Trembling With Fear – Christmas 2024 Edition!

The Spark of Christmas

By: Christopher T. Mayne

 

Crafty smacks his thin, cracked lips together, tasting the sticky-sweet ooze leaking into his hoarse throat from his inflamed ear canal. His nervous jitters jingle the bell hanging from the precipice of his crushed velvet hat as Goony keeps a dull eye on him from the corner, slurping on a candy cane under the luminescence of a decorated Christmas tree.

A clomping of hooves is chased down by a pair of sled runners slicing through the packed snowflakes outside. As they come to a stop, a reindeer grunts. Two heavy-booted feet thump onto the powdery earth and approach posthaste. The splintered wooden door guarding the entrance to the shack of ice blocks is flung in and shoved shut as Findy steps inside, his weight causing the room to shift and slosh around.

“So, another one of you thought you could steal from the Jolly One, huh?” Findy asks, brushing the snow from the shoulders of his sherpa-lined winter coat, each of its gold buttons portraying a cheery character from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He shakes his head, talking to nobody in particular. “When are they going to learn?” 

Crafty shudders on the frigid iron surface his half-naked body is shackled to on the floor, his clogged ear thumping out waves of nauseating agony. “P-please, F-f-findy,” he croaks, feeling his internal temperature plummet and the bitter cold bite the helium-pitch out of his voice box.

“Save it,” Findy tells him. “I’ve heard every excuse under the Pole for stealing the Spark.” He walks over to Crafty and gives his dry, peeling cheek a pinch. It refuses to pale under the pressure. “You don’t have much meat left on your bones, do you…let’s see…Crafty, was it?”

Goony removes the candy cane from his red-glistened mouth and gives a throaty giggle before reinserting it.

Crafty attempts to speak again but has his next words corked by Findy’s mitten. “Shhhh,” Findy whispers, “I get it: you’re sorry, you didn’t mean to, you have a family. Yada, yada, yada. It’s obvious you took it, what’s not is where you hid it. Nod if you can understand me.”

For the moment, Crafty stays as motionless as the moon glaring through the ice blocks above. That is until Findy bites a mitten off his hand and puts four toasty knuckles into his petrified face. A laceration rips through the papery skin between Crafty’s bulging eyes and releases a congealed drop of crimson over the hump of his aquiline nose.

“Starting to understand me?” Findy asks, his bristly eyebrows raised.

Crafty nods through the tears that crystallize on his cheek.

“A little cooperation would be nice here, Crafty. It was you, afterall, who stole from us. And who’s to say you don’t make it back to that cozy cottage of yours with your wife…your wife…” Findy looks in Goony’s general direction with a frown. He snaps the fingers on his ungloved hand. “Mendy,” he chirps out, turning back to Crafty with a sinister smile.

The chains attached to Crafty’s shackles rattle.

“Whoa, easy there,” Findy chuckles. “Looks like we hit a nerve. If I were you, I’d savor the suffering because pretty soon you won’t have any nerves left for us to hit.” Findy gestures to the blackened digits on Crafty’s chapped foot, still chuckling. “That frostbite’s a real creeper.”

Mendy’s face takes form behind Crafty’s eyes as they close. How could he have been so careless? To risk everything he built with her, everything they planned to build together. His eyes seal tighter as he imagines her warm breath against his pointed ears, fetching points with no curvatures kissed with just the right amount of blush, points he hoped to pass on to their offspring had they fled the Pole with success.

“He sees you when you’re sleeping,” Findy sings.

No, Crafty thinks to himself. Mendy knew the consequences when he apprised her of his scheme; and, come what may, she was willing to bear them. Afterall, she, too, was sick of what their lives had become: birth names becoming taboo, grueling loads of work throughout each year in preparation for the big event, bogus reimaginings of their plight as sentimental stories that spoke only of winter wonderlands.

Findy’s singing continues. “He knows it when you take.”

