The Affair of the Green Well

by Peter Miller

March 12, 1777
Bucharest.

Your Eminence,

Still it snows. They say here that snow is God’s way of bringing quiet to the world. That it impedes the carts and wagons that normally clatter down the stony street here below the Church at Coltea cannot be disputed, and there is undoubtedly a certain muteness on the voices and footsteps that normally rise from the lanes and alleys. For my own part though I cannot help but think that the quiet is that of the soul, a dull leaden layer that closes like a great grim hand over bright spirits and cheerful manner. The warmth and joy of the Christmas Masses seems distant and uncomforting, and most poor folk here find solace in song and drink to see them safely through the long dark nights.

Perhaps it is just my fancy but I find myself wondering whether it is times such as this that The Evil One finds the most advantageous to His plans.

As you know Eminence, this remote part of the world is filled with many unholy and brutish reckonings and it behoves me to inform you of yet another abomination with which it has been my misfortune to have been involved. I hope that you do not read in my letters any gratuitous self-aggrandisement or idle voyeurism, for I do not mean this to be the case. I write so that these things may be recorded, and thus that the multitude of ways that Evil may manifest be never underestimated.

This Thursday last, the Eve of Lammas, as I was making my way homeward from the hospital, I came upon the most eerie of happenings. The light in the streets was dim, and I can only say that it was some premonition or sense of otherness that halted me at the corner of a narrow lane, and prompted me to step swiftly back into the shadows.

I have written before of the family Vacaresti, boyars whose wealth is evident in all things in Bucharest. It is said that their success stems from the trade that passes through this place to Constantinople, and indeed their mark can be seen often on the carriages and wagons that travel the roads around the city.

It was this mark I now saw on a coach drawn up at the old wall that runs alongside the river. Two great black horses stamped and puffed in the chill air, and the coachlamps allowed a dull red glow over the scene. The driver, a tall sallow looking man, had opened the coach door. From inside, a figure wrapped in a heavy cloak alighted, carrying what I at first took to be some old clothes. Even as I thought this, I heard a faint sound and knew at once that the bundle contained a child.

Without any further ceremony, the driver closed the door and swung himself back into his seat, pulled his coat collar around his ears and settled, as if for a long wait.

The cloaked figure turned and walked into the shadows further down the river wall. The red light from the lamps flickered briefly on a pallid face and I recognised her at once. For it was a woman; Maria Vacaresti, wife of Razvan Vacaresti, the most powerful man of that great family.

Your eminence, I hope you can understand my concern and compassion for the fate of the child bundled in those rags, my senses heightened by the feeling of something not at ease with the world as I mentioned previously. As quietly as I was able, I slipped by the great coach, unseen by the driver, and made my way along the wall.

I had by this time drawn my dagger which I carry upon my person always as you know. I came abruptly upon a great stone doorway set into the wall, and I could see clearly by the footsteps in the snow that this was where Maria Vacaresti had gone. My common sense told me that this was impossible; surely, I thought, the door could lead nowhere but directly into the river, the wall having been built immediately by its bank in this place.

I pushed at the heavy iron door and by the light of some faint greenish luminescence, I saw stone steps leading downwards.

Under the river.

Your Grace, no doubt you have a sense of the dread that I had, as I felt my way down those ice covered steps in that dim uncanny light. Of course, I could not know the purpose of the woman who walked somewhere ahead of me carrying that child, but the circumstances seemed to indicate that there was to be no joyful welcome at the end of this dank and putrid tunnel.

The steps levelled into a stone passage, smooth on the floor as if worn by the frequent travel of many feet. I could now see that the feeble green glow that afforded me sight came from thousands of tiny mushrooms that covered the walls and roof of the passage.

My breath condensed heavily into the cold air and I could palpably feel those foul pale fungi inhale the very vapours that left my mouth. Hoar frost crystallized on my beard and robes. It was as if my life was being drawn from me for the purposes of some creative act of Evil.

I saw, after many minutes of cautious and quiet progress, that the passage began to make an incline and I knew that I must have walked the entire width of the river. I came to more steps, this time leading upwards.

From somewhere above, I heard the muffled cry of the child, and I quickened my pace, not even thinking to heed my safety on this slippery and treacherous stairway.

Eminence, as I made my way upward the greenish light grew stronger, and so did my sense of foreboding. The passage ended without warning and were it not for my quick action I would have stumbled immediately out into a wide chamber, its vaulted roof awash with rippling liquid verdant luminance. I stepped back into the relative shadow of the tunnel.

Even as I write, I struggle to remember clearly the sight which met my eyes, so odd did it seem. In the middle of the stone floor was cut a well, and this was plainly the source of the weird illumination that filled that grim place. On the far side of that green well, stood Maria Vacaresti, the hood of her cloak thrown back and her pale face strange and terrible in that opalescent emerald light. Her cold breath curled like green smoke from her mouth, and she stood motionless, the swaddled child held close to her breast.

