31 Days of Halloween

Day One: The Glass Raven

Judy couldn't remember the first therapist she ever saw. There were so many in the span of five years it was hard to keep track, but they all said the same thing after talking with her: It's normal for young kids to have imaginary friends.

Her mother didn't want to accept the answer; she thought there was something wrong with Judy. Being a single mother, she had no one else to fall back on. Judy was the only light in her world, so it became her mission to get a real diagnosis.

Judy loved her mother and, being a child, followed through with everything her mother needed to do. Every shrink, every doctor, every medicine Judy bore through it. Not always with a smile on her face but she did.

But it all changed when Judy's mother brought home a small box. Inside, was the smallest white puppy Judy had ever seen. It had little brown flecks along its back and around one eye, but the rest was pure snow. Judy named it Oliver, and Oliver became her best friend. As Judy grew so did the puppy; the two had formed an inseparable bond. Judy's mother felt a weight lift from her shoulders. The dog had improved Judy's behavior, like the therapist told her, and finally she felt at peace with her daughter.

Judy found that the best place to play with Oliver was down by the river. There had been an older woman who lived in a shack not far from the water. She was a spinster who volunteered in town but never married and never had children. She died long before Judy was born but her house still sits in time, overgrown with vines and weeds. Judy would never let Oliver play by the water, he was too little and could be swept away by the current, but there was a bridge built by the spinster lady that they could cross.

And that's what Judy did one morning. After breakfast, her and Oliver trekked down to the shack with her mesh bag of Jacks and a snack for her and Oliver. Alone, Judy let her imagination run wild. She played house, pretending Oliver was a baby and fed him crackers from the cradle of her arms. Oliver didn't protest, of course, until the crackers ran dry. Then Judy broke out the Jacks, nimbly catching each piece as the ball limply bounced on a random rock. When that grew boring, Judy decided to explore.

Oliver wouldn't go near the front door to the shack, so Judy left him to his business outside while she ventured in. The hinge creaked loudly in the silence of the day; the birds overhead had ceased their songs. Dust clung to every surface available, covering the well-furnished rooms in a veil of gray. The chairs still looked plump and soft, but Judy didn't dare dirty her dress in fear of the wooden spoon her mother kept hung for that one purpose. There was only the one big room and then there was a small, almost closet like area around a corner. It had a bed squished inside and an old tattered dress lay on its cover, as if its owner would return to get ready for the day.

Judy grabbed the dress in one small hand, feeling the ragged material scratch her palms and make her itchy. It was modest, at least down to the ankles and a high collar, but made of a fabric that was once a rich blue. Judy bent to sniff the dress but only succeeded in making herself sneeze from the dust. She let the dress fall back to the bed and started to make her way back out, having enough of her exploring game. But on the way out, there was a small glass figurine sitting on a windowsill. Judy felt attracted to it and couldn't resist the pull bringing her closer to the antique.

When she was close enough, Judy could see the figurine was a raven. Its beak was wide open as if to sound its call, its wings spread to take flight. It was a pure glass, no color, but when Judy changed angles, she could see that the light played on it and created rainbow prisms on the sill. Every bone in her body screamed at her to leave, that if she took the little raven it would be stealing. Judy wasn't a stealer but still...that raven stirred something up in the air. It was heavy and thick with a compelling desire to own the figurine.

Oliver barked outside the door, causing Judy to jump away from the raven. Her heartbeat pounded at her chest, clammy sweat trickling down the back of her neck. Judy glanced once out the door and then stuffed the raven into her dress pocket before joining Oliver outside. He jumped merrily around her, clearly happy Judy came back outside, but all Judy could feel was an impending sense of doom.

That night, Judy lay in bed staring at the raven sitting on her nightstand. It made goosebumps raise on her thin arms and cold chills to sweep her spine. At first, she believed it was guilt at what she'd done. Judy never stole, her mother proclaimed it a sin, but she didn't regret taking the glass raven. It felt like it belonged to her, like it had always belonged to her and now it was home.

The day after Judy explored the spinster's house, it was a school day. Dressed in her fanciest yellow dress, Judy was ready to see her friends. But still the raven called to her from her nightstand. She didn't see the harm in having it stashed in her backpack so that's what she did. But as she slung the bag over her shoulders, she could feel a phantom heartbeat over her vertebrae. A constant reminder of what it was.

Judy's mother began to see a difference, as well. She notices how her daughter eats very little, one hand always touching a glass raven her mother has never seen before. Judy has little interest in school or Oliver; the poor thing whines at Judy to play but Judy ignores the dog. Her daughter was becoming a stranger.

After a week of owning the raven, Judy began to feel differently. She knew she wanted to eat but everything tasted like sand, tasteless and gritty. She began to dream about the raven. It would fly high above her in a dark night sky before landing on an older woman's shoulder. She wasn't familiar to Judy, but she would call in the most beautiful voice, though Judy never understood what the lady said.

One day, her mother was at work while Judy had the day off from school. It was raining hard outside, forming deep puddles in the ground below. Normally, Judy would rush to slip on her galoshes and coat and jump through every puddle until she was soaked and shivering. But now, even though she was still only eight, Judy found the act and desire childish, beneath her even. Judy sat in the living room, instead, with the raven in front of her. It spoke to her in a way a toy has never spoken to Judy before. It was a cruel croak filled with instructions that Judy knew she should never follow.

But today was a new day and Judy didn't feel like listening to anything. Oliver was in his new spot by the fireplace, devastated now that his best friend didn't want to play anymore, and Judy decided that today she did in fact want to play. Oliver perked up instantly as Judy brushed him down, disposing of his loose fur in the bin. Judy grabbed her favorite toy from the kitchen table and brought Oliver outside to play.

When her mother came home, the rain had stopped but a lazy river of muddy water still trickled through the yard. She didn't pay any mind until the water turned from muddy brown to rusty crimson. Following the water, her mother encountered a drenched Oliver sleeping under one of the trees. The water led right to him and as she got closer, she realized the dog wasn't saturated in water.

She screamed, stumbling back from Oliver's body. Her heeled shoe clipped a root and down she fell, eye level now with the base of the tree. And there, was Judy. She called out to her daughter, worried about her safety, but the cry dried up in her throat. Judy was drenched in mud and water, a bloody streak running diagonally across her new pink dress. As her once innocent and beautiful daughter turned to face her, her mother saw darkness flicker in Judy's dead brown eyes. A silver paring knife glistened in the sun as it turned over and over in her daughter's small hand.

Right in that moment, her mother knew she had been right all along. There was something wrong with her daughter, she knew it by the stench of decay and iron radiating from her Judy's small body. But what she didn't know, was that her money had been wasted on therapists and drugs and home remedies. Judy was a normal, happy child until that day in the spinster's house. And as Judy dropped that dinner knife into her mother's warm and beating heart, the little glass raven watched from Judy's windowsill.