It’s 2017.

April 12, 2017.

Where in the world is June Brooks right now?

She’s at home, sitting on her bed, staring into her closet.

Inside her closet is It.

Well, it’s really just a black dress. But It represents so much more than a black dress usually would.

Her mother’s funeral, for example.

The fact that she’s moving away tomorrow, and so there’s nothing else in the closet but that black dress, for another.

She was only fourteen. Fourteen is too young to be an orphan.

Orphan is such a funny word. When you hear the word orphan, you imagine a small child, alone in the world.

In fact, according to Merriam-Webster, an orphan is defined as, “a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents”. So, technically, June is an orphan. She knows this, because she looked it up.

Lottie, June’s younger sister, has been crying all morning. Asking for Mama. The only thing that she knows is that Mama was here four days ago and is suddenly absent, and perhaps if she screams loud enough, Mama will come back.

June can hear her father trying to hush Lottie, a near-impossible task, as Lottie is three years old and her tantrums seem to go on forever, or at least until she tires herself out.

What was it like to be an orphan? June didn’t exactly know, she had only been at it for four days. It was quite unexpected, as well; she imagined that quite a few orphans at least had some time to prepare for the possibility. Like if their parent got sick, or injured, they might have some time before, to come to terms with it.

It was a car accident that took her mother, though. It was fast, at least June knew that her mother didn't suffer.

She simply blinked out of existence, like a lightswitch turning off.

June slid the black dress around herself, over her shoulders. Black wasn’t her color; with blonde hair and gray eyes, she looked better in blue. At least, her mother had said so.

But you don’t wear blue to a funeral.

She pulled on her black flats, slipped her phone into her pocket, and walked out, unsteady feet tripping over themselves. She touched the walls for support, the bare walls where pictures had once hung. Pictures of her and Lottie and their parents and friends, that were now stacked in boxes and sitting in the back of the mover's van her father had rented.

The drive to the funeral was completely silent. Even Lottie didn't dare make a fuss.

It was a long day, filled to the brim with tears and condolences and people dressed all in black. Mourning.

June wasn’t sure how she felt. She supposed that she should feel sad, but she just felt empty.

That night, she knew, was the last night she would sleep in her bed. The last time she would live in her childhood home.

Her worst fear was that noplace else would feel like home.

But without her mother, she wasn’t sure that she would ever feel at home again.

I was always partial to Papa.

I was the youngest, the wild one, Papa said. He let me do things that other girls in town didn’t get to do, like fishing, and hunting sometimes. Mama would argue that I wasn’t supposed to be doing those things, that I should be more like Lanie, delicate and ladylike and defined. But I never liked the same things Lanie did, and I think Mama knew that.

One time, I remember we went down to go fishing. I loved fishing, especially when Papa could catch them with his bare hands. We were always careful to stay on the banks of the river, but that day, I decided to jump in, see if I could catch one with my bare hands like Papa could.

When I left the water, defeated, there were leeches all over my legs. He had to pull them off, but we kept it a secret. Mama never knew.

Papa was good at keeping secrets. But I haven’t seen Papa for ages. He’s up in Heaven, probably. Mama, too.

I don’t know what happened to Lanie. Maybe she's got children, and grandchildren, and sits by the fire sewing quilts all the time like Granny used to.

Or maybe she's up in Heaven, too.

June thought that she would never feel lonelier than she did the day of her mother's funeral, the day they said goodbye-for-now.

She was wrong.

The loneliest part was after. They had moved a bunch of times since the funeral, never staying in one place long enough to make friends. June changed schools every few months.

Sometimes, renovations would take longer. The third house, that one took almost six months to finish. Her father wasn't happy. Said something about the construction crews taking too long.

Lottie hated the construction crews. They made a lot of noise. In fact, she hated the car, too, so these last two years had been hard on her.

The family car, a beat-up old minivan, screeched to a stop in front of the house. Or, rather, in front of a dirt road that was too narrow to traverse by car.

June jumped out of the car, pulling Lottie with her. "Do we have to walk from here?"

Her father sighed. "I suppose so, kiddos."

It couldn't have been even a quarter-mile, but it seemed to take hours. The summer sun was hot, and there was no shade in sight, either.

As it turned out, the house was an old farmhouse, apparently built in 1875, and remodeled after. It looked angular, with a large roof that came to a sharp point, and a porch that wrapped all the way around the house.

