The village square remains unchanged since 1920,
but the well at its center now hums with a low,
resonant sound. The schoolteacher, Eileen,
notices it first during a lesson on local
history. The children’s eyes flicker when she
mentions the old tales of the fomóraí, the
hidden ones who lived beneath the land. She
dismisses it as superstition.
The well begins to fill with water overnight,
despite the dry summer. The priest warns of
divine displeasure. Eileen finds a stone tablet
beneath the roots of the old yew tree, carved
with symbols matching those in the school’s
oldest textbook. She takes it home, but the next
morning, the text has vanished, replaced by a
single word: Silence.
The village council summons her. They demand she
stop speaking of the past. A rule emerges: no
one may question the well’s origin. Those who do
vanish, their homes left untouched, their names
erased from the registry. Eileen’s brother, a
farmer, is the first to disappear after he asks
why the well never dries.
She returns the tablet to the tree, but the
symbols reappear on her wrist. The villagers
avoid her now, but the well’s hum grows louder.
At night, she hears voices in the water—
children’s laughter, a woman’s lullaby, the
creak of a wooden cradle. She records the sounds,
but the tape recorder skips, replaying only the
lullaby.
A boy from Dublin arrives, claiming to be a
relative of the vanished. He speaks of a family
pact made in 1923, a promise to bury the fomóraí
beneath the village. Eileen realizes the well is
not a source of water, but a prison. The
villagers have been keeping it sealed for
generations.
She breaks the pact by opening the well’s cover.
The water surges, rising high enough to flood
the square. The voices stop. The villagers kneel,
heads bowed. The well goes still. Eileen walks
away, the tablet now a pendant around her neck.
The village remains, but the silence is
different now—no longer enforced, but waiting.
