Broken Crystal
My submission for TIF's Inanimate Objects 2025 contest! A young girl is forced to spend a whole night with the body of her dead aunt, but her aunt did not die peacefully.
Photo by Steven Thompson on Unsplash
“Honey, go say goodbye to your Auntie Hanna.”
Ruth’s mother kissed her head, and gently pushed her forward. The closed, plain wood coffin sat in the gray, bleak foyer of Beth Israel, made bleaker by the fading sunlight. Auntie Hanna was laid in there, by the coroner and his assistant earlier in the morning, and then nailed shut. Ruth had been dreading this moment, the police report taking such a long time made her think it would all just go away. But eventually they released her body, and so the rituals commenced. She took one step towards the coffin. The sickly sweet smell that had permeated the room filled her nostrils and she had no more momentum.
“Go on! She won’t bite!” chuckled Dad, standing next to Mom, in a dark suit and lopsided tie.
“It’s okay, I’ll say goodbye tomorrow morning,” she said, scurrying back to Mom’s black velvet dress. She buried her face in the soft skirt, and inhaled as much warm perfume as she could.
“Well, actually, you can do it tonight,” replied Mom, as she took her hand, and brushed away her wavy brown hair to meet Ruth’s brown eyes with her blue.
“Wh-what do you mean?” She took a nervous look at the coffin behind, the aura of which had taken on a new ominous quality.
“Someone needs to stay with Auntie tonight, to make sure it’s safe until buried tomorrow morning. Normally your father and I would do it, but since…”
She hesitated, looking up at her husband, who replied by turning around and wandering away. “Since you two left things on bad terms, I thought you could watch over her tonight.”
Ruth’s eyes grew wide. “No! No please Mom, I want to go home with you guys!” She struggled against her mother’s hands, but she held firm. Ruth couldn’t help glancing at the coffin, austere and bleak in its simplicity. It seemed to grow bigger and bigger, as though she were being dragged right to it.
“Ruth, we’re going to be up all night driving to Pennsylvania to get everybody before tomorrow morning, and we wanted you to finally get some sleep! Ruth!”
Ruth stopped fighting, and hung her head. She knew her mother well enough to know which battles she would win, and which she would lose, which was most of them. “Go get the air mattress out of the car, I’ll be right there.” She called to Dad, who smiled a little and wandered back to give his daughter a welcomed hug.
“You’re a brave girl, I know you’ll be okay.”
She felt the tears well up in her eyes, the angry tears were always stronger than the sad tears. Mom knelt down and gently grabbed her shoulders.
“Look at me.” She did, begrudgingly.
“I know your last time with Auntie… was bad. It was bad right?”
She nodded.
“My grandma could be mean to me sometimes too. So when she passed on, my parents made me stay here too, all night. It helped me to understand that she was just a person, a complicated person, but one who still deserved to be loved. Do you understand?” She lifted a stubborn tear that trickled down Ruth’s cheek. She nodded again, and buried her face in her mother’s velvet shoulder.
“I know you haven’t been sleeping, I really think this will help.”
“Somehow I don’t think it’ll be very noisy,” said Dad, strutting in with the deflated air mattress, the pump for the air mattress, and two heavy blankets. Mom slapped him on the shoulder as he passed by.
“Why two blankets? It’s not that cold in here,” Ruth remarked innocently.
“Oh, they’re going to crank up the air conditioning tonight. To get rid of the smell a little.”
Normally, there would be no reason to worry about any smell, because Auntie Hanna should have been buried a month ago. In Jewish tradition, the body must be buried as soon as could be possible with loving family present. Her body would have been unembalmed, washed, clothed in a clean white shroud, and swiftly buried within a day or two. All but the last part had been done, as Auntie Hanna had not died of natural causes. She had been found in her home, the putrid stench of natural gas filling the lungs of the officers who had done a routine welfare check, after the neighbors complained of mail piling up. Ruth had hidden behind the couch when the police came to tell them what happened. She was found face down on the floor next to the dining table, fallen after eating some homemade shortbread cookies. It was the ornate antique one, Auntie would smack your hands if you forgot to put down a coaster. Face caked in remnants of vomit and hands dusty with shortbread crumbs, they determined that the gas leak started small, almost imperceptible, and grew rapidly. She had no way of knowing, the officer said. There was nothing that could have been done. Mom and Ruth had made those cookies only two weeks before, to thank Auntie for watching over Ruth while her mother had major surgery. At this realization, Mom burst into tears, and Dad said it was a horrible, awful accident.
