You can read Chapter 1 here.
The wooden plank door of the Radlin cottage burst open a split second before Katy charged in. She stopped in the middle of the modest space that served as both dining room and kitchen. Ma looked up from the kettle she’d been absently stirring, confusion on her face.
“SOUP!?!” Katy bellowed. And with that, the confusion was gone.
“There’s SOUP in the 1000 Souls Well?” Katy continued.
Ma’s head dropped ever so slightly and she let out a sigh. Her eyes quickly fell on Pa as he raced in and quickly shut the door behind him. He was was obviously agitated, gyrating in various directions like a man who had a lot to say but not enough time to say it.
“Quiet, girl.” He managed with a hushed gruffness. You’re gonna rouse the whole village. Might like you already did with that act you pulled a moment ago.” He looked at Ma. It wasn’t difficult to imagine white flames from her coal black eyes searing holes into his chest.
“Hamish,” she said with all the calm she could muster, “I thought we agreed…”
“Ya, ya, I know we did. She just…”
“When are you going to tell me the truth?” Katy blurted out. Her eyes were wet, barely pushing back tears as she turned her attention back to her father.
“He did, sweetheart. Please come sit down.” Ma gestured to a chair at the small rectangular table in the middle of the room. “I’ll get your supper.”
Katy looked at Ma again, ready to lash out, but the older woman’s tone took some of the edge off her frustration. Ma had a way of doing that. Katy stepped over to chair nearby and plopped down, feeling somewhere between dejected and exhausted. The warmth of the cottage, the familiar space where she’d spent her entire life sleeping, eating…growing up, granted her a sliver of comfort.
Pa sat down in the chair next to her. “I did, lass. I know it sounds fantastic but I did.” He looked up at Ma who was still staring at him despite pouring stew into a chipped bowl. “I’m sorry dear, I know we were going to wait.”
Katy’s mother set the bowl on the table in front of her and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, gently rubbing it. She’d finally taken her gaze from Pa. “Well, it seems what’s done is done.” She sat down and put her hands together on the old table, searching for the right words. “We were planning on telling you…one day. When you were older.”
“Well, you can tell me all about it now,” Katy replied sulking. She started digging into her stew. She was hungrier than she thought she’d be. Especially at a time like that. The onion and mushroom brew laced with a bit of dried beef was one of her favorites. .
Ma looked at Pa again and nodded. He took a breath. “We didn’t want to tell you until you were grown. We thought it would be too dangerous otherwise.”
Katy dropped her spoon in the bowl. “Too dangerous to learn about soup? Not that I even believe it, but what could possibly be the peril? Is the soup…evil? Should I be worried about this stew too? She looked down at her meal and suddenly saw it in a radically different light.
“To be honest, the soup’s quite good.” Pa responded.
“Hamish! Stop it.”
“Just trying to be straight with the girl.”
“Are you saying you’ve eaten the soup? The soup from the 1000 Souls Well? Well soup?”
Pa’s eyes looked away for a moment then came back to Ma who now seemed quite anxious about where the story was going. He tilted his head raised his eyebrows, seeming to accept that there was only one place the story could go. “Aye…we had some three weeks ago at the Autumn-tide potluck. Ossil and James pulled it from the well and served it there…well, you know, not at the Well but at the potluck. They passed it off as Ossil’s wife’s recipe. Some sort of hearty tomato, if I’m remembering true.” He looked at Katy and produced a weakly sheepish grin. Ma just shook here head, then let her face fall limply into the palm of her hand.
Katy stared at her father. Of the half-dozen statements she’d heard from him over the past few minutes, she felt comfortable believing two of them. There was a secret they’d kept from the children and, assuming the soup story was real, he had almost certainly tried some. Her eyes went wide and she looked toward a higher power. Unfortunately, Ma seemed unprepared - or simply unable - to further illuminate the situation.
“Assuming all this talk about ‘soup’ is true, just as you say,” Katy continued, “why do you both think it’s so wrong for me and the rest of children, to know?”
Ma and Pa looked at each other again. Something passed between them that Katy couldn’t identify. Then Ma turned to her. “We were afraid you’d want to know more. That you wouldn’t be willing to accept the situation as it is.” She shifted uncomfortably. “That you’d want to find out ‘why’ the Well makes soup. And you’d go looking for answers in dangerous places.”
“Didn’t you want to do the same, when you found out?”
“By the time we found out,” Ma replied, “We were already grown and starting families of our own. We were working farmsteads and raising children. There was no time for adventure or flights of fancy. It was easier for us to accept.”
Katy wasn’t soothed by Ma’s explanation.
“Sweetheart, some of the townsfolk don’t even know,” Ma continued. “To them, the Well is just a dried up hole no one has gone to in years. Only the members of the village assembly know what’s really drawn from there.”
“Then who told you? Who told them? Someone has to know why!” Katy already had a strong suspicion. There was only one person in the village with that kind of knowledge…of history and magic. She could see it in their eyes.
“Fine,” she said. Then maybe she’ll tell me…”