Bone-Mother
She needs offerings. But how much are you willing to give?
This was written for the 30 Days of Fright challenge (hosted by Wendy Cockcroft). Prompt 15: dem bones. I tweaked the prompt a bit from finding bones, to offering them.
It took me a while to revise this one, too, which is why I’ve gone all the way back to day 15. I feel like there is a longer story in here that wants to be told.
Bone-Mother
Children’s voices. A sing-song in unison.
“Cat bones Dog bones Rat bones Fox. Release her spirit from these rocks.”
Marianne, the eldest at fourteen, led the other children, like a conductor guiding an orchestra. They followed her fluidly and without question.
The childish rhyme was the only sound in the still summer air at the far side of the old graveyard that night. The one behind the ruined chapel, edging up against the dark woods.
It was a children’s game. A nursery rhyme, invented at the orphanage— who could say when—for bored children to scare themselves with, run away, cheeks flushed with excitement. It was always followed by laughter and finger-pointing and accusations of who got scared the most.
None of these four children laughed, or ran.
The mausoleum they stood before was outside the now-decaying fence, sheltered by bending willows. This was the unusual and unfortunate burial place of the nurse known only as Eleanor.
Eleanor was legend among the orphans of Abbott House.
“She grants wishes,” some said. “She helps you get adopted,” said a few naive hopefuls. “She smites your enemies,” said some of a less generous persuasion.
All they had were chicken bones, scrounged from the kitchen. “Chicken bones aren’t in the song,” Annie said, worry in her voice. “I hope this offering is okay.”
Marianne didn’t think the type of bones mattered, as she tossed them onto the little stone cairn before the gated doorway of the tomb.
She believed it was the act of offering that mattered.
Marianne led the other children, like a shepherd driving her flock. “Again,” she said. “Sing it again.”
“Cat bones Dog bones Rat bones Fox. Release her spirit from these rocks.”
“Did it work? I don’t think it worked,” said Charlie, the only boy in the group.
“How do you know it didn’t work?” asked Annie, always sensible. “If she’s a spirit, we wouldn’t see her come out.” Her voice cracked. “Would we?”
“I don’t wanna see her,” Jody, the youngest, whined, grabbing onto their leader’s nightdress. She brushed the little girl’s hand away.
Marianne stood regally at the head of her small congregation, her curly dark hair wild, like a witch of olden times, she imagined. In her white shift, with arms spread wide, she declared formally, “So it is done.”
The clandestine group made their way back to the silent silhouette of a house, picking their way carefully among the gravestones in the dark.
Between the ruined chapel and Abbott House was the new chapel, and the more recent, more organized, cemetery. A constant reminder, upon looking out their upstairs windows or playing on the lawn, that children—children their age, just like them—died here, with no family to claim them.
Marianne led the other children, like the pied piper of Hamelin.
They snuck in the back door. Marianne took one look back over the silhouetted stones, sending Eleanor a silent wish, before closing and locking the door.
***
In the tangled, wooded darkness, far from the main house, a rat scurried over Eleanor’s cairn, picked up a chicken bone still greasy with fat and disappeared into the brush.
Then something else, invisible, and infinitely more hungry, stirred.
***
The next afternoon was dismal and rainy. Marianne spent many days like this, after chores and insipid lessons, in the library.
Water pelted the windows and the world was grey as she gazed out and thought.
Marianne, like a Gnostic of old, knew many things, and believed many more.
She knew she was the eldest at Abbott House, and had been there her whole life, taken in as a baby.
She believed in spirits and ghosts and that this sad place was haunted by those children who had come before her, and never left, gravestones populating the chapel lawn like weeds.
She knew she would never get adopted. She knew she was too old, too unmannered, too bold.
She believed you had to work for what you wanted. Earn it.
And she knew the library like a well-worn map.
And so, one day, in some dusty, forgotten ledgers and record-books, she had learned of Eleanor Owens, a caretaker and nurse at Abbott House, long ago. Eleanor Owens, who tended to the sick children, often those with no hope left. Eleanor Owens, mother to all. Until her own untimely death when the great fever overtook Abbott House.
Nothing told why she warranted a mausoleum, outside the consecrated burial ground, at the edge of the wood.
But Marianne believed that this fact made Eleanor special.
All this knowledge was Marianne’s secret knowledge.
She believed in Eleanor. Mother to all.
She believed that Eleanor could rise.
She believed she knew Eleanor better than anyone.
And then there was the photo, only one, sepia and faded. Eleanor in her nursing apron, brown hair frizzed and wild around her face, not pulled back in the customary bun. She had a sprig of lilacs tucked behind one ear.
Marianne took the photo and kept it beneath her few belongings in the single drawer that was hers, and hers alone.
Marianne knew and believed, and sometimes she even imagined.
At night, when the other girls slept, she took out the photo of Eleanor, traced the line of her face with her finger, and imagined. “Mother,” she whispered into the darkness.
