Midnight Wonders

4.6.2. The Hen-Wife of By-The-Well

"Look at that," Annabel said, pointing down the bottom of the hill, where they could see a small, circular town. They had been going for a while, and Luc had mostly been silent while Emma and Annabel chatted about Annabel's excursions. Emma had attempted to rope Luc into the conversation at the beginning, but seemed to realize he would rather listen after the first few times he had little more than a sentence to say. "Let's stop there to rest."

"We can keep going," Luc said, hoping they weren't stopping for his sake.

"I'm tired," Annabel told him. "I'm from outside, remember?"

They approached the town, which did not get much bigger. It looked to be about the size of his school's campus. At the entrance was a wooden sign stuck into the ground, a name burnt into the smooth surface. By-The-Well. Named for being by a well, he supposed.

As they entered, a little girl stuck her head out of the window of a nearby building and, pointing further down the road, called, "Inn's that way!"

"Thank you!" Annabel said, waving.

"Can you ring your bells?"

Annabel rang her bells, and the girl made a delighted sound, calling back, "All free!" before darting down under the window once more. Luc smiled at that. It reminded him of Catherine.

They reached the inn, and Annabel arranged rooms for them while Luc and Emma got their horses situated in the stables. Then they went inside, and Annabel showed them their rooms, and then they went to eat.

Annabel acquired them a meal, and they ate for a bit until the innkeeper came to keep them company. Or perhaps she wanted company; the inn was not exactly busy, and Luc didn't think he'd seen anyone else in its space.

"We don't get many people around here," said the woman, who had introduced herself as Jean. "Where are you all headed?"

"The Yew," Annabel said. "We're coming from the Sycamore."

Jean made a face when Annabel mentioned the Yew. She quickly smoothed it away. "Sorry, I've just heard many stories of it. Never been myself, though. Never want to."

"What sort of stories?" said Luc, intrigued.

"All sorts, young man, all sorts," she said. "We may not have many guests, but we've got stories full to the brim. Some are even older than me." She raised her eyebrows like that was meant to be surprising, though she didn't look any older than Luc, so it was hard to comprehend. "The Queen of the Yew frequents many of our tales. Though it's hard to know whether they're about the current queen or any of the queens before her. We never keep track of when they change."

"The current queen hasn't been here for terribly long," Emma said thoughtfully. "What might it be in normal years, Annabel—thirty years? Forty?"

"Thirty sounds about right," Annabel said. "Not too long."

Luc assumed that meant Queens of the Yew usually ruled for centuries or some other absurd amount of time, because thirty years sounded very long to him. "Have you a favorite story?" he asked Jean.

"Yes!" she said, brightening. "About the well. It's the Hen-Wife's Well; you should go out to see it. It's our village treasure. There are many stories about it, but they're all my favorite."

"Why's it called the Hen-Wife's Well?" Luc asked.

Jean took a deep breath, looking as if she'd been waiting for this question. "Well, there was an instance very long ago, I can hardly remember when, where a child got picked up from a ring by the Collector of Lost Children. The boy had been left there, you see, and he was hardly an infant, a tiny little thing, still all swaddled in his blankets; his mother had managed to do that for him. So the Collector brought him here to be taken care of.