Newsletter 12/28/25

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!

This month's newsletter is going to be short and sweet. I don't have much as far as updates on projects and I don't want to bring down your holiday spirit. My family is currently mourning the loss of my grandmother Virginia Eastman. As a holiday gift from me to you, please enjoy a free short story. If you enjoy it, please consider buying one of my three collections SHADOWS & KEYHOLES, THE REJECTED ONES, or THE DIAMOND HIGHWAY. All three of these can be found on Amazon. 

Hush Little Baby

Wind whistled through the cracks of the old farmhouse. My hand rested on my belly. In the backroom my mother coughed, a wet, horrible sound. We were two single women in the empty house of a dying farm. One a widow and one destined for single motherhood.

Tears stood in the corners of my eyes, as they often did. A romance novel sat on my lap, mostly forgotten.

I got up, moved to her bedroom doorway and stared at her. She didn’t look up at me, didn’t acknowledge my presence whether from spite or negligence, I couldn’t tell.

She coughed again. Flecks of blood spattered her palm. “Don’t start with me, Annabelle.”

I hadn’t said a word. Arguing with her about the hospital crossed my mind but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t have the energy. She wouldn’t go and my lengthy denial was coming to an end. Although I didn’t want to admit it, she didn’t intend to see my baby grow up, or to be a grandmother.

Her bony thin hand protruded from under the blanket. It stretched toward the nightstand where she grasped the jar of salve. As she pulled it closer, its body scraping across the table. When I moved to help, she gave me a look that made my blood stand still.

She pressed it to her cracked lips and the sticky contents stretched into tendrils that inched toward her mouth.

Gripping the bridge of my nose, I asked, “What am I supposed to do without you?”

She groaned. “It’s going to happen sometime. Today, tomorrow, next month. I’ve taught you everything I can.”

A lie. She didn’t teach me much of anything, neither did my daddy. The few things that I knew I’d picked up from the other Amish folk. That which I didn’t learn from the romance novels and my limited education.

The salve reached her tongue, and she lapped it like an animal would a puddle. The urge to help her filled me again but I suppressed it. She hadn’t asked for any help since getting sick. When I did win those battles, I did so with force. And she complained every step of the way.

“That’s it, huh? Me and my baby aren’t your problem anymore. That’s it, vamoose you’re gone?”

She chuckled that unsettling noise like dried leaves. “I’m not raising another child, Annabelle.”

I didn’t ask her to raise him, only to help.

“It’s not my fault you ran off with that loser and came back knocked up.”

That loser, the only loser I’d ever had wasn’t like the men in the romance novels. He wasn’t romantic, sweet or kind. Well, at first, he was sweeter than in the end. Clarke. A man with a chip on his shoulder, who hated everyone and wore his hatred in a tattoo on the top of his head. I didn’t know what it meant then.

Tears rolled down my cheek as I stepped out of her bedroom. I walked through the empty house and returned to the rocking chair so she wouldn’t hear me cry.

My hand touched my swollen belly. I tried not to think about the bleak future that awaited him.

“Get a husband,” my mother’s voice ran through my head. There weren’t any men who’d take a woman like me. A woman who’d defied the church had a baby out of wedlock.

Smoke filled the room. I hid in the corner, too afraid to move. Men stood around a table with balls rolling around on it. They were hitting them with sticks. There were bottles in their hands. Verrill had told me about them, warned me about the forbidden drinks.

One man leaning over the table looked at me. He took his shot, jostled his hands in the air and then came around the table. I looked at the door and considered running. I’d come for a reason. I wanted to experience the outside world.

In that moment I wished Verrill had come with me. Perhaps he’d know what to say to the approaching stranger. The handsome stranger in the cowboy hat.

Those memories clamored in my head. My baby wouldn’t grow up with a father. They wouldn’t grow up with grandparents either. They wouldn’t have anyone but me.

People reminded me constantly of everything I should be doing to live a stress-free life for the sake of the baby, but they didn’t know what it was like living with my mother. She was anything but stress free.

After rocking for a bit and wiping away my tears, I trudged across the house and slid into my bedroom. Very few things remained inside. We sold everything we could. What we couldn’t sell we’d tossed into the fireplace throughout the winter.

