Dolores Claiborne(55)

He screamed again goin down. It echoed off the sides of the well. That was something else I hadn't figured on - him screamin when he fell. Then there was a thud and he stopped. Just flat stopped. The way a lamp stops shinin if someone yanks the plug outta the wall.

I knelt on the ground n hugged my arms acrost my middle n waited to see if there was gonna be any more. Some time went by, I don't know how much or how long, but the last of the light went out of the day. The total eclipse had come and it was dark as night. There still wasn't any sound comm from the well, but there was a little breeze comm from it toward me, and I realized I could smell it -you know that smell you sometimes get in water that comes from shallow wells? It's a coppery smell, dank n not very nice. I could smell that, and it made me shiver.

I saw my slip was hangin down almost on the top of my left shoe. It was all torn n full of rips. I reached under the neck of my dress on the right side n popped that strap, too. Then I pulled the slip down n off. I was bundlin it into a ball beside me n tryin to see the best way to get around the wellcap when all at once I thought of that little girl again, the one I told you about before, and all at once I saw her just as clear as day. She was down on her knees, too, lookin under her bed, and I thought, 'She's so unhappy, and she smells that same smell. The one that's like pennies and oysters. Only it didn't come from the well; it has something to do with her father.'

And then, all at once, it was like she looked around at me, Andy. . .I think she saw me. And when she did, I understood why she was so unhappy: her father'd been at her somehow, and she was tryin to cover it up. On top of that, she'd all at once realized someone was lookin at her, that a woman God knows how many miles away but still in the path of the eclipse - a woman who'd just killed her husband - was lookin at her.

She spoke to me, although I didn't hear her voice with my ears; it came from deep in the middle of my head. 'Who are you?' she ast.

I don't know if I would have answered her or not, but before I even had a chance to, a long, waverin scream came out of the well: 'Duh-lorrrrr-issss .

It felt like my blood froze solid inside me, and I know my heart stopped for a second, because when it started again, it had to catch up with three or four beats all crammed together. I'd picked the slip up, but my fingers relaxed when I heard that scream and it fell out of my hand n caught on one of those blackberry bushes.

'It's just your imagination workin overtime, Dolores,' I told myself. 'That little girl lookin under the bed for her clothes and Joe screamin like that you imagined em both. One was a hallucination that somehow come of catchin a whiff of stale air from the well, and the other was no more'n your own guilty conscience. Joe's layin at the bottom of that well with his head bashed in. He's dead, and he ain't gonna bother either you or the kids ever again.'

I didn't believe it at first, but more time went by and there was no more sound, except for an owl callin somewhere off in a field. I remember thinkin it sounded like he was askin how come his shift was gettin started so early today. A little breeze ran through the blackberry bushes, makin em rattle. I looked up at the stars shinin in the daytime sky, then down at the well-cap again. It almost seemed to float in the dark, and the hole in the middle he'd fallen through looked like an eye to me. July 20th, 1963, was my day for seeing eyes everywhere.

Then his voice come driftin outta the well again. 'Help me Duh-lorrrrr-isss .

I groaned n put my hands over my face. It wa'ant any good tryin to tell myself that was just my imagination or my guilty conscience or anything else except what it was: Joe. To me he sounded like he was cryin.

'Help meeeee pleeease . . . PLEEEEEEEA SE. . .' he moaned.

I stumbled my way around the well-cap and went runnin back along the path we'd beat in the brambles. I wasn't in a panic, not quite, and I'll tell you how I know that: I stopped long enough to pick up the reflector-box I'd had in my hand when we started out toward the blackberry patch. I couldn't remember droppin it as I ran, but when I saw it hangin off one of those branches, I grabbed it. Prob'ly a damned good thing, too, considerin how things went with that damned Dr McAuliffe . . but that's still a turn or two away from where I am now. I did stop to pick it up, that's the point, and to me that says I was still in possession of my wits. I could feel the panic trying to reach underneath em, though, the way a cat'll try to get its paw under the lid of a box, if it's hungry and it can smell food inside.

I thought about Selena, and that helped keep the panic away. I could imagine her standin on the beach of Lake Winthrop along with Tanya and forty or fifty little campers, each camper with his or her own reflector-box that they'd made in the Handicrafts Cabin, and the girls showin em exactly how to see the eclipse in em. It wasn't as clear as the vision I'd had out by the well, the one of the little girl lookin under the bed for her shorts n shirt, but it was clear enough for me to hear Selena talkin to the little ones in that slow, kind voice of hers, soothin the ones who were afraid. I thought about that, and about how I had to be here for her and her brothers when they got back. . . only if I gave in to the panic, I probably wouldn't be. I'd gone too far and done too much, and there wasn't nobody left I could count on except myself.

I went into the shed and found Joe's big six-cell flashlight on his worktable. I turned it on, but nothin happened; he'd let the batt'ries go flat, which was just like him. I keep the bottom drawer of his table stocked with fresh ones, though, because we lose the power so often in the winter. I got half a dozen and tried to fill the flashlight up again. My hands were tremblin so bad the first time that I dropped D-cells all over the floor and had to scramble for em. The second time I got em in, but I musta put one or two in bass-ackwards in my hurry, because the light wouldn't come on. I thought about just leavin it; the sun'd be coming out again pretty soon, after all. Except it'd be dark at the bottom of the well even after it did come out, and besides, there was a voice in the very back of my mind ternn me to keep on fiddlin and diddlin just as long's I wanted - that maybe if I took long enough, I'd find he'd finally given up the ghost when I did get back out there.