I always knew my dad was…odd.
I mean that in a loving way, obviously, but…yeah, he’s always been a bit weird. My childhood was peppered with oddities I can only now see as strange, from lullabies to holidays featuring assorted casts of ghouls.
Happy Meatfeast, Tanya! Mr Fingers has gifts! he’d announce in January.
He’d bring ribs and taxidermy and steak dinners home, and I’d sit in the lounge and draw Mr Fingers - a starving, clawed man with too many fingers and more around his neck.
Dad would ruffle my hair and tell me that it looked perfect, and I would always feel so proud. He said Mr Fingers loved it.
Creepy Crawling, Tanya! he’d whisper in June.
He always did his best creepy voice when he woke me up, and I’d giggle and shriek as he crawled his fingers up my neck like spiders. He scooped me up and called me the biggest spider of all.
He’d cover the house with fake spiderwebs and tell me about the Spinner - a giant, mutated spider that wanders the countryside in search of a family.
He’d tell me how the Spinner doesn’t have family, not really, so instead, she’s making one out of humans she takes. When he saw I was scared, he’d hug me and reassure me that if she did come for me, she’d be good to me. He made me promise I’d be nice to her, and I always did.
He always looked so happy when I said that. I’ve never really understood why.
Are you ready for the Day of Tongues? he’d inquire in March.
He’d remind me of the rules the day before - don’t speak a word until midnight’s passed the next day, lest the Tongueweaver take my voice for its tapestry. I’d nod, wide eyed, and he’d kiss my forehead and tell me we’d be okay.
We’d burn cow tongues and eat no meat for the day and we’d stay as quiet as possible. The curtains were drawn tight and I’d read by candlelight, mouthing words to myself but not daring to speak.
We’d stay up until midnight, then Dad would put me to bed. He’d tell me how much he loved me once midnight passed, then headed to sleep.
Get up, Tanya, he told me in April. It’s the Day of Furies.
I’ve never liked Day of Furies, a day dedicated entirely to being an asshole. Well…kind of. Technically, it’s meant to be a day to air out grievances, get everything out in the air so things go smoothly the rest of the year.
But in reality? It was mostly just a day where Dad was quite willing to be an ass. I could be an ass back, of course, but I always felt bad about it. I could never quite let the grievances ‘flow off of me’ like Dad said I should. Like he told me the Ragemaker wanted me to.
I couldn’t wait until midnight.
Merry After, Tanya! Are you ready for the grave walk? he’d ask in May.
I’d make dying noises, trying not to giggle, and he’d pick me up, fake mourning me.
I’d get dressed in my After dress, a black thing with chiffon sleeves and a little cape, and we’d go walking in the nearest graveyard.
He’d read a list of all the people we wanted to protect from death each year, pray to Lady End, then we’d lie on the graves and nap. He told me to feel the spirits flowing through me as I drifted, and, you know what? I think I did.
When we got home, he’d make me garlic mushrooms and read me eulogies before tucking me into bed.
Bright Rising, sleepyhead! he’d say in June. Time to watch the sun!
It was early in the morning, dark and freezing, and all I’d wanted to do was sleep. I would yawn, maybe cry a little, but my dad would scoop me up and wrap me in blankets, telling me I’d wake up soon.
The picnic basket was already packed by the time I woke up, and my dad loaded both it and me into the car. He drove us up to a nearby mountain, set down the picnic blanket and we’d watch the sun appear over the horizon, basking us in the most beautiful colours.
When we got home, I’d paint the sunrise, smearing golds and pinks along the paper for Dad to hang on the wall.
He’d twirl me around the living room to ‘You Are My Sunshine’, then bring us both onto the porch to see the sun to bed.
Good morning, Tanya! Happy Apollon! he’d say in July.
I‘d wake up early, blinds having been open since the night before. The midsummer sun would rise outside my window, waking me right at the crack of dawn.
Dad would serve me eggs - sunny side up, even though neither one of us preferred it. He’d make sure that all the torches had batteries, that the lightbulbs were working, that there wasn’t a single chance for shadows to slip into our lives.
To make sure there wasn’t a single moment for the Chanter to take us.
Morning, Tanya, he’d murmur to me in August. I’m just putting on your blindfold.
I’d hold still obediently as he wrapped a blindfold around my head. He’d confirm with me that it wasn’t too tight and that I couldn’t see anything, then he’d help me up out of bed and to the table.
