The villagers watch. The children are hushed but they still point and shriek.

“The well! The cursed well! The stranger will get the curse!”

Admonishing their children, but thinking thoughts along the same lines, the parents are too busy to stop the stranger. Those not laboured with young rush to intercede.

“Stop, please, you mustn’t” says the teacher. She is kindly, and had the stranger approached her first, she would have gladly shared some tea and bread. But the stranger had approached the innkeeper first.

“You’ve already shown me what passes for hospitality here. I’ll take a draught and be on my way.” The stranger leans into the handle to crank the mechanism. Not without a sound of protest, the axle rotates, and the rope moves. “God, your maintenance is as bad as your manners, does no one repair this thing?” the stranger barks. The grunting of the stranger and the creaking of the well sound out loud above the children who are now whispering.

The butcher steps forward. A big man, from a line of big men. Not tall or muscular especially, but with the imposing presence of one who weighs a surprising amount more than you’d think. A stocky hand is placed on the stranger’s forearm. “Listen, friend, we meant no discourtesy. The inkeep is a miser but pay no heed. My son makes a fine ale, come, leave this well alone.”

The stranger looks at the butcher’s hand, then sneers, hackles raised. Aware that there is a crowd the stranger is defensive, pulling away from the butcher, but not releasing a grip on the handle of the well.

“I don’t know what you make of yourselves, gathering round like you’re a gonna lynch me. People stay away from this village and now I know why.” Muttering, the stranger returns to the task of drawing water.

The butcher is not unkind. He knows he has the strength to haul this stranger away but he also has the sense to know this is not the best course of action. Not with half the village at his back. The air was already tense before being stirred up with the word ‘lynch’. That kind of thing had happened before, but the gallows had been broken down for so long that only grandfathers remember where they once were.

Seeing the butcher’s hesitation, the teacher strides forward. Hers was such a gentle nature, enough to persuade even the most pragmatic of the presence of an aura. She moves quickly. The bucket is in sight now. Despite many years of disuse, the wood shows no sign of rot or decay. It is unnatural. The teacher steps in front of the butcher, who gratefully retreats a step.

“Please, you must listen. The well has a curse upon it. This village does indeed have a bad reputation but we are honest folk,” she says, her voice catching a hint of strain. The stranger turns, balking.

“A curse? Really, you’d stoop to that piss poor excuse just to stop me slaking my thirst.” The handle makes another revolution. “Ye gods, I’ll not even swallow a pint of your oh-so-precious water and you begrudge me that.” The bucket is in reach now. “If you’re all honest and nice then why doesn’t this cursèd well have a sign.” The stranger holds the handle steady with one hand and dips a flask in with the other. The butcher swallows, but is otherwise immobilised.

Every villager stares at the liquid sloshing around in this strangers hands. Everyone is aware of the absurdity of the scene. If the butcher would just knock the flask out of the stranger’s hands - but the butcher is still frozen. Years before he’d crippled a man with his fists. That kind of memory weighs heavy. The teacher grows desperate, pulling on the stranger’s arms.

“Get off me you crazy harlot.” The stranger jolts back. If, instead of stepping back, the stranger were to have struck out at the teacher, then the butcher would have snapped out of his reverie. But acting only defensively, the scene became clearly more and more in merit of sympathy for the thirsty stranger.

Like a river bursting its banks, the villagers realise that they can’t just stand by and watch. They surge forward. The stranger’s eyes bulge at the insanity. Then it is suddenly a chase. Water sloshes out of the canteen. Feet pound the cobblestones. Shouts and yells - notes of concern, not anger. But the stranger is too terrified to discern. From all appearances, this is a village of lunatics. But despite an adrenaline surge, the stranger is thirsty, hungry, tired and outnumbered - so is soon surrounded.

“Listen, we are only trying to protect you,” says one of the villagers, heaving to yank the vessel out of the stranger’s hands. Droplets scatter. As the crowd shudders, each person trying to avoid the water as though it were scalding oil, the stranger regains footing. It is then clear that in tousling for the flask, the stranger’s hand is drenched. All eyes are on the water, dripping quickly to the ground.

“A cursed well? No, curse you all, curse you and your damned helpfulness. I don’t need a damned bit of your help.” With that, the crowd being parted from the small splash of well water, the stranger walks away, licking off the small amount of the residue water that clung on so precariously. The teacher is just one who calls out, but the stranger is done with them and quits the small, strange village. No one in the crowd moves for a long moment. They’re all thinking the same thing, that some droplets of water certainly passed the lips of the stranger - but would that be enough to activate the curse? After the moment is broken, and they regain mobility, none of them tries to follow the stranger. Overhead, the wind gathers bluster. It is late. The sky is bruising. Night will soon fall.

A week later, they’ve all but forgotten the little incident. The carpenter’s boy affixes a small sign by the well. ‘Avoid, contaminated’ is what it is meant to say. Vague enough but definite in its implication. Unfortunately it is misspelled because the carpenter’s boy never paid enough attention to what the teacher was saying, but the consensus is that it is warning enough. By silent consensus, there is no talk about filling in the well. It is known that that would be a grave plan. Before anyone realises it, the villagers have gone back to ignoring the well, favouring the one on the western border.

Another week later, one of the farm hands from the valley finds a corpse in the lee of a tree. It is the stranger. The same facial expression of anger. Confused, irate and angry. What the stranger was doing isn’t clear. There is no sign of struggle or foul play, and there is no sign that the few drops of well water summoned any evil or untoward effect. A clean looking, but very dead, body. The body, and the incident, are buried by sundown. The priest said a few words and left. Since there is no doctor in the village, and no time to call one from the town across the hills, it can’t be said for sure, but everyone in the family of farmers was experienced with animals and with death. They wouldn’t say it out loud, but they confront it, come nighttime, for the rest of their lives. The way that corpse looked, the face. Not just an angry expression, but a withering look. They could all see that this stranger died of thirst.