I lie in bed for a while, listening to the wind. There’d been talks about an oncoming storm. What few cows we had left were hunkered down in the barn.

Thunder crackled just before I drifted off to sleep.

The following morning, I awoke before the sun. The storm had strayed but left remnants. Gathering my clothes, I dread the upcoming chores. I didn’t want to do them before I was eight or so months pregnant. My feet hurt. My back ached and I didn’t sleep much because I woke several times to pee.

A brisk chill filled the air as I swung my pail back and forth, headed for the barn. Pretty pinks and purples breeched the sky as the sun broke through.

The baby kicked. “Yes, yes,” I whispered. “I’ll feed you in a minute.”

My boots squished all the way to the barn. Inside, the girls were all huddled into one corner. I approached, taking my time. I haven’t had much luck with them lately. They weren’t producing as much milk as they had when they were younger.

“Hey, Claudette,” I whispered, running my hand across her side.

The bucket thumped on the ground, and I pulled up the milking stool. It had been my responsibility since childhood to milk the cows.

It took several tries before she gave. My mind wandered.

The man in the cowboy hat had glee written on his face as he pulled me out into the parking lot and helped me onto his motor bike. “Can’t believe you’ve never been on one before,” he muttered. My disguise as one of the English worked, somewhat.

The milk had topped the pail and I stood to leave. The cows continued to conspire in the corner.

Dark clouds were formulating again, and I couldn’t help but think another storm would break before noon.

Inside, I started breakfast. This hadn’t been my chore growing up. I’d only watched her some. She’d always been the one in the kitchen. Part of me was thankful for the silence, the lack of coughing and the absence of hurtful comments, although I was certain they’d begin soon enough.

The meat sizzled over the stove as I got to work making coffee. My mother complained about my cooking often, but she didn’t have a choice. The days of cooking for herself were over. She also wasn’t helpful when it came to advice either. She wouldn’t tell me what she didn’t like so I could improve. Sometimes I thought she just wanted to be difficult.

Not long after I served breakfast, the coughing began. She couldn’t make it to the outhouse anymore, so she used a chamber pot, which had become another of my endless responsibilities. I reminded myself that I’d have to clean that out after we ate.

She could barely get out of bed to use that somedays and I feared we were going to need an alternate plan.

Her gaunt face stared back at me. Where there’d one been full cheeks were only bones.

I sat beside her. “Here we go,” I said, lifting the fork. She’d protested being fed every step of the way but eventually gave in because she didn’t have the strength to do it herself any longer.

While she ate, I could think of nothing other than the empty bed she’d leave behind when she passed.

Once finished, I took her dishes to the sink. I sat at the table and pecked at my own breakfast. My appetite had already faded. I forced myself to eat, not for myself but for the baby.

A million thoughts ran through my mind. One continued to come and go throughout the pregnancy, I would be a better mother than mine. I had to be.

Part of me knew in some strange way that I was having a boy. I could tell, feel it somehow. In typical fashion my mother disagreed, swearing it would be a girl. She’d even gone about making her a dress before things got bad. It remained unfinished. I’d always meant finish it and sell it among the other things.

I’d decided on the name Malachai.

Rolling thunder shook the old house to its bones. I stood by the window watching as the rain pelted the ground. It reminded me of my childhood. Some of the neighborhood children and I would play in the puddles, splashing about.

The dry, haggard cough disrupted my thoughts. I crossed the house and slid into her bedroom. She turned her head with a grimace. I could tell there were words waiting to come out, poisonous ones.

I forced a smile. Her cantankerous attitude wouldn’t bring me down. “It’s time for your bath, mother.”

Again, she groaned. “I don’t need a bath. Let me rest.”

Through gritted teeth, I said, “We’ve been over this. You must get out of bed more often than just the pot. You’re going to get soars.”

The look she gave me could cut glass, but she pushed the blankets as far as she could. “You can’t just leave me alone long enough to die. That’s what you want anyway, admit it.”

I didn’t want that. Facing the world without her terrified me, even if she were an angry old lady with a poor outlook on life. At least with her, I wouldn’t be alone. I ignored the question, knowing a trap when I saw one.

Thunder crackled as I got her to her feet. She leaned on me, using me as a crutch. She cried with every step. With my arm around her waist, I noticed the stark difference in size. She’d never been a big woman, but she’d lost a lot of weight.