Being their only means of escape, the two often found themselves reminiscing about the time before the Pole, a time in which they never belonged but had yearned for since hearing the elders regale their village with tales of lush vegetation, frolicking fauna, and rivers so temperate they could be used to bathe. That is until the night of the elders’ swift disappearance. None of the villagers knew when, or how, it happened, but there were talks of strange noises coming from the sea.

Growing impatient, Findy shoots Goony a deadpan expression and tips his head toward the Christmas tree. Goony, keeping his candy cane snug between his puckered lips, plucks a silver angel ornament from the end of a bent branch and gives his repugnant reflection a jagged-toothed grin, the storybook of scars on his face stretching. 

Lost in thought as his mind detaches from his corporeal being, Crafty is rooted back into his icy tomb by the silver shards driven into his eye. He barks out a grated wail that jars the curious fish underneath the floor, scraping off what’s left of his ravaged vocal cords as his eyelids are cut trying to close around a sharp piece lodged in deep.

 “Look, Crafty,” Findy sighs as he lifts his arms to stretch and gives the back of his neck a scratch, “I don’t want to be here anymore than you do. It’s Christmastime; I’ve got things to do, parties to attend, spiced eggnog to drink, you know? So if you could just spare us both—”

Findy’s hairy points quiver before twisting to the same direction. Standing, almost at attention, from where he’s crouched over Crafty, he nods his head in an obedient display of agreement, whispering into thin air. His eyes roll further and further back into their sockets with each hushed word as more and more worms of red vessels crawl up beneath them.

As the whispering subsides, Findy’s eyes and ears fall back into place. A sidelong smirk opens in his cheek. “Guess I’ll be out of here sooner than expected.” He skips across the unsteady room in his multi-buckled boots, their toes raised to a comical height, and pats Goony on his chiseled back. “You-know-who’s on their way.”

Goony gives his candy cane a noisy slurp, staring Crafty down as he uses a dirty pinky nail to dig out the scum gathered inside the fold of one of his drooping, disfigured points. He then flicks it at him.

A sudden flash consumes the night on the other side of the ice blocks, commanding the immediate attention of everyone inside. Within seconds, a towering figure ducks under the doorway with a hefty bundle slung over its shoulder. Findy and Goony adjust their relative positions to counteract the added weight tipping the room as the figure, cloaked in an ornate robe of rubies and emeralds, saunters over to Crafty.

With a substantial breath that steams hot vapor from the darkness of its hood, the figure hoists the tattered knapsack onto Crafty’s brittle leg. Feeling his knee cap displaced in his shin, Crafty uses every bit of energy left in his deteriorating lungs to yelp but loses his breath as Mendy’s head falls out onto his emaciated chest. She stares up at him, the mouth of her corpse agape with its dusky, purple tongue lolled out.

“Make no mistake,” the figure informs Crafty in an even, baritone voice that reverberates through the iron surface glued to the flesh of his bare back, “her death is on your hands.” The figure removes a blinding white orb encased in a diamond cube from within the front pouch of its cloak. Findy and Goony shield their vision from the lurid glow as Crafty remains catatonic in Mendy’s frozen shadow. “The Spark is the fuel of Christmas. It is what conceals the Pole from the human world and makes the Jolly One’s journey possible. With each passing December it will grow, acquiring everlasting power from the joy given to it by His true believers while extracting the joy from those who choose not to believe.”

A muffled whimper falls from Crafty’s trembling bottom limp as he nuzzles his nose against Mendy’s auburn hair.

“You see, it was I, the Spirit of Christmas, who was tasked with the protection of the Jolly One’s Spark from which my own existence came to be. And it is I who will purge the Pole of those who mean to steal the Spark and disrupt His manifestation of peace on earth when its power is, at long last, used to construct a new world order in which He sits atop the highest throne—the King of kings.”

The room starts to sway as Crafty’s shackles freeze over in a pernicious frost that gnaws at what’s left of the sensation in his wrists and ankles. He winces as the dam of his distressed mind crumbles, thrashing around and knocking his wife’s lifeless form from his protruding ribcage. It rolls down the length of his leg, clipping off the big toe on his blackened foot as the flesh tears from his back.

