Dead of Winter ~ First Place
Alex Grehy

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“Don’t give them money, it only encourages them.”

Phoebe cursed under her breath as Simon, her work mentor, caught up with her. Their office culture was oppressive, nothing went unobserved, but she’d vainly hoped that out here, on the street, Simon might curb his acid tongue.

“Yah, they only spend it on booze and drugs. Better to give to a homeless charity instead,” drawled Reese, who’d walked up from the station with Simon.

Phoebe assumed their arriving together was a coincidence. There were only so many trains that got everyone to the office in time, though there was hot competition to be the first in and last out.

“Like you’ve ever given anything to charity.” Simon sneered.

“I put a few pennies into a collection tin when they were rattling outside Harrods. A posh store like that wouldn’t let any riff-raff organisations collect outside their doors,” Reese said, walking on towards the entrance of the looming glass and steel tower block where they all worked.

Phoebe hung back and turned to the shapeless heap of quilts that engulfed the homeless person sitting on the pavement.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure they don’t mean to be rude. Here…” Phoebe fumbled around in her bag and tucked a £5 note under the trailing edge of a duvet. As she turned away, a small, clean hand, a woman’s hand, flashed out from beneath the heap and snatched the note away.

Phoebe shivered. She’d not felt warm since moving to the city—even in the summer a keen breeze whistled through these streets. She’d read somewhere that the architects had unintentionally created wind tunnels when they crowded the skyscrapers together, making the most of the precious mile square of prime city centre real estate. Not that it would be any better inside—her building’s air conditioning was fierce and then there was her colleagues’ relentless sniping.

As she drifted through the door, she heard Reese’s shrill voice penetrate the open office floor like a rapier.

“Phoebe’s off daydreaming again!”

Phoebe saw people look up from their cubicles and laugh. She scuttled to her desk, her flaming cheeks hidden by a curtain of hair as she leaned forward to turn her computer on.

Phoebe had complained to Simon about the teasing, but he’d just laughed, calling it harmless banter; she needed to suck it up, grow a pair. Macho bullshit, she’d thought, but not said. Her company prized individual performance over team cohesion, believing that competition led to achievement. It had a sour reputation. Over the water cooler, in the company gym, in the in-house bar and restaurant, her colleagues whispered of staff pushed too far, driven to despair by pressure and stress. There were tales of self-harm, violence, suicides.

Yet it was a global leader in, well, it was hard to say what it led—marketing, public relations, sales, stock trading. Complex and compartmentalised, the company slithered through boom and bust like a snake in the jungle. Staff who survived the rigorous culture, who wriggled into executive positions, became wealthy.

*

“Hi there, how are you today?” Phoebe addressed the heap of quilts piled on the pavement as she tucked some cash under the corner of the nearest duvet. It had become her daily ritual, though she found it hard to explain why. She was doing well in work, the money was small change, but she didn’t give to any other street beggar. Maybe it was the proximity to her workplace, that she felt safe enough to open her purse and plant some money in this one anonymous heap camped in the shadow of her company’s edifice. She’d never seen the recipient’s face—just the incongruous clean hand, reaching for the money.

“It’s been noticed you know,” Reese called from the pavement behind her. They’d shared a commuter route for over a year now, but Reese was arriving later and later these days.

Phoebe straightened up as Reese approached.

“Hold this a second,” Reese instructed, handing Phoebe her bag. “Don’t let the hobo steal anything.” Reese slipped off her commuting flats and replaced them with high-heeled court shoes.

“What’s been noticed?” Phoebe asked.

“Your obsession with this pile of rags. If Simon doesn’t like the company you keep, he’ll demote you. Our firm has a reputation to maintain.”

“That’s not all they notice,” said Phoebe in a stage whisper, but Reese had already overtaken her and pushed through the building’s entrance.

I’ve seen Simon check his watch when you walk in. I’ve seen him check your productivity logs. I’ve also seen him turn his lusty little eyes onto the new intern—you’ve let your standards slip, Reese. Phoebe shook her head and smiled, allowing that it was ok to be a bitch in the silence of your own head. Except her head was rarely silent these days.

“You can hear, can’t you?”

Phoebe looked down. The voice had come from the heap of quilts.

“Hear who? You? I didn’t think you’d spoken before; I mean, I thought you were asleep…”

“Or passed out, from the drink and drugs your friend thinks I’ve imbibed.”

“Uh, she’s no friend of mine, we just share an office, and she was just generalising, I mean, a lot of people in your situation do give in to… stuff.” Phoebe waved her hands around vaguely, trying to explain in gestures the impossible relationships between her and the people she spent the most time with, yet knew the least about.

