chasing_silver

The hearthstones were always warm to the touch, thought Esme, even when there were no fires lit during the hot summer months. The house at the base of the mountain had been built long ago, "by hand" as her mother made to sure always add. Just like Esme and her brother were being raised "by hand" and that all housework was done "by hand". It seemed that "by hand" was just a euphemism for "go away, I'm too busy to pay attention to you."

So Esme would sit by the hearth and hold onto the hearthstones. They were warm, and grounding, and safe. All the things that Esme's life wasn't.

They'd fled the town after the last raid at the start of the spring season. Foreign men on sweaty horses, smelling of the metallic tang of old blood, bursting through the gates and laying waste to whatever was in their way. The old bread seller was cut down at the neck, still holding his hot loaves. The fishmonger slipped on a pile of guts and found himself slit just like one of his products. They all fled to the abbey church, though the monks had already barred shut the doors. Esme still heard the frantic banging in her sleep, and the murmured apologies and prayers on the other side of the iron-clad door.

The warning bell had tolled and tolled, long after there was no one left outside the abbey to hear the alarm. Bong. Bong. Bong.

Still on the wind sometimes, Esme could hear that bell, ringing for mass, carried far over the fallow fields to this old house at the base of the mountain.

But Maman had no idea how to hunt, and Jacques was no better. At only five, he was more likely to scream in a tantrumy fit over a broken toy than learn how to set a rabbit snare. So Esme did, and it yielded meagre results. She was better at berry picking and grinding wild grains and nuts into porridge. They ate, but only just, and only because the world began to bloom again after the last of the graves in the old churchyard had been dug, and Esme and her family had never looked back on the town again.

So the hearthstones were Esme's safe space. And they seemed to breathe a life of their own, those honey-coloured, smooth rocks. She spent hours staring into the cooking fire, and when it was snuffed for the evening, into the dark fireplace. So closely did she stare, so much did she dream, that one night she thought it was a hallucination, that flash of white caught by the moonlight through the window.

But as she reached out to touch it, she realized in a split second of horror that it wasn't, because it reached right back, and its cold skeletal fingers curled around her hand.

Esme stifled a scream and immediately snatched her hand away as if burned, her eyes screwing shut against the image of those bones laying across her fingers.

But when she opened them briefly a few minutes later to see if what she'd seen was true, the little skeletal hand was gone.

//*//

The days turned into autumn and the fire was rarely out. Maman was trying to preserve as much fruit and wild vegetables as Esme and now a reluctant Jacques could find. Meat was still scarce on the table, though Jacques, in a sudden useful phase, had figured out how to fish in the mountain stream adjacent. He complained about how easy it was when they could just buy fish from the fishmonger, until the entire family had a flashback about the day the raid happened and he had the good sense to trail off before Maman could begin crying again.

She had just stopped the endless crying jags a few weeks before. Esme could have cheerfully murdered her little brother, but thankfully, Maman didn't seem to have been too affected by his words, and anyway, it was nice that he wanted to help so much now.

Her long stints at the hearth continued earlier in the evenings, now that the sun was setting sooner and the moon began her longer season as the world grew colder. Esme dreamed. The little house, whoever had built it long ago, had done it well. Perhaps "by hand" actually did mean good craftmanship. And it seemed to adapt easily to the changeable mountain weather, rarely letting in any chill breezes, protected as it was by the rowan tree planted thoughtfully by the front door.

But Esme swore she could hear, in the dead of night, a low and sweet humming, almost like a children's lullaby. As Maman and Jacques breathed lightly and evenly through the darkling hours, the tune never wavered or changed. And eventually, Esme would drift away, too, until the bright glaring sun pierced her eyes and Maman was scolding her for sleeping in the hearth again.

It had been raining that day, raining endlessly. Maman had been nervous, walking up and down the floor, stoking the fire, cursing in all the saints' names as it smoked and hissed in the damp instead of catching flame. Esme had done her best with the bellows, but nothing was catching until, unthinkingly, Esme hummed the nightly lullaby under her breath and the fire suddenly lit.

"Finally," said Maman. "I was getting to think we'd never be able to cook the evening meal."

Esme sat in front of the flames that evening and vowed to keep the fire going all night. Jacques had been starting a rough little cough and had been droopy against Maman. Esme had seen that look before in the village children - she was determined to not let her little brother fall ill.

And as she stirred the flames up higher, she heard the lullaby again - but this time there were words.

"A rowan tree against the door
A bowl of milk upon the floor.
Pretty stones to earn their favour
Toothsome sweets for them to savour
And a heart beneath your heart of home
To bless this little house of stone."

Esme moved closer to the hearthstones and almost seemed to feel them breathing. In and out ... in and out ...

And suddenly the hand was holding hers again.

Esme tried to pull away, but felt herself frozen with her hand clasped tightly beneath the smooth, cold bones. She started to gasp in fear, but the voice stopped singing and tsked.

"Why do you shake?"

Esme could barely speak. "Wh-what?"

"Why do you shake? I allowed you your fire," repeated the voice. "I did not want your bones cold and sick."

Esme felt like she had been struck mute. She trembled harder and the skeletal hand, almost incongruously gentle, began to stroke hers.