I could tell how weak she’d become.

The chair scraped across the floor as I pulled it beside the tub. Bucket after bucket of water filled the metal basin. When it was ready, I pulled her robe off. Her tiny frame shivered. “Put some wood on the fire, won’t you? I’ll freeze to death before the cancer gets me.”

Stepping over the rim proved to be difficult. Her legs didn’t have the same strength they did even six months ago. Once settled in the tepid water, I crossed the house and tossed wood into the fire. I should have done it before I moved her, but I forgot.

Her body submerged in the tub with only her arms keeping her afloat. The bar of soap felt nice in my hands, soft. For a second, I stood over her. A thought crossed my mind, one that filled me with guilt. I imagined myself pushing her down and holding her there until the bubbles stopped. I hated myself for it, wanted to cry for even having the thought. It wasn’t the burden of caring for her that made me feel that way. I could have gone on taking care of her forever. It was constant berating, judging and name calling.

The bar of soap slid across her skin. I tried smiling at her, tried to bring her comfort. For most of the bath she kept her eyes closed, possibly ashamed or maybe the warm water brought her aching muscles comfort. I couldn’t say. She didn’t like talking during bathtime. Mostly, she didn’t like talking at all. Not to me anyway.

Helping her out of the tub, I wrapped a towel around her and walked her near the fire. She sat on the rocking chair there while I dried her off and replaced her robe.

Her eyes didn’t move from the flickering firelight when she said, “Having children was the second biggest mistake of my life, next to marrying that drunk.”

It broke my heart every time I heard it. There weren’t any books in the world that could help me deal with her. Somewhere under layers and layers of hurt and torment was a once loving woman. I’d seen glimpses of it during my childhood.

I wanted to talk to her, really talk to her, but she always pushed me away. Helping her to her feet, I eased her back toward the bedroom.

“The floor is cold,” she said. “I’m hungry,” she added. “You’re going to let me starve to death, aren’t you?”

We were closing in on her bed. My heart thumped in my chest as anger flooded my veins. Another crack of thunder erupted above, which felt like Gods wrath. Raindrops plunked on the roof.

While wrestling her body into bed around my pregnant belly, I bumped into her nightstand. The jar tipped over. It rolled and fell onto the floor, shattering at my feet. Lowering my heel, a shard pierced my foot. Pain raged, and I fought back a scream.

“Just like your father,” she groaned. “Useless.”

“Enough!” I shouted. My pulse thumped in my temple as I pulled the shard out of my heel, which squirted blood. I grabbed the remains of the jar and chucked them at the wall. They shattered with a loud bang. “I’ve sat around here day in and day out and listened to you complain about everything. I’ve been abused by you for most of my life. Quite frankly, I’ve had it.”

She began a slow, harsh clap, followed by a cackle of laughter.

“You’re a sad, miserable woman.”

With every step blood smeared on the floor. I marched out into the kitchen, grabbed a towel, and placed it on my foot. I hoped the storm would mask my crying because I didn’t want her to get any satisfaction from it.

The noise drew my attention.

Turning to the window, I noticed that the sky had gone black. There, standing in the middle of the field was one of our cows. How she’d wandered from the barn, I wasn’t sure. I was certain I’d closed the door behind me.

The bloody towel dropped on the floor. My foot screamed as I pulled my boot on and opened the door. Wind howled. Thunder cracked. Lightning jagged across the sky.

Her scared moo traveled through the air, barely audible above the storm. “Claudette,” I called into the field. Shielding my face from the rain. “How’d you get out here, Claudette?”

Unable to run, I marched toward her. To my right, the barn door smacked against the wall. My boot got stuck in the mud, stopping me in my tracks. I pulled, trying to free myself. Instead, my foot slid out of the boot. Cursing, I reached down and tried to fetch it with my hands.

Above shone lights unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t help but stare in awe. They hovered. My heart hammered in my chest.

Something inside screamed for me to run but my feet wouldn’t move. The green lights spun in a circle. The English had planes and helicopters, but this wasn’t anything like that. Paralyzed by fear, I couldn’t keep my eyes off it.