We usually eat sausages on the Sightless Day. I don’t think there’s really a reason for it; I feel like he did it once and then I insisted for years until eventually, it was just tradition.
He’d ask me, as we ate, if I felt the presence of the Blind; an eyeless, monochrome woman with a bloodied blindfold wrapped around where her eyes should be. Supposedly, she was meant to guide us on the Sightless Day, and we’d come out of it with her blessing.
Sometimes I’d tell the truth when he asked, but some years, especially when I was little, I’d lie and tell him that I could. I wanted to make him proud. He always seemed so happy for me - so elated that his little girl was chosen.
I still want that, you know. I want him to be proud of me.
Good morning, Tanya! he’d yell in September. Happy Cleansings!
He had to yell, to get over the sound of the vacuum cleaner. By the time I’d trudge into the hall in my pajamas, he’d have been cleaning for hours already, organising his things into four neat piles: donate, keep, offer, or treasure.
I was to do the same. I’d have breakfast first - Nothing good happens on an empty stomach, Tanya - then grab all my things from around the house and get sorting.
Some of the piles were simple. ‘Donate’ was donated. ‘Keep’ was kept. Even ‘offer’ was simple - it was merely thrown away, brought to the tip the following day.
‘Treasure’ was the interesting one. Things in the treasure pile got special places. Near reverence. ‘Treasure’ was for items you wanted to protect. They could be anything, even things others would consider trash. No judgement. No resistance.
There’s been so many things I’ve never wanted to lose.
Good hunting, Tanya, he’d tell me in October.
Looking back, the Day of the Hunt had a lot of potential to mess with a kid. If my dad had tried to get me to hunt animals, I’m not sure I could’ve done it. I found the taxidermy from Meatfest unsettling enough.
But Dad had never pushed for that angle. Day of the Hunt didn’t have to mean game hunting, he said. It just meant you strived onwards, under the proud gaze of the Huntress.
So he’d wake up at the crack of dawn, get a shovel, and bury things in the yard. He’d set up a whole day of treasure hunting for me and hire a babysitter to keep me company while I searched.
He still needed to do his own hunting, you see.
Best Absolutions! he’d yell out in November, as we stood behind the soup kitchen table.
The people getting food would give him a look, probably thinking of him as some kind of religious nut. He does look like one sometimes, when he gets that fire in his eyes, and yelling about the Day of Absolutions probably doesn’t help.
All day, we’d volunteer at soup kitchens, shelters, relief organisations, clean up operations, anything that takes outside volunteers. We’d donate to the homeless, to charities, to anyone who asks, all for one supposed reason; clearing up sins.
I know it sounds insane. The more I think about my childhood, the more insane all of it sounds.
But, a month before Sinfair, we would do good deeds. To ‘rid ourselves of the years’ sins’, he’d say, and to prepare for the upcoming ones.
Is that really how he thinks it works? That it doesn’t matter how much wrong you do, as long as you do enough right?
Maybe he does believe that. I’m not sure I do.
Happy Sinfair, Tanya! I made cake for breakfast! He’d greet in December.
I’d shoot bolt upright when he said that, all too eager to taste the sweets. I could have however much I wanted, he’d tell me. It was Sinfair, after all.
The concept of Sinfair was simple. Christmas was over, as was the need to be ‘nice’, rather than ‘naughty’.
So, from the twenty seventh, the day after boxing day, to the thirtieth, we could do whatever we wanted.
The way Dad explained it to me was this: despite being able to do anything, the law was still in place. Anything illegal needed to be kept secret, but Sinmaker would avert his eyes from you. Your crimes would have no weight on your soul.
…Yeah, it’s a bit fucked up.
Growing up, this just meant eating a lot more dessert and staying up past my bedtime. Maybe cheating on my homework, or plagiarising a report or two.
But god…I have to hope that my dad made all this up. Otherwise…who knows what people are doing out there?
We celebrated normal holidays, too. I got eggs on Easter, cake on my Birthday, caroled for Christmas; they didn’t change. The only things that varied between my calendar and those of my peers were the things in between them. I even had a half birthday, where we celebrated youth instead of age.
I knew, of course, that the other kids didn’t celebrate the same holidays I did. Early attempts to ask my friends how their Meatfest was prompted weird looks and puzzled questioning as I tried so desperately to explain Mr Fingers to them, and I was sent to the principal when I started explaining the Chanter.
When my Dad came to pick me up, I asked him why no one else knew about our holidays. He told me that different people simply celebrate different things.
