A summary of "The Mistress of the Well" by Tatyana Korsakova

This book is a 2014 mystery novel that intertwines dark secrets of the past, ancient legends, and tragic modern events. The most important aspect of the work lies in its detailed exploration of the nature of human passions, greed, and revenge, set against the backdrop of a sinister apple orchard in a fictional village. The author skillfully blends elements of the classic Gothic novel with the realities of modern life in the Russian hinterland.

The novel did not receive any internationally renowned literary awards and was not adapted for the screen, but it did win recognition among fans of Russian mystical realism.

Arrival on the Right Bank and a traffic accident

Business partners Stanislav Morgansky (Morgan) and Alexey Sotnikov (Sotnik), co-owners of a small construction company, are heading to a meeting with a major client. They were invited by Vlas Pavlovich Yarigo, a wealthy émigré who returned to Russia with the goal of reviving agriculture. The millionaire is planning a large-scale livestock complex on the Right Bank of a local lake. The entrepreneurs were recommended by their mutual acquaintance, Dmitry Savelyev, a professor of Russian literature whose dacha is located on the exclusive Left Bank.

Along the way, the construction workers’ jeep narrowly avoids a reckless driver on a red Yamaha motorcycle. Trying to avoid the crash, Morgan maneuvers, and Sotnik suffers a serious head-on injury. Enraged, the friends pursue the offender all the way to the village of Pravy Bereg. The chase ends at the sagging fence of a small hut. The ensuing scuffle is interrupted by local resident Varvara Markovna and Zhuchka. When the motorcyclist removes his helmet, it turns out she’s a young woman.

The offender turns out to be Maryana Vasilyevna, the only rural doctor in the area. She was rushing to see her sick little son, Alyosha, who had suffered a severe asthma attack. Understanding the situation, the young men cool off. Maryana tends to Sotnik’s wound. Upon learning that she travels by motorcycle due to the vast service area and the lack of proper official transport, the companions begin to respect her. Maryana refuses Varvara Markovna’s strong birch kvass, reminding Morgan that he’s driving.

The Mystery of the Old Well and a Strange Encounter

Heading toward the Left Bank through the count’s abandoned apple orchard, Morgan experiences an inexplicable wave of melancholy. Tormented by thirst, he stops the car near an old stone well located beneath a gnarled apple tree. The well is unusually large in diameter — approximately two meters. An attempt to draw water takes a strange turn: the bucket falls, dragging an unusually long, rusty chain with it. Morgan severely cuts his left palm on the rusty iron trough.

Suddenly, the chain jerks sharply, as if someone is forcibly pulling it to the bottom. As soon as Morgan releases it, the rusty rings hiss into the depths. With a roar and howl, the water rapidly disappears, revealing slimy stone walls. The friends are brought out of their stupor by the appearance of a strange, barefoot woman in a faded sarafan. It’s the local idiot, Khavroshechka, who is herding her cow, Zvezdochka.

Khavroshechka begins to howl in fear, claiming that Morgan has laced the well with his blood and awakened the Mistress of the Well. She mumbles incoherently that the Mistress is now hungry and angry, and the fool has forgotten the lullaby that could lull her to sleep. As she leaves, she prophesies that the Mistress will never let them go again. After descending into the well, the water returns. The intrigued young people depart.

Getting to know the inhabitants of the Left Bank

Luxury reigns on the Left Bank. Luxury cars are parked near Yarigo’s blue-roofed mansion. Guests are greeted by Veniamin Petrovich Boreisha, a writer, detective novelist, and passionate rose lover. While the owner of the house is delayed in the city, Boreisha accommodates the construction workers and entrusts them to the care of the cook, Valentina, who feeds them a hearty lunch.

Gradually, the remaining guests arrive. Among them are Agata Genrikhovna Litte, the general’s widow, who carefully conceals her age with plastic surgery, and her withdrawn son, Gleb. The atmosphere at the table is tense, and Professor Savelyev openly mocks the general’s widow.

Late in the evening, Vlas Yarigo arrives, accompanied by the village council chairman, Yakov Semyonovich Khlebnikov. Khlebnikov is a typical Soviet bureaucrat, holding the entire Right Bank in his hands. The millionaire and the chairman engage in a debate about the efficiency of milking robots. Maryana, wearing high heels and an elegant dress, is the last to arrive for dinner. Gleb Litte displays a predatory interest in her, while Agatha displays aristocratic disdain for the village doctor.