A blinding white light surrounded me. My chance to run disappeared. I stood in its glow, hypnotized. A tingling sensation climbed my spine and tickled inside my brain. My foot slid out of the boot as the light gently lifted me. In my periphery I watched as the farm grew smaller.

Everything went black.

Cold, wet grass touched my body. A network of stars stared back at me as I fought to keep my eyes open. Immense pain resonated in my midsection. Out of instinct, I touched my belly, only there wasn’t anything to touch. What had once been a baby had been replaced by an open wound.

My thoughts scattered. I tried to scream but the words wouldn’t come out, couldn’t come out.

Unbelieving, I moved my hand across the skin, feeling my insides. Warm blood clung to my fingertips.

“My baby,” I screamed. Again, “My baby.”

Tears ran from my face. I managed to sit up and search my surroundings, but I knew he wouldn’t be there. Hysterics took over as I shouted at the sky, cursing those who took him, cursing God for allowing it to happen.

It didn’t take long before everything went black once again.

Two years later.

Much like my parents, I too have been ostracized. Their eyes follow through the market. They think I can’t hear their whispers, but I can. “That’s the girl there,” they said. “The one who killed her baby.”

It isn’t until I’m outside, away from their looks, that I allow myself to feel. I won’t let them see the tears, even if it destroys me. I didn’t kill Malachai. I’ve told them that, screamed at the top of my lungs. They don’t believe me. They all believed I was ill-prepared to be a mother and couldn’t imagine raising a baby without a husband.

Leaning against the side of the building with my bags on the ground I brush the tears out of my eyes. It was lonely before but at least I had my mother. Now, she’s gone too.

Many times, I considered leaving the Amish, just running off and never coming back. There wasn’t enough money to start over, and the outside world scared me. Those modern people were much too advanced, and I doubted they’d accept me either.

The sun beat down on me as I carried my groceries. Lines of headstones stared back at me as I entered the cemetery as I always did after shopping. Two headstones sat at the back, separated from the others. Both bear my family name. I walked past the others, imagining what their lives had been like, assuming they were better than mine. I wondered about their lineage, if they still had family members around today.

I sat before their stones, reading the epitaphs that I’d written years ago. Part of me wished they’d erected a stone for the baby I’d lost. For a long time, I sat there, thinking of what to say. My fingers ran through the grass.

“It’s hard without you. Every day is a challenge. The farm is coming around, though. We have more cows now, and potatoes grow. Not much else.”

The last months of my mother’s life ran through my head. Her gaunt face and judging eyes. She, like all the others believed I’d killed my baby and hid his body in the woods. It had been the cause of many fights leading up to her death.

“I miss him,” I said through bleary eyes. “The boy I never got to raise. Without him, everything feels empty. My life is empty without you too.”

There were no men to wed me. No women to befriend me. Only solitude and the few people I encountered were polite to my face and salacious to my back. Getting to my feet, I wiped at stray tears.

As I walked home, I thought about that night, about the storm and the lights that descended upon me. I still didn’t know what they were and kept that story to myself because nobody would believe me. I’d barely managed to piece myself together before I bled to death.

Claudette and a couple of others stood in the pasture, grazing. I considered walking out there to be with them but changed my mind. The circle in the grass where the light had taken me never grew back. The sight of the bald spot was a constant reminder of that night.

Inside, I put my groceries away. The stack of novels in the corner caught my eye, and I considered sitting on the back porch to read. It was a beautiful day for it. The sun was out and the wind wasn’t too strong.

The pitcher of meadow tea came out of the ice box. I poured myself a glass and gathered up the latest read. Before I got outside, I glanced over my shoulder to look at my mother’s bedroom. Part of me still expected her to be there, lying on the bed, coughing. The silence killed me.

For a while I sat out on the porch, hair dancing in the breeze. I flipped through my novel, page after page, imagining what it might be like to have romance in my life. I even allowed myself to fantasize about having another child.

Thick clouds grew from the west. I hadn’t spoken to anybody about the weather, which left me in the dark about the coming storm. As I read more, I kept an eye on the clouds that drew closer by the minute.

The book landed on the table with a thump. I climbed out of my chair and headed for the field, calling for the cattle to head in. That spot made me uneasy. I gave it a wide berth. “Get,” I cried at the cows. “Go on now,” I shouted.

