The Whispering Well
- 3 minute read
- Ages 9-13
- Horror Stories for Kids
Behind the school there was an old stone well that had been dry for fifty years.
Somebody had put a wooden lid on it and somebody else had put a stone on the lid, and the grass had grown up around it, and mostly people forgot it was there.
Rehan found it because his football went into the long grass.
The echo
He was pulling the ball out when he heard something under the wood.
He slid the stone off. He lifted the lid. He looked down into a black circle that smelled of cold earth.
"Hello," he said.
Hello, said the well.
He laughed, because of course it did. It was an echo. He shouted his name and the well shouted his name back, a half second late and thinner, the way echoes are.
He came back the next day and did it again. And the day after.
The delay
On the fourth day something was different.
He said hello, and there was a pause. A longer pause than there should have been. And then the well said hello.
He frowned and said his name.
The well said his name. But it took nearly two full seconds, and the voice was not thinner this time, and it did not sound like the shape of a shout coming back off stone.
He tested it. He said one word, quickly.
And the well said a different word.
Rehan stood very still with his hands on the rim. Then he asked, quietly, "Who is that?"
And after a moment, from a long way down, the well said his name again. Kindly. The way you say the name of a friend you are pleased to see.
The lid
He put the lid back on. He put the stone on the lid. He put a second stone on it, and a third, and then he went and found the caretaker and told him everything, and waited to be laughed at.
The caretaker was not laughing.
He asked Rehan how many days he had been talking to it. Rehan said four.
The caretaker went to the shed and came back with a bag of cement.
They filled it that afternoon, the two of them, and neither of them said very much while they worked, and when the cement was level with the ground the caretaker put the flat stone on top and stood on it for a while.
"Was there something down there?" Rehan asked.
"There is nothing down there now," said the caretaker.
Which was not an answer, and Rehan noticed.
Moral of the story
When something starts answering differently than it should, stop talking to it and tell an adult. Curiosity is good; going back a fifth time is not.
Questions and answers
- How did Rehan find the well?
His football rolled into the long grass behind the school and he found the well while pulling it out.
- What happened for the first three days?
The well echoed his words back exactly, a half second later and thinner, exactly as an echo should.
- What was different on the fourth day?
The reply took nearly two seconds, the voice was not thin like an echo, and eventually the well said a completely different word from the one Rehan had said.
- What did Rehan do when he became frightened?
He closed the lid, weighed it down with stones, and immediately went and told the school caretaker everything.
- Why is the caretaker's reaction unsettling?
He does not laugh or say Rehan imagined it. He asks how many days it has been and then fills the well with cement without explaining.
Word meanings
- echo
- A sound that bounces back off a surface and is heard again.
- caretaker
- A person who looks after a building such as a school.
- rim
- The top edge of something round, like a well or a cup.
- cement
- A grey powder mixed with water that sets very hard.
Questions about The Whispering Well
Is The Whispering Well suitable for younger children?
It suits ages nine and up. Nothing is shown or described violently, but the ending is deliberately unsettling and may be too much for very young readers.
What is the moral of The Whispering Well?
That telling a trusted adult early is the right response to something frightening, and that Rehan does exactly the right thing by stopping and reporting it.
Why does the caretaker fill in the well?
The story never explains. That is the point: his refusal to explain tells you he already knew something about the well before Rehan came to him.
Why do echoes come back thinner and quicker?
A real echo is your own voice reflecting off a hard surface, so it arrives quickly and sounds weaker. The story uses that fact to show when something stops being an echo.