Welcome to this week’s installment of many micro stories, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
WINTER’S GRIP
“We are purified in our deaths, freed from the horrors of living,” the Elder Druid whispered. “It’s a natural process. A thing of great beauty.”
But there was nothing beautiful about the way Niamh’s mother was dying.
The druids hung their garlands and sang their ancient hymns, but still, Niamh’s mother thrashed in her bed. In her final moments, Sinéad’s eyes did not gracefully flutter shut; instead, they remained open, bloodshot, forever frozen in a wild stare.
The druids whispered empty condolences, praised apathetic gods, and left.
The wind, at least, seemed to understand the horror of these final moments: outside the window, it whistled and whined its sympathy.
Niamh listened to its soothing howl for hours, only standing when a dull knock echoed from the front door.
Maeve.
Niamh closed the door to her mother’s room. Maeve had let herself in and was facing the crackling hearth, snow melting off the too-long sleeves of her Conservatory-issued cloak. The silver insignia pinned to Maeve’s breast gleamed in the warm light of the fire.
Niamh clenched her jaw.
“I wrote days ago,” Niamh said quietly.
“I needed permission,” Maeve reminded Niamh, as though Niamh were unfamiliar with the Conservatory’s ways. “I left as soon as I could.” She threw her arms around Niamh. Niamh squirmed uncomfortably in her arms, like a child might in the unfamiliar embrace of an older, more distant relative.
Maeve released Niamh, and approached Sinéad’s room. The door creaked open, a quiet, desperate warning.
Maeve didn’t listen. Her eyes watered at the sight of what Sinéad had become.
Niamh whispered a spell. It’d been a long time. She could taste the rust in her subpar pronunciation.
But still, the door behind the sisters clicked. Maeve’s lips pursed in confusion. But then her eyes narrowed.
Maeve shoved past Niamh and tried her too-simple spells. But Niamh had locked the door with ancient magic, the kind of magic the Conservatory hid in their restricted libraries.
Niamh had been expelled for studying such things.
She thought about telling Maeve she was sorry—but anger, not remorse, burned in her throat. She wrenched a light from deep inside Maeve, and watched as it fluttered over to Sinéad’s lips.
Maeve’s body fell with a thud, and Niamh waited patiently in the dark.
Then Sinéad shuddered.
“Mother?”
Sinéad sat up, staring straight ahead with frightening intensity. Her eyes were white, frosted over, and still wide with agony.
No. Not agony.
Hunger.
Sinéad snapped her gaze toward Niamh. A wicked smile stretched across her sallow face.
Niamh ran.
The midwinter night was unforgiving. Snow seeped into Niamh’s slippers.
Niamh ran until her fingers and toes were numb. Wet snarls and heavy breathing tickled the back of Niamh’s neck. Niamh fell to her knees, knowing that the thing behind her was stronger, faster. A cold hand gripped Niamh’s shoulder.
“We are purified in death,” the monster said. “It’s a natural process.”
Its teeth dug deep into Niamh’s skin.
“A thing of great beauty.”
D.L. Stille writes speculative, thriller, and horror fiction. She has been previously published in the Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter and in Maudlin House. You can find her on social media @DorothyStille or on her website: dlstille.com.
If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash anthology.
Iron Faerie Publishing 