The Forgotten Child

Once upon a time, there was a man. His name will not be mentioned as it is important to this story that it is reviled later on. This man was very wealthy, he was very famous, and he was also very old or at least in his eyes he was. He and his family lived on the mountain top overlooking a town. The town was named Wellsonberg. It was a nice quiet town, Wellsonberg. It had nice quiet people and a nice Quiet demeanor. It wasn't very big, but it wasn't very small either, it was perfectly even. It has a rich history and diversity. Everyone knew one another; the baker knew the librarian the librarian knew the blacksmith and the blacksmith knew the mayor and so on. Like any other sweet little town Wellsonberg had tourists and strangers wander in from time to time. The one thing about this sweet little town was its one well. The one it was most known for.

You see, this well was once a witch's grave and it still is to this very day. The witch that was buried there was not the evil kind one finds in fairy tales and mythology, she was a good witch, but at a price. For every wish she granted someone had to pay a price. A great price, one that can never be refunded. You must kill one of your own kin to fulfill your wish. In life she wasn't so demanding, but death changes people. Death can change the gracious into the selfish. It can turn the wary into the wild, and it can turn the loving into the loathing. The witch's ashes were spread around her personal belongings and flowers were planted around it. The villagers however, had other plans. They built a well in the perimeter of her ashes and ever since then people have never gone back to that horrendous hell hole again.

The man from our earlier musings is very desperate when he needs to be. At midnight on a Sunday he traveled out to the cursed well and spoke:

"Well Witch, Well witch under the ground I've come for a wish whilst you lie in the rotting mound." He chanted, and not a moment later the enchantress appeared before him laced in gold and jewels from her past life. She looked down at the man and spoke: "Yes human? What do you wish for? Money? Fame? Power? No, you already have all of those don't you? You seek the one thing men always crave for like starved animals, youth. Am I correct?" he was taken back at her knowledge, "Yes-"he said taking great caution, "-how did you know that?".

"Through death I have gained knowledge mortal." The witch moaned floating down to sit on the outer edge of her grave. Her golden hair shimmering like sun beams cupped her face like flowing water.

"Ha, I cannot die I have too much to live for" he said pulling his coat around him. The enchantress rolled her eyes at his foolishness knowing all too well that he was going to do what she told.

"Very well I will grant your wish of eternity, but at a price." She loomed over him and spoke carefully; "You must slit your kin's throats and drain their blood into three goblets, one made of gold, one made of silver, and the other made of brass. Your youngest son however must stay alive. He will be trapped like you in an eternal prison and feel your future pain."

The man nodded and before he left she added, "Oh and I almost forgot, they must not see you murder them, and bring back the blood by night fall tomorrow at this exact spot or you will be condemned to a fate worse than death."

As he walked back to his great mansion and did as instructed he thought of what he had just done. Slit his own kin's throat and drain their blood into the goblets she said, how could a father do that to his family you ask? Well let's say that for now he is not one to call father. He is a monster in a man's skin.

As he committed the worst sin known to mankind, his son had a night mare. The sons name was Alphonse, and he was only five years of age at the time. He woke up with tears in his soft golden eyes.

"Mother," he sobbed still half asleep. "Mother?" he walked into his parent's hallway. It was lined with paintings and old vases. The wall paper was a deep red color that had shown black that night; he passed by a towering window his shadow crawled up the old dusted wall. He crept his way to his parents resting place and pushed the giant oak door open to find his own father dressed in black and drenched in his mother's crimson. He didn't make a single sound as his father turned to him and froze. The young child looked at his father to his mother and to the blood smothering his fathers over coat. He took a step back and his father, after setting both goblets down on a nightstand, took a step forward. His father charged at him and beat him over the head knocking the small frail child to the floor. Splayed out in his night cloths, arms at awkward angles the child was not dead. The father looked at his son and out of panic he took him to the witch that night.

"You, mortal, have to be the most insolent of them all. Give me the goblets." She commanded. The man did so with a look of irritation on his face at the witches comment.

"Lie the child down," She said two goblets in one hand and the third in the other. The man did so and the witch poured his two daughters blood in a circle around the child. She dropped the empty treasures on the old grass ground. The enchantress poured half of the mother's blood onto the child and the other half on the father. The father blinked through blood soaked lashes and shuddered at the warm fluid.

"Now," said the Enchantress "your wish will be granted." She raised her hands to the heavens and bowed her head low, she chanted in an old foreign tongue, the secret to eternity. A burning sickening feeling swept over the man as if a tsunami had engulfed him. He doubled over, succumbed in pain and misery that seeped through his skin like the blood of his kin on his garments. He bellowed in agony clutched his head like a man would a cliffs edge.

That night the man had aged and died over and over until he found peace. Some say that night the man had wondered off into the forest and never came out, but others…they say he left the town and found a life somewhere else; among the vagabonds and the unloved forever a ghost of his former self.

As for the child, most would say that he died that night at the hands of his father, others would say that he committed self-murder.

However if you enter the mansion and travel to its darkest corners you can hear his voice echo through the forgotten tomb pleading forgiveness.