Married at Last!
By the third day, the fingers began to twitch. The movement started at the very tipsthose that resembled the cap of a scarlet toadstool, minus the spots. Then the ashen flesh stirred, and by noon, the digits flexed along their full length. No bones lay withinjust sinew and hunger. One by one, they writhed against the clay pot, grasping for its rim. Madeline smirked. Amusing, really, that shed chosen a pot shaped like a human skull. Almost poetic.
The fingers stilledsomething fluttered at the window. A fly, wings buzzing, landed on the floral curtain and crawled downward, probing the fabric with its proboscis. It took flight again, alighting on the glass. The fingers tensed, barely daring to breathe. The insect skittered onto the crimson tip of one. Tasting it, the fly crept lower.
The finger struck. The red tip snapped shut, crushing the fly. A brittle crack silenced the drone. All seven digits coiled into a fist, pressing into the soil. The fungus now looked like a grey brain threaded with scarlet veins.
“Food for thought,” Madeline muttered, lifting a small cauldron from the hearth. The meat broth had already begun to simmer away.
***
She ladled broth into a bowl, stirred, and inspected itthick enough, and the scent was promising. Scooping a spoonful, she drizzled the hot liquid over the pot. The fingers shuddered greedily, veins drinking in the rich stock. Madeline stepped back, watching. The digits trembled, then burststarting at the tips. Grey flesh peeled open like petals, revealing a crimson bloom lined with tiny, grasping papillae. A fully matured fungus, red as a poppy, sprawled across the earthen skull.
Madeline chuckled under her breath and lifted the pot. One tendril stretched toward her finger. She hissedit froze.
“Thought so,” she whispered, then carried it to the open cellar.
Something shifted in the dark pit below. She hurled the pot inside. A muffled squeal, then a wet slap.
Returning to the hearth, she gripped the cauldron. The thick wool rag slipped slightly in her grasp, the cast-iron searing her fingertips. Thick, murky stew sloshed into the cellars bellyanswering with a chorus of grateful smacks.
Setting the cauldron aside, Madeline lit a lantern. The cellar walls pulsed with grey fingers, unfurling one after another into red, petal-like tendrils, drunk on the broth brewed from her grandmothers recipe.
Placing the lantern on the table, she dragged the bed back into place, iron legs screeching against the floorboards. She tested the mechanism, smoothed the coverlet, and drew the curtain over the pit beneath.
A pristine cloth draped the table; steaming dishes from the oven filled the plates. The floor gleamed, oil replenished in the lamps. Shedding her worn dress for a fresh frock, Madeline pinched her cheeks and peered from the cottage.
A rider in gleaming mail approached from the crossroads. How splendidperhaps today, shed wed at last! And if the groom proved unsuitable? Well. The cellar was always hungry.
The suitor halted at the porchand Madeline, the witch of Blackthorn Wood, smiled wide.
