their eyes, they reeled in the buckets as fast as they could, but to no avail: the well’s water seemed to have frozen somehow, even though no one could reach the icy layer. The witty women, seeing their husbands slouched over the well in defeat, had other ideas. As the flowers from the boy’s water-spilling remained in full bloom, poking through the snow, the women tumbled down the hill, desperate to uproot the flowers to find the water. They clawed at the snow, the dirt curling into the crescents of their nails, shredding away at the earth. Some women emerged victorious from the wrestling grounds, others calling their husbands to shovel the snow with their buckets to find any leftover roots. The defeated ones began collecting the solid dirt around the uprooted plants, hoping for elixir.
The villagers returned to their homes, muttering prayers under their breath. Some hoped for health, some happiness, others beauty. Then they began the process of consummation—some gnawing at the flowers and stems, some boiling soups from roots, others waiting for the ragged blocks of dirt to melt. But their wishes, the well’s promises, at best, only came half answered. The middle-aged man suffering from cancer felt unburdened for two months before his condition reverted; the young lady who asked for a slim nose kept it for a week; the child who wished his cat return to life fell into a coma for seven months, dreaming of his lost companion. The boy saw all of this and found the four jars of water his parents had placed in the false back of the kitchen cupboard. He quietly reached behind the thin wooden panel and grabbed a jar labeled “+” before tiptoeing back to his room. He sat on his bed with his eyes shut. I wish everyone would forget about the water and the well. He twisted the lid open carefully, afraid any would splash out if his movement was too sudden. He lifted the jar to his lips slowly before gulping desperately. He put the empty jar behind the curtains of his window and went to bed.
When he woke up the next morning, he peered out the window at the well. Spring had begun to thaw the land; the sky crystal blue, clouds moving away from him accompanied by birdsong. He looked down. Almost the whole village herded around the well. His veins tightened, his limbs bound by the shudder of cold panic. Before he even got ready, he ran to the well, trying to squeeze through the masses. The opening of the well was completely jammed with buckets, ropes knotted together and people quarreling over how to get their buckets to rise first. A young girl, with a small tin can tied to a long piece of string, slid her contraption between the crevices of the other buckets, and eventually, the tin flashed blue. Before the boy could see her run with the can, a lady with a lanky shadow whispered into his ear never to wish for what he did ever again because it couldn’t become true. The boy turned as fast as he could to look for the woman, but she had vanished.
Other than the little girl with her tin can, a couple others were able to obtain the sweet water. Those who didn’t do so discreetly had their water either stolen or spilled immediately, and the herd of villagers raged forth, some burning the ropes and using knives to cut the tangled mess loose. The pails all fell to the bottom, and as the masses lowered more ropes down the hole, no more water came back.
The villagers began tossing coins, paper, hair of themselves and loved ones into the well, hoping for answers. Some days, the promises would be fulfilled, but for the most of the time, the well stood in silence. The village rustled with anger. They tore down its stone walls, its roof, setting fire to it and the ground around, dancing wild-eyed in circles. They widened its mouth, digging ruthlessly until all the trash and unwanted things could be thrown down—unwanted food, unwanted furniture, unwanted people. The blue they once worshipped turned to gray, and they stopped believing there had ever been water in the first place. Still, the ground around the well stayed damp, as if it remembered.
The bathroom door opened softly, revealing Teresa, her hair damp against her temples. She walked back toward the table but didn’t sit, only stood there listening. Somewhere in the house, a pipe groaned—or maybe that was the well. I looked up. Teresa’s wine was always blue.
Mom was screaming from fear and confusion. The blue spread on the bowls, the plates, her hands, smelling faintly of soap and iron, steaming. I waited for the flowers, the way they once burst from the dirt in bright, stupid faith. But all that remained was Grandma’s tablecloth, its printed blossoms flattening under the white light.
Someone’s glass, her boyfriend’s probably, struck the tile, rolled once, and kept rolling beneath the table. Teresa’s mouth moved like she was trying to speak, but no sound came—only that slow glugging, water rising through a drain.
I kept telling myself, it’s just a story, just a story, but the floorboards were already wet.
I looked at Teresa, her eyes reflecting that impossible blue, the shade that came thirty minutes after the sunset, the color the boy had once thought like forgetting. She wasn’t afraid. I couldn’t stand her for that.
After that night, no one mentioned the water.
We called the plumber the next morning. He walked circles in his paper shoe covers, shining his flashlight into the sink, the pipes, under the dishwasher. He ran the tap, jiggled the knobs, checked the water heater in the basement.
“There’s no leak.”
He scribbled in his yellow pamphlet.
“If anything, your pressure’s low.”
Mom nodded and began writing the check. Grandma scrubbed the tablecloth in the sink until the flowers blurred into a pale field. The stain wouldn’t come out.
Teresa said nothing. She didn’t drink at dinner after that. Not water, not wine. She shifted to things in cans, her fingers reflective around the metal. Glass couldn’t be trusted.
Around then, I heard her in the bathroom long past midnight with the fan on, water hitting porcelain in a thin, unbroken stream. I stood in the hallway, waiting for a shadow under the door. When she finally stepped out, the light behind her washed straight through her; she brushed past me without weight, leaving only the faint, familiar smell of soap and something metallic. She didn’t look back.
Some time later, the “well story” turned into a party trick again. Mom would bring it up when the wine went down too fast at Thanksgiving or Easter.
“Tell them about the well. The miracle water. The villagers. Remember, Tommy?”
Everyone would look at me. I’d start from the hill, the boy, the witch, the blue. I never talked about the pipes groaning or the floorboards staying damp for days. Never about how Teresa started sleeping with the bathroom fan on, drowning out the sound of drains. In some versions, the boy’s mother lives. In others, she doesn’t. I watch people’s faces as I adjust it, tweak the outcome by a sentence or two. Their eyes brighten or dim on cue.
Nobody ever asks what happened to the boy.
Teresa stopped sitting through the story altogether. She’d stand up halfway through, step outside into the cold, breath coming out in little white bursts. Every time, I pretended I didn’t notice. Every time, I knew exactly where she was going: the side of the house, where the downspout emptied into a small square of earth that never quite dried, even in August.
Sometimes I’d go look at it after she left. The ground stayed slick, dark, faintly soft under my shoe. No flowers. Just the possibility of them, withheld.
Andrea Zhang is a senior at Western Reserve Academy in Ohio. She writes fiction and essays attentive to voice, restraint, and social performance, grounded in close observation. Her work has received NCTE Achievement Awards in Writing First Class distinction, and she is a graduate of the Iowa 6-Week Online Writing Workshop. She serves as Student Body Co-President and as a senior editor of her school newspaper. She is glass-half-full, with reservations.