The Nixie in the Well: a fairy tale retold

By TS Porter

The kind and hardworking stepdaughter tumbles down the well. It's an old story, but all that comes after is brand new.

When Ida overbalances reaching after a dropped spindle, she falls into Elfreda the Nixie's domain. Her first wish is to escape back home. However, Elfreda treats her kindly, and the longer Ida stays the harder it is not to love the Nixie and her magical land...

• Language: English
• Publisher: TS Porter
• Release date: Apr 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463326626

Book preview

The Nixie in the Well:

a fairy tale retold

By TS Porter

Copyright 2020 TS Porter

Smashwords Edition

Previously published in Fairytales Slashed Volume 8 by Less Than Three Press. All rights reverted to Author.

Cover Art by Harry Grace

There was once a family who, though they were stepfamily, loved each other dearly. The elder daughter, Ida, was kind and dutiful, with warm, brown eyes, and hands and arms strong from work. The younger daughter, Linza, was a sweet child, happy and beloved by all, with hair like spun gold and cheeks as round and rosy as apples. Their mother Rozlin, who was Ida's stepmother, loved them both equally.

When Ida was grown, she turned away the men who tried to court her and stayed at home to work and help her family. Ida did her best to look after little Linza, and Linza could always make Ida smile. They were never happier than they were walking hand in hand. Though they were not wealthy, they with their parents made a good family.

Now it happened that one morning, Rozlin gave little Linza a new spindle for spinning thread. It was a finer one than she'd ever had before, with little birds carved into the whorl, so they seemed to be flying when she spun it. With it, Linza could learn to spin thread fine enough for lace.

Linza carried it with her everywhere that day, happy to show off her fine new spindle to everyone she met. In the afternoon, Ida and Linza sat themselves beside the well to rest in the shade and spin before they ate their lunches. But when Linza tried to spin with the new spindle, the thread broke or knotted or came out all thick and thin, and soon, she became frustrated.

Ida could not bear to see her little sister so upset and offered to try the spindle to be sure it was weighted right. Linza threw the spindle to Ida, saying Have the cursed thing and be gone!

Perhaps some wicked mischief spirit heard her, because the spindle bounced off Ida's hastily-raised hand and into the well. And when Ida reached out desperately to catch the spindle, knowing how Linza loved it and how Rozlin had saved up to buy it, she overbalanced and fell into the well after it.

*~*~*

The water was ice cold.

The shock of it drove all the air out of Ida's lungs. She reached out, trying to find the surface or anything to cling to, and prayed Linza would have the presence of mind to lower the bucket so she could cling to the rope until help came.

Ida bruised her arms, hitting rough stonework, but there was only empty water when she reached back toward it. Her legs were tangled in her soaked skirts, so she could not kick toward the surface. Not that she could tell where the surface was. She hit her cheek against another bit of stone, but again, there was nothing there to cling to.

Ida's lungs burned, but she knew she couldn't breathe the water. She couldn't. She just had to find the surface. There must be surface somewhere. She couldn't see anything at all—the roof over the well would block any sunlight that might have guided her. The same thing that made it such a good place to sit and rest was her undoing.

Ida reached out again, desperately clawing for anything to hold on to. Her fingers closed on something sharp. She gasped her searing lungs full of water when it pierced her finger.

Then there was peaceful nothing.

*~*~*

Ida woke up lying in a quiet, sunlit field. She yawned and blinked the sleep from her eyes, shaking off the terrible dream of drowning. Linza wasn't beside her, and she pushed herself quickly to her feet, heart pounding. She was supposed look after Linza—but Linza was nowhere to be seen, and Ida wasn't anywhere she'd ever been before.

She wasn't anywhere in the natural world. Ida was breathing air, and her clothes were dry, but instead of birds,