Legends of the Mistress and the First Misfortune

Over dinner, Maryana openly confronts Khlebnikov, accusing him of sabotaging the renovation of the new hospital. She claims that foreman Tarpishchev’s construction workers play cards instead of working, and after lunch, they go to work on the Left Bank. The old building, dating back to the late nineteenth century, the former estate of Count Lemeshev, is rotten and suffering from damp, mildew, and dangerous wiring. Yarigo promises to deal with the foreman, mentioning his desire to buy the old estate and uproot the apple orchard for agricultural use.

The conversation turns to the well’s history. Savelyev explains that it was dug by Count Lemeshev, who invited the renowned engineer Andrei Kirsanov. The structure was part of a complex irrigation system of fountains that operated without pumps, using the principle of communicating vessels. Khlebnikov adds a darker twist: the garden has a notorious reputation; over the course of a century, about twenty-five people have died there. Seven years ago, a young city girl, the daughter of a cardiac surgeon, fell into the well. Yarigo later purchased the property.

Hospital guard Mitrich heard a scream during the night and found a body the next morning at the bottom of an empty well. The water had receded before the tragedy, then returned with a distinctive underground rumble. Mitrich himself subsequently injured his hand while sawing down a protective grate for scrap metal and soon fled the village. He recently returned and found a job as a guard at the Right Bank boat station. After leaving after midnight, Morgan and Sotnik called a taxi for the drunken Khlebnikov, and Savelyev walked Maryana to the bus.

Nightmare and the Giant Fountain

At Yarigo’s insistence, the construction workers move to a comfortable bungalow by the water for the summer. Morgan volunteers to walk Maryana from the bus stop through the dark garden, and Sotnik joins them. Along the way, the young men tell Maryana about the incident at the well that day. The doctor is shocked: she assures her that the mechanism has long since broken, and the water only receded the night the girl died.

Suddenly, a mournful lullaby comes from the darkness. Near the well, the friends see a gray female silhouette. The woman is balancing on the edge of the stone wall. Morgan rushes forward, but before she can reach it, the figure plunges down with a terrifying scream. Maryana is in hysterics. Morgan peers into the abyss, expecting to see the corpse of Khavroshechka, whose face they supposedly recognized before the jump.

However, a powerful roar begins to rise from the bottom of the well. The water rises rapidly, and a gigantic fountain erupts from the well’s crater. Along with the powerful stream, a huge, two-meter-long, relict fish with a powerful tail flies out onto the grass. The centurion, an avid fisherman, is shocked. The builders drag the ancient monster back and release it into the well.

On the way back to the hospital, they encounter Khavroshechka, alive and well, tending Zvezdochka. Blood is oozing from the fool’s ears, and she screams that the Mistress has woken up because of Morgan’s blood. Maryana takes Khavroshechka to the hospital outbuilding, provides assistance, and gives the construction workers hospital pajamas, as their clothes are soaked.

Morgan’s investigation and the murder of Sidorovna

In the morning, the builders sign a lucrative contract with Yarigo. They have a free week to get going due to the millionaire’s urgent departure for the city. Sotnik researches the internet and hypothesizes that the well monster is a coelacanth, a fossilized lobe-finned fish. The partners borrow Savelyev’s underwater video camera to inspect the bottom.

Maryana receives an antique album containing plans of Count Lemeshev’s estate and a site plan from an elderly patient, former librarian Sofia Sidorovna. The old woman suffers from dementia and takes ascorbic acid as a miracle pill. The flyleaf of the album bears a bookplate depicting a fish, identical to the antique silver fish medallion Maryana wears around her neck. Sidorovna mentions that a certain gallant gentleman had expressed interest in the album, to whom she gave another book. Maryana also shows Morgan and Sotnik an abandoned stone fountain in the shape of a fish emerging from the ground.