June had to admit, it was one of the better places they had stayed in.

"There's a barn, too;" her father said, as if reading her mind.

Sure enough, June turned to see the barn, big and red and nestled into the hillside, across the big, open field behind the house.

"This one's supposed to be haunted, too;" her father said jokingly. June smiled. It wasn't often that the dad she remembered resurfaced. It seemed to be happening more now, which June took as a good sign.

Maybe the country is exactly what I need for the summer, she thought, a sentiment she would quickly take back as the weather proved to be unbearably hot.

Lottie, however, was in her element, already jumping around. "Let's go play!" she begged, tugging on June's arm.

June sighed, seeing her father's pleading look. "I'll take you. Let's go."

She put her suitcase back in the car, and the two of them ran around to the back of the house, jumping and laughing. The day was just warm and breezy enough to be excellent playing weather.

She didn't feel like herself, but at this point, she wondered, was it a bad thing?

June was so lost in thought that she didn't see which way Lottie was going, until she heard her scream.

I hear a scream.

It’s Lanie. My big sister.

Memories flash past my eyes. Running in the field, slick with dewy grass. The moon, lighting our path. The cellar, deep and cold and dark.

No, this is the opposite of dark. I can see light.

I’ve seen light before. But it was in cracks and slivers, tiny rays that snuck through the boards. It’s been like that for ages. I remember dancing in the sun, with Lanie.

I quickly realize that there is something moving, right through the door! A foot, I think. An ankle, a leg. Small. It must be a child.

Then, it’s being pulled away, and the boards with it. The sky is cracking open, like an egg, spilling light onto my face, my lips, my hands. Warmth.

I hear a girl talking, an older one. Older than Lanie, even. She sounds worried.

“Hello? Hello? I’m down here!”

The girl peeks over the edge of the well. “Hello?” she asks. I’m surprised she heard me.

“I’m trapped! Please, help me get out!” I yell, stomping my feet in the puddle of water that rises to my knees.

The girl looks scared, upset. "I'll go get my Dad;" she says. The fear makes her voice shaky.

Then, she disappears from view.

Her father doesn’t believe her.

No, he doesn’t believe himself.

When he looks down between the rotten boards, he sees the inside of the well, his face reflecting off the surface of the murky water.

“There’s no one there.”

June looks down, too. She doesn't see anyone, either.

“Maybe you saw a ghost;” her father says with a grin. The smile is empty.

Even though June insists, he shrugs her off.

He doesn’t tell her about what he’s seen.

How her mother comes to him, every night, to speak to him. To sleep, to talk, as if she were still alive.

He doesn’t tell her, because he thinks that it’s a hallucination, a product of a grieving brain.

He doesn’t want her to think that she’s alone, that he can’t take care of her, of her little sister.

So he goes back to the farmhouse, and pours himself a drink instead.

He can’t see me.

I peek between the boards of the cellar door, squinting. The man is walking around the field, yelling our names. Saying that we have nothing to be scared of.

But he’s still holding the gun.

Tears slide down my cheeks, and Lanie wipes them away. She tells me that I have to be brave, that I’m going to have to run for help.

I nod. I can help. Get the doctor, the police. Maybe they can save Mama and Papa.

The man is getting closer. The gun is swinging lazily in his right hand, as he saunters toward the cellar doors. I close my eyes. I have to run.

This place is much smaller than the cellar. I always imagined the well to be big inside, but I can’t even stretch my arms out all the way.

I notice my arms, then, covered with grime and slick with water, my hands smeared with mud from the walls. The girl must have been scared of me.

I’ve been down here a long time, I think.

Mama and Papa and Lanie must be in heaven, by now. I always thought I would go to heaven, too. Mama always taught us that the good people went to heaven.

But I’m not good.

I let them die.

Lottie is very young.

So young, in fact, that she might not remember putting her foot through the boards that covered the well.

She might not remember seeing the girl sitting in the bottom of the well.

She might not remember the house, the fields, playing with her sister that afternoon.

And she probably won’t remember her mother.

June knows this.

And she has never felt more jealousy towards her little sister.

You can’t miss something if you don’t remember it in the first place.

June has lived in exactly 8 homes.

6 of those were after her mother’s death, the ones her father renovated and flipped, crumbling at the seams.

