Maddy adjusted the satchel of mail on her shoulder. It'd been light enough at the start. Weird how it grew heavier as they walked to the well. Now it felt like she carried a parcel of words writ on sheets of lead.

"Why don't we just burn 'em?" asked Maddy. She gave postmaster Mint a worried look. The old guy had started spry enough. Now he limped and panted, for all they walked a path tree-shadowed from the sun. Suppose he turned purple, fell down with a heart attack? What could she do? She'd skipped CPR class this spring so as not to partner with Jeffrey.

Mint shook his head. "Nah. They tried burning 'em. Way back when I had your job and your years. But the smoke... it did strange things to people's heads. That's when old postmaster Blight did, ah, what he did."

Maddy considered asking what Blight did. Something crazy and embarrassing, obviously. She pictured an ancient postmaster running about the town with an axe. In his underwear. And a funny hat. She giggled, then felt ashamed. Probably wasn't a funny story. She'd ask her dad.

Mint continued. "And anyways they still had to do something with the ashes."

"What about the ashes?"

Mint wiped the shiny sweat from his bald head.

"Ah, they dumped 'em in old Wheeler's pasture for a couple years. Nothing sane ever grew there afterwards."

Maddy stared at the man. Was he teasing her? Folk liked to tease, when they noticed her. Kids at school who couldn't remember her name would glue her locker shut. Put a rubber snake in her lunch bag. Photoshop her dad's face on her class pic, post it online.

Her dad liked to tell her tall tales. But that wasn't teasing. It was a kind of communication. A way of saying here's a bit of how I see the world. What do you think?

"What grew from the ashes?" she demanded. Not whispering. She liked Postmaster Mint, felt comfortable with him. Even if he didn't really see her. For sure he looked at Maddy and saw a thousand teen girls in a blur across the rushing years. The first girls would be wearing bloomers and bonnets, probably. The later ones would wear tweed dresses with bows, then on to mini-skirts and cutoffs, ending with sensible blue jeans and t-shirts. For sure, she was a display sample. 'Junior No-One-Special Girl #1501'. Which was fine, far as Maddy was concerned. He could be generic Old Quaint Guy #47, and they'd get along like toast and butter.

"What?" he asked. "Speak up, child."

"What grew from the ashes from the letters to Hell?"

"Ah. Right. Flowers that whispered. Fruit with human faces. I remember a big pumpkin chock full of spiders. Dang thing rolling about on its own. And that tree you can see from the crossroad. Looks like a man with arms out to grab ya."

"Oh, I know that place," recalled Maddy. "Me and some kids went there last Halloween. But it was too dark. I didn't see anything except boys with flashlights under their faces acting like dorks."

"Boys," he snorted. He pointed ahead. "Here we are." They emerged into sunlight, approached a square of old stones fit together without cement, rising high as the word 'strawberry' on Maddy's t-shirt. The well had a pointed roof to costume it as a proper wishing well. The neatly cut wood didn't go with those worn stones. Looked fake as the roof of a ginger-bread house.

Maddy rested the satchel on the stone ledge.

"Don't lose the bag," warned Mint. "That's postal property. Just dump the letters."

Maddy nodded, undid the clasp. "Do we say any words first?"

Mint laughed. An old man's old laugh. The expulsion of dusty air out from the cynical center of an over-experienced soul.

"Child, what you have there is the condensed extract of all the saddest, meanest and most petty emotions of the human heart. Told you so's and proud confessions, sneers and whines and sad last laughs. A mountain of those letters wouldn't be worth no funeral oration except 'good riddance and grow up'."

Maddy shrugged. Sounded likely. She peered over the edge. The shaft didn't go straight; it bent here, twisted there, fading away into shadow and bedrock below the town. Air wafted up, not quite a wind. More like a breath. Cold and dank, with a taste of mold and stagnant water.

"Don't see no water," said Maddy. She considered spitting into the void, see if anything went splat. Decided not. Seemed disrespectful.

"Yep, water table used to be higher hereabouts," said Mint. "Years back you could see your reflection way down, looking up at you. Folk told scary stories about that. Not Halloween stories. Some mirrors you don't want to look into."

If Maddy looked into a mirror right then, she'd be seeing herself roll her eyes. This was dumb. No matter. It was her paycheck for the summer. She'd buy a new guitar case, maybe even an amp. She unsnapped the satchel, tipped it over the well, letting the letters tumble out. They made a rasping sound against the sides of the shaft, like dead leaves scuttling down the street on an autumn wind. She shook the last few holdouts, peered into the well. The letters drifted down and away. She tilted her head, listening for a splash, an acknowledgement, a final thump.

"They say the caves down there go all the way to Waxahachie," considered Maddy.

"Yep," agreed Mint. "Let's get back. This ain't a place for hanging around."

She shrugged, looked about. Accursed well aside, it was just a pretty field in a stand of pines between the town and the highway. Dark world below, summer sky above. Didn't feel spooky. She considered the water tower in the distance. Her mother had climbed up there once. With her boyfriend. Maddy shook her head at the thought. Won't catch me up there, she vowed. Shouldered the empty satchel.

"Thought I heard voices down in the well," she told Mint on the way back. Hurrying to keep up. He'd regained his quick step. Maybe going to the well depressed him, and leaving cheered him. How many damned letters had he tipped into that hole?

"Yeah, people hear them voices," sighed the old man. "Trick is not to listen. Ghosts arguing over the mail, maybe." He snorted to say it wasn't what he really thought.

"Funny," said Maddy on the way back. "Didn't sound like no ghosts. Sounded like Sue Ellen from my gym class."