Emily's House: Book 1 of the Akasha Chronicles

Chapter 24: Emily's Search for the Sacred Well

Chapter 24: Emily’s Search for the Sacred Well

When I woke, it was the next morning. We had all slept through the afternoon and into the next day. We shook the sleep from our bodies and ate the day-old bagels we’d stashed in our packs. After our dry breakfast, Jake pulled out his maps and pages he’d printed off his laptop while Fanny cranked up the GPS app on her phone.

Jake had printed out pages that he’d found about different wells and sanctuaries dedicated to St. Bridget. It was a surprisingly long list. Over the years, the old goddess Brighid was turned into a Catholic saint, St. Bridget. The spelling was different, and she had become a saint instead of a Goddess. But St. Bridget was associated with wells, springs and healing waters just as the Goddess Brighid had been for thousands of years. There were wells and springs dedicated to her all over Ireland. When Jake plotted the wells and springs on his map, we could see a concentration of them in County Kildare.

“This is promising,” Jake said. “There are at least two wells within walking distance of each other in Kildare town.”

“Bingo,” said Fanny. “Hey, do you think that town cop called in an APB on us and has the whole Irish police force out looking for us?” Fanny asked.

“I think we should be cautious. In a little town like that, digging up a grave at a religious site is probably a high crime,” I said.

Fanny searched the web on her phone and found a bus schedule. We hiked to the next town and popped onto Bus Eireann. After two bus changes and six hours, we went about a hundred miles and got off in Kildare.

By the time we got there, it was about an hour before dark. But it was only about a mile from the bus stop to the first well on our list so we decided to press on.

Our most likely candidate for the Sacred Well was a small, somewhat touristy site that had a statue of St. Brigid and a walking path to a well. We walked down a newly paved road with a sidewalk and followed the signs to ‘St. Brigid’s Well’. Before long, a sign pointed down a long paved lane lined with towering old trees. When we got to the end of the lane, there were some cars parked there and about a half dozen people milling about the site.

We walked over a small wooden bridge onto a manicured lawn of intensely green grass. A statue of St. Brigid stood by a small stream, and there was a path with grey upright prayer stones leading to a small ring of stones.

There it was. A small hole in the ground surrounded by stones. It wasn’t much to look at and didn’t seem very sacred. And it wasn’t a deep hole either. It looked to be only two feet deep. I can’t imagine this is a portal to another world. Looking at the small ring of stones around a tiny spit of water, my doubt grew and I began to feel silly about the whole thing.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” I said. I reached into my bag for the box with the torc in it.

“Wait Em, you can’t do that now,” screeched Jake. “Not with these people around.”

“Why not Jake? Nothing’s going to happen anyway. These tourists will just think I’m a weird American kid.”

“What do you mean nothing’s going to happen? When you pull that thing out of its box, the portal will open up,” said Fanny.

I laughed out loud at that. They really believe this stuff.

“Look at this,” I said. I pointed to the small pool of water. “It’s a pathetic hole in the ground. Admit it, this doesn’t look like a portal to another dimension, does it?”