I watched with a fascination beyond my control, not daring to move an inch, nor even, it seemed, to breathe. Almost imperceptibly, she began to croon a low unsettling melody, if one could consider it such. It was a sound more akin perhaps to the fluting moan of wind across a frozen lake or the song of night birds in the dark forests of the Carpathians. The somnolent tone resonated and folded back in on itself in that cavernous room and it seemed to come from everywhere at once, yet still remain whispered and vague. The chill in the air was as nothing to the chill of the soul that came from that drear and formless tune.

I cannot say how long I did stand there, for I was held by her singing as if by a morbid enchantment.

Then, the skin on my arms and face began to prickle. Over the lip of the green well came a hand.

Your Eminence, can you feel my dismay and revulsion as I saw a pallid corpselike figure drag itself up onto the stone floor, mewling and sniffing and tipping its head from side to side, as if listening to the unearthly song that Maria Vacaresti did sing.

I can hardly begin to make an accurate description of the loathsome thing that flopped and writhed on the floor. Its head was tapered and scaled, and it had great black wet eyes and lips that stretched wide across its face. It reminded me of nothing less than the face of some brutish dead fish. Like a fish it gasped and puckered as if it was unaccustomed to the frigid air. And in this manner, still sniffing, it pulled itself across the floor toward the singing woman. I could not tell whether its body was covered in dark hair or river weed, but it wore a strange kind of armour or vestment, or so it seemed to me, and also by its side a short sword of some ancient crafting.

Surely, I thought, the woman should run in terror from this hideous apparition, but as you have no doubt realised in your wisdom, Eminence, Maria Vacaresti would not flee because she had called this monster from the depths of the green well for some dark and vile purpose. And as that thought came to me I saw her kneel down on the floor in front of the beast and unwrap the clothing from the child she held.

Then, Your Grace, my very soul did fill with horror, for she held out that child to the fish-thing which began immediately to make more loud mewling and whining sounds. What happened next struck in me such disgust that even now I have a shaking hand as I record it. The fish creature extended a huge white tongue and began to lick the child, and suck on its arms and head with those great fleshy lips, while Maria Vacaresti looked on, still singing. The awful sounds of wet sucking and licking and brutish enjoyment of the fish-thing and the crying and distress of the child, and the low moaning song filled that abominable place, echoing around the walls. It was a symphony of the most sombre evil. It is a sound I will remember always in my darkest nightmares.

I cannot lie to you and say that I sprang to fend off that loathsome creature from the innocent child, for I was rooted to the spot with dread and, as I mentioned, an unholy fascination. I do not know whether this was God’s Will or cowardice on my part, but whatever the reason I must inform you that I did nothing but watch, standing there in the mouth of that dank tunnel, my dagger drawn uselessly.

After a little time the woman stopped her singing. The fish-creature continued its vile sucking, but it seemed to me that it had become sated and it appeared drowsy and, one could almost imagine, drugged.

Then, Maria Vacaresti said just one word.

“Enough.”

She stood and drew the child away from the obscene monster. The chamber fell silent as the fish-thing stopped its unwholesome feeding, and the child stopped crying. That one word “Enough!” flickered in cascading echoes around the stone walls.

Eminence, at that moment the brutish fish-thing turned, as if to plunge back into the depths of the green well, but as it did so it hesitated and sniffed at the air.

My heart, which had almost stilled to a dead stop, began to beat heavily and fast.

It knew I was there! The great black eyes turned this way and that, seeking out the thing it could smell. The thick pale tongue reached out and licked its eyes, and I realised with sudden shock that I had seen that face before!

I needed no further encouragement. Without a thought to the sureness of my path I turned and fled, back down that dim and murky tunnel, under the river and up the stairs at the other end. I know not whether the fish-monster attempted to pursue me. So great was my fear and my determination to be back in the fresh cold air of the world above that I ran blindly, and as a man crazed, slipping and stumbling on the frozen stone.

Your Grace, I write to you from my small room aside the church. Even now after several days, I hearken to every small sound I hear in the night, in fear that the fish-beast has come from its lair in the green well to practise its vile sucking upon me.

And yet, my reason says that this is unlikely to be so, for I believe that the terrible thing to which I was a witness in that underground chamber was nothing less than a ritual of many repeatings over many years. I have heard it said often that the wealth and power of the Vacaresti were vested in an ancient pact with Evil, stories that I once dismissed as gossip or the rumour-mongering of jealous merchants. But I think you will agree, Your Eminence, that the events I have described to you here, abominations that I have seen with my own eyes, provide an ample evidence of such dealings.
And to that end, I will tell you one more thing. You will remember that when the brutish fiend turned toward me in that cold and ominous vault, I wrote to you that I had seen that hideous face before.

It is God’s Truth.

That face is to be seen every day upon the streets of Bucharest. It is incised on the walls, rendered in the stone of the cathedral, painted on the signs of the inns. For the mark of Vacaresti, the very symbol that appears in all these places and on a great many of the coaches and wagons that ply their trade in Bucharest is the face of the grotesque fish-being from the depths of the foul green well.