The Beginning
As long as I can remember, my mother put bones under the Christmas tree. No other kids I knew put bones under their Christmas tree, just presents, but my mother put bones under the Christmas tree every year. When I’d ask why, she would tell me that it was an old folk tradition, something my Granny had taught her, and that she’d teach me about it when I was older.
The underside of the tree would stay bare until the 22nd of December. After I was snug in bed, she would put them out like some horror movie Santa and I would wake up the next morning to the heap of bones under the tree. Each year there would be more: a new skull, an extra tibia, another femur. I’d ask her where they came from and she would always tell me that she would explain everything when I was older; that told me nothing. It was getting to the point where there were more bones than presents, but my mother made sure I always had plenty of gifts on Christmas morning.
And it was usually just the two of us for Christmas. Some years it was me, mom, and her current boyfriend, but the relationship never lasted through Christmas, and the man was usually gone and out of the picture by the morning of; mom always said she had the worst luck with men, even my father. He ran off when I was three and we never saw him again. It was fine though, because I was perfectly happy with it just being me and my mother without anyone else to possibly destroy our Christmas.
But I grew up, and I grew lonely—lonely for companionship, lonely for companionship that wasn’t my mother; I wanted romance. I had no idea what I was doing when it came to dating, but I met someone in town, we hit it off, got coffee a few times, saw a movie or two, and I thought it would blossom from there. Eventually, we did become serious, but my mother didn’t like him. I figured it had something to do with her personal feelings on relationships, considering her history, but after a few months, she seemed to warm up to the idea of him in my life. I was ecstatic because I was sure I was in love.
But what did I really know about anything?
“More bones, mom?” I asked as she walked into the kitchen on the morning of the 22nd.
“Sadly, no.” She sounded off as she spoke with her back to me, her hands moving methodically as she prepared her coffee like she did every morning.
“Too bad.” I was being sarcastic, but a felt rather awful because I knew what the bones meant to her.
“Maybe, maybe I can go out in the woods and find you some? You know I have a knack for that.” I offered my services as a finder of weird and obscure things, but my mother waved her hand at me.
“No need. I will find something to go under the tree.” She waved her hand at me before she turned around with coffee cup to her lips.
“You’re sure?” I softened my tone a bit more.
“Yes, baby. It’s not time for you carry on this tradition yet.” Her words sounded strange as she smiled wryly at me and left the kitchen.
This mood was very unlike her, especially this time of year. There was always a severity to her demeanor when the weather started to get really cold, but she still kept a rather jovial air. But not now, not today. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t place it and she clearly wasn’t talking. I had to get to class or I would have hounded her about what was eating at her, but I figured I would just let her sit with herself for a few hours until I got home from class. Maybe then I would be able to coax it out of her.
It was the last day before classes ended for the semester. They released earlier than usual and I was able to make it home while the sun was still high and the day still bright and somewhat cheerful, despite the ever graying thickness of impending snow clouds. The flakes would start to fall soon and I knew that the whole of the land would be stark white by the time the sun completely set; how appropriate for the Solstice.
When I arrived home, the front door was slightly ajar and I immediately felt a sense of dread deep in my stomach. It was quickly replaced by a fluttering as my mother burst through the door before I could even make it up the stairs. Her hands were full of leather cords, a metal symbol hanging from the bottom of each. She didn’t say a word to me as she stepped up a ladder and began hanging them from fresh nails embedded in the underside of the porch awning.
“Mom, what are you doing?” I paused with my foot on the stairs as I gawked at her.
She immediately froze in her actions and turned her head to look at me as if she had no idea I was there before I spoke.
“Decorating.” She smiled at me, but something was so very wrong about that smile.
“Mmhmm, for what? Because those don’t look like Christmas lights.” I pointed at one of the symbols forged in cold iron. It had a large loop at the top, where the iron had been carefully shaped and folded over itself, the ends neatly curled inward with a small spiral.
“The Solstice. We’re doing something a little different this year.” My mother smiled at me again; this time the lie behind it was a little more convincing.
“And what are those symbols?” I asked curiously. I felt like I had seen them somewhere before, probably in a movie, but I couldn’t quite figure out where.
“They’re—they’re troll crosses. Christians put up crosses for Jesus, we put up troll crosses for the Solstice.” She nodded with another weird smile and went back to “decorating”.
“The crosses are used at Easter, Mom, not Christmas. Baby Jesus was born on Christmas and died around Easter. If they’re hanging up crosses around other times of the year like you are hanging these—they’re probably trying to ward away evil like every haunted house movie.” I had a feeling and I definitely didn’t like it.
My mother had hung the last of the troll crosses and stopped dead on her step of the ladder before she took a very deep breath and sighed.
“Happy Solstice, baby. I made some cookies this morning after you left for class if you want some; they’re on the kitchen table.” She never looked at me as she climbed down off that ladder and calmly walked back inside.
I was left standing there, one foot still on the stairs, alone. She had completely ignored what I said, dismissed me, and went about her business as if we had never had the conversation about the troll crosses. This was the first time I had ever seen them, at least in a way that I could remember, and there was something eerily unsettling about the dozens of iron sigils swaying in the icy breeze that had begun to blow. The snow was coming, and it looked to be heavy, so I convinced myself that my mother knew how bad the storm could be and put the crosses up to protect us from the impending blizzard.
But I knew I was convincing myself of a lie.