Goony traverses the room and grabs Crafty by the throat, pinning him down with a vascular arm branded in a sleeve of names belonging to past offenders as Findy clicks open his pocket watch with a sigh.

“It was the elders who brought you here,” the Spirit conveys, “with their stories of what was, just as it was the elders who perished as you will now.” The Spark unleashes a condensed ray that travels downward. “For, you see, from the Spark was born another—a creature of my own devices. It is a slave to my will and destroyer of those who stand against the Jolly One and that in which He provides.”

A piercing shriek, intertwined with an eldritch howl, rises from the depths of the ocean, bringing with them an onslaught of prodigious bubbles that burst across its hectic surface.

“The Polar Berserker’s mercy will not be mild.” The Spark flashes and, in an impossible implosion of light, the Spirit is swept off to destinations unknown, the Spark siphoned through with it.

Removing the candy cane now sucked down to a sharp, pointed end, Goony fits the tip into Crafty’s unclogged ear until he can no longer hear his own broken squeals. He then leaves through the wooden door with Findy, untying the braided rope holding the insignificant iceberg in place before they sail off in their sleighs, the bells fixed to the reins of their reindeer ringing out as Findy shouts, “A merry to Christmas to all!”

Set adrift on the freezing sea, the swaying of the room builds to a crescendo of tumultuous bucking. The proliferating frost soon takes the sight from Crafty’s other eye and renders him incapable of witnessing, through any of the ice blocks’ many lenses, the unfathomable beast that would penetrate the water’s glimmering veneer by way of its colossal, serrated dorsal fin and mark the advent of his perpetual silent night.

The Gift

By: DJ Tyrer

 

“Sherry, darling?” asked Vicky as he entered the kitchen. “To celebrate making it into our new home before Christmas,” she added with a smile.

Robert put the item he was carrying down on the table and said, “Sure. I need to clear the cobwebs out of my throat.”

Vicky laughed. “Is it that bad up there?”

“Worse,” he said with a chuckle, then coughed. “Definitely worse. I don’t think anyone can have been up into that attic in years. It’s absolutely festooned with cobwebs and covered in a pristine layer of dust. Well, it was.”

He took the sherry and drank it in one gulp.

“Hey, slow down,” said Vicky with a grin as he handed the empty glass back. She poured him another. “As it’s Christmas.”

“Thanks. What was I saying? Oh, yeah… I’ve swept out all the dust and webs and chucked all the junk. You know, there was the wheel of a Penny Farthing bicycle up there…”

“You’re kidding,” she said, finishing her own sherry.

“Hand on heart – it’s out by the bins. Bent out of shape, or I’d ask a museum to take it off our hands. Instead, it’s going to the tip with all the other rubbish in the new year.”

He finished his second sherry. “Anyway, the attic is now ready for you to stash all our detritus in, darling.”

Her drink finished, Vicky’s gaze moved to the object he’d place on the table. It was dusty, but appeared to be a small box wrapped in striped paper and tied with a bow.

“Darling, what’s that?”

“What does it look like?” Robert laughed. He held it up and blew some of the dust off.

“Hey!”

“I found it when I was clearing the attic out. There’s a little nook next to where the chimney goes up, and it was shoved in there, next to a dead mouse. No, I’m kidding about the mouse, honey. But, it was right back in the gap, hidden. I thought you might like it for Christmas.”

“Why on earth would I want that dusty thing?”

“There’s a label on it,” he said, tapping it with his finger. “Go on, read it.”

Vicky took it from him. “‘To Victoria, Merry Christmas. From your loving husband.’”

She looked at him. “Is this a joke?”

“No, hand on heart – I really did find it up there and it really was for a Victoria. No kidding.” He smiled. “Don’t you think it’s appropriate? It’s like our coming here was meant to be.”

She turned it about in her hands.

“So,” he asked, “are you going to open it?”

Vicky shook her head. “Not now. I’ll open it on Christmas Eve.”