A crack of thunder forced them to run. Some lingered behind, but they too moved with a little Amish influence.

I pulled the barn doors shut, sheltering myself from the rain. The stalls were clean and there wasn’t much to do, so I just tried comforting them. Claudette loved the attention where Sara Beth didn’t like being touched. The only calf didn’t know what to make of the storm. It sat by its mother, watching for her reactions. Its tiny legs trembled.

Lights shot across the sky and thunder followed.

The pregnancy test trembled in my hand. I held it up to him, hoping that it would make him smile. Disgust crossed his face, followed by anger. “This is your fault,” he shouted, slapping the test from my hand. It clattered on the floor. “You’re getting an abortion, or I’m out.”

Tears stung my eyes as I stepped out into the darkness. The storm had passed. There in the silence, something stopped my heart. A baby's cry. “It’s just your imagination,” I told myself, heading toward the house.

The cry grew louder. It wasn’t noise carrying on the wind.

With my back to it, I stopped. I stared at the house and yearned to keep walking because if I turned back and there wasn’t anything there, I'd have bigger problems. With my mind made up, I turned around.

My body trembled with every step. I drew closer and rubbed my eyes as I did. There, in the same patch of dead grass where he’d been taken, lie my baby. Two years had passed for me but not for him.

His cries echoed through my psyche. “This isn’t possible,” I said aloud, hesitant to touch him. I looked to the sky for answers but found none.  

Although I’d never laid eyes on him, I knew he was mine. He squirmed as I hoisted him up. His brown eyes didn’t look at me so much as they looked through me.

With every step, I searched the sky.

The door slammed behind me. For a while I stood there with him in my arms uncertain of what to do. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I couldn’t help admiring his cute face.

After a bit, he calmed.  

For a second, I placed him on the chair and tossed logs on the fire. We sat in that old rocking chair. For the first time in a long time, my breasts felt wet. Just like that, we’d picked up where we’d left off.

One of the quilts I’d made wrapped around him.

Our long silence broke as he cried, again. He’d grown hungry. The fact that I’d begun to lactate surprised me. “There, there,” I said, lifting my shirt and allowing him to suckle.

A wave of euphoria crashed over me. The only thing that came close was the first time I’d gotten drunk. In ecstasy, the baby and I felt closer, more in sync than I’d ever been with anyone. “This is what it’s like to be a mother?” I asked the empty room, leaning my head back against the rocking chair.

“Ugh,” I grunted as he bit into my flesh, snapping me out of my trance. “Easy,” I said.

Once fed, I took him into the bedroom where I swooned him. We drifted off into dreamless sleep.

The sun woke me first. The baby remained at my side.

“It’s too bright in here,” I said, wondering why I’d said it. I’d woken to the sun numerous times and never once had that thought.

It had been a long time since I’d awoken to the sun. Normally, I’d have already started my chores.

Tiptoeing into the kitchen, I started making coffee. A million thoughts raced through my mind. I tried containing them, but they ran in a cycle. The light wasn’t as harsh in the kitchen.  

Taking a sip, I said, “It really is quite burdensome in there, isn’t it?”

I considered milking the cows but the thought of leaving Malachai broke my heart. “They can wait,” I said.

The cup clattered on the table, and I returned to the bedroom where he had opened his eyes. I couldn’t help falling in love with him all over again. Those cute eyes stared up at me.

I could have sworn I’d heard a whisper on the breeze telling me to feed him. I hoisted the boy into my arms, lifted my shirt, and fed him. Aside from a cup of coffee, I hadn’t even fed myself. He had a big appetite.

Again, he bit me harder than anticipated. “Aye,” I said. “Don’t get into the habit,” I added. For a little bugger without any teeth, it hurt.

Once he finished, I lay on the bed. Exhausted, I stared at the ceiling, wondering if I was coming down with something.  

With what little energy remained, I closed the blinds. Even that didn’t make the room much darker. “I should really do something about it,” I said and marched outside for wood.

My father’s hammer and wood he’d been keeping for a deck blocked out the sun. I continued working, pushing through the fatigue to darken the house.

