“Mom?” Sarah blinks herself awake. She fell asleep on the couch again, watching late-night comedy reruns after putting Abigail to bed, with only a half-empty bottle of wine and a tin of weed gummies for company. She blearily blinks at the young girl; god damn it, she promised not to let her see her like this again. “Wha-,” she coughs, “what is it, dear?” “Auntie wants to come in but I can’t open the door.”
“There! Do you see that?” An endless twisted thread; a mat writhing beneath the surface. Sprouting bodies receding into the rotting soil; corpses blossoming into ghostly light. Ribs crunch beneath Abigail’s feet; a smile lights her face. Her companion tarries, unwilling to venture in; Rob’s mothers told him so many times to stay away from the burial pits, not to risk whatever ordinance might yet be buried among the numinous dead. ...
On the day Abigail found her halo, her mother had sent her up into the attic to pick out some ornaments for their tree (for it was that time of year, with snow outside and candles burning in the window; so unlike our winters now!). She didn’t want to, of course. The attic was dark and cold, and as she climbed the ladder up she felt like she was ascending into a den of monsters. The little flashlight dangling from her wrist hardly illuminated a thing, and her neck itched so very horrible as she poked her head up through the trapdoor— ...
“Just try your best, okay dear? It’s fine if it takes a few tries.” Abigail’s eyes jump between the cleaver Cloth Mother has just wrapped her fingers around and the too-small body spread out on the table. Outside the pool of light, Wire Mother grins and blows smoke into the air. “Don’t waste time, dear.” Wire Mother draws the word out, makes it into an insult as it hisses between its glass-shard teeth. “It needs to die.” ...