It was her family’s tradition to open one gift on Christmas Eve in anticipation of the morning’s repletion.

Robert smiled. “Okay, if you can hold your curiosity till then…”

“It’s less than a week.”

“Okay. And, I’ll be magnanimous – if it turns out to be a rotten present, especially if literally, you can open a second one. I wouldn’t want you disappointed.”

She rolled her eyes, but laughed and kissed his cheek. “Thanks.”

 

#

 

“Did you get everything we need?” Robert asked the next day when Vicky returned from town. That was the problem with moving house so close to the holidays – you couldn’t stock up with the festive essentials ahead of time and all the supermarket delivery slots were booked.

“Did you finish the painting, darling?” she asked without answering as she placed four bags of shopping on the kitchen table.

“The lounge is two-thirds done,” he said.

“Then, you can take a break and help me put all this away.” Vicky turned to observe their brand-new chest-freezer. “I’m so glad we had the space for it,” she said, putting the turkey crown in, “I’ve always wanted one.”

“Merry Christmas and you’re welcome,” he told her as he began to unload one of the bags.

“So,” he asked between putting the packet of stuffing in the pantry and pulling out a couple of boxes of mince pies, “was it busy?”

“Not especially. I was quite surprised, actually. But, then, I guess most people had already got their shopping in long before now.”

“Oh? You were gone quite a while.”

“Not long enough for you to finish that lounge.”

“Hey, you don’t like the way I do things, you know where the roller is.”

“In the paint tray getting ruined?”

“I shall not dignify that with an answer… But, what kept you, then? Traffic?”

“No, I went into the library.”

“The library? Honey, I don’t mean to sound critical, but don’t you have enough books? I distinctly remember one of the removal men giving himself a hernia as he brought them in.”

Vicky laughed. “No, I wasn’t there for reading material. I was doing research.”

“Research? What on?”

“Victoria.”

“The Queen?”

She shook her head. “No, our Victoria. The one who was supposed to have that present.”

“Seriously? Who cares?”

“I care. I was curious. Why didn’t she get her gift?”

“Her husband probably forgot where he hid it,” Robert said. “I probably left a few of yours behind in the old place,” he added with a chuckle.

“He didn’t. At least, that’s not the reason she never got it.”

“Okay, you’re talking in riddles, now. I take it you found something?”

“I did.”

“Fine, then pour me a sherry and we’ll sit down and you can tell me all about it.”

She did. “Well, I didn’t find much. I checked the censuses and found that a Victoria Berstow lived here in 1891, but was gone by 1901. With a little help from the librarian, I managed to track down a death certificate and she died in 1892, a week before Christmas.”

“Really? Well, I guess that does explain why she didn’t get her present.”

Vicky sighed and poured herself another drink. “It’s sad. She was only twenty-one when she died.”

Robert rolled his eyes. “A joyful festive story to get us in the mood…”

“Sorry… But, it is sad.”

“Well, maybe we can forget about it and put the rest of this stuff away? Maybe break out some of the mince pies? It is Christmas, after all. Well, nearly…”

“Okay…”

 

#

 

“I had the strangest dream,” Vicky said the next morning as they had breakfast at the kitchen table.

“Did it involve trampolines, custard and anthropomorphic tea pots?” Robert asked.

She looked at him. “No.”

“So, not that strange, then? Oh, come one, just trying to jolly you along, you sound down.”

“No. Well, maybe… It was just an odd dream.”

“Okay, so I’ll bite. What was the dream?”

She smiled, but the expression was weak.

“I was up in the attic, looking for presents, and I found one from you in that nook – well, it was that present you found, actually, but I knew it was from my darling husband. I put it back and I remember feeling really happy.”

“Okay, that doesn’t sound particularly strange, nor a good reason for feeling down.”

“No, there’s more. I was walking through the house, but with every step it was harder and harder for me to move, like my limbs were made of lead. I was coughing. Then, I fell into bed and I just kept coughing and coughing and.. everything went black… and, then, when I woke – in the dream, I mean – it was like I was a statue made of glass, fragile and almost without substance. Then, I was walking through the house, calling for you, but you were nowhere to be found… I don’t know, it was weird.”

