Being home alone, having all the flat to herself, was going to be fun, Helen decided. It did not happen very often; having two other flatmates did not leave many occasions for staying on one's own. And it did not happen once yet, since they moved to this house from the other side of the town several weeks ago.

It was going to be a great, quiet and relaxing evening, she mused, watching the bag full of corn kernels turn around as they exploded noisily into popcorn inside the microwave, taking it out carefully, not wanting to scorch her fingers on the hot stream of steam issuing from a hole in the corner of the paper bag, mere seconds before it would burst open. A glass of wine poured from a chilled bottle opened previously by one of her flatmates, and she was ready for a Friday movie night.

And it was fun... until it got boring. Watching 'The Ring' for the third time did not give her the right chills any longer, despite the eerie silence of the usually noisy and crowded flat.

She sighed, looking at her watch. It would be at least an hour before Jane would come back from her date, and even two before Jessica would finish her double shift in the hospital.

"Nox!" Helen called, heart pounding, when Jane's black cat jumped on her lap suddenly, then vanished somewhere again, hissing loudly, even as the television changed on its own to a different channel in that precise moment. "Silly cat!" she called into the silent semi-darkness of the empty apartment.

Only now, as whatever movie this was, was on mute, Helen noticed how noisy the old house's silence was. She could hear the occasional soft crackling of wood settling in the ancient furniture, the low buzz of the fridge reaching her from the kitchen, the distant, muffled noise of the town's traffic, and the scraping of a tree branch against the window panes.

Helen watched its moving leaves for a moment before her eyes fell back to the television. There were people pulling something out of a well, it seemed. They were all wearing old-fashioned clothes, making her think that it was a historical drama of some sort. Well, at least she had not seen this one before.

But as she settled more comfortably on the sofa, she realised that there did not seem to be a plot to speak of, the film looked more like a piece of news, showing a group of people who just found... a dead body in a well... But... Why were they dressed in Victorian clothes? She shivered, realising that the house in the background of the footage looked too much like this house... No way she could not watch this alone, whatever it was.

Helen switched the television off fast, the hair on her forearms standing on ends. So much for a peaceful Friday movie night. She stood up, ready to escape into her bed and forget all about what she had seen, when something moved under her feet, making her scream when a sharp pain in her foot and furious hissing followed.

"Nox! Get lost!" she called at the cat she could not see in the ill-lit room, the only light coming from a small reading lamp placed on a coffee table next to the sofa.

She went to the bathroom quickly to clean her bleeding wound and brush her teeth, avoiding looking in the mirror. She knew it was ridiculous, but she hated looking in mirrors after watching or reading scary things.

"This was the last time," she promised to herself as she lay down in her bed, turning her night light on, certain that she was in for a sleepless night.

Helen tossed and turned for a long while, listening to the moans of the old building before she realised that she was really not going to fall asleep. She grabbed her phone from her bedside table, checking for messages from her two friends, but there were none.

Sighing, knowing that it would definitely not help her sleep but unable to stop herself, she googled the name of their road. She looked through several pictures of well preserved Victorian houses until she recognised the one she was in, remembering that one of the reasons why she was attracted to it from the first moment, apart from its convenient location and price, was its name.

"Crow's Nest," she muttered as she typed in the name, jumping when Nox, attracted by her voice, scared her again as he suddenly hopped on her bed, purring.

"Fine... just sleep here..." she told the cat distractedly, scrolling through the first results of her search.

The house, apparently a 'Listed Building', had had quite a few owners, then remained empty for years before it was rented again, the tenants changing often.

She added the year when it was abandoned next to the house's name and tried again-- and there it was. A series of mysterious disappearances in the neighbourhood, in nineteen hundred and one. All those missing people were children between five and ten-years-old. There were supposed to be at least twelve who vanished and never returned, and only one body was found... in a well in the back garden of the Crow's Nest.

Helen shivered, letting go of the phone. Was this why the garden flat was so cheap? She needed a drink. She stood up and put her slippers on, realising only now that Nox had disappeared again.

Could that recording she had seen before on the TV be connected to this case? Was that corpse the child found in the well? she mused as she reached the kitchen.

Attracted by a sudden sharp, creaking noise, Helen noticed that the door leading to the back garden stood ajar. As she approached it and peeked cautiously into the garden illuminated only by the faint light of distant street lamps, she saw a dark shadow moving swiftly across the lawn.

"Nox!" she called, realising that she must have forgotten to close the door when she had taken out the rubbish, and if the cat got out, and got lost in the neighbourhood he didn't know properly yet, it would be her fault and Jessica would never forgive her.

Taking a deep breath, Helen stepped into the huge garden of the old house, and walking in the direction she had seen the cat follow before, she reached a part she had not been to yet.

Guided by the faint moonlight and even weaker streetlights barely reaching this remote spot, she moved carefully through the tall grass swaying in the light wind, the whisper of its stems brushing against each other disturbed by the silent, occasional hooting of an owl. She wanted to turn around and walk back towards the house, when she spotted Nox appearing out of nowhere and vanishing behind the only, huge tree growing in the garden.

"Silly cat, come here!" she called, knowing that his owner would not be pleased at all if she let her beloved cat spend the night outside, even though Nox deserved it.

Seeing that the animal would not return of its own will, Helen followed him hesitatingly. And there, behind that tree, she discovered an ancient looking well.... the well she had seen on the television.

"It's all just an... urban legend, be reasonable," she ordered herself, voice shaking and heart pounding painfully against her ribs, even as she saw Nox's fluffy tail disappearing in the well's black hole.

"Oh no, Nox, don't do that!" she whined, torn between the urge to try to help the cat somehow and the instinct compelling her to run back inside the house and lock herself in.

Hyperventilating with fear morphing quickly into panic, she approached the black hole of the well.

"Nox?" she asked weakly, looking into the depth, watching the faint moonlight glitter as it was reflected by the deep water covering the bottom of the well. The water... was not still. It was disturbed and moving, judging by how the moonbeams distorted and multiplied when they reached it.

Something stirred at the bottom, rushing quickly out of her sight as she repeated tentatively, "Nox..."

"He is mine now," a hoarse whisper replied, making her run back towards the house, stumbling over the long grass trying to grasp and hold her shaking legs, keeping her prisoner until whatever that might climb out of the well could follow...