Marcus Sullivan, who was four years old, stated it one peaceful afternoon when he was playing with his toy vehicle on the carpet. Clara, his adoptive mother, froze. Vincent, his father, frowned and put down his newspaper.
“What did you say?” Clara asked carefully.
Marcus stared at her with an odd tranquility. “My real mom had on a blue outfit. She fell into the well that was in our yard. “Papa Vincent was there.”
Vincent laughed. “Nonsense.” All the time, kids make up stories. Clara’s chest, on the other hand, felt tight. Marcus had just been living with them for a year after being adopted from an institution. He had never heard of the old well that was hidden in their garden.
For the next few weeks, Marcus kept saying the same thing. He also drew images, like a woman with long, dark hair in a blue outfit falling into a black abyss. Clara became more and more uneasy. When she asked her neighbor Lucy, Lucy said, “Orphanage kids make things up.” Don’t let it bother you.
Still, Clara couldn’t overlook how exact Marcus was. He said that he woke up at night, heard a scream, ran outside, and saw just Vincent with a shovel in the yard.
Vincent
But Clara saw something that worried her: the adoption file didn’t have many details. There was no way to find the man who reportedly set it up. She was full of doubt.
People in the community were also disturbed about Marcus’s behavior. Parents said he scared their kids by talking about “the woman in the well” in a low voice. In the end, Clara was told to teach him at home.
She
Marcus didn’t think twice. “It’s not a dream.” Someone pushed my mom, Anna. Daddy Vincent pushed her. She cried, but no one came to rescue her.
Later, the doctor told Clara, “Your son is showing signs of having repressed memories.” It might seem unbelievable, yet kids can remember things from when they were babies. It could mean that a crime really happened if what he says is true.
Clara’s heart fell. That night, Marcus spoke again at the window, looking out at the yard. “Mom’s still crying down there.”
Clara couldn’t ignore it this time. There was more than simply dirt buried there.
The dreams were still there when Marcus was twenty-four. He wasn’t a tiny boy anymore; he was a skinny, hollow-eyed young man who worked at a bookstore. He couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in the blue dress every night.
Helen, his coworker, saw it. She said, “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
Marcus said, “I dream about her again.” “Not a dream, really.” A reminiscence. “She’s my mom.”
Marcus had surreptitiously collected evidence throughout the years. Missing person records, newspaper clippings, and pieces from the local archive. The name “Anna Oliver” kept coming up. She was a maid employed by Vincent Sullivan in 2004, but she went missing soon after. People last saw her in a blue outfit when she was thirty years old. Nobody had ever been located.
Gavin, a member of the local council, turned pale as Marcus showed him the file. “Marcus, we need to look into this if it’s real. The adoption file that Vincent provided to the court is fake. The man who signed it died a long time ago.
The two men decided to ask for permission to dig up the backyard. Vincent fought back with all his might. “You ungrateful boy!” I took care of you. “Now you blame me?”
But Marcus didn’t back down. “You didn’t bring me up. You buried the truth.”
Within a few days, an excavator showed up. People in the neighborhood gathered and spoke about the “crazy boy and his well.” Marcus didn’t pay attention to them. The machine tore through the ground, and a circle of old bricks appeared—the well’s shut mouth.
When workers shattered the concrete, a foul smell filled the air. A flashlight beam showed bones mixed with bits of blue fabric.
People phoned the cops right away. Lieutenant Carmen Walker came to head the forensic team. “Whose discovery was this?” she inquired.
“I’m Marcus,” he said, shaking. “I think the body is my mother, Anna Oliver.”
It was a 99.9% match, according to DNA tests. Twenty years before, Marcus’s biological mother had been killed and buried in that well.
That night, police arrested Vincent Sullivan. Police found a drunken note that said, “I didn’t kill her.” I did what I had to do. I named the boy.
The horror had finally come to light for Marcus.
The whole town of Silverwood was startled by the case. People used to look up to Vincent Sullivan, but now they called him a murderer. In court, he said that Anna had worked for him as a maid, that she had gotten pregnant, and that he had buried her after they had a fight. He made fake adoption documents so that he could keep Marcus, the youngster, under his control.
Clara asked Marcus to forgive her, but she was heartbroken. “I was too scared to face the truth,” she murmured, her eyes welling up with tears.
Marcus held her hand softly. “You gave me a roof.” You didn’t commit the crime; he did. But silence almost killed me too.”
There were a lot of reporters in the courtroom for the first session. When asked whether he had anything to say to Vincent, Marcus said, “Because of you, I grew up in nightmares.” But my mother has taught me to live in truth. “You didn’t win.”
After he was found guilty, Marcus started the Anna Oliver Foundation, which helps single moms and neglected children. When it first came out, he addressed the gathering, “No one should be called crazy for remembering.” No one should be buried without saying anything.
Years later, white chrysanthemums and bougainvillea grew in a memorial garden in the same area where the old well used to be. Anna’s Café, which Marcus founded nearby, was a dream his mother had once written down. In a warm corner, kids read books and laughed, filling the space.
One night, Marcus put a bouquet on the memorial stone. “Mom, I came too late,” he said quietly. “But I came.”
The voice from the well was gone for the first time in his life. Peace was all that was left, proof that truth will always come to light, no matter how deep it is hidden.
