"Wicked Whispers" by Jessica Danielle Hunt

Wicked Whispers

            “Wicked whispers blow to us their stories

              Now comes to us a new dark tale

              As if they were from the Furies

              Come with me down into an old vale.”

          Clouds covered the moon as he walked down into the silent valley. It was the closest place from where he had come. He saw a small speck of light just ahead. As he came closer to it, he recognized it to be coming from a small, old house.

          When he got to the door he knocked three times. An old, shriveled up lady came to the door. Her skin held so many years it was translucent. Her eyes were foggy, as if she had been sent into the dream world. Her hair was so thin it looked to be merely a spider-web dangling from atop her head.

          He told her he had been on his way to a city not far from where they were, but the journey had taken him longer than he had expected. He asked if he could by chance stay there for the night. He promised he would leave at morning’s light. So, the old lady nodded and let him come in. She pointed to a seat and so he reluctantly sat down in the rotted chair.

          The old woman looked at him with her cold, empty eyes. From her appearance she looked to be dying a slow death. Yet, her face was impassionate, in a sense it was evil.

          “What do you do when Death calls your name?

            Watch out for the grave for you’ll soon be the same

            Blood and blood and blood some more

            When death knocks don’t answer the door.” She said in her raspy almost dead voice.

          He glanced out the window to see how long until the morning. It wasn’t too long he figured. He heard the whispers coming from the leafless branches.

          “ How long is life, we all say

            Not live to tomorrow, or we may

            But who truly knows Death

            Until we meet him in our last breaths.” She said again with an evil smile on her face.

          He heard the whispers telling him he must leave quickly and so he stood to leave. The woman looked at him with an unchanging, evil grin. After a few moments her face began to become frightened. He realized it wasn’t him she was looking at. He looked around the walls and he saw it. It was dripping, at first it was slow, but then it began to drip in floods. It was blood, human blood; he could smell its stench very strongly. He knew it was time for him to leave. He turned the handle on the door and opened it. He saw the light beginning to come up from the rising sun. He turned to her and said quickly,

          “Like a raven have I come

             Come to tell you your life is done

             So yes, you’ve met Death this night

             No longer will you see morning’s light.”

          The old woman strained but her vision was going, he could tell, she could not see the light, “I knew only Death your name could be, and I knew that when you knocked, you knocked for me.” And she died before the sun came up over the land.

          “Wicked whispers blow to us their stories

              Now comes to us a new dark tale

              As if they were from the Furies

              Now I come to you as I leave this vale.”