"Why are you after upsetting yourself so?" The voice sounded scolding, now. "We've been here together these six months. It's not polite."

Esme recovered herself. "I'm sorry," she said. "I ... who are you?"

Abruptly the hand let go. "Don't now concern yourself."

Esme felt completely confused. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to know your name."

The hand crept back between her fingers. "Ah. A name. Marie. That's what you can call me."

"Marie?"

The hand withdrew, this time gently. "The heart beneath."

Esme was overwhelmed by the sense of loss and placed her hand back on the warm hearthstones. "Don't go, Marie."

But there was no answer, and in the morning, Esme thought she must have dreamed it.

//~//

Maman wanted to build a new fireplace. "This one never draws properly! I'm so tired of smoke everywhere. The smuts never come out of my apron, and now we don't even have the benefit of the sun to bleach them!"

Esme sighed. She had no idea how to build a chimney, let alone where to find the hearthstones, and not one of them had any kind of money to pay someone skilled enough to do it. They had left the town almost a year hence, and Esme wasn't sure there were any masons left alive to ask. "Maman, it probably just needs a cleaning. I can try."

"Years and years of soot raining down into my house," grumbled Maman. "It'll have to wait until spring. We can't afford to have the fire out with your brother so poorly."

For Jacques hadn't gotten better that autumn; as winter drew in, he'd only gotten worse. His small, hacking cough had developed into a chronic lung condition, made worse by stress and cold. He lay feverishly on the bed he and Maman shared, tossing and turning. Some days were better than others, but Esme knew that unless some kind of miracle happened, Jacques wouldn't see the spring.

His harsh breathing filled the house at night and Esme couldn't sleep. She stared into the dancing flames, trying to hear the lullaby. She'd even whispered Marie's name. But there was never any lullaby now. Never that scolding, sweet voice.

Even the hearthstones seemed cold.

One night, Maman had been so worried about Jacques that she vowed to find someone who could help them. "There have to be others living in the woods here," she said anxiously. "We can't be the only house here. This one is the best preserved, but I've seen other cabins on my summer walks. There has to be a healer."

Esme met her worried eyes. "I don't know, Maman. We can try the wintergreen poultice again."

"It's not doing anything for him." Maman's voice broke. "I don't know why he's so ill, Esme. He doesn't see other children, he always was outdoors ... why is he so sick?"

They looked at Jacques, now still and pale, but still with that harsh breathing that never seemed to break.

Maman broke down. "I have to find something that will help him." She turned and walked out into the bright winter night. Esme watched her go, and then closed the door softly.

"Marie," she whispered. "Why won't you help us?"

And now the voice came. "There is a price to pay for communication, wee one," said Marie, her voice sounding amused. "Here I have sung you to sleep, kept your fire burning and the hearth warm. What have you done for me and my kind?"

"What should I have done?" gasped Esme. "I didn't know I had to do anything!"

The lullaby drifted on the air then, and Esme for the first time realized the words.

"A rowan tree against the door
A bowl of milk upon the floor.
Pretty stones to earn their favour
Toothsome sweets for them to savour
And a heart beneath your heart of home
To bless this little house of stone."

"Marie ... oh no. Marie, please."

"I never have had a bowl of milk placed nor sweets made. The last occupants of this house did never forget the heart beneath. And so I see mayhap we are not wanted here." Marie sounded less amused and more stern, realized Esme with a sinking heart. "We have blessed this hearth many a twelvemonth."

"I do want you here!" blurted Esme. "It's just that my brother is dying, and we don't have any food, and --"

"Spare me, child. I have no interest, and if the little one is dying, I am unsure why you failed to ask us sooner for the help you needed."

"What can I do?" gasped Esme. "Maman can't lose Jacques."

"Another time I have heard this plea," mused Marie. "And I told her what to do. I wonder if you have the same gumption for the sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?"

"In order for your brother to live, you must give us something in exchange. That is the way. We are an ancient people and our customs do not change."

"Anything," Esme pleaded. "As long as Maman can come home safe and Jacques could live."

"It has been more than a century since the last time we have obtained this precious thing," said Marie. "Homes like these always need younger spirits - spirits like Marie."

Esme was completely confused. "But I thought your name was Marie." She gasped in horror then as the heartstones seemed to ripple in the heat from the flames. The skeletal hand that had gripped Esme's twice before now appeared, sticking out of the hearthstone closest to the fire.

Marie chuckled. "That's what Marie said about the last one. Are you ready?"

"Ready?" asked Esme stupidly. "Ready for what?"

"To pay your dues and become the heart beneath." And with that, the hand yanked Esme's hard.

This has been an entry for therealljidol. The prompt this week was Hikikomori, which is a syndrome characterized by severe social withdrawal, characterized by adolescents and young adults who become recluses in their parents' homes.

Many old European cultures practiced forms of paganism where they believed in house spirits, or faeries, that they needed to please in order to keep a happy and healthy home. In some cases, children were sacrificed under the hearth or within the foundations of buildings and bridges to bless and please these spirits and to ensure that the good luck continued to flow - in essence, to be the "heart of the home" for as long as the occupants shall live.

Thank you for reading and voting!