Hallowed Ground

Chapter Three

Ma Kutter heard scratching on the roof.

It was a small insistent sound, like rats picking away at the shingles.

"Get away!" she shouted, pushing herself out of her chair. The fire was warm, the light from the oil lamp low, casting shadows across the gable. She grunted. Her back ached when she straightened up. It was always worse at night. Her joints froze as the burden of dragging her old bag of bones around wore them down. She sank back into the chair, exhausted from even that small exertion.

Such were the joys of age. She was getting shorter by the year and sprouting ugly grey whiskers from her chin like a crone in stories told to frighten children. There had been a time when she'd turned heads, but all that remained was a shriveled up hag barely able to stand for a minute or more without someone to lean on.

A hock of wild pig boiled on the fire. The water hissed and sizzled as it spilled over the brim of the tin pan.

The scratching on the roof grew steadily louder.

Without it she might have heard the other sounds, the slight susurrus and the death rattle as the viper slid from the darkness to coil slowly around the leg of her chair. Ma Kutter felt its scaled skin brush her ankle but by then it was already too late. She barely felt the pin-prick of the snake’s fangs sinking into her soft fatty flesh. It was the sudden flush of warmth as the venom entered her blood that gave it away. By then she was already dead.

As she slumped in her chair, her hands clutching weakly at the arms, the scratching on the roof stopped. The serpent wound its way past her, out through a crack in the door and into the shadows beyond.