May the Sun Shine On Us In the Depths

A short horror story with many whispers, but not much blood.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

The Bone Wife paused in her dusting to watch a red fox pounce on a mouse and lift it up, struggling, in his jaws. The fox was gaudy against the deep green field and the gray sky, a wound streaking across the morning. She looked up at the silk cord on the drapes and considered untying it, perhaps such gruesome scenes going on outside would upset the bones. She placed a withered hand atop a skull burnished with age.

“What say you, Husband?”

Dropping her duster, attached to a cord around her waist, she brushed the jawbone of another skull lightly with the fingertips of her other hand, “Wife? Do you like the drapes open?”

The voices that answered fell down to her ears like snowflakes, slow, soft, and cold. She’d leave them open then. Picking up her tethered feather duster, she returned to her work. The Bone Wife had been dusting, talking to, and caring for the bones in this ossuary since she was a girl of seventeen, when she’d been chosen to fill the spot of the last Bone Wife. So many years ago. She recalled how terrified she’d been on her first night, wedded to all the sleeping skeletons in strange, candlelit ceremony. The eerie songs of the monks echoing through the cold stone building still haunted her on long winter nights. They’d given her some bread and soup and then left her alone with the bones, their voices, their laments, and the body of the last Bone Wife. She would decay in the central hall, lying on her smooth stone slab, for the next few years, guiding the young acolyte through her lonely duties with a chilling, gentle voice.

It was nearing afternoon when a knock at the door startled the Bone Wife out of her work and she hurried out of the room where she dusted. As she made her way down the echoing stone halls, whispers followed her. It was impossible to distinguish anything coherent in the multitude of voices, but they chilled her more than usual and she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. The great wooden door stood tall in the main hall and was getting difficult to open in her old age. She undid the latches and tugged it open far enough to peek through. The face of a middle aged monk peered back, his brow knit in worry.

“You’ll have to push the door open, Brother, it’s gotten too heavy for me.” She stood back and waited, listening to the scuffle outside, a chill creeping deeper into her own bones. New bones were never brought unannounced, preparations had to be made for the ceremony. And her groceries had already been delivered this week. Family were only allowed at the ossuary for visits on Sunday or by appointment, today was Thursday. No appointments were scheduled. Social visits were not allowed at all by her strict vows. But she tried not to speculate. Instead she tried to pick out anything useful from the icy barrage of voices snaking into her mind from the various rooms in the labyrinthine ossuary.

Finally, the door began to creak open. Frigid wind screamed in from the fields, picking at her plain dress and shawl with belligerent fingers, pulling strands of hair from her tight bun. She held her shawl up to shield her face from the icy blast. When she brought it down again, two of the five men were pushing the heavy door shut. On the floor sat a wooden box about three feet long. Not long enough for an adult, but children were taken to the ossuary of the Bone Mother, not brought here. The Bone Wife looked searchingly at the men, three monks and two craftsmen from the town.

“My Lady, we’ve brought you bones,” one of the townsmen stammered.

“We didn’t know where else to take them,” the eldest monk came forward. The Bone Wife knew him from the weekly grocery delivery.

“Who’s bones? I’m not prepared for a ceremony tonight.”

The men stood pale and speechless. The voice of the last Bone Wife fell into her ears with unusual heaviness.

“I can’t accept them.”

“You haven’t seen them,” the monk pleaded.

“I don’t need to. The dead here won’t have them.”

“Surely you can tame these bones, settle their restless spirit?”

One of the town men pulled out a crowbar and began to pry the top off of the wooden box. The whispering in her ears grew more urgent.

“Tell him to stop! He shouldn’t open that!” The Bone Wife cried. The chorus of voices around her grew louder and colder. The wooden lid cracked as the last of nails came loose and it slid to the floor. Silence filled the hall. The chill coming from the box caressed the Bone Wife, luring her closer. Inside lay the fox, a grin splitting its bloody snout.

“A fox?”

“It wasn’t when we killed it,” said one of the craftsmen, he wore a thick scarf around his neck, knitted in an exquisite color of wool the Bone Wife had never seen before.

“It was a man then. Tall and thin, with a wide grin.”

“He attacked a merchant in the square, and then three children walking home from a music lesson. We killed him and he became a fox when he died, so we sent for the monks to advise us.”

The Bone Wife looked down at the dead fox, its eyes rolled up toward her, its grin spread wider. As she watched a broken leg knitted itself back together. But a large bullet wound still gaped on its chest.

“Sister, you must have a way to keep dangerous bones contained,” one of the monks pleaded with her. She did, of course, but she hated to go down there. And the whispers and chill of warning were not insignificant. Still, this was her duty. Was it not? To wed them all, to ease their troubled spirits. And when she couldn’t, to imprison them, and keep the others safe from the malicious ones.

