Beyond the Pale

The Pull

          Dedicated to prettyfacedevil for making the amazing cover, which is a thousand times better than anything I could've hoped for! Thank you! 

It was an ordinary day at St. Michael’s Home for Orphaned Girls when Penny felt the Pull.

She was sitting at her desk in her daily lessons when something inside her jerked, like a string attached to her stomach had been yanked.

Penny glanced around to see if anyone else had felt it, but they were all facing forward, eyes blank.

The feeling intensified- it didn’t hurt: if anything, it tickled. Without thinking, Penny stood up. The teacher stopped teaching and stared at her. The girls stopped learning and watched her, mouths hanging open, as she walked down the aisle, opened the door and left.

To her credit, the teacher tried to follow her, but by the time she had left the classroom, Penny was already flinging open the back doors and running through the yard.

Penny ran, her drab gray smock whipping around her knees, her brown hair flying behind her, following the sensation. It led her through the dingy gardens and down to woods where the orphans were not allowed to go. She hesitated before crossing the unspoken line, but with one hard Pull she was flying over it without a second thought.

The overgrown bushes and undergrowth tripped Penny and tore her stockings and scratched her elbows, but she didn’t stop. The Pull wouldn’t let her.

With single-minded determination, Penny tore through the forest with no goal but to follow the feeling. It was as if something had possessed her.

Just as she was wondering where she was going, she nearly ran into the well.

It was old and decrepit, half of it fallen apart and spilling into the surrounding weeds. Penny continued around it, but the Pull spun her right back around.

She frowned at the dilapidated well, but the Pull was insistent, so she edged closer. She put her hand on the side and leaned over. It seemed to go on forever, a black, endless hole.

But there was something glinting at the bottom of it. Penny leaned deeper in to the well, squinting at the little speck of light.

All of the sudden, her foot slipped. She was leaning out too far to catch herself, and toppled head over heels into the velvety blackness.

Luckily for Penny, the well was wide enough that she did not hit the sides on the way down. Despite this, Penny was still very frightened, as any sensible person would be if they were tumbling down a well, and began flailing about. She tried to scream, but the wind rushing past greedily snatched the sound and whisked it away.

After almost a minute, Penny was still falling. This was very odd, since wells are almost never deep enough to fall through for a whole minute. She reached out to touch one of the sides and found nothing but air.

Puzzled, Penny watched as the opening of the well grew smaller and smaller above her until she could barely see it. She wondered what type of well was so deep that a young girl could fall for several minutes without landing. Maybe she would end up in China.

Time passed. Penny yawned and wondered what time it was.

With a sudden jerk, Penny stopped falling. Something caught her, like the Pull but a dozen times stronger. Just as she began to look around, it dropped her, and she landed on the ground with an oomph.

It was very dark. Penny could only see a few feet in front of her, and her bottom ached from where she had landed. She got to her feet, rubbing it. The first thing she noticed was the Pull was gone, as though a great pressure had been released.

Penny explored the room with her hands, finding the wall and then following it around the perimeter. It was small, with seamless, bumpy walls and no windows. As she made her second turn around the room, becoming more and more desperate, a door appeared.

It was just a glowing outline, the light seeping through the edges, but it was, undeniably, a door, and Penny was certain it hadn’t been there a few moments ago.

She searched it for a handle, but it was completely smooth. Penny tried to peer through one of the cracks, but it was too thin. She began banging on it.

All of a sudden, the door swung open.

Penny stepped back, stunned.