Rosehead

Chapter 5. The Talking Heads

Thud. Lilith heard something heavy fall and roll. Again. And again. It took her sleepy brain a few minutes to process this information before her eyelids fluttered open. Moonlight shined into the room, coloring it silver. The stink of the garden acquired an almost metallic tang. Someone breathed laboriously outside, performing what must've been a strenuous physical task. Lilith rolled out of bed and crouched by the window, peering from behind the curtain. What she saw froze her to the spot. She didn't even feel Panther brush her leg and plop his head onto the windowsill.

On the back porch, in a pool of moonlight, a stout male figure raised and lowered an axe onto...onto...Lilith blinked to make sure she saw right. Several bodies formed a row. Alfred carefully stepped between them, lowering the axe and picking up severed heads like flower buds.

Lilith couldn't watch anymore. Her knees buckled and she staggered back, bumping into the bed. Her heart thumped erratically and her ears buzzed. She sunk into pillows to prevent herself from passing out. Panther crawled next to her, licking her face.

The chopping noises abruptly stopped. Immediately, a couple squelching sounds issued from above, as if someone pulled something out of the mud.

"He'll chop your head off too, if you won't sleep, little miss," said a woman's raspy voice.

Lilith craned her neck to look and wished she didn't. Hung on the wall like a hunter's trophies, a couple severed heads silently studied her. They resembled huge rosebuds, their necks thinning into stems and disappearing into the wall. The room filled with the smell of a butcher's shop.

Mortified, Lilith slowly crawled to the back of the bed, Panther right next to her, trembling.

"No, he won't," said the other head. It had plump lips and dark skin. "He said he'd pull out her guts and use them for bratwurst."

"Sorry we're late. Is she scared yet?" A male head broke through the wall with a wet crunch, its black hair parted neatly in the middle. Next to it another one appeared with barely a pause, that of a woman with a very angular jaw. "Norman, you could've waited for me. You know I don't like being rushed. Is she scared yet?"

"Shh! I just asked that."

"How am I supposed to know what you asked or what you didn't?"

The first head spoke over them loudly. "I was just saying she'll get her head chopped off—"

"And I waz saying she'll get her guts pulled out."

Lilith blinked. She didn't recognize who the heads belonged to. Without a beat, they launched into an argument.

"I thought we agreed on the guts thing."

"Pfft! Cutting off heads sounds much scarier."

"Quartered. You should've said she'd be quartered."

They kept talking over one another, until the first one shushed them and addressed Lilith. "You're guest number thirteen, little miss. What an unlucky number."

"Zat was lame, Agatha."

"Did you try telling her she'd be eaten alive? I find it works best. Also, making crunching noises—"

"Excuse me," said Lilith. "Are you trying to scare me?"

The heads glanced at each other worryingly, and appeared to have promptly gone to sleep. Or fallen dead, for that matter.

Lilith rubbed her eyes. The heads didn't disappear. Horrified, she wanted to reach out and touch them, to make sure her mind wasn't tricking her. Blood didn't scare her. She helped her father deliver countless puppies, including Panther, who presently whimpered much like an ordinary dog.