“Put the lid back on before we go.” She turned to a cabinet that stood in the great hall and pulled five black silk ribbons with small bone pendants from a hook. When she turned back around, the lid was securely on the box. She handed each man a pendant an instructed him to put it on.

“These are the left-hand finger bones of the first Bone Wife of this ossuary, Sister Gytha. We will be heading down to the Hole of the Forgotten, these relics will keep the fox in the crate, but only if you keep contact with the box. Do you understand? If any one of you stops touching the box, or takes off the pendant, the evil will have a chance to escape.”

“Surely you don’t expect us to go down there?” One of the men from town asked hesitantly.

“Surely you don’t expect this elderly Sister to haul that crate down there herself!” Cried one of the monks. The townsman crimsoned and busied himself unwinding his scarf and slipping the black ribbon over his head. He hung the scarf on a coat hook near the door. When he was ready, the Bone Wife addressed them.

“We’ll be walking down a narrow flight of stairs leading to the Hole of the Forgotten. I will go first and light the torches on our way. Whatever you do, don’t stop walking, don’t set the crate down, and absolutely do not open it. Do you understand?” The men all nodded. The Bone Wife looked up to the monk who brought her weekly grocery delivery, “Brother Esben, can I trust you to follow behind us? You’ll need to be stalwart, keep your faith about you, and be ready to pray the Sun Supplication at the slightest provocation.”

“Of course, Sister, may the Sun shine on us all in the depths.”

“Follow me, don’t speak, and ignore anything you hear. Down there, you’ll need to rely on your faith and your wits.” Without waiting for their replies, she turned and made her way down a side corridor off of the main hall. Halfway down the hall, a dark archway lurked. The stone voussoirs of the archway were inlaid with sun discs cut from shimmering sunstone, with a nine-rayed sun set into the keystone. The Bone Wife took a torch from the wall sconce next to the arch and began the descent, behind her, four men carried the wooden box, and Brother Esben followed behind them.

The stairs were steep and narrow, dead torches in sconces lined the wall on one side. The Bone Wife lit them one by one as they made their way slowly down into the depths. She’d been down here thrice before, never with worldly men. Never with such fear treading at her heals. They walked on for several minutes, the air growing colder and denser as they went.

“Sister, how much longer?” Asked one of the men.

“As long as it takes,” she muttered, cringing at the echoes and waiting for the silence to return. It filled her with unease to be away from the endless whispers of the bones upstairs.

“Can we set the box down for a second, it’s digging into my neck,” complained another.

“We cannot stop. You cannot set the box down. I explained it all upstairs.”

“Just for a mo-“

“No!” Her voice roared through the stairwell, a formidable growl that bounded off the walls and seemed to return to pummel her, she who never rose her voice. The men quieted down without further fuss. They walked down in silence for another few yards. Only their breathing, footsteps, and the soft whoosh of each torch flame catching and taking its first gasp of life echoed in the stairwell.

One of the men gasped. The Bone Wife turned to see the box shift of its own accord. A hideous screaming was heard from inside as the box shifted again.

“It’s alive! We should let it out!” Cried one of the town men. The monks began to protest.

“It’s a trick. Hold on to the box and ignore the screaming. Keep walking.” The Bone Wife turned, and walked on. The fox continued screaming, a chilling, desperate screech. Beneath the cries, Brother Esben’s voice picked up, low and quiet, chanting the Sun Supplication.

Before long the staircase ended and opened up into a bare stone room.

“Do not put the box down,” the Bone Wife ordered. One of the men groaned. Brother Esben stepped into the room, chanting prayers, a little out of breath.

“Brother, help me with the door.”

Set in the wall opposite the staircase was a small wooden door about three feet tall and three feet wide. She handed the monk the torch and took a key ring from her belt, searching through the many keys for a long, black skeleton key. She knelt down at the door.

“A little more light, Brother.”

The monk held the torch closer. She slipped the key into the lock, and heard a scuffle behind them. Then the sound of the wooden box hitting the stone floor. She turned, the two townsmen stood rubbing their shoulders and necks. The monks’ faces flickered in horror as they stood, bending over with their hands still on the box. Before she could say a word, the wooden box splintered.

Blood spilled to the stones. She saw the four men fall to their knees. She pulled the key from the lock as Brother Esben’s blood showered her in a warm spray.

“May the Sun shine on us in the depths,” she whispered before the world went black.

The bones watched as a man came jogging up the steps that led to the Hole of the Forgotten. He rummaged through the rooms, taking the pants from one skeleton, a shirt from another. From a third he found shoes that still held a bright polish and curiously, a wool coat.

“Who the devil is interred in a coat?” He mused. At the door, he wound a scarf around his neck made with wool of an exquisite color. A kind of teal green that he thought quite a compliment to his red hair and fair skin. At the door he turned and bowed to the bones.

“Farewell, and never forgotten,” he said, before pulling the heavy door shut behind him.

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