After lowering a camera into the well, the young men discover a fragment of chain and the entrance to a stone pipe about a meter in diameter, but no bodies. Later, they search for Mitrich in a hut at the boathouse, but find only empty bottles, a jar of rubbing alcohol, and an old newspaper with an article about a girl’s death seven years earlier. Morgan fact-checks online and uncovers the terrible truth: the deceased Lena was Maryana’s older sister. After her parents died in a car accident, Maryana took her mother’s maiden name and came here seeking revenge.

In the morning, the hospital is rocked by new news: Sofia Sidorovna has been found dead in her bed. Nurse Maria Ivanovna rules the death natural, but Maryana discovers signs of mechanical asphyxia (suffocation with a pillow) and traces of a ransacking of the bookshelves. She calls the local police officer, Ivan Polevkin. Meanwhile, little Alyosha begins to suffer another seizure, and Maryana rushes him to the city hospital in a passing car.

Exposing a werewolf in uniform

Morgan discovers that Lemeshev’s album and video camera have been stolen from their bungalow. However, Sotnik managed to copy all the pages onto his phone. The drawings reveal that the bottom of the well is a rotating stone slab. When a hidden lever at the base of the well is pressed, the slab rises vertically, draining the water into a gigantic lower reservoir — a karst cavity. To drain the well, a knob on the fish fountain must be turned, closing the valve of the pipe from the lake. The second part of the mechanism is opened with a special steel key hidden inside the fish medallion.

Morgan finds Maryana in the outbuilding and directly accuses her of murdering Mitrich, whose body they finally discover at the bottom of a well using a camera. Maryana refuses to make excuses but asks for a day’s notice. She admits that Mitrich blackmailed her, demanding ten thousand dollars for the name of her sister’s killer, claiming to have seen two men.

The final drama unfolds in the garden near the well. Maryana tracks down the writer Boreisha, who is closing the fountain’s valve. She aims her father’s pistol at him, believing him to be a murderer. The ghost of the Well’s Mistress, Natalya Lemesheva, appears. Boreisha knocks the gun from Maryana’s hands, but is knocked unconscious by the sudden appearance of police officer Ivan Polevkin.

Polevkin takes the pistol and lays his cards on the table: Boreisha is innocent, only seeking inspiration. The real killer is the local police officer himself. Seven years ago, he tore the page describing the treasure from Sidorovna’s album. Learning of the hiding place, he tracked down Lena, who had left the restaurant with Gleb Litte. Polevkin tried to take the key locket from her, and she fell into a well. Mitrich became a witness, and Polevkin forced Gleb to pay the watchman ten thousand dollars for his silence, keeping most of it for himself. Recently, Mitrich began demanding money again, and the police officer drowned him. He strangled Sidorovna when she woke up during the search.

The finale underground and the repose of souls

Polevkin handcuffs Maryana to an iron bracket at the bottom of a drained well and forces her to open a secret hatch with an ice pick. Entering the cell, he finds an oak chest, but it turns out to be empty. Count Lemeshev’s age-old mechanism is triggered: an iron grate seals the hatch, trapping the police officer. In a panic, Polevkin drops the key medallion.

The centurion, suspecting something fishy from the nurse’s story, directs Morgan to the well. Morgan descends on a rope. The water is rapidly rising, as a grate has jammed the system. Morgan dives into the icy water, finds an ice pick at the bottom, and breaks the handcuff links. The centurion pulls Maryana and Morgan to the surface at the very last moment, just as an ancient monster emerges from the well. Polevkin perishes in the flooded underground chamber.

The next day, Boreisha, having recovered from the blow, gathers everyone in Yarigo’s office. He shows them the diary of his ancestor, engineer Andrei Kirsanov. It turns out that Count Lemeshev learned of his wife’s infidelity with the engineer. He tricked Kirsanov into opening the valve, flooding the well where Natalya was chained. The Count made his wife the eternal guardian of a non-existent treasure, and beat the engineer and threw him into the lake. Kirsanov survived, lost his memory, but before his death in Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, he remembered his love.

The oak chest retrieved by Yarigo’s men turns out to be filled with gold — the Count had hidden it in a false bottom. Natalya Lemesheva’s remains are interred in the village cemetery. Boreisha reads Kirsanov’s suicide note, repaying her debt to memory. Maryana and Khavroshechka see the translucent figures of the lovers, Natalya and Andrey, holding hands, disappear in the rays of the sun. Maryana finds long-awaited peace in Morgan’s arms.