Old Mother Frost
Sturdy boots punched through the thin ice layer that had built over the snow. Everything was sparkling and white in the late afternoon sun. Fine flurries fell from the sky, dusting my coat. My breath came in thick clouds. A bucket of feed pellets swayed in my left hand.
The sheep brayed when I approached, gathering around the gate. Black faces stared out from clouds of fleece, expectant, impatient.
The gate swung open with a groan of protest, an icicle breaking off from the bottom like the tinkling of broken glass. My fingers stung with cold as I forced the gate closed behind me. One of the sheep rammed me with its head, grunting, because I was taking too long. The bucket spilled, scattering feed pellets across the ground, mixing into muddy ice where the sheep had broken through the top layers to the dirt beneath.
They all swarmed, knocking me to and fro.
I stared down at the mess, sighing. My breath clouded such that it resembled the braying masses surrounding me.
The sun had begun to set, sending pink and orange streaking across the sky. An icy blast of wind smacked into me, whistling through the woods surrounding the sheep’s enclosure. The wind smelled of pine and cedar and cold. The trees groaned, branches rustled. The flesh over my spine crawled.
I had the distinct impression that I was being watched.
. . .
The house was warm and bustling when I returned. The candles on the table burned amongst boughs of holly and dried orange slices. Mama was at the stove, stirring something in a big pot. The gruel, probably. Pa was out behind the house, chopping more wood — I had passed him on my return.
And then, there was my older sister, sprawled out on the floor before the fire, lounging around like a cat. Her spindle sat, untouched, next to a basket of wool yet to be spun. Wool that had been sitting there since the previous spring.
She lifted her head and turned toward me, sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes taking in my snow-caked coat, the red of my nose and cheeks, and she smirked.
“The sheep give you difficulty, Merta?” she asked.
I removed my coat and stepped back out to the stoop to shake off the snow, before hanging it on the wall. Next came my boots, clacking the soles together, and then they were set on the mat just inside the door.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” I asked, tersely.
She pointed toward her eye. I saw you, she seemed to say.
“You could have helped me,” I said.
“I was too busy spinning,” she said, laying her head back down and closing her eyes.
I looked again at the basket. It was in the same state when I went out.
“Agata,” Mama called from the stove, “come and give me a hand.”
“Can’t,” my sister said, “just about to get back to spinning. Have to finish before she comes.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“I’ll do it,” I said, stepping over to the stove.
Mama glanced at my older sister, words on the tip of her tongue, before turning to me.
“Pull the fish from the pan and set it on the table,” she instructed, gesturing toward the pan sitting on the stove.
I retrieved the serving plate from the cabinet just to the right of the stove. The fish started flaking apart when I scooped it out of the pan, but I arranged it as neatly as I could.
That done, I was to call Pa in and let him know that dinner was ready.
“Help him carry in the wood if he needs,” Mama added.
. . .
Agata sat across from me, pushing her spoon through her bowl of gruel. She stared down at it, dispassionately, before sliding it across the table to me. The haddock on her plate received similar treatment, flakes of the white fish spread out like snow.
“You need to eat your dinner, Agata,” Mama chided. “You can’t have anything else—”
“Yeah, yeah, or else Old Mother Frost will come get me,” Agata snarked down at her plate.
I put a bit of fish on top of a spoonful of gruel and worked it around my mouth. It was hardly my favorite food, but it wasn’t as bad as she was making it out to be.
“That’s right,” Pa chimed in, his tone firm. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed your spinning isn’t done.”
She huffed, pushing around the flakes of fish on her plate.
The rest of dinner was a quiet affair. Mama and Pa kept shooting each other furtive glances, while Agata kept her head down, sulking. I polished off my gruel and my sister’s and scraped my plate clean.
Agata didn’t move, even as Mama and I cleared away the plates and washed up.
Pa added more logs to the fire in the living room, stoking it to roaring. Icy winds howled outside, screaming through the dense forest. It rattled down the chimney, sending the flames dancing.
Mama beckoned Agata and me to the living room. She took her place in the rocking chair, while Agata and I sat on the rug in front of the fire. Pa sat in his chair and told us the stories of Old Mother Frost, as was tradition on her feast night.
I hung on to his every word, even though I had heard these stories countless times. Agata rolled her eyes and scoffed when Pa got to the part about slicing open the bellies of misbehaving children and stuffing them full of straw, taking the souls of the children to join her. The wailing of the children’s souls was the cause of the roaring, wailing winds during winter.
