They Ate My Unborn Sibling at a Feast

§PROLOGUE

My father taught me that the sweetest meat is carved from the deepest terror.

He told me this on my seventh birthday, not with a cake and candles, but with a pregnant ewe tied to the fence post behind our rotting barn.

Its eyes were wide, milky with fear, reflecting the bruised twilight sky of Black Briar Hollow.

Jedediah Hollis, my father, knelt beside me in the mud, the smell of cheap whiskey and blood clinging to him like a second skin.

He held his meat cleaver, the one with the dark-stained wooden handle, but he wasn’t looking at the sheep.

He was looking at me.

“You see, Sadie,” he rasped, his voice a gravel road. “An animal that dies easy, its meat is tough. Full of fight. But one that dies in pure, soul-shattering fright…”

He grinned, a broken constellation of yellowed teeth.

“...its muscles turn to jelly. The fear tenderizes it from the inside out. Makes it melt in your mouth.”

He called it The Stillborn Feast.

A delicacy whispered about in the darkest corners of the Hollow, a dish he was famous for.

I didn’t understand then.

I just saw the ewe’s swollen belly, the frantic rise and fall of its sides.

And I felt the cold dread that was the true seasoning of every meal in our house.

My father taught me many things.

But the most important lesson I ever learned was this: terror is a tool.

And I was a very good student.

§01

The new teacher, Mr. Frye, was as out of place in Black Briar Hollow as a diamond in a coal mine.

He was clean.

That was the first thing you noticed.

His shirts were pressed, his face was smooth, and he didn’t have the permanent layer of grime under his fingernails that marked the rest of the men in town.

The women of the Hollow, the ones who gathered at the town’s single dusty grocery store, didn't trust him.

“Ain’t natural,” they’d mutter over bags of flour and withered potatoes. “A man that pretty, he’s either a fool or a predator.”

I found their judgment strange. Mr. Frye had a nose and two eyes, just like everyone else. What made him unnatural?

Then, one afternoon, Mr. Frye decided to prove them right.

He chose my mother, Marlena, to be his proof.

He caught her by the old cornfield behind our property, where the stalks stood like skeletal sentinels.

I saw it from my bedroom window.

He dragged her into the rustling maze, his clean hand clamped over her mouth.

When she stumbled out later, the pretty, unnatural man was gone.

My mother’s hair was a wild nest.

Her face was a roadmap of tears.

And a dark stain, the color of a dying rose, was spreading down the thigh of her worn jeans.

§02

When Jed found out, his neck swelled with a rage that seemed to suck the air out of our small, suffocating house.

But he didn't go after Mr. Frye.

He went after my mother.

He hit her so hard she flew across the kitchen, crashing into the flimsy table where we ate our silent, fearful meals.

I screamed and threw myself over her body, a useless shield. "Dad, don't! It wasn't her fault! Mr. Frye forced her!"

A boot slammed into my back, stealing my breath. "Out of all the women in this damn town, why her?" he roared, his voice thick with whiskey. "She must've given him a look. A sign."

He yanked me up by the collar and tossed me aside like a bundle of rags.

Then he turned back to my mother, and the real storm began.

He used his fists, his boots, the heavy buckle of his belt.

Her screams started as shrieks, then faded to whimpers, and finally, to nothing at all.

When he was done, he dragged her out of the house by one leg, her body leaving a pathetic trail in the dirt.

He hauled her towards Gallows Hill, the place where the Hollow dumped its unwanted things.

Spring had barely touched the mountains, and the nights were still cold enough to kill.

If she stayed out there, in her thin clothes... she would die.

I tried to plead with him, my words choked with sobs. He slapped me, a sharp crack that echoed in the sudden silence.

"Useless," he spat, his breath a foul cloud. "She’s tainted goods. I’ll get you a new mom. A clean one."

He took another long pull from his bottle and staggered off towards the widow’s house at the edge of town.

I watched him go, my cheek burning, a cold certainty hardening in my chest.

Then I ran to his room, grabbed a handful of black candles from his stash of folk magic supplies, and raced towards the hill.

§03

The darkness on Gallows Hill was absolute, a suffocating blanket that swallowed sound and light.

They said the hill was named for the hangings that took place there, way back when the town was founded on blood and secrets.

They said the ground was sour with the spirits of the damned.

Old Man Hemlock’s wife went up the hill to pick berries one evening and came back with her hair turned white, whispering about a woman with no face.

I lit one of the thick, greasy candles. Its flame sputtered, a tiny, defiant star in the oppressive black.

"Mom!" I yelled, my voice thin against the vast silence. "Mom, where are you?"

Only the wind answered, whispering through the skeletal trees.

And another sound.

A low growl, somewhere in the darkness.

My blood ran cold.

Mountain lions. Or worse. The Hollow was full of stories.

I began to move faster, my small circle of light dancing over gnarled roots and slick, moss-covered stones. I lowered my voice, calling her real name, a name my father never used.

"Marlena! It's me, Sadie! I’m here to take you home."

"Marlena, answer me!"

The candle in my hand flickered violently, as if hit by a sudden gust of wind.

Then, it snapped cleanly in half, the flame extinguished.

I was plunged back into total darkness.

Something heavy landed on my shoulder.

I let out a choked scream, spinning around, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

The moon chose that moment to break through the clouds.

And I saw her.

It was my mother.

She was standing, seemingly unharmed. Her face was pale, almost luminous in the moonlight, but there were no broken bones, no visible wounds.

Relief washed over me, so powerful it made my knees weak. "Mom! You're okay! Dad's gone. We can go home."

I reached for her hand.

It was as cold as a block of ice.

She stared down at me, her expression a blank, unreadable mask.

I shivered, trying to warm her frigid fingers in my own. "I heard a cougar, I think. It's not safe. Let's go."

§04

The moment the words left my mouth, she ripped her hand from my grasp with shocking strength.

The force sent me stumbling backward, my head cracking against a sharp-edged rock.

Pain exploded behind my eyes.

"You think I'd believe that?" Her voice was different. A low, chilling monotone, devoid of any warmth. "You wish I was dead, don't you? One less mouth to feed. One less burden for your precious father."

My mother was a stranger my father had dragged back from some city, a prize he'd won through lies and violence.

She hated the Hollow.

And she hated me.

She called me her "living shame," the daily reminder of her stolen life. Her anger was a physical thing, a storm that would break over me for the smallest reason.

Last month, a nightmare had sent her into a spiral. She’d dreamt of her first days in the Hollow, when Jed, to "break her spirit," had chained her to our porch like a dog, letting other men look and touch for a dollar.

The memory had festered, and she’d found her release in me.

A slap that made my world go silent in one ear.

Fingers twisting in my hair, her voice hissing that it was my fault, all my fault.

She’d shoved a handful of dirt and garbage into my eyes, blinding me, before throwing me out into a blizzard.

I almost froze to death that night.

But I never blamed her.

I blinked away the stars dancing in my vision and looked up at her from the ground. "You're my mother," I whispered, my voice trembling. "How could I ever want you to die? I'm going to get us out of here. I'll study hard, get a scholarship..."

My throat tightened. "...I know you don't like me. I understand why."

She stared at me for a long, silent moment. The wind howled, a lonely, mournful sound.

Then, without a word, she reached down and pulled me to my feet.

§05

When Jed stumbled home the next morning, reeking of cheap perfume and stale beer, he found my mother in the yard, calmly shelling peas.

His face contorted into a mask of fury.

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