Which is true, but there’s a definite difference between cultural and religious occasions and our strange lineup of holidays and songs.
Not that I ever complained. Honestly, I kind of like some of them. Even the weird ones have a place in my heart, nestled there from my childhood: I sometimes wonder if someday, I’ll be waking my kids up at dawn to watch the sunrise, singing about a being called Warmth.
I didn’t know where he got them from. I figured he might’ve made them up.
And that was fine, when they were just stories. It was weird, and even weirder to get your kid involved, but it’s harmless.
It was harmless.
Our house has a large basement.
It’s mostly untouched, due to both my longtime fear of the dark and the many, many bugs down there, but it exists, and as far as I knew, the only things down there were dusty shelves and old car parts, as well as a wide assortment of lights to keep the place lit on Apollon. I hadn’t seen past the door in years.
And then, a few days ago, my car died.
It’s not too serious. Uni’s on break and I don’t have many plans, so this was really just an annoyance; a wrinkle I was keen to smooth over, preferably on a budget. I didn’t really feel like forking up money for a piece if we already had it in the basement.
I was surprised to find the door locked. In all the years we lived here, I’d never actually seen it locked, though that might be because I never tried. Even as an adult, approaching the door still sent shivers up my spine.
Stupid? Absolutely. But hey, since when is fear rational?
The key wasn’t hard to find. Dad really only had one hiding place, and he didn’t mind if I knew it. He said I wasn’t the one he was hiding from, and I’ve never had the courage to ask who was.
The basement was dark, darker than it should have been. It was like the light from the hallway stopped at the door, and I fumbled around until my hand found the switch.
A sharp, acidic kind of smell scraped my nostrils, but I didn’t have time to process that before the old lights blinked on.
The basement was transformed. Gone were the stained shelves and rusty pieces: in their place were clean metal tables and strange tools. A large fridge sat by the far wall, casting long shadows across the room. On the other side, there was something large and irregular covered by an old sheet.
There were new lights, too, sharper lights; silver beams that shone crisp white rays through the room and hurt my eyes to look at. They cut through the darkness like knives, leaving the stark, clinical room exposed for me.
It looked like a lab. Like the kind of thing you’d see in movies, or those horror books I read as a kid. But that didn’t make sense. My dad isn’t a scientist; he’s a dentist.
I should’ve turned around. Relocked the basement and pretended I never saw it.
Instead, I started down the rotting stairs.
I think they used to creak, those stairs. I remember my childhood self flinching back from the noise. But each step now was stark and simple, nothing more than dull thuds on the wood.
Did Dad change them, like he changed the rest? Was it for convenience, or to stop me from hearing him? How often did he come down here? I couldn’t help but picture him sneaking down here in the dead of night, working on whatever strange projects struck his fancy.
God, when did it even start?
I didn’t dare to touch anything. I barely wanted to touch the floor, covered in grey tarp that was speckled with stains. I noticed the cabinet, metal and unfamiliar, and saw all the things inside.
Pristine tools, some of which I even recognised. Jars filled with strange liquids and what I was desperately hoping weren’t organs. Neat folders crammed full of paper, a medical waste bin…
And, jarringly: a family photo, an old one, with Dad and Mom holding me as a baby. I recognised that, too. It was taken just before my first birthday; a few years before she died.
As soon as I saw it, it was like something clicked. It no longer felt unreal and dreamlike. There was no more room for denial. This weird lab belonged to my dad, and no matter what I found in there, there was no changing that.
That just left one choice. Did I stay, or did I leave?
I knew I might not like what I found. I knew that I couldn’t unsee it.
But I had to know.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and walked towards the fridge.
It was a large fridge, taller than the one in our kitchen and significantly better quality. It was so shiny I could see myself in it.
I was like a spector, bloodshot eyes peering out from a sweaty, pallored face that looked nothing like my own. My lips were cracked and bloody from chewing, and even as I watched, I found myself deepening the cuts.
Is this really real?
I already knew the answer, of course. Denial didn’t make it any less true.
With shaking hands, I cracked open the fridge.
The smell hit me instantly. It wasn’t a bad smell, not really. It smelt like chemicals, cleaners and preservatives layered over each other to cover another, worse scent. It smelt like if you mixed every chemical in a hospital and took a big sniff.
That was enough to throw me for a second. I’m grateful for it, really. That moment I spent choking on preservatives was barely a heartbeat, but it was long enough to give me a second, just a second, before I saw what was in the fridge.
