The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Darkness Before Midnight
by Kim Richards 

No one knew which came first:  the wooden house or the venerable, twisted tree whose branches reached skyward like bare arms, emploring the dark skies. Rumors said the boards were carved from the tree’s siblings and it sought to reclaim them. Some believed the god of night brought both tree and cottage into this world. It might not matter whether the branches came after the house was built or if some kind of symbiotic relationship existed. The villagers understood the place should be avoided, particularly once the sun hid its face.

Lisha knew something secret about the tree—something her mother warned her to never reveal to anyone. She had been born there, beneath the naked branches and inside the dark cottage. She also knew the house was built for her bloody birth, though she had no idea if the tree or her mother built it. Asking only brought grim glares in reply.

Her mother also told her daughter the name Lisha meant “darkness before midnight” which is when her birth took place. Every year, on the same fall day, the two women shuffled through crackling leaf husks to make the long walk through the forest. They stood in the brisk darkness before the tree.

They always slept in the house. All year long, no light and no warmth touched the wooden structure. Only when Lisha “came home”–as her mother called it—and the hearth was lit.

The tree had a name too. Isolabella. Lisha asked her mother once what it meant.

Mother answered, “It means beautiful lonely one.”

Knowing names held sacred meanings to the older woman, Lisha asked, “Who named it?”

Her mother shrugged and turned away.

* * * * *

This night, the 23^rd since her birth, Lisha and her mother settled into the house. A bright full moon face shone through the open window, framed by a gently fluttering curtain. The yellow tallowed candles flickered in the cool night air, casting gentle moving shapes on the walls.

From within a basket woven of grape vines, Mother pulled out an iliac bone with twenty-three curved marks carved on its surface. Lisha leaned forward to examine it more closely and realized they were images of the moon’s phases.

She opened her mouth to ask about the meaning but hesitated when her mother reached into the basket once more. Mother’s hand withdrew an obsidian knife with a blood red stone blade. Someone sharpened the surface by chipping away its edges. Lisha wondered if her mother created both the bone carvings and the blade.

Mother settled onto the floor and pulled Lisha down to sit beside her on the sheepskin rug. She began singing a low, melancholy song about the moon at midnight. Her contralto voice rose slowly until it filled the entirety of the space inside the room.

Lisha felt the vibrations in her collarbone…a pleasant thrumming. She closed her eyes and just listened. She felt her mother’s fingers comb through her long hair. Pleasant. Lovingly. Then a swift tug and release.

Lisha’s eyes opened wide. Between them squatted a shallow brass bowl. The carved bone and lock of her hair lay in the center. Mother held the knife in one hand and placed a pat of incense into the bowl with her other.

“Mother? What?” she whispered.

“Soon,” the older woman replied.

She ignited a slender stick in the fireplace and used it to activate the incense. As smoke tendrils whorled up from the pat and Mother tossed the stick into the firepit, she said, “It is nearly midnight.”

“What happens at midnight?” Lisha asked. She sat up on her knees, intending to rise to her feet. The spicy scent of the incense reminded her of the dank musk of the forest.

In a whir of movement, her mother launched herself towards her daughter. She sent the two of them tumbling to the floor.

“Darkness,” she said.

Lisha yelped and flailed her arms. Her head cracked against the wooden floorboards, biting her tongue. Salty blood trickled from the wound. The edges of her vision blurred and her limbs weakened.

Still, she saw Mother lean over her with the chipped knife clasped in her hands. The older woman’s eyes glittered in the pale light.

With a sharp stinging pain, the chipped blade pierced Lisha’s blouse and into her skin. She cried out. Hot tears filled her eyes and then escaped down her cheeks. Her vision failed her.

This is the darkness before midnight…the Lisha, the rustling voice of Isolabella whispered in her mind. For tonight it would not be lonely.

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Fiction © Copyright Kim Richards
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com