ZMedia Purwodadi

Jack n’ Jill

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Everyone in the village knew the rhyme. Children sang it while skipping rope, mothers hummed it to restless infants, and even the elders muttered it under their breath as if repeating the words kept them safe.

“Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.”


But like most rhymes, the truth had been twisted into song. The villagers forgot or pretended to forget what Jack and Jill were really known for. They were not innocent children. They were cunning thieves. Jack was bold, with quick eyes that never seemed to stop moving. He had a grin that made even the sternest adults soften. Jill was quieter, her hair tied back with ribbons, her little feet always bare, her hands always folded politely behind her back. Together they looked harmless, almost angelic.


They lived in a crooked cottage with their grandmother, a frail woman half-blind with cataracts. She sent them up the hill each morning with their pail, telling them to fetch water from the well. But by the time they returned, the pail often clinked with more than water. No one suspected them. Who would? They were just children. Children could not be criminals. Children could not be dangerous.


It began at the market. Jill noticed how the baker kept his coin box too close to the edge of the counter. Jack noticed how easily distracted the man became when someone asked about the freshness of his bread. The plan was simple. Jack pointed at the shelves, demanding to know which loaf was newest, insisting on smelling each one. The baker, weary but amused, leaned in. Meanwhile, Jill’s small fingers closed around the coin box and slipped it into the folds of her dress. They left with both bread and silver.


When they spilled the coins onto the cottage floor, their grandmother never asked where they had come from. She squinted at the silver and muttered,


“At least you’ll eat tonight.”


That silence became permission. Jack and Jill discovered a truth few children ever did. Adults trusted them implicitly. A child’s knock on the door was always answered. A child’s smile was always met with kindness. They began to use this as a weapon. Jack played the fool, throwing stones at fences, laughing too loudly, feigning a limp to draw attention. Jill was the shadow behind him, slipping through unlocked doors, her little hands pocketing whatever she could find. Candlesticks, trinkets, ribbons, even knives.


The villagers complained of missing things, but no one ever suspected the children. It must be travelers, they muttered. Or gypsies passing through. Jack and Jill listened to these excuses with quiet amusement, their pail filling with treasure. It was on the hill where things grew darker. The path to the well was steep, winding between sharp rocks and loose soil. Travelers often took it to rest or refill their water before entering the village. Jack saw an opportunity.


One evening, he lay in the middle of the path clutching his leg, wailing that he had fallen. When a kind farmer rushed to help, Jill came from behind, a stone clutched in her small fist. The blow was sharp and sudden. The man collapsed. They didn’t kill him, not then. They stripped him of his coin purse, his knife, his pack of dried meat, and rolled him down the slope. He woke later bruised and confused, with no memory of the faces he had seen.


But Jack and Jill grew bolder. Each ambush sharpened their methods. Sometimes Jack would stumble into travelers on purpose, knocking loose their purses. Other times Jill would beg for help carrying the pail, her big eyes brimming with fake tears, until her victim leaned down within reach. The rhyme grew in whispers, carried on the wind.


“Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of gain.

Jack struck first, and Jill struck worse,

And none came down again.”


It was inevitable. One night, a merchant with a heavy pack staggered up the path. Jack cried out, feigning injury. The merchant bent low. Jill swung her stone. But this time the man did not simply collapse. His head struck the rocks with a sickening crack. He lay still. The children froze. They had never seen a body so quiet, so broken. Jill touched his face, then pulled her hand back when blood stained her fingers. Jack looked around, panicked, then laughed.


“No one will know,”


He said. They dragged the merchant to the well, pried open his pack, and poured his goods into their pail. His body followed, tumbling into the black water with a splash. The ripples died quickly.


The next morning, the village whispered of a missing merchant. But the children only skipped through the streets, their pail swinging innocently at their sides. More travelers vanished. Sometimes it was merchants. Sometimes farmers. Once, even a soldier disappeared on the hill. His horse returned alone, reins dragging in the dirt.


The villagers grew afraid of the hill. Some refused to use the well altogether. Rumors spread that the well was cursed, that the hill swallowed the greedy, that spirits dragged them down.


Jack and Jill listened, wide-eyed, as the adults frightened themselves with tales. Their secret was safe. But not with everyone. An old shepherd claimed he saw two shadows near the well at night. He swore he heard children’s laughter echoing down the hill. When he told the village, they mocked him, calling him senile. A week later, he vanished too.


Jack and Jill grew careless. Their pail grew heavy with coins, jewelry, knives, and trinkets. They whispered of leaving the village one night, of running away with their treasures. But before they could, the disappearances caught up with them. The villagers, desperate and terrified, marched up the hill one evening, torches in hand. They found the well, the rocks slick with something dark. They shouted down into the depths, but the echoes swallowed their voices.


Jack and Jill were never seen again. Some said the villagers threw them into the well when the truth was discovered. Others said they slipped and fell, victims of their own greed. Still others believed they escaped, vanishing into the world to rob new villages under new names. But the rhyme remained. And on certain nights, if you climb the hill alone, you may still hear it—not sung by children at play, but whispered low, right behind you:


“Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of plunder.

Jack fell down, and Jill struck hard,

And all the town fell under.”


Years later, when children sang the rhyme, no one remembered the robberies. No one spoke of the blood spilled on the rocks, or the merchant’s body in the well. The rhyme became innocent again, reduced to a simple story of children tumbling. But some villagers never forgot.

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