Mud
Take this offering, rend and lash,
Break those bones and build them back.
Rattle, shake, jump and fly,
Push him out from the by-and-by.
The pig laid dead, still, half-swallowed in the muck of the pit. Bubbles of activity oozed up around him, or perhaps… no… just releases of air. He had been there eight days, unmoving. Fay had not lost hope, however, knowing that should the frame of the beast never move again, she’d simply steal another, better one, and kill it just the same.
Four decades of foraging, crafting, and theft had made her gifted in acquiring all she needed unseen. In her hidden hovel-hole hermitage deep in the holler, she extended her tiny body higher, on tiptoes. Wrapped in her shawl, caked in dirt, hair bedraggled, screeching with her hands splayed toward the sky. She wore a grin, and little else. She clenched her eyes. She believed.
Shunning worm and cursed crypt,
Put your words upon his lips.
Call my name, and make it loud,
Deliver him from the broken shroud.
The shroud did not break. The pig did not stir. Nothing was revealed. Completion toyed with her, dancing beyond the veil. Fay rounded her home, a dirt circle, trodden barefoot for years, enveloped in cut branches. She pinched up tinctures and cast them into the center of the room. The small brown and green and red leaves tinkled over each other, down, down, down, into the muck. Her slick fingers colored by the concoctions. The greyed eye of the pig speckled with anise and caraway watched the leaflets plunge. Flies lived and died in the bottom of the pit. Cold and swampy, the taught carcass appeared weary of the endless ritual.
The fire in the corner pitched and threw dire shadows upon the wall. Fay looked up and read them. She nodded. A good sign. She counted stones as she dropped them into a pot, stirred it, flipped it over to splash onto the floor and counted how many disappeared. She scraped the floor of a birdcage, wiped it on an oak leaf and perused it for instruction. She toiled and labored. She scrawled on goatskin all the words she’d been given to bring about the change, tinkering here and there with the words. Eliciting new meanings, inflecting for positive change. She replaced her quill in the inkwell, clapped her hands, and hopped in place, giggling. She’d done it.
This one.
This time.
Loneliness would be abated.
Nervously she rehearsed her words. Eyes closing, she thumped her fists in rhythm, gaining the cadence, whispering the words in rehearsal. Once confident she began anew. Returning to the pit’s edge, ambitious and filthy, she slowly raised her hands. Same grin, same tiptoes, same clenched eyes. Her strained calf muscles shook.
Grope and pull, bring him thither,
From busy brew, he shall slither.
Take or make, beckon or plea,
Make him up and give him to me.
On and on.
The pig sank further.
Fay grew louder.
If it failed, no matter. To her alone, the trees whisper her name, and she will listen. She will have what was promised.
Deeper, and deeper, and deeper still the carcass sank into the grime. A cloud of flies poured from the hole and escaped the hovel through sunlit breaches in the vines. Popping up around the pig, small brown bubbles poked and spurted happily, displaced gases from a half-grave. Fay looked down just as the snout, the last remnant of the thing, sank below the sticky surface. Smoke seeping out between coarse hairs, it smelled like plague cough in that constricted place. The fire danced with vigor. Fay screamed, danced foot to foot, and kicked dirt onto the slipping snout. Remembering herself, she continued.
Crunch and twist, take new form,
From this pit let him be born!
Maim and sculpt, cut and conjure,
Through the surface he will puncture!
She stepped back as years of work pulled itself from the mess. Slowly, from its cradle, a child of woe carried itself hand over hand into the light of the flame. Rising nightmare of charnel endeavor. Sepulchral mud-covered splendor. Screaming, wet, and terrible the thing slid upon her floor, shivering, and wiping itself. Mushrooms sprouted from its skin and sprigs of twisted branches adorned its hairy forehead. Two feet, one cleft, the other toed, kicked for footing and its huge hands wrung the edges of Fay’s shawl. Black, sad eyes set deep into its brow looked up from the floor while its colossal seven-foot stature lay lengthwise across the entirety of the hut. It smiled its pig smile and licked the dirt at Fay’s toes. The fire went out.
Fay fell upon the thing in an embrace. All her hopes answered.
Never would she be alone again.
***
Damien Moore is dislocated veteran from more rural Florida, specializing in writing eldritch/folk horror with a human touch inspired by real world events. He lives in the PNW with his partner and corgi named Major and spends most of his time reading, lifting, or creating tall tales and outright fabrications. You can find him on Instagram picking up heavy objects or going on adventures.