8. A Beast Birthed ...

Or ‘The Moon Calf’

The young woman staggered into the ruined tower seeking shelter. The moon glared at her through the tumble-down wall. The light lashed her bare legs as she freed them from underneath her sodden skirts. Her fingers clawed at the ground. She pressed her weight down into her heels that bedded into the mud. Her cries shifted into moans, she grew determined as she expelled the child a little further from her, with each deep push, down into her frame.

The moon grew wider in anticipation, expectation. At last, the child’s head crowned. The Mother pushed on until she was able to reach between her thighs for the boy and pull him to her. Taking out a knife, she nicked the blade up between the two ends of the cord and exposed herself for the babe to suckle.

The child latched on, and thick, coarse, fur started to grow upon her breast, starting around the nipple and spreading outwards. The bewildered young woman looked down and saw that her arm was growing fur just the same.

Come daybreak, if a solitary traveller had been wandering by the tower, they might have heard the starved cries of a new-born infant within and presumed the unfortunate child to have been abandoned by its mother.

When the moon came out again at dusk, the child fell silent. The beast appeared, silhouetted against the light. It approached, hoisting itself up on hind legs. Towering above the infant, its soft hooves pressed firmly into the mud. It looked back towards the moon before dipping its head to lick the boy across the face with a rough tongue.         

By Robyn Hunt (c) 2020

Illustration by Robyn Hunt