“Hmmmm, yes, you’re no friend to her. You, who can hear her thoughts, who can see her struggling and does nothing. Is that why you leave me a pittance every day? To prove to yourself that you’re still a real person, with values, even when your soul is being washed down the drain?”

“How dare you judge me? I felt sorry for you.”

“No, you didn’t. Everyone can feel them, but only you and I can hear them. We’ve got more in common than you know.”

Phoebe turned her back and stomped into her office building, her thoughts a maelstrom of confusion.

How dare she? Why do I have to be kind all the time? Why can’t I cope? She always looks so together, taking time to speak to homeless people when I don’t have time for anything? What am I even doing here?

Phoebe stopped abruptly, only halfway to her desk. Not all those thoughts belonged to her.

“Phoebe’s daydreaming again!”

Reese, shrill as ever, never missed an opportunity to heckle.

I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe this is all I’m good for, taking people down, so they don’t notice how useless I am.

Phoebe looked around; these were definitely not her thoughts.

She strode over to Reese’s cubicle. Reese ducked her head down below the partition. When Phoebe peered over, Reese was resting her head on her keyboard, but Phoebe noticed the tissue in her colleague’s hand, stained with mascara and tears. The two women didn’t say anything. Phoebe returned to her own cubicle and drowned the whispers in her head in a flood of work.

*

The next day, Phoebe emerged from the underground station and trembled as a cold wind bore down on her, sweeping discarded newspapers and takeaway boxes along the street. There was always a breeze between the buildings, but today it was a gale, though the air had been still enough in the suburbs where she lived.

She pulled her heavy winter coat around her and tucked her chin into the faux fur collar, which may be why she walked straight into a woman walking towards the station.

“Steady on there.”

Phoebe felt a hand grasp her arm, helping her to regain her balance.

“Thank you. I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“No, you didn’t, you’ve never looked, but you can see me now.”

Phoebe looked down. The hand still clutching her arm was clean and small, yet for all its delicacy, she couldn’t pull away; no, she didn’t want to pull away. She looked across, at the woman’s face.

“It’s you, the hob— tram— homeless person that lives by our building.”

“Oh no, I don’t live there. I have a nice apartment a couple of miles away, in one of those blocks they built at the start of the concrete revolution in the sixties, back when they thought living in high towers would bring us closer to heaven.”

Phoebe looked at the woman in disgust. “You mean you’re some sort of professional beggar. What sort of scam are you running? If you can afford an apartment, you don’t need my £5.”

“No scam. I inherited the apartment when my mother died. That’s not all I inherited; she was a medium. She said I should listen to the testimony of the dead and, lately, I’ve come here to wait for you.”

“For me? Why? Look, I’m fed up with your hustle. Let go of me and don’t let me see you round our building again or I’ll call security.”

The woman tightened her grip.

“No hustle. Look, if I’m not mistaken, today is your awakening. This wind, I’ve never known it so strong—the dead are being drawn here, towards the day of the long dark. You are drawing them.”

Phoebe shook her arm loose.

“I’ll be outside when you need me,” the woman called as Phoebe walked away briskly. She was shaking, annoyed that she’d fallen for some scam. Then she remembered to check her bag—the woman had been close enough to pick her pocket. Distracted, she barely noticed a police car and an ambulance, blue lights flashing, skidding to a halt in front of her building.

Over the hubbub, she heard Reese’s voice in her mind.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, up, up, is this high enough? Got to be sure. Oh shit, they’re here to stop me. Now! yes yes yes.

Phoebe looked around, she couldn’t see Reese anywhere, then she saw a flash of red fabric and heard a thudding crunch as an… object… hit the pavement in front of her. She looked down and saw Reese’s ruined body, her face strangely untouched, though it looked as if the back of her head had been caved in by the impact.

Phoebe heard Reese’s voice in her head again.

Yes… up… high enough? Here to stop me. Now! yes yes yes followed by the sound of the impact then Yes… up… high enough?

Reese’s last thoughts replayed in Phoebe’s mind.

Phoebe sat on the kerb, shaking her head, trying to quiet Reese’s voice. But there was no silence in her mind. Reese’s voice was replaced by that of a stranger. Got to get that train, can’t be late for the meeting, if I don’t seal this deal I’m… then the squeal of brakes. Then the voice looped around. She shook her head again and realised that there were hundreds of voices in her mind, clamouring for her attention.

A cold wind buffeted her as she lifted her head. All around she saw shadowy figures falling from buildings, being crushed by the impact, then rising from the pavements and floating up before falling again. Rushing shadow commuters were mowed down by the traffic, bodies horribly mangled, then they rose again to run endlessly toward meetings they would never attend. The urgency of their thoughts made her stomach clench with anxiety, even as she cried over the futility of their deaths. She buried her head in her hands, pressing the collar of her coat against her ears. But blocking the street noises only made the voices in her head even louder.

