Mother's Love
Written By: Ashley Mina
The job was simple. The Mongan family was out of town for the next three nights and the family’s locks were standard, easy enough to pick. Mr. Lament, had told Elsie that if she succeeded in her mission before the family arrived back home, she’d get a roll of money and could take advantage of a few nights of warmth. A real win-win situation, especially with a late winter storm on the horizon.
The Mongan house was one of six on Cranberry Street. Neighbours across the street with its right and rear left lonely. A single story with sturdy window shutters closed and locked from the inside. Its porch: covered, the stairs: unsalted. Probably because they hoped the incoming snow would pack down and cover the stairs completely by the time they came back.
Elsie pulled her lock picks out of her bag and began to work. She had never understood people who were rich enough to buy and outfit a home but were poor enough in judgement to cheap out on standard locks. She’d made the same remark to Mr. Lament when she first started taking on less than savoury tasks after her mother died four years ago. He had the gall to put a hand on her shoulder and say, “like you’re one to judge, little one, you don’t even have the sense to steal a pair of gloves in winter without being told to.” She’d show him. One day. When she had the freedom to rid herself of his mercy. When she could be sure she could survive without him.
The lock clicked open and Elsie swung open the creaking door and let herself in. It was so blessedly warm inside that her nose immediately started to run.
“Hello?” Elsie asked the empty house as she wiped at her nose, “The storm blew me in! Is anyone here?” The house said nothing back to her. Not a creak, not even a rat squeak to be heard.
The houses on Cranberry had uniform walls, and although she hadn’t been inside this particular one before, she still knew where the pantry was even in the dark. Mr. Lament had let her know that the neighbours across the street from the Mongans had recently complained about rats eating through their pantry. The whole thing. So, he was sure that if she happened across their pantry and left a few crumbs but no dishes behind, they would think nothing more of it.
“I hope you don’t mind me making myself a snack.” Elsie said to herself rather than to any potential threat. “I haven’t eaten in a while, and the cold is something else this year, must be a record breaker.”
She opened up one of the pantry’s doors, “Oh, crackers! You shouldn’t have.” Then the second door, “And peanut butter, you spoil me rotten.”
Elsie was going to spend the next three nights in luxury. She was going to eat in a bed, blanket covered, and warm. Over the years, she had learned a lot of life lessons, but the most unforgettable one was that the cold does not forgive bodies easily.
When Elsie found her mother’s body, it was bloated fat and blackening with mold. She’d been dead for weeks, frozen under layers of frost, forgotten about by law enforcement until the mild spring thawed her. In those weeks leading up to her discovery, Mr. Lament had pitied her. Who would have guessed that he man who had foreclosed on her family home a week into winter, would be the one to keep Elsie alive. feeding her scraps of dinner compost and paying her a single coin per day to collect his morning paper. In the weeks afterward, he’d gifted her a set of lockpicks and taught her how to use them.
Wiping her nose again, there was something in the air. Icky sweet. Vaguely rusty. She knew that scent, knew what it meant, she had smelled it when she found her mother. Rats. The poor things must have gotten trapped somewhere.
Elsie made her way from the kitchen and travelled down the hallway that led to both the master and secondary bedrooms. She made a stop to the bathroom at the very end of the house, spending a while in a bath of hot water. The drip, drip, drop of the faucet soothing the stiffness in her joints. She was tired. Tired of squatting, tired of scared sleepless nights when there was no suitable house, tired of being cold and alone through it all. Her stomach garbled then, furious at her procrastination. Getting out, Elsie drained the tub and left her dirty clothes laying on the floor. She’d wash them in the morning, but for now, the Mongans had a kid a few years younger than her that was roughly her size and sleeping in something clean and dry sounded wonderful.
