The Ballyclogh harvest fair opens under a sky of
bruised grey, the kind that settles in the
throat before rain. The air smells of damp earth
and fried potatoes from the stalls, but beneath
it all, something else lingers—wet stone and
salt.
The well, long choked with stones and sealed by
Father O’Dwyer’s decree after the 1916 Rising,
has cracked open overnight. Not a trickle, but a
steady flow, rising fast enough to fill the
trough beside the chapel steps. No one knows how
deep it is now—only that it’s been calling.
She arrives on a secondhand bicycle, wheels worn
thin, coat frayed at the cuffs. She doesn’t
speak to anyone. Her name isn’t spoken here
anymore—just “the one who left.” But the
children know her eyes. They remember the summer
she used to sit by the willow, counting daisies.
That night, the first ghost appears—not in a
shroud or rags, but as a ripple in the water. A
face forms, mouth open in silence. Then another.
And another. All young men in khaki uniforms,
their faces blurred like ink in rain. They don’t
speak. They just stare up from the depths.
The villagers gather at dawn. The priest refuses
to bless the water. The police are called, but
they stand at the edge of the field, watching.
One officer drops his cap into the well—no
splash. It vanishes.
By noon, the crowd thickens. The GAA team lines
up for the match, but no one can focus. The
ground trembles once—subtle—as if something
beneath shifts. A child screams. The well
bubbles harder. The water turns black.
The old granny, Niamh, sits on the bench where
the cobbles meet the road. She hasn’t spoken
since ’23. Now she hums a tune—old,
halfremembered, from when girls still danced
barefoot in the fields. Her hands move slowly,
tracing patterns in the dust.
When the drumming starts—a slow, irregular
rhythm from nowhere—the people stop. The wind
dies. A single drop falls from the sky. Then
another. Then the entire sky opens.
Rain pours down, not on the crowd, but into the
well. The water surges upward in a column, then
collapses back with a sound like bones snapping.
The surface goes still.
No more faces. No more whispers.
The next morning, the well is dry. The stones
are stacked again, neatly, as if never disturbed.
The fair ends early. The GAA match is cancelled.
She walks back to the bus station. Her bag is
heavier now. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, is a
child’s shoe—leather cracked, lace gone. She
never took it out of the well.
No one asks. No one speaks of what happened.
But the well is still there. And sometimes, on
quiet nights, the ground near it sighs.