He patted her arm and grinned. “You are, but I still love you.”

She smiled back, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

 

#

 

It was Christmas Eve and they were sitting by the fire – a real fire – in the lounge. There was no sherry and mince pies for Santa, but they each had a glass and a plate for themselves. As Robert had jokingly put it, “The old guy needs a good diet and detox – just look at the gut on him!”

“Well,” said Vicky, as the clock chimed ten, “it’s time.”

“Time? Oh, time.” Robert reached over to the tree and picked two gifts off the pile. He handed one to Vicky and clasped the other in his hands.

“This one is from Auntie Vi,” he said, tugging at the wrapping. “By the shape of it, I’m going to guess at a book. And, yes, here we have it, the latest best-selling novel by a celebrity… just what I wanted.”

“It might be good,” said Vicky.

“I was going to say ‘predictable’, but it could be good, I guess. So, what’s in your present – or, rather Victoria Berstow’s.”

Vicky held it in her hands and looked at it. “I feel a little guilty opening it. I mean, it’s not mine.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not like the other Vicky cares – she’s been dead over a century.”

“Okay, here goes.” She pulled the paper away from it. “Oh, it’s a music box, I think.”

“Is it? Open it up and let’s see.”

She lifted the lid and a soft tinkling tune began to play.

“Oh, that’s Silent Night, I think. Yes, it is.”

“Appropriate, I guess.”

The tune tinkled to a conclusion and the box fell silent. She flipped the lid shut.

“Sad…” she murmured.

“Did you want to open another one? I’ll let you – I’m kind like that.”

Vicky shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

With a gesture to their pies and drinks, Robert said, “Well, we’ve got plenty to be getting on with and that film should be starting soon. We’ll snuggle up and –”

She cut him off with a shake of her head. “No, I think I’ll go to bed now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I feel tired.” She coughed.

“Sounds like you’re coming down with a cold.”

Vicky shrugged, then stood and took a few steps, faltered and gripped the sideboard to stop herself from falling.

“Hey, you okay?” Robert jumped to his feet, knocking his sherry over to spill on the floor.

“Yeah… I just feel like lead and my head went all floaty for a moment.”

“Leaden and floaty? Interesting combination,” he joked, but he couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice.

“Could you just help me to bed?”

“Sure.”

It wasn’t easy. With every step, it was as if her legs became less and less able to support her and her head lolled as if it were heavy upon her neck. As they entered their bedroom, she shied away from the dressing table mirror with a small gasp.

“Hey, come on, I know you’re not at your best, right now, but you don’t look that bad, honey,” he said. She didn’t respond and he guided her over to the bed.

With difficulty, he helped her into it, Vicky too weak to even get changed.

Robert glanced over at the mirror and saw his ghostly face looking back at himself, almost as pale as his wife’s. His throat felt a bit dry.

He shook his head. That was all they needed – a virus for Christmas!

He began to tug the covers up and it was only as he did so that he realised Vicky was still clutching the music box in her hands.

“Here, give me that.”

She tried to resist, but her fingers had no strength.

“We don’t want it getting damaged, do we?” he said as he set it down on the bedside cabinet.

“Lift the lid for me,” she said in a whisper.

“Uh, okay.” He did and Silent Night began to play, slow and almost dirge-like.

“Thank you,” she murmured, then slipped off into sleep.

He stood over her for a moment, uncertain what to do, then headed back to the lounge with a resolution to let her have some peace to sleep before he joined her in bed later.

 

#

 

With a jerk, he was awake and almost falling out of his chair. He must have fallen asleep while the movie was on. An advert played, disjointed in his sleepy confusion.

He heard coughing. Vicky!

Robert ran out of the lounge and up the stairs to their bedroom.

Vicky was asleep in bed, still and silent.

Had he imagined it? Or, had the coughing fit passed without her waking properly?

