The Hanging Garden of Hollow Eyes

I was seven when my grandmother first took me to the orchard. We’d walk through the tall grass, her hand warm around mine, until we reached the old stone well at the center. ‘Peer in, child,’ she’d say, her voice soft as dust. ‘Tell me what you see.’ I’d grip the rough edge, my heart thudding, and stare into the black. Nothing. Just cold air rising, whispering against my face. She’d smile, satisfied, and lead me home. I never understood why she made me do it, only that the well seemed to breathe, waiting.

Years later, I moved to the town of Kestle, a place where the houses leaned together like old women sharing secrets. My aunt Lena lived at the end of Copper Lane, a narrow street lined with crooked sycamores. On the way to her house, I always passed a peculiar structure: an abandoned chapel, its door painted a sickly green, and above the lintel, a row of small clay pots, each with two holes that looked like empty eye sockets. They hung from iron hooks, swaying even when the air was still. The locals called it the ‘Hanging Garden,’ though nothing grew there. My aunt refused to talk about it, changing the subject whenever I brought it up.

My cousin, Markus, was a skeptic despite his fascination with the macabre. We’d sit on Aunt Lena’s porch, sipping sweet tea, and he’d tease me about my fear of wells. ‘It’s just a hole in the ground, Emily,’ he’d say, but his eyes would dart to the chapel. One evening, he dared me to knock on the chapel door. I laughed it off, but something in me ached to know what was inside. The next day, I went alone.

The door wasn’t locked. It swung open with a groan, revealing a dim interior that smelled of damp earth and old incense. The pots inside were arranged in a spiral on the floor, each one like a gaping mouth. In the center, a well—not of stone, but of packed earth, its rim cracked. I stepped closer, my trembling hand touching the edge. A faint sound rose from below, like water dripping, but faster, more rhythmic. It was then I noticed the walls were covered in small scratched symbols, barely visible in the gloom. I leaned over the well, and a voice, not mine, whispered my name.

I stumbled back, but my foot caught on a pot, and I fell. My hand brushed against something soft—a piece of cloth. I pulled it out: a child’s dress, stained and tattered. Panic surged, and I scrambled to my feet, fleeing the chapel. I didn’t tell Markus or Aunt Lena. That night, I dreamt of a girl with hollow eyes, standing at the bottom of a well, reaching up. She said, ‘You saw me. Now you must take my place.’

I woke sweating. I couldn’t shake the image. The next morning, I found Aunt Lena in the kitchen, staring at her coffee. She looked older. ‘I knew you’d go there,’ she said quietly. ‘That well is not like ours. It’s a mouth, and it feeds on those who look too deep.’ She told me the story: decades ago, a girl named Hester vanished near the chapel. They found her dress by the well, but never her body. The pots were hung to trap her spirit, to keep it from wandering. But some said the well was older, a doorway to something that hungered.

My horror grew. I couldn’t leave, though. Every night, the dream returned, and the voice grew stronger. On the third night, I woke to find myself standing at the edge of the chapel’s well, my nightgown soaked with dew. I don’t remember walking there. In the moonlight, the pots seemed to watch me, their holes like pupils. I looked into the well, and for the first time, I saw something: a pale face, rising slowly. It was Hester. But her eyes were not empty—they held a desperate, terrible longing. She opened her mouth, and a flood of words poured out, all the secrets of the dead who had fallen before her.

I fled to Aunt Lena’s house, screaming. She held me, rocking me, her thin arms like sticks. ‘The well wants a keeper,’ she whispered. ‘One who will watch and remember. I was that keeper once, but I grew old and blind. You must take my place.’ She led me to her own backyard, where a smaller well stood, capped with a stone. ‘This is the true well,’ she said, moving the stone. ‘The chapel is a lie. But I have protected this secret all my life. Now it is your turn.’ She handed me a rope, her hands trembling. ‘Look down, Emily. Don’t be afraid. See what I see.’

I peered into the well. There was no water, only a vast darkness that seemed to pulse. At the bottom, a tiny light flickered, like a candle. And in that light, I saw my own face reflected, not as I was, but as a child of seven, staring up with wide, curious eyes. I remembered my grandmother, the orchard, the ritual. She was preparing me, not fearing the well, but teaching me to look everywhere, to never stop questioning. But the well in the chapel was different. That one had taken a life. This one was a guardian.

I pulled back, dizzy. Aunt Lena smiled. ‘You understand now. The fear is a door. You must walk through it.’ I did. I moved to Kestle permanently, taking over Aunt Lena’s house and her duty. I now tend to the chapel, cleaning the pots, ensuring they hang straight. The locals think I’m a strange girl, obsessed with old relics. They don’t know I’m the keeper, and that every night, I whisper to the well, telling it stories of the living, so it won’t hunger for them. And sometimes, when the moon is full, I look into the earth and see Hester’s face, smiling now, at peace. But I never forget the price. The well gave me a purpose, but it took my innocence. It taught me that some depths are meant to remain unseen. Yet I look anyway, because that is my curse and my gift: to be the one who perceives, who remembers, who holds the hollow gaze of the deep.