The baby fussed at all the noise. “There, there,” I cooed, searching for a song. The few lyrics I knew were scrambled in my lethargic mind. My mother hadn’t sung to me. There were a couple of nursery rhymes the neighborhood girls had sung, but even they seemed a million miles away.

“I should really eat something,” I said. My voice sounded hallowed and distant. A wave of dizziness came over me. The baby crawled across the bed to me. “You shouldn’t be able to crawl,” I muttered.

The room spun.

He crawled beneath my shirt and sunk his teeth into my flesh. It felt as if he wasn’t even in it for milk, but for meat. I didn’t have the will to scream. After a short period, he settled in to suckle.

With his back sticking out, I saw his bare flesh. Something shifted below his skin. At first, I wanted to push him to the floor and run. I couldn’t. Mentally, physically, nothing.

“I’ll be a better mother than my own,” I muttered to myself.

When he finished, he snuggled up against me. A smudge of red stained the corner of his mouth. More curious than afraid, I lifted my shirt to see the damage. Bite marks containing tiny teeth surrounded my nipple. Teeth he shouldn’t have. Surrounding the areola were black, cancerous looking veins spiderwebbing under my pale skin.

This isn’t my baby. It’s a monster.

As if in response to my thoughts, he stirred. With what strength remained, I hoisted myself onto one elbow. My finger trembled as they got closer to his mouth. Gently, I lifted his upper lip. It didn’t make any sense.

Again, something shifted beneath the skin. The very sight of it made me want to cry. First, I prayed that God would save me. Then I pushed myself up. I didn’t have the strength to scream. Even if I did, there weren’t any neighbors close enough to hear me.

My foot landed on the cold floor. I shifted my weight and nearly collapsed. There wasn’t much strength left. The insatiable baby had taken everything from me.  

Holding myself up by the wall, I moved across the house, slowly.

If not for my movement, I may never have seen my reflection in the bit of exposed glass. My skin had become pale and ashen. My face was thin and frail.

Noises, foreign to my own thoughts ran through my head. I stopped, trying to hear the whispers ransacking my psyche. They were tiny voices, internal voices. Babies, tons of them, everywhere, all of them saying the same thing. Feed me.

As I reached the door, their voices amplified. I stumbled out of the house onto the lawn. Everything ached. Holding my body upright felt like an impossible ask. I wondered how long I’d been under its spell. Days, weeks, months, years? Everything seemed like a blur.

On my hands and knees, I crawled. Their constant plea grew louder, some of their voices coming from miles away. Something told me they’d been here for a long time.

Again, I stumbled trying to find my feet.

Clomping came from the road. I called to the man pulling his wagon. My voice grew tired and strained quickly.

“Help,” I cried in a rasp. “Help me.”

A familiar voice called me. His voice. The baby couldn’t speak but had been in my thoughts. He cried for me to return, to feed him.

The man on his wagon drew further away. I tried screaming for him but my voice fell on deaf ears. He couldn’t hear me. He wouldn’t turn around.

The urge to return overwhelmed me. The yearning for that euphoric bliss that had once captured me drew me in. Relief, the lack of worry. The absence of responsibility called me. 

As I crawled back inside, I wondered if they were all intertwined. If they were thinking as one.

Feed me. Feed me. Feed me!

Memories of my mother’s terrible parenting swept over me. The neglect I’d experienced throughout my life, all the times I’d cried because of her, came back to me. I couldn’t do that to my baby. I couldn’t be like her.

My legs were heavy as I crossed the threshold. Every step a mile as I marched down the hall.

His thick, trembling wail grew louder. My feet dragged. I reached out for the doorframe to catch myself but let go in quick succession. He needed me. I’d do anything for him. Anything.

Whatever had taken over my son’s body had outgrown it. He’d split at the seams. Bits of my baby’s flesh lie discarded like dirty towels. Whatever had used his body like a cocoon looked spiderlike.

It should have scared me. I should have run, but I’d become helpless to its call. I dropped my dress on the floor, exposing my thin, naked body. The black veins had expanded, crossing my chest. It didn’t matter. Nothing did. I crawled into bed, meeting its gaze. It hoisted itself onto my chest in one inhuman motion. Its mouth watered. Little limbs had broken loose from its side. It had outgrown its host and would likely take me next.

“Feed me. Feed me. Feed me.”