Robert stood in the doorway, uncertain what to do. The music box, its lid still open, gave a soft ping, a random note and he stepped over to close it.

There was the sudden sharp sound of a crack, almost a gunshot.

He swore. “What the hell?”

Looking about, he saw the mirror was broken, a spiderweb of cracks across its surface. Before he could seek a cause, he heard Vicky stir.

As he turned back to her, she sat up in bed and stretched.

“Vicky? You alright?”

She looked at him and, slowly, nodded, then smiled.

“I’m fine,” she said in a tentative voice. “When is it?”

He pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s… two in the morning. It’s Christmas.”

“Christmas Day? Really?” She clapped her hands in an almost child-like fashion.

“Yes.”

“Splendid.”

She glanced at her bedside table where the music box sat.

“Thank you,” she said, “you don’t know what a wonderful gift that is, sweetheart.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked.

Vicky stretched and flexed her arms, as if testing their strength.

“Like I’ve been reborn,” she said. She patted the box and it gave a muffled, discordant note. “I’ll just put this somewhere safe and, then, we can go open our presents.”

She slipped out of the bed, all trace of the lethargy gone.

“I’ll go put the kettle on,” said Robert, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“You do that, sweetheart,” she said as she carried the music box over to the wardrobe. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

“Sure.”

As he stepped out into the hall, he thought he heard Vicky murmur, “It’s good to be back.”

Robert shook his head to clear the cobwebs of sleep from it and headed down the stairs to start Christmas early.

 

Ends

The Ornament

By: L. R. Pearl

 

“Merry Christmas!” my mother shouts, pulling me into a tight bear hug on the stoop. “Oh, sweety, I’ve missed you so much!”

I smile, despite feeling like my bones are about to break from the pressure. It’s about minus seven degrees today, the coldest it’s been since the winter season hit. Even with layers upon layers of thermals, I still can’t feel most of my limbs. Perks of being only five foot one and one hundred and ten pounds, I guess.

“Merry Christmas to you too, Mom,” I reply, the words being squeezed out of me. She finally let’s go, and I refill my lungs with fresh, bitter air. “Missed you too. Shall we go inside? It’s absolutely freezing.”

She waves me in. “Oh, of course! Make sure to shake the snow off your shoes though.”

I nod, letting my head bounce for a moment. As if I’d enter the house with snow caked boots. The cinnamon scented warmth hits me like a brick in the face the second I shut the front door. Mom always has candles lit, especially around the holidays. It’s a staple here. Cinnamon, pine, vanilla, and cranberry. All the classic Christmas scents. Wafting in through the kitchen, brussels sprouts, honey glazed ham, and extra cheesy mashed potato. With all the lumps, of course.

My stomach growls in response. “Mom, the food smells incredible,” I say, shoving off my boots and making my way into the front room.

She returns, a gravy-stained tea-towel decorating her shoulder. “Thanks, sweetie. Been cooking since—” She raises a wrist, checking her watch. “About eleven a.m.”

“Oh wow,” I reply, lifting my brows. “You’re determined!”

Mom giggles, before glancing down at the small package clutched in my hands. “What’s that?” she asks, her eyes squinting with curiosity.

I shrug. “No idea. It was resting against the door when I arrived. Figured I’d pick it up for you and bring it in.”

She angles her head to one side, the lines on her forehead deepening. “Huh,” she replies, politely taking it from my hands. “Maybe it’s from a neighbor or something. Should I open it now?”

“Totally up to you, Mom. It’s addressed to you, so it’s your gift,” I reply. I stroll over to the couch and slump into it, letting my tired, cold body sink into the cushions. A silent moment passes. “Do we have any wine? Beer?” I shout over my shoulder across the room.

Mom doesn’t answer. I don’t hear any sounds, as a matter of fact. The room is deathly quiet, save for the mechanical whirr of the electric fireplace ahead of me.

What on earth is she up to now?

With a pained groan, I haul myself back up from the couch, and start toward the kitchen. As I walk through the doorway, I spot mom standing still in front of a single window at the end of the room, staring intently at something small in her hands.