A voice, a real voice, addressed her.

“Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you alright? Are you able to stand up? We need to clear the area so that our emergency teams can get to work.”

Phoebe stumbled to her feet, leaning heavily on the paramedic’s arm. All around her, real people, solid people, went about their business as the shadow ghosts whirled around them. The breeze of their passing tugged at tightly-buttoned coats, sweeping scarves and hoods from commuters’ heads.

“I’m ok, I just need a cup of tea, or something.”

“Did you see the fall? Did you know the deceased?”

“Not very well, we just worked in the same building.” Phoebe wrung her hands; Reese’s last thoughts were playing on repeat in her mind again.

“Ok, may I take your name and contact details? I’m sure the police will be in touch when the scene’s been cleared. You look frozen, get that tea and warm up.” The paramedic took Phoebe’s business card and handed it to a nearby police constable.

As Phoebe headed for a coffee shop across the road, she felt an arm link in hers. She looked down, it was the homeless woman.

“That was a hard awakening. Let me buy you a cup of tea, and a cake, the sugar will do you good, and let’s talk,” the woman said.

“Shouldn’t I be buying you the tea; you’re meant to be broke.”

The woman laughed and held up a handful of crumpled £5 notes.

“I’d say you’ve already paid.”

*

Phoebe stirred a sachet of sugar into her tea while the woman sipped a hot chocolate festooned with double cream and marshmallows.

“How are the voices now?” the woman asked, her voice soft and soothing.

Phoebe listened for a moment. “They’ve quietened down, like they can’t get through the door.”

“They tend to stay around the place that they died. You chose a good spot to rest—no one suffered an untimely death in this building. A few heart attacks, the original owner literally died of old age when he took a break, but nothing violent. Don’t you think it’s time you drank that tea?”

Startled by the matter-of-fact tone of the woman’s voice, Phoebe stopped stirring her tea and took a sip.

“What’s your name? Who are you?” Phoebe asked.

“My name is Eadie and I’m a listener.”

“A listener?”

“Yes, one who hears the dead. Not all of them, just the ones who had too much on their minds when they jumped under a train, or off a building, or just died through not paying attention to their surroundings. They repeat themselves over and over, for all eternity, as far as I can tell.”

“Fine. But what do you actually do?”

“Do? I listen, that’s all I can do. You’ve heard them. They’re trapped in their last thoughts; I can’t move them.”

“And that’s my life now? I have to listen to them, for all eternity?”

“No, you’re something else. I can sense it. You can do more—you’re the Facilitator.”

*

Phoebe strode towards the office building, assailed by the chill wind of the dead, their last thoughts ringing in her mind, repeating their hopeless litanies over and over and over again. She walked quickly, pausing briefly to tuck a £5 note under Eadie’s heap of blankets. A wry chuckle drifted from the heart of the heap, but the hand still emerged to grab the money.

Phoebe swiped her ID card at her building’s door and stood for a moment, blinking. The company had spared no expense in festooning the foyer in Christmas lights. Tasteful, of course, and arranged with the artistic care of a professional PR specialist, down to the cutesy paper baubles painted by toddlers in the local school. Nonetheless, she savoured the brightness. Outside, the shortest day already seemed to be racing towards sunset, even though it was barely nine a.m.

At her desk, she cherished the silence in her mind and the warmth of her sheltered cubicle, but she couldn’t concentrate. She’d met with Eadie most evenings, trying to understand the woman’s strange gift, and her own. She recalled the conversation they’d had just a week ago.

“My mother said there was only one Facilitator born in every generation.”

“What happened to the last one?”

“Mother didn’t know; she felt the Facilitator awaken, far away, but before mother could find her, the Facilitator’s presence vanished.”

“Do you think the Facilitator could shut off the thoughts? Control what she was hearing?”

“I don’t know. Mother said we would just have to mind our business until the next one—you—came along and facilitated the Reckoning.”

“What is the Reckoning?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?” Phoebe had snapped.

“I know that you can hear the dead as well as I can. Instead of opening your beak like a needy baby bird, why don’t you try to learn for yourself. Reach out to the previous Facilitator—she’s probably dead, given how old she’d be.”

“I can do that? No, don’t tell me, you don’t know.”

“You’re right, I don’t know much. The Reckoning has something to do with the living and the dead when the veil thins at sunset on the Winter Solstice. Which is coming soon, whether you’re ready or not.”

Phoebe had spent the week reaching out to the previous Facilitator. She knew that they’d been far away from London, and that they were likely to have been in a big city.