Laying on the surprisingly comfortable air mattress, Ruth gripped one of her two blankets closer to her mouth.
“You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe,” Ruth whispered to herself, a mantra which only increased her heart rate. The staff had lit a single candle before locking the door for the night, it sat on a little oak coffee table in front of the coffin. It cast labile shadows across the ceiling, as the fire flickered and danced to the movement of the cold air creeping through the room. Ruth stared at them, eyes only blinking once it hurt to keep them open. At times she saw a hand, large, boney, adorned with faux gold rings with painful glass gems. She squeezed her eyes shut, and burrowed into the blanket.
When she opened her eyes again, the room was still. The air conditioning must have stopped, and yet it was colder than ever. Ruth’s breath curled out, twisting and then falling on the ground, as though the air were so thin it could not support the weight. The shadows on the ceiling had stopped contorting, and were now one single shape. A torso, with a head, and two arms at its side.
“Oh God.” Ruth couldn’t move, muscles frozen in place. The only sound she heard was her eyelids snapping open and shut. Her ears twitched as she heard a creak in the floorboard just behind her bed, and the shadow grew larger. The smell of rotted flesh and ancient perfume crept into her nose, her hand automatically covered her nose and mouth as she breathed faster. Did the air conditioner turn back on? Except it was only at her neck, tickling the delicate hairs at the nape of her neck, even through the layers of protective blanket. Pausing to inhale, and then breathing freezing air back out. Her eyes grew wide, and she heard her heart pound in her chest. It was Auntie. She had come back, come alive somehow to punish her for what she’d done. Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream and she sprang out of the bed, one blanket at her side as a shield.
“Auntie?”
She fought to keep her knees from buckling, they shook like pebbles in an earthquake. Stood in front of her was an eyeless silhouette, the candle’s light could not penetrate the black, hulking figure. Auntie was only five foot three, but this figure was at least six feet, with shoulders hunched forward. The hands slowly clasped and unclasped.
“Please, go back to bed Auntie, I’m sorry for waking you,” she blurted out. She had said it so many times over the two months they had spent together, in that house on Cahill Road. That house was as spotless as a museum, and that’s how Auntie liked it.
“Break anything in here, and I’ll break your neck,” she had growled in her deep, smoker’s voice. Her dark, almost black eyes were always watching her like a hawk watches a sparrow flying by, it made objects jump around in Ruth’s hands and see dark figures in the guest bedroom at night. But it was livable, Ruth wanted Mom to get better, and it was more important for Dad to sleep, since he was living at the hospital. At least Ruth had a bed, she remembered thinking to herself. At times, Ruth thought maybe they were getting along. Her Auntie would ignore instead of berate her when she clattered plates or played the TV too loudly, at least until-
“I-I didn’t tell anyone! I promise!” The figure cocked its head, so quickly Ruth jumped a foot in the air.
It’s true, she told her parents that Auntie yelled a lot, and sometimes she'd smack her hands if she was doing something she didn’t like. She did not tell her parents about that Tuesday. It had been over a month since, and yet she could feel the piercing of broken crystal in sudsy hands, as it shattered into a thousand pieces in the stainless steel sink. Auntie’s heavy footsteps reverberated off the wood floor, she peered into the sink, and her face turned red. She turned to the stunned Ruth, and screamed. An enraged, impossibly high scream that echoed in Ruth’s rib cage, it shot through her legs and she crumpled to the ground, bloodied hands shielding her face. Auntie yelled at her to get up from the ground, but she did not react fast enough. She was grabbed by her hair, shrieking, and hoisted up to her feet, then shoved into her room, where the door was locked. Later on in the night, after Ruth’s tears had mostly dried, Auntie knocked on the door. Ruth expectantly went to the door, but she did not open it.
“That was a part of an irreplaceable set from my grandfather, he brought it over from Europe. I called your parents, you’re going back home tomorrow.”
Ruth breathed a sigh of relief, and opened her mouth to ask if she could come out now.
“And if you think of telling your side of the story, I’ll rip your hair right out of your head.” The floorboard creaked as she walked away, and Ruth began crying again, and digging crystal out of her hands.
She felt a tear slide down her cheek, and she remembered where she was.
“Why do you hate me?!” She yelled at the creature, before covering her mouth in shock at herself.
