THE
MIDNIGHT
LULLABY
THE
MIDNIGHT
LULLABY
CHERYL LOW
A
GrinningSkull Press
Publication
PO Box 67, Bridgewater, MA02324
The Midnight Lullaby
Copyright © 2020 Cheryl Low
All rights reserved. Nopart of this book may be used or reproduced in anymanner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of briefquotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. All charactersdepicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons —living or dead — is purely coincidental.
The Skull logo withstylized lettering was created for Grinning Skull Press by Dan Moran,http://dan-moran-art.com/.
Cover designed by Don Noble, Rooster Republic Press LLC.
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-947227-50-7 (paperback)
ISBN:978-1-947227-51-4 (e-book)
DEDICATION
To mypartner in all things. All love stories are tragedies. Everygreat romance has a horror waiting at the end. But evenknowing that, I wouldn’t want my story to go any differently.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
ChapterSeven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
ChapterTwelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Acknowledgments
A huge thank you to Grinning Skull Press for taking onanother of my books and for being so fantastic to work with!
ChapterOne
Benedict was eight years old, sitting on a stiff chair inthe dark hallway of a house he didn't know. He clamped his hands around theedges of his seat, trying to press his bonesso tight that they wouldn't shake. His head whipped from side to side,unblinking as he searched for shapes.
"Tell me where it is!" Gloria's voice boomed fromthe room down the hall. Benedict winced, squinting to see through the doorwayand into the wild flicker of candlelight.
The witch screamed, writhing on thefloor at Gloria's feet. She chanted betweenher howls, head thumping back against the floor and narrow chest pushing high. Even from this distance, and evenwith her screeches in the air, he heard her bones cracking.
"Give me the book!" Gloria roared.
Wind rushed through the house, knocking the pictures fromthe walls. Windows cracked in their frames. Doors opened and closed withfurious bangs upstairs.
"Can you see them?" Elysium whispered.
Benedict gulped ragged breaths, fearmarching a parade through his chest with the big drums in his ears."No."
His brother sighed, the teen crouchingin front of Benedict. "Benny, there." He pointed down the hall, toward the opendoorway and their mother's booming voice demanding to know where the spirit-wielder hid her book of secrets. "There.You see that one? He's big. You have to see him."
Benedict cried but didn't blink at thetears, staring down the hall through a liquid haze. He saw the doorwayand the lights inside and his mother's shadow cast across the twisting woman onthe floor. "There's no one in the hall," he confessed.
The floorboards squeaked; he saw them straining and heardthe heavy footfalls coming toward them, but he didn't see the ghost.
"What's happening?" Benedictbegged, small voice almost lost under the raging of the house. He jumped at a scratchingsound, claws on hardwood, and a sickly meowing.
"The witch is calling the spiritsshe's trapped here," his brother explained.
"Will they hurt Mother?"Benedict asked, still staring down the hallway. Theheavy steps getting closer.
"Do you see him yet?"Elysium asked rather than answering, headwhipping back and forth, watching something in the empty hall and studying hisbaby brother.
Benedict wrinkled his nose, trying not to cry.
The floorboards creaked closer andcloser, his little heart fluttering wildly in his chest.
"Benny, you see him, right?" Elysium shouted overthe groaning walls and wailing woman—over the scratching and the creaking andthat awful meowing. "Benny—"
Benedict screamed when somethingpulled Elysium away from him anddragged his older brother down the hall, tossing him into a dark parlorwith a heavy thud.
Benedict jumped down from his chair and ran after him,tears spilling over his lashes. He didn't see whatever they saw, but he knew it was real. He looked around at the empty chairs and couches, his hands balled intofists against his sides. "Elysium?" he whispered.
A thump on the wall drew his gaze up,eyes straining and vision blurring at the edges.
His brother was there, pinned againstthe wall by an unseen force and heldso high up that the top of his head almost brushed the ceiling. Elysium raspedin ragged breaths, heels kicking against the wall.
Benedict backed up, unable to lookaway until he bumped into acloset door. The scratching grew louder, the yowling from inside desperate. Hetwisted around and stared at the doorknob.
He knew he shouldn't open it, but awhisper told him he had to. Something was inside…something that needed out.
The boy reached up and used both hands to turn the knob.The door opened with a pop, and he shuffledback from it. For one blessed moment, thescratching stopped, the meowing went silent, and then the mangy monsterspoured out. Cats, twisted and thin, half-decayed but stillmoving. Their claws scratched against the floor, never retracting into theirpaws, some with no meat to call a paw anymore. One looked up at Benedict, an empty socket and the glint of bone flashing athim. It meowed, and he could see thevocal cords rattling in its neck where the fur and flesh were missing.
He screamed, but the house only grew louder, trying tosmother him.
And then he was off his feet.
For a second, he choked on his sounds,terrified that the ghost had snatchedhim up like it had Elysium, and then he inhaled and knew exactly whose arms hewas in. His brother held him against his shoulder and ran from the room, kicking the door shut behind them.He didn't stop, running straight down the corridor and toward the soundof their mother's voice. Benedict buried hisface in that shoulder, rubbing his tears out in the fabric of his shirt and hoping even now that Motherwouldn't notice how he had cried.
Elysium put him down on his feet in a corner of the room,kneeling in front of him and pulling a pieceof white chalk from his vest pocket. Benedict, drowning in his own fear, couldn't stop gasping for air. Elysiumdrew a half-circle on the wood floor fromwall to wall, closing Benedict into the corner, and then started sketching runes over the edges of the circle."Don't move," he yelled over the storm of spirits.
Benedict bit his lip to keep from whining, looking past Elysium at the woman writhing in the
