Diviner's Well

Diviner's Well smells like petrichor, pine needles, green musk ---------- To Gaze Beyond I leaned over the crumbling rim, daring the water to be still. But it moved instantly - faces rising from the depths like smoke through glass. My brother, long buried. A girl I once wronged.  A stranger in a crown of briars.  I gasped and stumbled back, heart hammering. The well looked more ruin than relic. Its black stone was worn and broken, veined with green musk that pulsed faintly beneath the cracks like something alive. Ivy curled around it like a shroud, tugging at the structure as if trying to bury it completely. Pine needles littered the rim, soft and damp, yet unmoving—until they weren’t. I stepped forward again. The water moved once more. My reflection did not return.  Instead, the older version of me surfaced, her gaze steady and strange. She asked, in a voice like falling leaves, “What has no memory, but always a price?” The coin in my hand felt heavier than it should have. I held it above the water, then let it fall. The well accepted it. The green musk stirred, rising from the cracks in smoky tendrils, curling around my wrists, then my arms, then my throat. It moved with purpose, not wind. The pine needles quivered one by one, then lifted into the air like they were caught in an unseen current. The stones beneath me gave a slow, aching groan, as if remembering their own weight. This place had been buried by time and silence, hidden even from the birds. But as the ground stirred and the air thickened, the clearing no longer felt empty. Something else had woken. And it heard me. I looked over the rim once more, prepared for whatever may come. The water surged. The world pulled away from itself, and I fell.  Not down into the well, but forward into a moment I had not lived yet, toward a future already watching me from the depths. 8oz Candle Premium Coconut & Soy Wax Extra Thick, Crackling Wood Wick Strong Scent That Fills The Room Luxurious, Frosted Amber Jar 40+ Hour Burn Time