Phoebe was surprised. She thought ghosts would congregate around mystic or holy burial sites, or in spooky churches in the woods. Eadie had laughed out loud when she’d voiced that opinion. The explanation was simple—cities were simply where the most people were, and where the most people died, though Eadie sometimes heard echoes from farms in rural areas, where agricultural accidents were common enough. The weather’s going to break. If I don’t fix the blockage in the combine harvester blades the crop will be ruined. The round bales weigh a ton, there’s no way they’d roll and crush anyone.

The Facilitator had awoken in Liverpool with no one to guide her, Phoebe now knew. The previous Facilitator’s final thoughts swirled around her mind.

I can’t believe I’m talking to the fucking Liver Birds, but they protect Liverpool, so protect me, make them stop, stop, stop! Then Phoebe heard the scrabble and scream as the Facilitator lost her balance and fell. But instead of the immediate looping repeat that Phoebe had expected, she heard a strange echo…

Why did you abandon us? Who will listen to us if you do not? Why weren’t you more careful?

She’d done a few searches and found the Facilitator’s name in a small report in a local newspaper published fifty years before. If Judy Smith’s alleged suicide hadn’t caused travel chaos for Christmas shoppers flocking to the city centre, her death might have gone utterly unremarked.

Eadie had promised that Phoebe wouldn’t go mad, that, if all else failed, there was a way to manage the voices. Though she also said that Phoebe wouldn’t like the solution.

The day passed too quickly. By four p.m., Phoebe couldn’t pretend to work any longer. The news channels on the screens all around the office were broadcasting weather warnings—gale force winds, risk of structural damage, travel disruption, transport agencies advising people to return to their homes as soon as possible. She looked around—most of her colleagues had already left, but if they’d said goodbye, she’d never noticed.

She stood up. A chill breeze teased at her hair and followed her as she walked to the cloakroom. She wrapped her coat around her as the breeze strengthened, then she heard a voice, Simon’s voice, in her head.

Fucking idiot, why did you jump? You knew it was just a fling, you stupid tart. You could have just left, I’d have given you a great reference, oh yeah. But you had to go and kill yourself. You almost got me sacked.

Phoebe looked around. Simon wasn’t there, but the breeze fluttered around Reese’s old workstation, strong enough to shake the cubicle’s partition. Loose sheets of paper fluttered into the air. As Phoebe approached, the computer on Reese’s desk turned itself on. In the screen’s crepuscular light, Reese’s ghost straightened up then ran to the stairwell that led to the roof. Phoebe fancied that Simon’s voice followed her.

Phoebe ran from the office. What did it mean? Was Simon dead? He couldn’t be—she’d seen him just an hour before. She guessed he’d left with the others, though he was more likely to sit out a storm in a wine bar than at home, with his wife and children.

As she stepped into the street, she was assailed by voices in her head, but the looped laments of the dead were muted by other loud, piercing cries.

How could you have left us? Did you not love me? Did you not love our children?

Didn’t I tell you to be careful? I knew your obsession with work would kill you!

How could you be so selfish!

How could you be so greedy? Fat use all your money is to you now!

A gale howled between the buildings as the dead crowded the streets in the darkness of the longest night.

“Come here, quickly!”

Phoebe staggered to the heap of quilts and squirmed into a soft, warm cave created by Eadie’s outstretched arms.

“What do you hear, Facilitator?”

“You mean you can’t hear them?”

“I only hear the dead. What do you hear?”

“I hear voices berating the dead. They’re being horrible, asking questions, accusing. It’s maddening. How can you make it stop? How can I lay them all to rest?”

“Do you think the dead want to rest?” asked Eadie.

“The dead seem to be oblivious, as preoccupied in death as they were in life,” Phoebe replied. She wrapped her arms around her head, the voices were so loud, she was afraid her skull would shatter under the pressure.

“Listen,” said Eadie. “I think I understand. You’re the Facilitator.”

“Yeah, ‘one who makes easy’, according to the dictionary. But nothing’s been easy, or obvious, so far.”

“It didn’t make any sense until tonight. I think you’re hearing the living. They’re calling to their dead. You’re here to make it easy for them to reach their dead.”

“Isn’t that your job?” Phoebe replied through chattering teeth. The ghosts of the dead were passing through the quilts, threatening to tear their protection away and expose the two women.

“No, I’m a medium—the medium through which the dead talk to the living. I’m not a two-way radio. But maybe together we can achieve something.”

Eadie grabbed Phoebe’s hands.

“Open yourself to the living. I’ll reach out to the dead. Maybe this connection—” Eadie shook Phoebe’s hands. “—will let them reach each other.”

The women stared into each other’s eyes and concentrated. Around them, the swirling wind coalesced into a cyclone, ripping the quilts away. Phoebe didn’t even flinch.

I need to get to the meeting, this traffic’s such a pain, maybe if I just dodge between these buses… Eadie chanted a ghost’s last thoughts. Phoebe replied with words from the living.