“Even before I broke the glass, you hated me, why? I never even got a chance to do anything right!” More tears, she wiped them away stubbornly. It said nothing, but lowered its hands to its side, absorbing them into the torso. Murmurs and half whispered words filled the space between them, garbled growls and shouts.
“Clean that up!”
“Eat it now!”
“You ungrateful little-”
Ruth remembered every line uttered, every plate she nearly dropped, every undercooked carrot forced down her throat. They bounced off the walls and united with the long shadows writhing on the ceiling. The creature grew larger, casting Ruth into the darkness completely now. Her feet scrambled back to the nearest wall, she pressed herself against it. The voices, even some with her voice, scraped against her eardrums. It replaced her thoughts, her legs and arms vibrated with the sound, the wall itself couldn’t stand the pressure. It was only a few feet away now, cold, dead breath blew on Ruth’s face. She struggled to understand what she was seeing. Red, bloodshot eyes hovering in an amorphous black shape, unblinking and large. Its breath, like silvery needles, mingled with her hair, and as it opened its mouth wider than any human jaw would allow, she shrieked and scratched fruitlessly at the blank wall. There were no teeth, just a fleshy esophagus, and a tongue studded with bits of shortbread cookies. The voices became quiet, and the scream, that scream, roared to life once again. It felt like sandpaper on the inside of her skull. She covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, but the scream was eternal, slithering through the grooves of her brain until it had made a home in every memory she ever treasured. Crystal. Water. Teeth. Cookies. Cookies.
Cookies.
Poison.
“Alright, alright! I did it! I did it!” Ruth shouted over the deafening noise. The figure closed its mouth, the scream quieting with it.
“I..” The words were stuck in her throat, so she swallowed them.
“I didn’t think it would kill you, I just…”
The figure hung there, as though floating. Ruth looked down to see it had no legs, just a faint shadow. She took in a deep breath.
“When Mom wasn’t looking, I poured bleach into the cookie batter, then pretended I spilled some so she wouldn’t notice the smell.”
She couldn’t remember why she did it. Eyes red and puffy from constant sobbing, head pounding from a headache, and yet she was made to stand in the kitchen, baking cookies for that woman. For what? She wished she’d never have to see her again, she wished she could get a taste of her own medicine, to wake up in the morning nauseous and go to bed nauseous, eyes darting around to watch every corner of every room. Then she saw the bleach, in the laundry room across from the kitchen. It was illuminated by the afternoon sun, dust floated around it like water droplets hovering by a waterfall. It was so easy. And any possible worry she had about being found out was erased when she found out about the gas leak. That old house always had gas leaks, she remembered being warned to always make sure the knob was completely turned. It was an accident, that’s what the police said. No warning, no time to escape before your lungs are on fire, and your legs fail beneath you. Mom wouldn’t hear of an autopsy being performed. She cited religious reasons, but Ruth was listening when she told Dad that she just wanted to get the burial over and done with. So Auntie’s soul would not suffer for long.
“I’m sorry.” A curious weight lifted off her chest, and she stood taller. “I just wanted you to love me. But you couldn’t do that, I guess. So I got mad, and I did something stupid. I’m sorry for doing that, but I wish you were sorry too.”
Ruth looked up at the monster, to see only a faint outline. Hesitantly, she reached out her hand to touch it, but she felt nothing but a cool breeze. She stepped through it, the chilly air caressing the fine hairs on her face. She shivered but walked through it as if it were a thin curtain. Waiting for her there, the candle unwavering in it’s light, was the coffin. Ruth let the blanket fall to the floor, as she walked gracefully towards it. She brought her ear to the coffin and listened. No growling, no murmurs, not even a faint breath. It was silent, it was peaceful, it was dead. And Ruth was free. She stayed, looking over the closed coffin, until her eyelids drooped, and when she opened them, sunlight had turned the walls of the foyer back to an inoffensive light gray. Mom was looking down at her, smiling widely.
“Good morning sweetheart! How did you sleep?”
Ruth was back in her makeshift bed, wrapped loosely in her blanket, and the coffin lid was closed, as it had always been.
“Good, I guess.” Actually she felt really good. Better than she had in weeks.
Mom knelt down and kissed her forehead. Her perfume was comforting and warm.
“Do you feel better now?”
Ruth sat up, and looked behind her.
“Yeah, I do.”
She looked back to her mother, and smiled. “It’s dead.”