Wellness Fredrick Hudgin   © Copyright 2025 by Fredrick Hudgin

Photo by Allen Hughes at Wikimedia Commons.

“You’re leaving me for HIM?” I looked over to where he was smirking by some bushes.

“Andy, you quit college to write a book two years ago. Where is it? I haven’t seen a single page of the manuscript. You play video games until 2 AM every night and hang out with your friends before that. Geoff has a B.S. in computer science and a good job at Microsoft. He starts with the Office support team on the first.”

“He’s an errand boy. The only reason he got that job is that his father is a VP. They wouldn’t let him near any code.”

“Goodbye, Andy. I hope you straighten your life out someday.”

I watched her go, swinging that world-class bottom. She didn’t even look back over her shoulder when he put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. They walked as one person toward the frigging Tesla his parents had bought him when he graduated from UW debt-free.

“Well, that sucks.” Even to the wind, I sounded pathetic, but I was right—my life sucked, my love life now seriously sucked, and, worst of all, my novel sucked. Inspiration kept flirting with my dreams at night, like a new lover, full of promise and excitement, but always just out of reach. I would wake up, enthusiasm geysering out of my creative center, ideas doing a Rockette high-kick across my brain, but something always happened when I tried to write them down. Two years of beginnings and not a single one worth a damn. Now that Misty was gone, along with her weekly paycheck, I’d have to get a job to pay the rent and eat—even less time to spend on my writing.

Maybe a walk in the woods would help. My tiny house was a short distance from the Line Kiln trailhead. Ten minutes later, I was wandering among firs that had to be three hundred years old. Birds flew from branch to branch, filling the air with chirps and songs. A woodpecker sounded off nearby with a staccato drum roll.

“I wonder where that trail leads.” I’d been down this path a hundred times and never noticed this fork before. The farther down the path I went, the quieter the forest got. A small meadow slowly became visible ahead of me, full of flowers and butterflies. In the middle of the meadow was what looked like a well. A little pitched roof covered it.

“What a strange place for a well to be,” I murmured, looking around for a house—nothing, not a lean-to, not even a long-forgotten foundation. Daisies, foxgloves, and lilies filled the meadow with color and fragrance. The path led directly to the well. Water at the bottom showed the reflection of my face. Then a second face appeared next to mine!—a woman!—a pretty, young woman!

Shocked, I looked up to where she should have been next to me, but nothing was there. When I looked back into the well, she was still in the reflection. And the reflection could talk. “Write about this well,” she said in an echoic, whispery voice.

“What about this well?”

“You’ll figure it out,” she whispered back, smiling, then she was gone.

“Write about a well in the middle of nowhere? Yeah, right!”

I followed the path back to the trailhead. Soon I was in front of my laptop, staring at a blank document in Word. “Why would a well be in the middle of nowhere?”

“Because someone built it when they built their cabin,” my subconscious whispered. “Someone named Henry built it for his wife, Margaret, who was pregnant. With twins! And the coming winter was already cooling the weather…

Page after page filled with Henry and Margaret’s adventures, settling into their cabin, meeting the members of the Cowlitz tribe who helped them learn how to live in the Northwest. The healer of the tribe delivered Margaret’s babies. Henry heard gold calling to him from the Yukon and left, never to return. The tribe adopted Margaret and the babies, taught them Sahaptin, their language, and showed her how to flourish in the woods, far from the nearest white settlement. Her children, a boy and a girl, were raised as much by the tribe as by her, but she never took another man into her life. She died looking into the water of the well.