I stop dead in my tracks. “Everything okay, mom?” I ask, keeping my voice low. But she only continues glaring at it, unmoving. A pit forms in my stomach as I take a soft step closer. “Mom?”

Her head snaps in my direction, startling me. “Did you say something, dear?” she asks.

“Y—yeah. I just asked if everything was okay. You went super quiet all of a sudden just now. I was concerned something had happened.”

“I did?” she asks, her face remaining blank.

Oh my god. Are these early stages of dementia? What is going on?

I decide to dismiss it, at least for now. Mom seems… scared, almost. The last thing I’d want to do is contribute to that, especially if it is early signs of dementia. Dragging my feet across the kitchen, I reach mom, and gaze at the thing resting in her palm.

It’s a small object, made from wood. Twigs, I think? Threaded together into a pyramid. Although the wood is pale, near white, but slightly milky. I’ve never seen anything like it. Tied between the milky twigs, in the very center of the pyramid, is a collection of tiny rectangular items. I can’t make out exactly what they are, but they’re various shapes. Some have indentations, and some have darker shaded parts that look like rust.

“Well… that’s got to be one of the ugliest ornaments I’ve ever seen in my life,” I say.

Mom grips it tighter, the whites of her fingertips gleaming. “It’s very unique, isn’t it? I quite like it,” she replies, a subtle grin tugging at the corner of her lips. “We should hang it on the tree.”

My face twists in surprise. “Wait, you actually want to hang that thing up?”

She tuts. “It’s a thoughtful gift, Angela. Don’t be so rude,” she replies, circling around me and making her way toward the Christmas tree.

It’s centered at the foot of the staircase. Not right in front, obviously, but about two meters away from it. Standing tall at eight feet, there’s very little space in-between the already crowded branches to hang the ugly little ornament. Part of me is hoping she’ll decide against it, given the lack of space. There’s something about it that freaks me out. Sends a shiver down my spine.

Mom’s eyes search over the tree. “I want to put it right in the middle,” she says, to my surprise. “Here, find another place for this one.” She plucks away a shiny red phone box ornament—the ones you see in London—and hands it to me to hang elsewhere on the tree. She threads the branch through a gap in the milky twigs.

It’s hideous, and unlike mom to want to replace the ornaments she got all the way from London with thig…thing. This is all just so weird. So wrong. I mean, where did this ornament even come from?

“Was there a note in the package? You know, from a neighbor or something?” I ask her, hesitant as to not offend her like I did in the kitchen.

“Hmm,” she mumbles. “I don’t think so. Doesn’t matter. Ready for dinner?”

I part my lips to ask another question about it, but mom walks off, back into the bright lights of the kitchen. I stay standing in front of the tree, staring at the freaky little ornament. I want to touch it, but I resist. The twigs, they almost look like bones close up. Thin, cleaned bones.

I slowly reach a hand out to touch, despite the voice in my head telling me not to.

“Leave it!” mom shouts from my shoulder, her voice deep and guttural.

I spin on my heels, jumping out of my skin. How in the hell did she even get here so fast without me hearing? I slam a hand to my chest, feeling the intense thuds of my racing heart. “Jesus Christ, mom, you scared the crap out of me.” She glares at me, something wicked glinting in her eyes. Her lips are a straight, thin line. “Sorry,” I say, my voice not much more than a nervous croak.

“Come. Eat,” mom replies, storming back off into the kitchen.

Something isn’t right. Why has mom flipped all of a sudden? She’s not usually like this, ever, but especially not over the holidays. She was so thrilled at the front door. Ever since that ornament came, she’s changed.

I anxiously follow her into the kitchen, taking a seat at the narrow wooden table in the back room. It’s just us for dinner, so the table is only set for two. Mom on one side, me on the other, directly opposite. Bright golden plates have been placed in an orderly row down the middle of the table, with one large white plate directly in front of our chairs. The plates have a decorative border, patterned with holly and red berries.