Your meeting was nothing, even your boss said so. What about meeting with your kids? You never rushed for any of them, you stupid fuck.

I need to get to the meeting, this traffic’s such a pain, maybe if I just dodge between these buses…

Eadie’s eyes were wide and filled with tears. “He hears, but he’s not listening. He doesn’t want to listen.”

“Try another,” said Phoebe.

Yes… up… high enough? Here to stop me. Now! yes yes yes followed by the sound of the impact then Yes… up… high enough?

“Reese, oh no, Reese, I’m so sorry!” Phoebe shouted, struggling to raise her voice above the howling of the wind and the insistent whine of Simon’s rage.

Fucking idiot, why did you jump? You knew it was just a fling, you stupid tart. You could have just left, I’d have given you a great reference, oh yeah. But you had to go and kill yourself. You almost got me sacked.

“No, Simon, shut up, you’re being an arse, let her rest.” Phoebe shouted.

“It’s ok,” Eadie whispered. “Reese is not listening, none of them are listening.”

Phoebe pulled her hands free and threw her arms around Eadie’s shoulders. The living were not listening either. This might be a Reckoning, but it was not a reconciliation.

*

The police found them the following morning. Eadie was dead. Hypothermia, the coroner later reported.

The paramedics thought Phoebe was also dead, her body was cold to the touch. But in the warmth of the ambulance, she revived. She recalled the doctor’s quip—‘You’re not dead until you’re warm and dead.’

She’d snorted then, little did he know—the dead were never truly dead. Eadie’s voice echoed through her head, her last pleas looping through her mind.

No! No! Why won’t you listen? Why won’t you hear their hurt and heal them?

A month later, Phoebe found that she had inherited all of Eadie’s possessions—a generous amount of money, enough to save Phoebe from the tyranny of work; Eadie’s modest apartment, one room filled with quilts; and a note.

Not all alcoholics are mediums, but all mediums are alcoholics. That’s the secret, get drunk, just enough to silence the voices, that’s the only way to get some rest. Be careful, don’t drink too much, death is not your friend, take it from me.

*

Phoebe peered out from her nest of quilts—the morning light hurt her eyes and her head was thumping from last night’s binge. It was safe to say that red wine was not the best way to drown the voices of the dead. Effective, yes, but not the best.

Commuters passed by, eyes sliding away from the heap of quilts, unwilling to see the apparent plight of the homeless person at their heart. No one left £5 notes for her, but she grabbed the few coins and bottle tops that were sometimes thrown at her feet. She saw Simon walk past, aiming a kick at her heap of quilts, his voice grating.

“I thought that the old biddy had died; honestly, poor people breed like rats, we’ll never be rid of them.”

She listened. On cue, Reese’s thoughts cut through her mind.

Yes… up… high enough? Here to stop me. Now! yes yes yes followed by the sound of the impact then Yes… up… high enough?

At dawn every day, Phoebe came to the city centre to listen to the dead. She felt she owed them, and Eadie, that much. At dusk, she returned to Eadie’s apartment, showered, ate, binged on alcohol. She experimented with different drinks, desperate to find the best blend to silence the hurricane of voices when the Reckoning came again, next winter.

Alex Grehy’s (she/her) work has been published worldwide and she is a past winner of the Toasted Cheese Dead of Winter contest. She is a regular contributor to The Sirens Call and the Ladies of Horror Flash Project. Her essays on her experiences as a “Lady of Horror” have been published in the Horror Writers Association Newsletter and The Horror Tree blog. Her sweet life is filled with narrowboating, rescue greyhounds, singing and chocolate. Yet her vivid prose, thought-provoking poetry and original view of the world has led to her best friend to say ‘For someone so lovely, you’re very twisted!

Dead of Winter ~ First Place
Alex Grey

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The ancient yew tree stood in the Fraser family graveyard. Dense, dark leaves absorbed the weak winter sunlight, making gewgaws of its red berries and silver wren pendants. Family legend said that the tree had watched over the clan for a thousand years. The dead lay tranquil in its shade. The living prospered, the clan’s assets expanding as surely as the great yew’s girth.

*

Felicity stormed out of the house three weeks after her birthday, slamming the door hard enough to shatter the glass. She heard her mother cry out, but Felicity’s anger could not be soothed with words. She needed to run. She didn’t know how she could ever look her mother in the face again—her mother, yes, her actual mother, her real flesh and blood mother.

“I adopted you when you were a baby.”

Her mother had been telling her this lie since Felicity had been old enough to understand the concept.

“Where are my real mummy and daddy?” Felicity had asked when she was three years old.

“I’m your mummy now.”

“What about daddy?”

“My husband died a long time ago. You were only a baby when he left us.”

