Skein and Bone by V. H. Leslie

Author:V. H. Leslie [Leslie, V. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary, Short Stories, ghost, Horror, weird ficiton, fantasy, supernatural
ISBN: 9780993895104
Google: gScdswEACAAJ
Amazon: 0993895107
Goodreads: 26088379
Publisher: Undertow Publications
Published: 2015-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

*

He slept soundly that night. The deep, satisfying sleep that only comes from being exhausted. It was a sharp shrill sound that woke him. Birdsong. He tried to ignore it but it came again.

Cuckoo.

He sat up and listened again. Sure enough, he heard the rise and fall of the cuckoo call. But it was the wrong time of year, wasn’t it? He switched on the bedside light and saw snow mounting outside the window.

Cuckoo.

Robyn stirred beside him.

“You ok?” she asked groggily.

“Yeah, just damn cuckoos outside.”

“At this time of year?”

As if to answer her question it came again. Daniel realized with growing frustration that she hadn’t responded to the sound.

“Didn’t you just hear it?”

“Hear what? Are you ok honey?” she sat up. She put her hand to his brow as if he was unwell.

He shrugged her off. “Are you telling me you couldn’t hear it?”

Robyn looked back at him with concerned eyes. He was going mad, he thought. He was losing it. He jumped out of bed. Pulled on his trousers.

“Where are you going?”

He walked toward the garden. He didn’t even put his shoes on but walked out into the fresh snow barefoot. The sun was barely up, the morning dim and grey. As he approached the tree line he was suddenly aware of how frightening the forest was in the dark.

He reached for a stone. He didn’t want to cross the periphery into the forest but his throw wouldn’t reach otherwise. He crossed over. The trees overhead obscured his view of the sky and fallen branches and bracken scratched at his naked feet. His feet began to register the iciness of the snow and his toes deadened into numbness. He threw the stone at the nest. He remembered hearing that cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, which then raise their offspring. Lazy parenting. The stone missed by a few inches. He aimed and tried again, this time dislodging it. He picked up another rock and hurled it. It hit the nest and this time both fell with speed to the earth below.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.