I rub my hands together, generating some warmth into them. There’s a bizarre chill in the room all of a sudden. Perhaps mom had opened a window somewhere to let smoke out. I don’t know.

“Can’t wait to dig in, mom,” I say, shuffling my chair as close into the table as I could.

Seconds later, mom approaches, carrying a huge tray of honey-glazed ham. She plops it onto the table, before picking up a sharp cutting knife to slice it open.

A weird grin spreads across her face, cheek to cheek. She pauses, the knife dangling from her hand.

“Are you feeling okay, mom?” I ask, glancing back and forth between the knife and her wide, toothy grin.

Her eyes snap to me, but no other part of her body moves. Only the eyes. She starts to laugh. Not just a chuckle, no. Her laugh is boisterous and over the top. So loud it rings through my eardrums and echoes through the house. I watch as she raises the knife, until it’s in line with her head. Her laughter abruptly stops, and she glares down at me.

“It needs my blood,” she declares, being slicing the sharp, pointed edge of the knife against her own cheek. Blood immediately dribbles down, soaking into her mouth, covering her white teeth crimson.

I shoot up from my chair, and rush toward her and she continuously drags the knife down the skin. “Oh my god, mom! Stop!” I shout at her. I grab a hold of the knife, but she squeezes onto it in a death grip that’s impossible to break. “Mom let go!” I yell, attempting to pry it away from her.

She grunts like a beast. “It needs my blood!” she roars.

“What does!?” I reply, a bead of sweat dripping into my eye. I wipe it away on my shoulder, keeping my eyes fixed to the knife, and mom. “Put the knife down, mom.”

“The bones. The bones. The bones. The bones. The bones—”

She repeats these words over and over again as if in a trance. My mind starts whirring, trying to work out what the hell she means. What bones?

And then it occurs to me.

The milky white twigs.

Oh my god.

I glance over to the other room, the glow of the Christmas tree lights casting a golden shadow across the floor. I can get there, but it means leaving mom with the knife. I can’t remove it from her grip. She’s going to keep cutting.

Deciding it was worth the risk, I leap away from her, and dart toward the Christmas tree where the boney ornament hangs. Mom begins laughing behind me, that same terrifying, beastly laughter from before. Not wasting a single second to look back, I pull the ornament from its branch, and crush it in my palm. The bones snap as easily as I thought they would. The tiny things in the middle do not, however. With them scattered inside my palm, I take a closer look.

Teeth. They’re human teeth.

I immediately drop them, and slam my foot against them as hard as I can. The crunch of them finally breaking feels satisfying under my foot, despite the sharp edges cutting into the thin skin on my heel.

Something thuds in the other room where mom is.

I lift my head, and sprint back into the dining room.

Mom sways, the look of shock on her face, alongside the rows of blood and sliced open skin. The knife is on the floor beside her.

She slowly turns her head to face me, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “What happened?” she asks, her eyes now innocent and glassy, the malice gone. She places a hand against her cheek, wincing at the sting. “My face, it’s—”

“It’s okay, mom,” I reply, rushing toward her and pulling her in for a hug. I squeeze as hard as she did when I arrived. “You’re going to be okay.” She sniffs against my shoulder, but doesn’t let go. I pull away slightly, fixing my gaze to hers. “Let’s get you to the hospital, okay?”

She nods hesitantly. “Okay. Yes.”

Wrapping my arm around her torso, we stumble out of the kitchen and through the living room toward the front door. As we pass the pile of broken bones on the floor, mom pauses.

“What’s all that?” she asks.

I pull her attention away from it, and gently tug her in the direction of the door. “It’s nothing, mom. Just some mess from outside.”

“Sweetie, I told you to shake off your boots on the way in.”

I suppress a laugh, because I know she’s serious. She doesn’t remember anything that’s happened since she opened that ornament.

“I know, I know. I’ll clean it up when we get back. Promise.”

After slipping our shoes on, we leave the house, hop in the car, and drive toward the hospital, gladly leaving this years Christmas behind.