But children that had worked hard and completed their spinning — Pa sent a sharp look to Agata — were rewarded with silver coins.
. . .
Mama and Pa had gone to bed. I had just finished brushing my teeth and was heading back to the bedroom I shared with Agata when I heard a rustling out in the living room.
I crept out on socked feet, keeping silent.
My shoulders sagged when I found it was only Agata. She was hunched over the table where Mama had left out the offerings for Old Mother Frost.
She was eating.
“Agata,” I hissed sharply.
She jerked as if I had poked her. She whirled around, cookie crumbs stuck to her lips. Her brown eyes were wide until they settled on me, then her lids settled to half-mast and she smirked.
“Go to bed, Merta,” she drawled, quiet so she wouldn’t draw our parents’ attention.
“Why are you eating that?” I asked, horrified. I wrung my hands in front of me.
“I was hungry.” She shrugged, picked up the glass of milk, and took a gulp. She licked her lips.
“You’re not supposed to eat anything else,” I hissed. “It’s Old Mother Frost’s Night.”
“I’m aware.” She rolled her eyes and picked up another cookie. “You’re too old to believe those stories.”
I sucked on my tongue, debating calling for our parents. But that would make me a tattle-tale.
I spun around, instead. “Fine. But if she comes and slits your belly and stuffs you full of straw, you’ll be sorry.”
“Sure, sure,” she said. I heard the crunch of her biting into another cookie.
My nightgown swished around my legs as I stalked back to our bedroom. The bright moon shined through the window, snow falling. The wind was howling, sending the snow sideways. I peeled off my thick socks before slipping under the blankets. I snuggled under the thick afghans Mama had made, pulling them up to my nose.
I fell asleep before Agata came to bed.
. . .
Splat.
I had heard something strange. Something had woken me up.
I blinked a few times, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. At first, nothing made sense; my eyes were trying to find shapes and patterns in the shadows.
I heard a shuffling sound from Agata’s side of the room. It was probably just her shifting in her sleep. But I turned, anyway.
It wasn’t Agata.
A figure was crouched over her silent, still body. The edges of the figure were fuzzy and indistinct in the dark. Something about it was wrong. It looked bigger than it was. It took a moment to realize the figure was wearing dark furs, bundled up so it almost resembled a black bear. One of the figure’s hands was held out towards the space between our beds, a sickle gleaming in the moonlight.
There was something dark on the sickle.
My mouth opened of its own accord, the scream bubbling up.
The figure turned in my direction. There was a hood shielding much of the face, but I could see a hooked nose and bright, almost glowing eyes. The skin was white, almost blue, like cold, cold milk. It looked female.
The hand holding the sickle moved toward her face, holding one finger up against her lips.
The scream died.
I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t twitch my finger. I couldn’t breathe.
I could only watch while the woman turned back to my sister. She grabbed at my sister. I thought she was pulling at Agata’s nightgown, but then her hand came away with something.
It looked like meat.
Nausea rolled through my stomach and burned my throat. I wanted to cry. To scream. To pull her away from my sister. But I couldn’t even blink.
The figure, the woman, reached into her fur coat with the hand holding the sickle. She seemed to stow it away, only to pull out a handful of straw. She made a violent motion with it, shoving it down toward Agata. She reached back into her coat and pulled out more. I lost track of how many times she repeated the action.
The woman rose slowly to her feet and hopped agilely down to the floor. She looked to Agata. “This is what you have earned,” she said. Her voice was cold, sending a chill into my bones.
Her attention shifted, then, to me. In two steps she was by my bedside, strange, gray eyes staring down at me. Her face was soft, almost grandmotherly, as she smiled. She placed one hand on the bed beside my head, said nothing, and turned.
She walked to the bedroom door and continued out, her steps uneven. There was a strange, translucent copy of my sister, trailing after her, her mouth open in a silent scream.
The front door slammed shut.
The scream burst out of me, so loud and so hard it felt like it was clawing its way out of me. Tears blurred my vision as I sat in my bed and wailed.
My parents came charging into the room, first Pa and then Mama.
“What’s wrong?” Mama asked, pulling me into her embrace.
Pa had moved over to the nightstand between our beds and turned on the lamp.
He swore. Mama screamed.
I couldn’t look. I didn’t want to see.
“What happened?” Pa roared.
He stormed over and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me. The rough jostling shook the bed, making the frame knock against the walls. I heard the plink of something metal hitting the wood floor.
He let go, looking toward the sound. He bent to his knees and came back up holding something.
A silver coin.