***
After lessons and chores, while the children played ball, or hoop and stick, or the girls picnicked and gossiped in clusters, Marianne slipped away.
She thought she caught a whiff of lilacs on the breeze as she cat-stepped through the old graveyard, though it was much too late for lilacs and there were no bushes she knew of.
She bent down before Eleanor’s tomb. The chicken bones were gone. The stone cairn was disarranged. She restacked it with care. “Eleanor,” she whispered. “You heard us.”
Marianne ran her fingers along the cool stone of the tomb and gazed into the dark through the padlocked iron gate. “Tell me what to do next,” Marianne whispered. And like a reply, a distant bird made a sound that the girl heard as “More. More.”
“You need more offerings?”
And the lilac breeze answered, “Yesssss.”
***
It was two nights later when Marianne led the other children like a preacher leading worshippers in prayer.
Lilacs. The smell was strong now. Marianne looked around in the dark, thankful for the abundant moonlight. The air around Eleanor’s tomb was electric, like a storm was coming.
“Cat bones Dog bones Rat bones Fox. Release her spirit from these rocks.”
Annie dumped the chicken bones atop the little cairn. “We brought you more. I hope it’s enough,” she said simply.
A breeze sighed through the iron bars sealing Eleanor’s tomb. Leaves trembled.
Marianne smiled.
***
Charlie fell ill with a fever, was confined to bed in the sick ward. The nurses fluttered around him like moths.
The other children weren’t allowed to visit him, for fear of spreading sickness. The three girls lingered in the corridor.
Annie worried, biting her fingernail. Jody rocked back and forth on her heels. A cool breeze slithered down the hallway, carrying the vague sweet scent of lilacs. And Marianne wondered.
***
Marianne coaxed the girls out into the cloudy night like a snake charmer drawing out nervous serpents.
“Cat bones Dog bones Rat bones Fox. Release her spirit from these rocks.”
The rhyme sounded different without Charlie’s voice.
Marianne unwrapped the package she had carried from the house. She set the dead rat before the tomb.
“Ew. Where–where’d you get that?” Annie asked.
“Does it matter?.” Marianne’s eyes were dark. “Eleanor needed more.”
Jody sniffled. “I’m scared.”
Marianne took her small hand. She imagined Jody as her little sister. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” she assured her.
But sometimes Marianne was scared. She selfishly feared the day when the little girl would get adopted. The youngest ones were always the first to get families.
“Eleanor is coming,” Marianne said with fervent faith. “She cares for all children.”
In the morning, they were given the news. Charlie had died in the night.
***
The very next afternoon, Annie collapsed on the lawn. One moment walking with her friends. The next, unconscious on the ground.
They were all shaken up about Charlie. Perhaps Annie had just been overcome, fainted from the strain of it all. She’d always been delicate.
Marianne herself helped carry the girl into the sick ward. She stood back and watched as the two nurses tried to make the girl breathe, massage her heart back into beating.
But Marianne knew that Annie would not wake up.
The room smelled of antiseptic and lilac.
***
Inside the mausoleum, outside the decaying fence, sheltered by the willows, something quivered with anticipation.
Eleanor drew Marianne like a marionette on silk strings.
Marianne led Jody like a sheep to slaughter.
Marianne knew that Eleanor was waiting. She believed that Eleanor would be a mother. Her mother.
She knew her singular wish was coming true. She had earned it. Paid Eleanor’s price. Offered up what Eleanor desired.
The air was electric. The stone cairn was scattered. The dead rat was gone.
The mausoleum sat silently embraced by its willows. The breeze stopped like something was holding its breath.
In the spot where the cairn had been, a glint in the dirt caught Marianne’s eye. She crouched down. A key.
Marianne knew. Marianne believed.
She approached the iron-gate doorway. The darkness inside waited. The darkness smelled like lilacs.
The key fit the lock like a warm embrace. Made for each other.
Jody edged back. “No, Marianne. I’m scared.”
Marianne turned, hair wild, eyes resolved, but brimming with tears. She whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She turned the key.
Jody tried to run, stumbled, cried out once, then fell with a sickening crunch. Marianne looked back. Tears ran slowly and silently down her cheeks.
Blood ran slowly and silently over the rock where Jody’s head had landed. The little girl’s eyes were open, vacant.
Marianne’s eyes were open, expectant. She turned back fully to the darkness.
“Mother…” she whispered, as the iron door slowly creaked open and a shadow took shape in the darkness.
The scent of lilacs escaped the tomb like a long-held breath and the air sighed, “Daughter.”
Further Reading
In case you missed them, here are two of my recent posts for the 30 Days of Fright writing challenge.
The Mourning Bell
I'm very fond of this gothic story about a mother and daughter whose time is limited.
This is the Shrouded Grouse, and here you’ll find supernatural short stories and novellas, essays and musings, zines, and illustrations that explore the liminal spaces and moody places.
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This was great and creepy! I like your writing style! A great read, fellow horrorist (I just made that word up 😂)
I love the character of Eleanor. So well rendered.