The kid’s bedroom door was open a crack and a cursory look about said it was indeed a child’s. Full of what looked like a toy and chaos filled life, its furniture was coated in layers of small drawings and little dolls piled haphazardly in a basket by the bed. She closed the door behind her as she entered, throwing both herself and her pantry spoils into the already unmade bed. At least she wouldn’t have to remake it when she left.
The window was shuttered from all but a sliver of sunset, but Elsie could still see a little from her perch on the bed. Snow was falling in thick waves, burying the world, as Elsie used the crackers to scoop out piles of peanut butter into her mouth. After about half the contents, when her eyes began to droop, she closed the packages up and clung to them, hunching herself around them until she slept.
It was in that infinite quiet, warm and dry for the first time in days, curled like a cat around her mouse, and deeply asleep that the front door groaned open.
Wind screamed through the hallway, and slammed the front door closed again. Elsie sat straight up. She hadn’t locked the door. She had made that mistake once, locking herself in a house that should have been empty but wasn’t. Now though, she wondered if it was a mistake either way. Maybe it was Mr. Lament coming to check on her? No. He would have announced himself already, chiding her for something she’d forgotten. She needed to get out of this house. Now.
Elsie was glad she went to bed with her shoes on. She hurried to the bedroom door but it was too late, she could already hear someone walking down the hallway.
The window was shuttered. There was no easy exit.
The footsteps, light but confident, came to a stop at the kid’s bedroom door. Elsie froze, still as her mother’s dead body ever was. Someone outside the door sniffed loudly. The handle began to slowly turn and Elsie begged her body to move. To run, to hide, to fight. Anything but stand there as knob stopped turning. The sniffing came again. Then, whoever it was let the handle go with a gut-wrenching snap. The footsteps stomped toward the bathroom door. The hinges opened then closed, the water turning on.
Life returning, Elsie turned the bedroom handle and peeked out. No one. Nothing but wet, bare footed, footprints trailing into the bathroom. She crept outside the doorway and shut it again as quietly as she could.
Elsie got one step toward the door before the water shut off. Panicking, she opened the door to the master bedroom and stared, horror stricken at the sight before her.
It wasn’t rats she smelled earlier, and it appeared as though she had been misled. The Mongan family would not return in three days. They had never left. Mr. Mongan was on his back, chest ripped open and partially eaten, his brown stained ribs exposed and bent skyward. The child Elsie had stolen clothes from was a gore splattered, unmoving mess, huddled in the corner. The crib by the window looked empty, but it was the sight of Mrs. Mongan that had taken Elsie apart to her very core.
Mrs. Mongan laid there, looking untouched, eyes open, staring at Elsie, through her, and beyond her. In that moment, this mother was every inch her own.
Whoever was in the bathroom had found Elsie standing there. Fingers, or what Elsie assumed were oddly long, icy fingers, gripped her jaw and tilted her head up.
The ceiling was bulged. Elsie remembered an abandoned building she’d once squatted in, water trapped by layers of paint. This however, was not a water bubble. The sliver of streetlight that the window let through illuminated a small figure inside it, fetal curved and floating. A baby in its incubator.
“Would you like to join my family, Elsie?” A woman’s voice, scratchy and distant sounding whispered close in her ear. “Be with us. Your mother left you behind in life, but we never will.”
Elsie tried to scream, but all that came out was a whimper.
“I am a mother. I could even be yours.” The woman said in a different yet still female voice, huffing rank, sweet, breath over Elsie’s cheek. She tried to turn around. Turn away from her mother’s – from Ms. Mongans’ body, but the hand on her neck held her firm and steady.
“No looking, dear.” The woman chided. Elsie was starting to suspect it wasn’t actually a woman when it changed voices again. The creature’s rail thin arms encircled her like a hug. She could feel its strength, despite the form, crushing her diaphragm. “Hush daughter. My son is growing old. His time ends when yours begins my daughter. It is an honour to be my family. Won’t you stay with us? I love you already. Won’t you love me?” The creature shook her. “Won’t you be my daughter? Wouldn’t you like a sibling?”
