The Mother Fury

Cold stone meeting colder bone wrapped thinly in tight flesh, the whispers of dawn, an estranged crackling, and low woeful laughter attacked the senses of a young woman walking alone on the grim stone floor of a carapace cottage. She pressed her too small hands against her eyes, rubbing away the grime of a single night in this, a polluted place. No matter how hard she scrubbed, cold water and rough rags could never take away the stench and mire of this place. Dimly, a fire near death crackled, it whispered it’s foul promises of destruction, sending icy sweat down her face. She knew what this meant, after these five years of imprisonment. Soon, too soon, the nightmares would be replaced with things that would have her begging for the release of some fitful sleep. She had not known peace in these five years, only the dreaded ghosts of what-might-have-been.

Memories of a haggard old woman, Showing up on a stormy night, she asked for shelter from that downpour. Father had offered her a place by their once pleasant hearth fire, food and wine on their table. Allira had been too young for the wine then, the youngest of her sisters. That woman proclaimed herself grateful, and quickly made herself at home. As the night wore on she grew more boisterous, sharing tales of towns faraway, her joy making her seem so wonderful, so graceful as it danced across the lines of her face. As the night wore on, each of Allira’s siblings retired to the one family room, separate from their cozy fire lit kitchen table.

As the yawning, stretching, and heavy lidded parents finally bid her goodnight, and Allira to follow, the woman's voice took on a rasp that hadn’t been there just a moment ago. She desired more than anything a daughter, she had said. That this family of five surely could spare one of three, after all, and she had lost her own daughter very recently. To this, Allira’s parents stopped in their tracks, face full of intractable emotion. After a silence stretched too long, Allira’s mother gave a tepid, high pitched laugh. Allira’s siblings did not stir , as this laugh echoed against their walls.

The crones face was etched with severity, however. Unchanging as her mother's laugh puttered off like a dying ember. Color drained from the faces of her parents as the silence stretched long and tight around them, the figure of the crone seeming to stretch in the wavering firelight. It seemed the shadows were deepening around her eyes then as if they were waiting to swallow them up at the hint of a breeze. Such a keening laugh burst forth from her then, as to make the blood run cold, tossing back her head in the mirth. Nervously, Allira's mother gave a half-hearted chuckle. “You are a funny woman” With this, the last words Allira had ever heard from her mother were spoken, how she wished she could forget them now.

Allira stood frozen, halfway to the family room, just long enough to see that crone’s stone cold face, once more frozen in severity. She joined her family in that small room, but that face burned into her eyes. She lay for hours, watching the fire light that broke through the door of their little room never dim. Just when she had convinced herself that the crone’s frigid stare had been exaggerated by her imagination, and the warm blanket of sleep lay light upon her- there came a noise that dragged her into icy awareness once more.

It was faint, as though outside of their cottage. But it came again and again, a dragging, clunking sound. Over the grinding of her teeth, she could hear this death rattle of stone. It made no sense, she thought her eyes flitting over the sleeping forms of her family. How could the rest be so soundly sleeping with all of this racket? It grasped her heart with bone hands tightening evermore, every cell in her body screaming as she lay there in the dark. Never had their shared room felt so void of warmth. Finally Alira could stand it no longer, and she launched herself upwards, throwing off her thin blanket as though it were made of fire ants.

She opened the door to their living room with trembling hands, a painful slowness about her as fear made lead of her muscles. The noise was almost drowned in the sound of her own blood as heart threatened to burst. How could it be then that their hearth still burned brightly? There was no sign as she peeked into the room of any great danger, but that noise. How it continued on and on , a rhythmic grinding, clunking, then silence and again. And again. But their home was as empty of ill intent as it had ever been. She could see no sign of the crone however and finally dared push open the door just a little farther. A little more, and more until it finally revealed the truth. Their home had no other body in it.

As Allira glanced about the room she saw almost nothing strange, their dishware in the sink from the meal, the blanket on the floor in front of the hearth absent of any person who had seemed so wrathful. But why with this ever so peaceful scene did her skin burn and perspire? Why was it that she was so desperately gasping, here in their home? And why would that damned noise not stop?

