Don't Feed The Well

20260831

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“Money makes the world go wrong.” That’s what granddad always used to say.
I always assumed it was some “greed is bad” saying. Just worded funny, as idioms often are. Though I did notice that he never said it when such a sentiment was relevant. It never seemed to be prompted by anything, in fact. Just mumbled at odd intervals.
But I was a kid, and everyone said granddad was odd, so I didn’t think much of it.
And then he died. As grandparents tend to. I don’t remember getting the news, or attending the funeral, though I’m certain we did.
No, what I remember is my parents bringing me along to empty granddad’s house. It was a small building with a fair amount of land, ripe for selling. And useless for any of the family to live in. So, despite what granddad begged in his will, everyone agreed it was best to find a buyer.
The house itself was sparse. Barely anything to clear. Granddad had lived alone, and seemed to have no hobbies. It was hard to get a feel of him at all, looking at these utilitarian spaces.
I remember the safe. A big black metal box, almost as tall as me, squatting alone in the centre of a room. To open it you needed a key and a dial code. Granddad had left one to each of his children. We were all excited to see inside.
Stacks of papers, immediately uninteresting to child me. And a brown, padded, A4 envelope. The sort you could buy a ten-pack of at any post office. Scrawled on it, in granddad’s terrible spidery handwriting I immediately recognised from all those birthday cards, was that familiar phrase:
“Money makes the world go wrong.”
And under that:
“DON’T FEED IT!”
Uncle Harry cut open the envelope and peered inside, and shook out a key. It was a solid, cylinder style one, uncoated metal and without any tag or label.
Nobody knew what to make of this.
With there being plenty for the adults to do, I was handed the key and told to try and find what it went to. That sounded far more exciting than helping sort or clean so I agreed and was off. Trying the key in every lock I found, even those it obviously didn’t fit. Just to be sure.
It wasn’t in the house. It was out back.
There were four sheds clustered in a haphazard formation.
All but one had windows.
That shed was the one the key opened.
I opened the door. Just to make sure it’d really unlocked. When I peeped in, I found it was like that safe room - empty except for a low, locked object. But while that held a metal cube, this had a stone cylinder.
I’d never seen a well before. Much less one with such a heavy cover, wrapped in chains.
So my attention was caught by the words scribbled across the concrete floor and rough brick walls. That same phrase, over and over. Always in the same handwriting, but many different pens.
“Money makes the world go wrong.”
For a moment I lingered. Staring at the writing, and the well, and feeling disquieted. But I assured myself that was just shivers from the cold which buffeted me when the door swung open.
I brushed the fear off and went to fetch an adult.
Everyone was clustered in the dining room, around the papers from the safe, and mum and Aunt Doris were arguing. I was once again left loitering in a doorway, confused and uneasy.
Mum was saying that she knew her father, thank you, and the poor man had never been quite there, and the fact he’d written so much nonsense wasn’t surprising. And she was sure he meant it all, but that didn’t mean any of it was true.
It was harder to understand what Aunt Doris was saying. But she was agitated and insisting we not sell the land after all, that we needed to “investigate”. And Uncle Harry was frowning at the papers and seemed to agree. But then, he always said listening to Aunt Doris was the secret to a happy life.
Then dad saw me, and asked if I’d found where the key went. Bringing the argument to a standstill. And when I nodded and said it unlocked a shed and there was a weird round table thing covered in chains and granddad had scribbled everywhere, they all exchanged looks.
The argument got really heated. Finally Uncle Harry declared he wasn’t willing to sign off on selling the place until he was sure it was “safe”. Mum was in a right snit as we drove back to the little B&B we were all staying at.
They put me to bed. And went back out. I assumed they’d forgotten something at granddad’s. That they wouldn’t be long.
That they wouldn’t leave me.
I woke to find it was morning, and they weren’t there. So I went down to breakfast, and was surprised to find only my aunt and uncle - who were surprised to see just me, and alarmed when I said my parents were missing.
Aunt Doris sat with me and fretted while Uncle Harry drove off in a hurry.
He didn’t find my mum or dad. Nobody ever found them.
But the well was open.
After it was agreed that I would live with my aunt and uncle, but before we moved into granddad’s house, they sat me down and explained that - according to granddad - the well I’d found was a “genuine wishing well”.
BUT.
The wishes always came true wrong. Horribly wrong.
I’ve always wondered what wish my parents made, to try and disprove what granddad wrote.
But whenever I find myself thinking of that shed, or waking from dreams where I hear my parents’ voices echoing as if from the bottom of a deep stone shaft, I remind myself what granddad always said:
“Money makes the world go wrong”.

Prompt was “Write a story with the opening line 'Money makes the world go wrong.’”