Sometimes, when her imagination was alight in the darkness before sleep, Felicity remembered a sly, handsome face with a clever smile, reading her stories in a melodic golden voice.

“He didn’t have time to read to you. Your mind is just playing tricks.”

Once she started school, Felicity’s curiosity about her real parents grew. Every year on her birthday, she asked her adoptive mother about her real parents.

“I found you under the mulberry bush.”

“You were abandoned on my doorstep.”

“They left you in a shelter, they didn’t leave their names.”

“They died in a car accident, there’s no one left to find.”

Felicity might have wondered why her adoptive mother changed the story every year. But she had no time to wonder about anything; she spent her childhood energy adapting to moving home every few years, learning her way round new cities, finding new friends and settling into new schools.

“Why do we have to move again?”

“Because it’s better to be a bird on the wing than a tree stuck in the earth.” Felicity had seen her mother clench her hands, heard her muttered monologue. “Roots in the earth, going where they don’t belong, grabbing what isn’t theirs.”

So they’d moved, always living in characterless concrete tower blocks. Felicity never got to play in a park. Her mother made strange warding gestures every time they passed a tree. Her childhood had been filled with hard greyness.

It’s too easy for you, thought Felicity, you’re not an orphan. She became determined to leave home as soon as she was old enough and start laying down roots of her own. Her mother had told her that she was adopted, that there were no ties of kinship between them—Felicity didn’t owe her anything.

On her eighteenth birthday, Felicity excitedly tore open the DNA test kit she’d bought. On impulse, she had bought one for her mother too, not that her secretive mother would have agreed to take part. Felicity had obtained saliva from her mother’s toothbrush and hoped that it would work.

Felicity ran blindly on the rough pavements, stumbling as she recalled opening the test results that had arrived that morning. She’d opened hers first. Her ancestors were Scottish Celts, going back for generations with very little genetic variation. The results included a map which showed the familial matches they’d found on their database. The stars that marked her family’s location looked like a new and wonderful constellation. Her relatives were scattered all over the world, but one relative was very close to where she lived now and then there was a cluster in the far north of Scotland.

Felicity took out her adoptive mother’s results. At first, she thought she’d got the papers mixed up. But no, the results were almost identical. In that moment Felicity knew that the woman who had claimed to be her adoptive mother was her biological mother.

They’d had a colossal argument when Felicity confronted her mother.

“You stupid girl! All these years I’ve protected you, hidden you. All my efforts undone in a moment.”

Her mother waved at the map.

“See these stars? This is their way of finding the people who dared to leave. Now we have to fly again. Why couldn’t you just let it lie? Why wasn’t my love enough for you?”

“Lies aren’t love!” Felicity had yelled. “What sort of mother pretends not to be a mother? What sort of twisted life is that?”

“I had to. You don’t understand the danger. Give me five minutes to explain, but then we have to get away. You need to pack some things. Quickly!”

“I’m not listening. Everything you say is a lie; you’ve lied so much you don’t even know how to tell the truth anymore.”

Felicity rewound their argument over and over as she ran. She lost track of time, but suddenly became aware of the chill air cooling her sweaty body. She looked around. There was an inviting coffee shop on the corner.

As she sipped her hot chocolate, the flickering film reel of their argument coalesced into a single tangible image—her mother’s face, full of love and terror, reaching out to her. She sat there for an hour, hoping the steamy warmth of the cafe would thaw her icy confusion. Eventually, Felicity realised that whatever came next, she would have to go home first, gather her things and move on, either with or without her mother.

Felicity hadn’t appreciated how far she’d run until she stepped out of the coffee shop and realised where she was. She recalled her mother’s fear and almost called an Uber to take her home, but she preferred to walk, using the time to clear her head.

She saw the reflections of the actinic blue lights from around the block. As she turned towards her home, she saw an ambulance and a police car. The front door was open. Just beyond, her mother lay unmoving as a paramedic shouted “Clear!” Her mother’s body jumped as the defibrillator discharged. She saw the paramedic check her mother’s vital signs, then shake his head. She heard him call time of death, a knell that drowned out the police officer’s voice, asking her if she knew the deceased. As they led her inside, Felicity glimpsed, in the distance, a strangely familiar face, a good-looking man with a clever smile. She blinked, but when she looked again, he was gone.

Although the police quizzed her for many hours about the broken door and the argument with her mother, they could find no evidence of foul play. The inquest recorded death by natural causes, a heart attack, probably brought on by the stress of the conflict with her daughter. Felicity hated the pity on the coroner’s face.

Felicity inherited a comfortable amount of money. Her mother’s will was clear, especially about being cremated rather than buried. The solicitors managed the paperwork efficiently and impersonally, though Felicity had to sign for one envelope, a letter from her mother.