Allira strode across the living room with all the fury she could muster daring the noise to continue, only to stop short in front of their door. It did continue, it grew louder even, and she felt the air leaving her chest. Her hands shook as she neared the door, unable to force herself to grasp that once common object in her hands. Still she could not bear this, the very ground beneath her cold bare feet seeming as though it would split open and swallow her where she stood. Gasping now, she extended her hand with a great and painful effort to the handle on that old oak door, and pulled.

She nearly fell backwards with the force she used to rip the door open, as if her sheer force of will would scare away that unknown source of grating noise. Before her, was a scene she could not make sense of. Instead of outside, in front of her was a great stone wall, with only one brick missing through which she could she the stars of night. Her heart stuttered with confusion, as she reached towards the opening . It was above her head, and as she pulled herself up, she saw their yard as it had always been. The fire pit, still with a few embers glowing from her mothers washing fire some hours ago. The treeline held no movement, and those great oaks , once so protective, looked on as if some witnesses to her execution .

Suddenly, her vision of the world outside was shadowed, and then blocked entirely by a great block of stone as it floated through the air untouched, and began to wedge itself into that last hole. Allira pressed her toes into the lower stones now, heaving herself up to push the stone away. She wanted desperately to scream, to let her family know what bizarre danger was befalling them. But only the dead could’ve heard her silent shrieks of panic as her toes slipped repeatedly, fighting to keep the stone out of place. The unseen force upon it was strong, but still she pressed on. Her arms shook from the effort, one holding her up, the other firmly on that stone. With every slip she felt it try to fit snugly into that final hole, but she would bang her knees in effort to launch herself back up and throw her weight upon it, shoving it back out again. As suddenly as it had come, the stone fell away. Aliras arms released their tension for just a moment, but the cold chill of fear wouldn’t allow her to stop looking for the stone. She couldn’t pull herself away, lest it come back. Why didn’t I wake my mother?

Tears fell from her eyes, clouding her vision as she tried desperately to locate the stone. Seeing no other option, she pulled herself into the whole between the stones , aas it was just large enough to fit her thin body. Eyes forward, she still searched for the stone, the thought of it bashing her face in fixed so firmly in her mind she didn’t actually see what was in front of her. Great yellow eyes peered at her through the opening , and she only saw them for a moment before two long hands grasped her by the hair and pulled her through the opening. Her mouth opened in a silent shriek as she fell through the air and landed thrashing upon the ground.

In front of her were giant bird feet, the size of her chest. Her eyes crawled up the beast before her, to find human arms coming out of a giant owl's body. A human face, with great owl eyes, smiled gleefully down upon her. Unable to make a sound, Allira could only claw desperately at the hands now grasping her hair, and kick at the feathered body before her. With a sound eerily familiar the beast threw her aside, a death scream bursting forth from it’s lips as she hit the wall of stone.

Her head exploded in pain , her chest heaving with screams that here still vocal chords could never given life to. She had landed in a heap, unable to move from the burden of pain and fear. The creature gestured to something she couldn’t see, the long fingers sickening as they beckoned with stretched skin. As it did so, she could hear the panicked voices of her family inside, her father calling her name. The stone came back in to her view, and though she tried to struggle to her feet, she was powerless to stop the creature from grasping it from where it floated in the air, and sliding it into place.

One of the great birds talons grasped at her torso, lifting her into the air with great gusts of wind that riled the dirt around her home. The creature screeched again, and suddenly she knew when she had heard that terrible noise before. Where she had seen those golden eyes. The barn owl her sister had shot down, just days past, in it’s pitiful death thrashing, had made these mournful cries. As she remembered those lovely white and gold feathers, exploding in front of her eyes , a fire began to spread around the cottage. It was in this light she could finally see the full shape of that great beasts work. The entire cottage had been surrounded by walls of stone, with no exit. Shaped like the closing feathers of the birds wings, Allira could only watch on , as the fire blazed long into the morning . The fire drew her back again to those gold and white feathers twinged with blood.

The screams of her sisters, of her father and mother, were as the death throws of that sweet bird. Mournful, but unable to escape death. Long after her body had gone numb the bird flew above their once beautiful cottage, that horrid crones laugh echoing into the night as it would echo in her mind forever.