The Garden’s Lament

It began five months ago, on the edge of a small town in the Pacific Northwest, where the forest pressed close against the back of my property. I lived alone in a house that had seen better decades, with a garden that had gone wild. Every night, I’d sit in my armchair, the glow of the television the only light, and the window to my right looked out onto that tangled mess of weeds and overgrown roses.

One evening, just past midnight, I heard a child’s voice from the garden. It was a girl’s voice, high and thin, like wind through a cracked pane. She seemed to be calling out, but I couldn’t make out the words. I thought of the new family next door, the Hendersons, who had a six-year-old. But then I remembered: they didn’t have a daughter. They had a son. And he was ten.

I told myself it was a stray cat or a trick of the wind, but the voice kept coming back, night after night. Sometimes it was just a long ‘Ahhh,’ like a slow exhale. Other times, I could swear I heard ‘Mom’ or ‘Mommy,’ drawn out and desperate. I never felt afraid, not at first. It was more like a strange tune I couldn’t get out of my head. But after a couple of weeks, I started to wonder: why did the sound seem to come from right outside my window, even when the garden was empty?

I remember the night it changed. It was raining, a steady drizzle that blurred the window. The voice was louder, and it was saying something else. I pressed my ear to the cold glass. ‘Help me,’ it whispered. I froze. That wasn’t the Henderson kid; his voice was deeper. And there was no one in the garden. I saw the outline of the old well, its wooden lid rotted, half-hidden by ferns.

I finally asked the Hendersons if they had any relatives visiting. The wife, Karen, looked at me like I was mad. ‘We don’t have any kids, Mark. It’s just us and the dog.’ I stammered, ‘Your son… the boy I’ve seen in the yard?’ She shook her head. ‘We don’t have a son.’

That night, I didn’t turn on the TV. I just sat in the dark, listening. The voice came again, but now it was coming from inside the house. From the hallway. I saw a small figure standing there, a pale shape with dark hollows where eyes should be. It spoke in that same high, thin voice: ‘You left me in the well.’

The next day, I dug up the garden. The soil was black and damp. I found a child’s shoe, a blue one, with a faded star on the side. And then the bones. They were small, fragile. I called the police, but when they arrived, the bones were gone. The shoe was gone. The well was still there, but the lid was on tight, as if it had never been disturbed.

Now, I don’t sit in my armchair anymore. I’ve boarded up the window. I’ve tried to sell the house, but no one will buy it. They say it’s haunted. They say a little girl named Lily drowned in that well fifty years ago. The police report says it was an accident. But I know better. Last night, I heard her voice again, but it was coming from under my bed. ‘You found me,’ she said. ‘Now you have to take my place.’ And I can feel the cold, wet earth closing over me even as I write this.