Dear Felicity

I hope that when you read this letter we will both have enjoyed long and happy lives. I hope that you have made your own family and are surrounded by my grandchildren. If you are young, then it means they have found me. I beg you to flee, use the money to travel, get away, find a new identity. Families are what you make rather than what you inherit, never forget that.

xxx Mummy

Felicity fingered the pendant that had accompanied the letter. The exquisite silver disk showed a perfectly sculpted wren, every detail chased into the metal with delicate skill. She could feel the individual feathers with her fingertips, metal cold but somehow alive to her touch. There was a curious golden chain attached to the pendant, too small to be a necklace. Felicity turned her mother’s letter over. There was no explanation.

Although her mother had urged her to use her inheritance to travel far away, Felicity had only one destination in mind. The clustered galaxy of stars on her DNA map drew her to Scotland.

*

It was Christmas Eve when Felicity arrived in Aberdeen airport. The wild and robust landscape was a world away from her cloistered urban childhood.

It had taken a few weeks to follow up on the DNA test results, but she was relieved when her relatives had enthusiastically agreed to meet her. They’d invited her to join them for Christmas. A cousin had picked her up from the airport, loading the two suitcases that held all her possessions into the back of his truck and driving her to their ancestral home.

She held on to the bag which contained her mother’s ashes—her new uncle had asked her to bring them, suggesting they could be laid to rest in the family graveyard. He’d also asked her to bring the silver wren, telling her it was a precious heirloom.

Felicity was astonished when her cousin parked the car in front of a castle. There was no other word for it, though it was no fairy-tale confection of turrets. This building had stood firm against war and weather for a thousand years and looked set to endure for thousands more. The grand hall was palatial, but Felicity couldn’t see beyond the throng of her extended family as she was greeted and hugged exuberantly. She wept as a deep feeling of belonging filled a space in her soul that she never knew existed. Her uncle shooed the flock of cousins away and asked a servant to show her to her room. The tartan-draped walls were cosy and comforting; the roar of the fire in the hearth lulled her to sleep.

Christmas day passed in a whirl of feasting and song. Felicity delighted in her family’s lively energy. Her uncle had fiery red hair and was clearly the king of the castle. Her many aunts bore a striking resemblance to her late mother. She seemed to have a legion of cousins, some already working on the next generation with babies due the following spring. They swept aside her apologies, accepting, without rancour, her explanation that her mother had kept them a secret. She felt embarrassed when the family gathered to open the gifts lavishly piled under the Christmas tree. She had prepared a few thoughtful tokens for them, but was overwhelmed when her uncle handed her a carved wooden box. She removed the silk and velvet wrapping and found a newly minted silver wren, identical to her mother’s.

“The wren is an ancient family emblem gifted to just one daughter in each generation. We thought the family had lost the wrens forever when your mother disappeared. To have you back amongst us is a gift beyond your comprehension.”

Felicity stuttered a reply. It was hard to perceive herself as a gift when her family had heaped such unearned generosity on her.

She woke early on Boxing Day. Her uncle had invited her to the family graveyard at dawn. He said that she could be part of an important family ceremony and she could lay her mother’s ashes to rest. He asked her to bring both silver wrens.

The castle was silent as she walked down to the breakfast room. It was still dark, so she knew she wasn’t late, yet the horde of cousins was nowhere to be seen. The housekeeper served her strong tea and bitter salted porridge, smiling at her protests. There would be a raw wind at the churchyard; she would need this traditional fuel to keep her warm. As the first light blushed the crystal dark sky, the housekeeper ushered her toward the nearby churchyard.

A low granite wall surrounded the cemetery, the natural stone glowing as the sun’s rays shimmered across them. Felicity walked in through the iron gates and threaded her way between the gravestones towards a dark shape in the centre of the graveyard. The ancient yew’s dark green leaves absorbed the rising sunlight, providing a stark contrast to the reflected luminosity of the bright red berries and the silver wren pendants hanging from its branches. Felicity was enchanted by the tree’s beauty as the sun’s radiance filled the graveyard with colour.

A hand grasped her shoulder.

“This is a moment that I have dreamt of since your mother took you from me.”

A honeyed voice wrapped the words around her. She turned, knowing that she would see a man with a sly, handsome face and a clever smile.

“Daddy?”

“Do you remember me?” His voice was melodic and soothing.

“You used to read me stories. Sometimes I couldn’t remember your face, but I would know your voice anywhere.”

He smiled, pleased that she had recognised him.

“Where is everyone?” Felicity asked, looking around the empty graveyard.

“They stayed in the castle, out of respect for me, and this divine moment.”

They stood for a while and then her father snapped his fingers. The sound echoed jarringly among the gravestones.

“Come, this ceremony must be completed before the sun is fully risen. Are you ready, little wren?”

