Souhaiter: The Wishing Well Spirit

Liz Crout

My creation Souhaiter was completely created from scratch by me. I sculpted the prosthetics, teeth, and molded and ran them in foam latex.I also applied and painted the prosthetics, and built the well it dwells in. My creature was inspired by the impeccable Doug Jones and his characters played in Pan’s Labyrinth. I’d always been fascinated by wells and thus Souhaiter was born. This is the legend behind the creature:

Far beyond the wood in a decrepit village that time had all but forgotten,  stood an abandoned wishing well. The Well stood in solitude only until one winter's day, when a child with a shiny penny arrived. The child stood in the cold, tears welled in her eyes as she clutched to the coin in desperation. Her whispered prayers brushed the coin as she completed her wish and let it soar from her fingers into the well. The Well listened quietly as the wish floated to it's ears, and felt sympathy towards the child and granted her wish. The next week the child returned happier than before with another shiny coin. This visit though, the child sat at the edge of the well and gazed at her reflection on the solemn glass face of the murky water below. She spent hours at the well singing songs and plaiting her hair. At the end of her visit, she squeezed the coin between her small fingers before quickly wishing and throwing the coin into the well. Again, the Well granted her wish, pleased by her company. Each week the child returned with a new coin and a new wish, and the Wishing Well was jovial. Weeks turned to months and months to years and the Well granted each of the child's wishes until one day, the child who was no longer a child stopped coming. With each missed visit the Well's heart hardened a bit more. Abandoned once more, the Well became cruel and wrath coursed through its veins. The Well still stands to this day waiting on the child's return, but with a bitter hatred in it's heart.