The Frog Prince

Chapter 3: Wish Upon a Wishing Well

After I chased him all over the plains and cornered him in the barn, I socked Flannigan in the gut.
He doubled over with a cough. "What was that for?"
"For being such an idiot."
"I thought boys were always idiots," Flann said, flashing me a cocky smile and pushing me into a bale of hay.
I pushed him back into another pile of straw and then I realized what I was doing. "We have to go back," I gasped. "I'm supposed to watch Attia 24/7 and the goats could be eating her arms for all I know."
I raced back to the goat pen, with Flannigan on my tail.
By the time I got there, though, the goats weren't chewing Attia's arms off.
No.
They were busy eating the flowers Attia had picked on the way to the cottage. What a fool I'd been to believe she would give them to Mother. Ha!
Buttercup, Swiss, and Pink's mouths were all stained various shades of yellow, red, and green, and I watched, horrified, as Attia slowly fed Swiss a long yellow flower, the same way my mother used to feed Attia when she was little.
My brain started to sputter to life again, and my consciousness knocked some sense into it.
Pinching my nose so I wouldn't smell anything nasty, I used my other hand to lean as far as I could go into the goat pen and grab Attia by the collar of her dress and lift her out of the disgusting pigsty of a goat pen.
"Hey!" She frantically waved her arms about, trying to get enough momentum to let go, but my hold was immovable.
"Not this time, you aren't," I scolded Attia, depositing her on her butt on the ground.
"But the goatses," she pleaded.
"But the goatses," I mimicked. "Not working this time, young lady. Come on, we're going home."
Without waiting for an answer, I slung Attia over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and headed home.
"Let me go," she yelled, pounding my back with her tiny fists. "Lemme go!"
I could hear Finn's laughter from a mile away.
~*~*~*~
Grouchily, I pulled my golden ball from my pocket- actually nowadays I called him Pietro, because a meeting with a wise traveling minstrel by the same name had helped me recognize my true calling: a female singing minstrel.
I tossed Pietro up in the air carelessly. The dull thump of the gold striking my palm reassured me, slowing the beat of my heart.
My boots squelched in the wet mud. My nostrils soaked in the moist smell in the air. Mmm. Spring.
I threw Pietro up again, but this time he didn't come back to my palm. I look ed up, and, wonder of wonders, a bird had clasped my precious Pietro in its claws.
"Hey!" I yelled. "Come down here, you grimy maggot!"
The stupid raven paid no attention to my insults and cawed happily, excited with his new shiny treasure.
I considered nocking an arrow and shooting it at the feathered pest, but it would be a waste of fletching.
But ... if I shot true, I could have even more arrows for fletching, plus good meat- I could have a nice snack when I got home!
Grinning , I pulled out my bow, strung it, and aimed a groosling-fletchinged arrow, aiming carefully.
The thieving raven screamed with alarm, when the swoosh of the arrow shot through the air.
It hit perfectly on target, except perfect was a little too perfect. The arrow hit my metal ball, bouncing off easily, and Pietro let out a warble of alarm.
"Sorry, buddy," I called to the metal sphere, who dulled slightly, and I realised the birdbrain was crapping on my Pietro! No one poops on my metal ball, especially a bird.
Enraged, I retrieved the now slightly blunt arrow, and nocked it, aiming for the wing.
My anger helped focus my aim, and I watched in satisfaction as the birdbrain's wing bent the wrong way, and the raven began to spiral out of control.
Yes!
It was falling lower, and lower, and finally it dropped Pietro.
Double yes!
I leaned over to catch it, running, when suddenly something large and big slammed into my midsection, and I lost my balance, tumbling over the wall.
I fell for what seemed like ages, the wind whoosing by my ears, my visibility getting darker, when-
Splash! I submerged underwater. The only thing I could see were the small white bubbles surrounding me, and even those were slightly black. I looked up and saw the entrance of the- well, wherever I had come into. A tiny circle of light no bigger than the nail of my smallest finger, distorted as it was through the water as I looked.
I burst through the surface, gasping as the cold air chilled my face.
I shivered in the water and rivulets of water dripped off my nose.
I had obviously fallen into a well, though. I could only reach the bottom of the well by standing on my toes, and even then I was barely able to breathe.
Question is, where was I? And how long would it take for me to drown?
My energy wouldn't last forever.
A ragged voice came out of the gloom to my right. "You, sweetie, are at the bottom of the Wishing Well. And most who come down here, well, they never come out ."
A blue light appeared, illuminating the piles of human skeletons all around me, my own scared reflection, and the withered old face of a swamp witch smiling eerily.
Then it fully clicked.
Holy crap. I'm stuck at the bottom of the Wishing Well!