Most of the houses had been relatively isolated, but never so far into the country as this one. When she spent her first night in the new house, it felt like she was being suffocated with the silence.

It was, however, pleasantly cool.

Still, June finds herself unable to sleep, and decides to sit in the bay window (definitely her favorite part of her bedroom) and look at the stars. Instead, she hears someone singing.

Confused, she opens the bedroom window, chipping some of the white paint on the windowsill.

She can hear it clearly now, someone singing in a high voice. They’re singing a lullaby.

June shuts her window, slipping her shoes on and tiptoeing down the creaky stairs.

Suddenly, she is outside, her hair blowing in the breeze, and she can still hear the song. The same one June’s mother used to sing.

She follows the voice, all the way to the well, the boards sharp and jagged like broken teeth, revealing the gaping black hole beneath.

The lullaby is loud, now. The voice is young, soft, lined with tears. Like the singer is about to cry.

June peers into the hole, and there’s nothing there.

Suddenly, a scream erupts from beneath, and June stumbles back, landing in the dewey grass. The well falls silent. Upon a second look, the well is still empty.

June walks back to bed, and changes into a different set of pajamas, hiding the grass-stained ones under her bed.

I’m in the dark again.

Mama always said that when I was scared, all I had to do was sing.

I had a beautiful singing voice, she said.

Maybe I could grow up to be a famous singer.

But I didn’t. I ended up here.

I sing, anyway.

Mama and Papa never talk about Jesse, and Lanie told me never to ask them.

We lived back in Kansas when I was a babe. Jesse was older than Lanie, he was 7 when she was 6 and I was 2. I don’t even remember it.

It was six years ago, then. He would be 13 now, if he was with us.

It was 1930, during the Dust Bowl. The dust storms came all the time, and Lanie and Jesse knew never to go out in one, because they would get lost and breathe in the dust and die.

But Jesse was out playing when one came out of nowhere.

They found him later. Buried under the sand dunes. We put him in the ground, gave him a nice gravestone, and left for Oregon, where there were no dust storms.

Mama and Papa found this place, and I grew up here my whole life. I didn’t remember my brother, it was just Lanie.

Lanie told me that Jesse was in heaven, probably, and maybe he was an angel, too.

I always wanted to be an angel, to be able to fly with white-feathered wings, and a little golden halo.

Mama had the prettiest voice, just like mine.

She always wanted me to use my talent, but I never got to. I sang in the church choir, but Mama always wanted me to do more.

She wanted something better for me and Lanie than spending our lives on the farm.

I had watched the sun rise and set in the sky countless times before I realized that I wasn’t hungry. Just cold, and tired. I want to go, but I can’t get out.

June knows.

June’s father knows.

But neither one knows the other knows.

The truth, that is.

June doesn’t know the whole story, but she knows what she saw. She knows that there can’t have been a girl down in the well, unless she wasn’t a girl at all, because the well was boarded up. Ordinary girls can’t teleport into wells, or phase through solid wood planks without breaking them first. And she’s never had a particularly overactive imagination.

June’s father has seen ghosts before. He knows what they look like, he’s seen his wife more times than he can count. But he also knows that they aren’t real. And yet...it’s nagging at him. There’s a possibility, he knows, because he knows what happened here.

And so, they eat their Cheerios in silence.

Until.

“June, what exactly did you see down there?”

June looks up, confused. “It was just my imagination, you said.”

Her father shrugs. “Just...what was it?”

June sighs. “A girl, older than Lottie. Dark hair, all wet.”

“Are you sure?”

June nods.

Her father pulls out a picture. “Is this the girl?”

June squints at the photo. It was taken a long time ago, definitely, but the girl is unmistakeably the same one. She is young, maybe seven or eight. Dark curls frame her face, and she's smiling. She stands next to another girl, closer to June's age, with blonde hair and a serious expression. A woman and a man stand behind them, all in old-fashioned clothes.

“Yes.”

Her father tucks the photo into his pocket. “Well, you must've seen the photograph, then. It was hanging on the wall when we moved in."

On second thought, June realized, she had seen the picture on the wall. Her cheeks burned red. "Sorry, it must've been my imagination then...excuse me."

"June-"

But June was already running for the well.

The grass pulled at her feet, trying to anchor her to the ground, but she kept going. She had to see the girl again.

Instead, she fell.