Gil

This fool, did she really mean to shimmy all the way down to the bottom of the well? When I think of it, I still can’t decide whether I want to laugh or throttle her. How could anyone be so reckless with their own life?

“What is it you want to get back?” I ask, pulling away a little to give her some breathing room before she passes out—I don’t think she’s taken a breath since I gave her my name. This girl, something about her manner tells me she hasn’t got a lot of experience dealing with men, but that’s alright. I’m not much used to dealing with women, either.

Still, this one’s different, I think, eyes sweeping her form thoughtfully. With her mannish clothes and short haircut, her awkward manners and her gruff way of speaking, I find myself instantly at ease around her, almost as though she were a cheeky little brother. A very cute little brother with long eyelashes and full, pretty lips…

I shake my head a little to banish these thoughts. What am I imagining, at a time like this?

“Tell me what’s waiting at the bottom of that well that’s so important you’d risk your life to get it back?”

She lowers her gaze and bites her lip when it starts to tremble. I’m a little startled to see tears appear in her eyes, but she represses them by sheer willpower, so not a single drop spills over.

“Mother,” she says softly.

“Mother?”

“M-mother’s brooch. Yelena took it against my will to wear today and then carelessly let it fall in the well.”

“I see. Is it expensive?”

“Yes—that is—I don’t really know. But that doesn’t matter to me. That brooch is all I had left of my mother after she passed away,” she explains, looking up at me, still somehow holding back her tears. “It’s my most precious memory.”

So that’s how it is, I think to myself, straightening to reach past her for the rope and pulley hanging off of the beam suspended over the well. Pulling the bucket over, I deposit it into her hands.

“What’s this?”

“I said I’d help you if you had a good enough reason, didn’t I? Get in the bucket; I’ll lower you down.”

She doesn’t waste a lot of time puzzling over my reasoning or considering her next move. A quick one, this girl, I think as she drops the bucket over the side and sticks her foot in, gripping the rope in her sure hands. I get the feeling she’ll keep me on my toes.

“Hold on tight,” I instruct her. “I won’t let you fall.”

“Mh,” she nods, then turns her attention to the bottom of the well as slowly, hand over hand, I let her down.   

It’s a long way to the bottom, at least twenty feet. I feel the rope jump a bit and then slack as she jumps out of the bucket. I hear the faint echo of a splash. Peering over the edge, I hold out the lantern in an effort to see her, but all I glimpse is the top of her head.

“How deep is that water?”

“About three and a half feet,” she answers, her voice so distorted by the well’s echo it’s almost unintelligible.

That’s deep, I think with a frown. She’ll have to submerge herself completely to search for the brooch. And that water must be freezing.

I don’t like it. There’s nothing I can do to help her, and knowing this makes waiting all the more maddening.

It’s hard to say how much time passes. It feels like an hour, but in reality it’s probably less than ten minutes. Then her triumphant voice suddenly breaks the strained silence.

“I’ve got it!”

“Get in the bucket; I’ll pull you up.”

I don’t breathe easily until that girl’s back on dry land again. She’s soaked. Her hair is plastered against her skull, her teeth are chattering with cold; even in the dark, I can tell her lips are blue. But she’s smiling through it, and with a shaking hand she holds up a gleaming jeweled brooch.

“M-mother,” she announces proudly, and I feel a faint smile of relief pull itself across my features.

“Alright,” I say, swiftly removing my coat to lay it over her sodden shoulders. “You’ve got your brooch back, now let’s get you inside.”

“Th-thank you for h-helping m-me, G-Gil.”

It feels a little funny to hear her say my name, and it occurs to me suddenly that I do not know hers. Earlier today she was introduced to us only as the mayor’s daughter, so I’d been thinking of her simply as Miss Stuart. Suddenly, though, I find myself very much wanting a more personal name to call her by.

“You’re welcome,” I answer. Then, a bit awkwardly, I broach the subject: “I say, Funny Face, have you got a name?”

“Evangeline!”

Both of us look up startled to find the mayor standing in the road ten feet from us, perspiring and breathing heavily. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, girl, what on earth are you doing out here, and with a man, no less? Why, I’ve half a mind to—”

 Never minding her father’s murderous scowl, I juxtapose myself between them without even thinking about it, and meet his glare with one of my own. Instantly recognizing me, Mayor Stuart begins to stammer awkwardly.

“Y-you’re Mr. Livingston’s bodyguard, forgive me, I—but what are you doing out here with Evangeline? Don’t tell me you two—”

“Whatever nonsense you’re imagining, I’ll stop you there,” I say. “I was merely helping the lady recover her lost valuable.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

She steps out from behind me then, somehow looking incredibly bold in spite of the small, bedraggled figure she cuts.

“Good God,” her father exclaims softly as he draws nearer. “You’re soaking wet.”

Rather than answer, she simply holds out her mother’s brooch. He comes nearer to examine it, first without recognition, then with something like realization and deep pain in his eyes.

“That’s… Kristine’s brooch.”

I see Evangeline’s back bristle at her father’s casual use of his dead wife’s name, though I think she’s too timid or too cold to reproach him.

“It’s a-all I h-have of h-her. Y-Yelena…”

She’s chattering too much to speak properly, so I find myself filling in the story for her.

“Her sister took it to wear to the festival, then dropped it down the well. That’s why she attacked her today.”

The mayor seems to be in disbelief. “Yelena did that? No, she wouldn’t do something so cruel, it must have been an accident.”

“Accident or not, you took her side in front of all those people, and even struck your daughter without even hearing her side of the story.”

“But Yelena said—”

“Did you really think Evangeline coveted the May Queen title? I’ve known your daughter all of fifteen minutes and I can already tell she’s not the kind of person to care about such a thing.”

What can I do? Suddenly I’m so disgusted with this man it’s all I can do not to punch him in the mouth. Then that girl’s ice cold hand descends abruptly to cover my own, and she squeezes me in what I interpret as a gesture of thanks. She turns and nods her head gratefully to me, and with a pang I realize she’s bidding me goodnight.

She’s not really going to go with that repulsive man, is she? Then, where else would she go? I ask myself as I watch her walk away.

It’s not as though she has anything to do with me. Hell, I barely know her. And yet…

I know her well enough to know that name doesn’t suit her at all, I think as I watch her walk away with her father. Evangeline Stuart, so long and formal, it’s the name of a queen or a saint, not of a mischievous woodland sprite.

“Evie,” I hear myself say as she rounds the corner with one final glance back at me and disappears from view.  

That’s what I’ll call her, if I ever see her again.

Evie.