Young Writers Project is a creative online community of teen writers, photographers and artists, which has been based in Vermont since 2006. Each week, VTDigger features the writing and art of young Vermonters who publish their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for 12- to 18-year-olds. To find out more, visit youngwritersproject.org, or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org and 802-324-9538.
We may make a wish when we blow out our birthday candles, find a stray eyelash on our cheek or spot a shooting star, but rarely does a sense of mystery accompany that hopeful thought. The same cannot be said for the enchanting fantasy of a wishing well. This week’s featured writer, Mavis Downey of Thetford Center, answers the question: If we toss in a coin, how is it that our dreams can really come true?
The bottom of the wishing well
Mavis Downey, 15, Thetford Center
A penny from a young girl with pigtails and a toothy grin, a dime from a poet in a baseball cap, and a quarter from an elderly lady on her morning stroll. Little snippets of a million people’s stories, scattered at the deep, damp bottom of a wishing well. Some aged, others as bright and shiny as spring sunshine. All come to make a single wish.
Hopes and dreams lie at the bottom of this well, waiting to come true. And if you’re quiet enough and sit as still as an oak, you can hear it: a little pitter-patter or a light flutter. Sounds of wings brushing together midflight and tiny feet scurrying along. Collecting each and every coin, quick as can be. They’re gone in a flash, taking flight as soon as the last coin is gathered.
They take them back home, out of the well, across the fields, and over the treetops. No one knows where they really go, but they do know it’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen — a sprawling forest unlike any you’ve seen before. It’s like another world where things don’t act the same as they do here. The breeze makes no noise as it travels through the leaves in the forest, the sun’s rays have an unnatural shimmer to them, and if you look carefully at the water, you can see pictures dancing within it.
And right in the middle of the forest, there’s one ancient willow tree. The creatures enter through
small holes all around the trunk, going to the middle. There in the center of the tree is a pool. But it’s not water in this pool — it’s a truly foreign substance, metallic and shimmery. It resembles smooth, pristine glass, until the surface is broken.
The creatures go one by one to place their coins in the pool. As soon as the metal touches the
surface, it’s swallowed up in a flash. Faint voices are audible through the darkness of the tree. Like wind chimes, twinkling and soft. Wishes from each and every person. A puppy for Christmas, true love, escape.
They will come true. Every time.
