The Children’s Bones

*CW for child death*

Once upon a time there was a witch, but her house of candy was not in the middle of a deep wood. The little house was in a neat little suburb, and the witch was a cosmetics saleswoman named Jessica Howell.

Jessica was not a witch by choice. She had not been born with evil dwelling in her like dark cancer. She wept every time a child was taken and devoured by the thing living beneath her house. She lived in fear of it. She hated it. She did not revel in death and blood. She was not the monster. She was just the gatekeeper.

She tried to ameliorate her sin by choosing unpleasant, bullying children, the sort that other children hated and feared. But at the bottom of her heart she knew that she was just as wicked as any witch who looked a child over for health and good fat. The children she took were dirty, they were ugly, they stomped on insects and pushed smaller children into the dirt—but they were children. By taking them, Jessica was taking away their ability to grow and change. They were dying in a state of sin, and it was her fault.

And their mothers. Jessica hid in her house and tried not to see the frantic faces of their mothers when they came looking for their children. The police roaming the neighborhood, flashlights swinging. There was never a funeral. The children’s bones were never found.

One child every three years. That was what it cost to keep the beast still and sleeping. Jessica was the witch who guarded it. And she was afraid. Even in the off-years she dreamed of it, of the dark and the claws and its dirty, grubbing teeth. And the smell of blood and the children’s bones.

One cold morning, Jessica awoke at dawn. She put on the coffee and looked out at the misty morning sun. It all looked so peaceful. She wrapped her pink bathrobe tightly around herself and stepped barefoot into the damp grass. The wet cold drove into her feet like knives.

Jessica crept round to the plywood door that covered up her crawl space. She sometimes thought about boarding it up more tightly, with proper wood and padlocks, but what good would that do? When the beast was sated, it slept. And when it was hungry, no power of heaven or earth would keep it in its hole.

Jessica leaned against the siding of the house and closed her eyes. Soon it would be time again. Time to find a child, someone mean and greedy, with neglectful parents who would not be missed right away. Someone easy to bribe with candy and promises.

“My cat is trapped in the crawl space,” she would say. “If you can get in there and bring him out, I’ll give you ten dollars and this whole bag of candy.” And his eyes would light up with avarice, and he would think nothing at all of crawling into the dark and the cold by himself. He might not even notice when Jessica closed the plywood door behind him.

“You old bastard,” Jessica whispered. “How long have you been here? Did you come to the house, or was the house built around you?”

Twenty four years Jessica had lived here. One child every three years. But how many before her? The house had stood for eighty years; had the monster been here all this time? So many questions.

Jessica had bought the house from an old woman who was dying of cancer. She’d never met the woman, a Mrs. Audrey Hillson; the closing had been attended by her grandson. “She’s been in a hospice these last few weeks,” Jim Hillson had explained. “The cancer’s making her lose her mind a little, and she needs to be watched.”

“Was it the cancer that broke her mind, or was it you?” Jessica whispered. “If I have to do this for another fifty years, I’ll go crazy myself.”

A low growl rumbled from behind the plywood door. The beast was stirring. Jessica felt the old anxiety, the old hunger building. She could sense the monster’s need. This summer, no later, it needed to be fed.

Jessica sometimes thought about burning the house. Fill the crawl space with kerosene, light a match, run like hell, burn baby burn. Let the beast have a barbecue this year.

But first she’d have to get close enough. She’d have to open the door and enter the crawlspace to pour or spray the fuel. The crawl was cold and damp, even in dry summer. It would never burn enough to even hurt the monster without accelerant.

And that always brought her to the second solution. Just go inside. Let the beast take her. It would hurt, but only for a minute. And there would be no more dreams. She could sleep, it would be so quiet and peaceful.

She tested her resolve now, putting one hand against the damp plywood. The beast’s growl deepened. She pushed a little, and it snarled. A deep, horrible sound that Jessica felt in her guts and in her soul. Jessica withdrew. She was cowardly and wicked; she couldn’t do it. Not this year. Not yet.

Jessica went into the house. Her coffee was almost ready. She could smell it as she entered the house.

It covered up the other smell. The smell of death, and the children’s bones.

***

Officer Jamieson nodded to his partner. “Are you ready?” he asked.

Basovsky shook his head. “No,” he said. “I still can’t believe it.”

Jamieson walked out to his patrol car, and Basovsky followed. “Female serial killers are unusual, but not nonexistent,” he said. “You took all the same classes I did, and you know she fits the profile.”

“What did the Smith broad see her doing, exactly?”

“Keirsten Smith was out walking her dog last night and saw a woman resembling Jessica Howell climbing out of her crawl space covered in blood, and she had what looked like a baseball cap in one hand. Smith took off and ran home before Howell saw her. She’s lucky to be alive, is what I think. That crazy bitch might have killed her, just like she probably killed the Adams kid.”

“And she’s sure it wasn’t an animal or something?”

“Dude, what kind of animal looks like a skinny woman with glasses and a tank top?”

“I sound like someone’s mother, don’t I?” Basovsky shook his head. “Such a nice, quiet person. House full of cats. So kind to dogs, and good with children.”

“It’s always the nice quiet ones. That’s how they get away with it for so long.”