There were sharp teeth, ever so gently scraping over the back of her neck. “I would like my child to have a sibling.” It chittered, bird like, then smacked its lips together. Elsie didn’t want to know what its mouth looked like. “Elsie?” It said in her mother’s voice, “Can I be your mother?” There was bile rising in Elsie’s throat and tears streaming down her face. “Wouldn’t you like to have a mother again?”
“Yes.” The word was barely out of Elsie’s mouth before there was a knock at the door. The creature spun towards the noise, easily spinning Elsie with her even though her feet dragged on the floorboards. It dragged her almost to the front door all the while keeping its bony chest pressed tight to her back. “Go my daughter, go answer it, my son is home.” It whispered, arms releasing her. She was free. She could walk to the door, and once she was out she could scream, there are neighbours still home on across street. She caught her breath, and went forward but before Elsie could reach it the door swung open to reveal Mr. Lament, a spare key dangling in his hand.
“Colder than a witch’s tit out there, Mother, I – Elsie? You’re still –” In the light of the open door a dark shadow crawled closer on the floor as ceiling dust sprinkled down into Elsie’s hair.
“My child will hatch soon, my son, and when she does, she’ll need to eat.” That ever-changing voice hovered close to Elsie’s ear, just above her head where she wouldn’t look to see. Mr. Lament’s eyes left Elsie’s, head tilting back to take in the creature. His tan face went snow pale. “You see me now, my son, it is a great honour to know the face of your mother before your body is repurposed.”
“Elsie,” he didn’t, or, maybe he couldn’t look away from it. “Was supposed to be the child’s first.”
The creature chittered again. “Your bones creak like snapping twigs. My child would make a meal of you anyway. This way is honourable. Let me honour the services you have done for me, my son.”
Mr. Lament stuttered. It was the first time Elsie had ever seen him scared. “Elsie, I’ve spent my life devoted to the shadow of a deity I saw when I was young. I see her now. She is not what I thought she was. Don’t say ‘yes’ Elsie. She is not your saviour. She is not your mother. If you let her kill me, you’ll spend the rest of your life the same way I did.”
“Close your eyes daughter.” Elsie remembered that pleased look on his face when he foreclosed on their house, so smug, so sure of himself, and now he was at her mercy.
“Couldn’t have been such a bad life, if you’re hanging on to it.” Elsie whispered back to him. She inhaled the rot and let it burn in her nose. He had sent her, knowingly, willingly, to her death. Had probably sent the Mongans’ to their dooms as well.
“Close your eyes daughter!” Elsie remembered that he was that one that found her weeping over her mother’s corpse. That he-
“All those deaths Elsie. Your mother –”
“CLOSE YOUR – “
Elsie closed her eyes and in that second with the blood of the man who had killed so many splattering over her, it felt like a dream. Like she was a thousand miles away from her body just barely clinging to her sanity. She didn’t dare open her eyes. Not even when she felt the gnarled wet hand of her Mother pat her on her shoulder with a cooing, almost purring sound echoing in her ear.
“You must be so tired now after I woke you up. Come now dearest, let me curl around you. Share your warmth with your new Mother who loves you very much. Your sister will be born when the sun rises again in spring. I have so much to teach you, and so much love to give.”
Mother took Elsie into its arms, picking her up like she weighed nothing. She remained still, face dutifully turned away even though her eyes were still closed. She was carried through the house then placed very gently up against a cold, stiff, and curvy structure. It had the texture of a moist sponge and Elsie didn’t need to open her eyes to know she was back in the master bedroom. That sickly smell filling her nose while Mother wiggled its naked bones across her back. Pressed between two mothers, Elsie gagged.
Ashley Mina strives to exist. She holds an AA in Creative Writing and currently resides as a settler on the land of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ peoples (Vancouver, BC). Her three most recent publications have appeared in: Snoozine, SeaGlass Lit, and The Morgue.