Felicity nodded, but she had no idea of what to expect.

Her father pointed at the abundance of tiny red berries adorning the yew.

“These are not strictly berries, they are arils. The seeds sit at the bottom of tiny cups of sweetness. The fruit keeps the birds alive in winter. We must offer a gift to the tree in exchange for its bounty.”

He gestured for her to hang the two wren pendants from the branches. The golden chains looped perfectly around the fine-needled branches. The silver birds settled smoothly, blending harmoniously with the green leaves and the red arils. Felicity felt a strange flutter in her chest, the birds looked so peaceful on their perches, but her mother had never wanted this. She felt a sudden urge to grab the wrens and fly away, but then she flushed with fear at the thought of losing her cherished new family.

Her father looked at her curiously, then turned to thank the tree as he picked a handful of arils.

“Now we must share this fruit—this ritual binds us to the family tree. Let the fruit dissolve in your mouth then swallow. Do not chew the seeds inside the arils as they are poisonous when broken.”

Felicity hesitated, but couldn’t resist her father’s invitation to join the family. She saw him place a handful of arils in his own mouth and swallow them with relish. She put a few arils in her mouth. Their sweet flavour was delectable, but the flesh dissolved into a sticky slime that was difficult to swallow. She resisted the urge to chew the seeds, and was grateful when her father offered her his hip flask.

“This is mead, made from our own honey. It will help to wash that down.”

The sweet drink melded deliciously with the fruit, though the spirit burned her throat as she swallowed.

“There, we have completed the first part of the ceremony, now we must welcome you home.”

He gestured at a small hole that had been dug nearby.

“Return your mother’s ashes to the family tree where she belongs.”

Felicity knelt and poured the ashes into the ground, her heartbeat loud and urgent in her chest. She supposed that the emotion of meeting her family, of saying goodbye to her mother, was finally catching up with her. She lifted her hands to wipe away the tears that were blurring her vision, but her eyes were dry. Her arms trembled, overcome with weakness.

She looked up, surprised to find that she was now lying beneath the tree. The silver wrens sparkled in the branches above her. She felt strangely warm and comfortable as her father knelt to cradle her head.

“Rest. The yew seeds that salted your porridge this morning will soon do their work. You will not suffer, I am sure of that. I did not let your mother suffer. We were distant cousins and childhood friends. We married young and I loved her, even though she was marked as the wren. We could have had a long life together; the tree is patient. But she tried to escape her fate and forced the family’s hand.”

Felicity looked at her father’s clever face. She felt cosseted by his mesmerising voice, even as her mind wrestled with his words. She did not understand what he was saying, could they have had a life together, been a family? Her body was weighed down with sadness and regret.

He continued, stroking her hair gently.

“This tree has safeguarded our family for a thousand years. As it thrives, so do we. As we nurture it, so it cares for us. All it asks is a sacrifice, a wren on the feast of St Stephen, one in each generation to bind the family to the tree. Your grandfather chose your mother to be the wren, but she was afraid that I would choose you in the next generation. Her love for you transcended her love for our family. However, she was the wren of her generation, there could be no other. I knew that we would find her one day.”

Felicity felt her father lift her unresisting body. Her heart was fluttering frantically now, like a captured bird. The family tree blurred into shimmers of silver, red, and green, festive tinsel colours. He lowered her gently into the shallow grave that had been hidden behind the yew’s vast trunk.

“We had not chosen the wren for your generation. In the olden days, we could rely on pestilence and plague to choose the sacrifice, but now we have to be more direct. It is a difficult decision, though the wrens can choose to live up to fifty years before the tree demands their lives. We were about to choose your generation’s wren when you turned up, a stranger to us. Your arrival was a blessing. Now we can let you go before we have time to love you and suffer the pain of your loss.”

He stayed with her as her heart faltered and stopped. Felicity’s cousins emerged from behind the gravestones and covered her body with earth.

Back at the castle, the family celebrated the sacrifice that would bring them prosperity for another generation. Felicity’s possessions were burned—no one would come looking for her.

In the graveyard, the yew’s fine, questing roots covered Felicity’s body with its downy filaments, binding her, bone, joint and socket, to the family, forever.

After a lifetime of writing technical non-fiction, Alex Grey is fulfilling her dream of writing poems and stories that engage the reader’s emotions. Her ingredients for contentment are narrowboating, greyhounds, singing and chocolate—it’s a sweet life. A number of her poems and short stories have been published in the horror ezine Siren’s Call. One of her comic poems is also available via a worldwide network of public fiction dispensers managed by French publisher, Short Edition. Of her horror writing, Alex’ best friend says ‘For someone so lovely, you’re very twisted! Email: sue[at]collavoce.co.uk