It was organs.
The fridge was full of organs.
Neatly lined up, labelled and secured with perfect precision, were containers full of organs.
I don’t know if they were human. I don’t think all of them were - some of them were definitely too small, but they varied in size and shape and colour to the point where I couldn’t even identify half of them.
Was that a liver on the far left, or was it a kidney? Were those intestines, or chunks of brain? My dad’s labels were done in code, his scratchy handwriting scrawled in indecipherable phrases.
It was so meticulous it made me sick to my stomach. This wasn’t some manic project of an unstable mind. This was calculated and cold as stone.
It was dawning on me that sooner or later I’d have to look at what was under the sheets. I didn’t want to: I think some part of me knew that whatever those sheets hid, I didn’t want to see it.
But I had to know.
So I took a deep breath. Then another. And another. And before I could stop to overthink it, I walked to the sheets and pulled off the cover.
I looked. Then I looked again, and again. It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t seeing, more like I wasn’t believing.
Underneath the sheets were large tubes. They looked like something out of a movie, tall and shiny and full of liquid. It felt like something you’d find in a mad scientist’s lab…which, actually,, kind of makes sense.
That’s the first thing I noticed. My eyes latched onto the tubes for as long as they could, but my mind couldn’t protect me forever. I finally tore my eyes away from the metal and looked upon my father’s creations.
Inside the tubes were monsters.
There were six of them, as far as I could tell, each in their own individual tube. Some of them were bigger than others, stranger than others, with tanks crafted to their specifications. Bigger tanks, heaters and modified oxygen masks are just what I could identify. There were other changes that confused me, such as white silk wrapped around one, or the different coloured liquid in another.
They were big - at least the size of my dad, if not bigger. Some of them seemed practically crammed into the tubes, like they’d grown in there. Maybe they did.
Is it even possible to grow something like that? Biology class never prepared me for monsters, and staring at Dad’s half baked creations, I felt so, so out of my depth.
It all felt so meticulous. So…loving. I’d seen what Dad was like when he threw himself into something: it ticked all the boxes. It was so organized and thought out and documented I was almost impressed with the arrangement.
I don’t know at what point I started to realise what they were. Was it the sense of familiarity I got from them? Was it the years of stories? Did I see the method to my dad’s madness?
Make no mistake, it is madness. Regardless of his reason, his planning, all of this is so ridiculous it makes my head spin. Can he seriously not see that?
Either way, it slowly started to dawn on me that these monsters weren’t unfamiliar. As I slid them along on oiled wheels, checking out each creature, I realised that I’d seen some of them before.
Not in the same situation, obviously. Not even remotely like this. But…the fingers on one of them…the webbing on another…I’ve drawn it, year after year growing up, checking details with Dad on every single holiday.
He’s making the creatures real.
Once I realised that, it was so obvious. I checked each tube individually, going down the row with something akin to desperation.
The one I checked first was almost humanoid. It was lanky, with limbs too long and slender for its tank. It was sheet white, practically glowing in the test tube. It looked starved, ribs practically straining at its skin.
Its most notable feature was its hands. They featured long, twisting fingers that turned red along the tips. They were tipped with dark, gnarled claws I was sure were caked in blood.
I remember drawing pictures of him as a child. Dad would tell me stories. He said that Mr Fingers longed for the hunt, and, if we left offerings, he might leave us some of his spoils.
It sounded exciting, as a child.
It doesn’t feel exciting now.
The next one was shadowy, strands of transparent darkness hanging from it like silk. The creature wore a long cloak of meat - tongues, in fact - and even standing outside the tank, I felt its silence rock me.
It had long appendages attached to its wrists like knitting needles, and I could almost hear my dad telling its stories the night before the Day of Tongues, highlighting the click, click, click of the needles.
It couldn’t hurt me from here, could it? It wasn’t even awake. And yet, I had the creeping fear that, if I spoke, it would hear me anyway. I didn’t want my tongue to join its cloak.
I kept my mouth shut.
The third one I recognised instantly.
The Spinner was dark, covered in thick black hairs that stole the light. She was large, with eight arcing legs caked with webs. Her mouth jutted open in a silent cry, revealing fangs the size of my forearm, and her dozens of eyes were squeezed tight with pain.
I remembered what Dad had told me. She was small for her kind, he said - undersized and malnourished. It made it hard for her to protect her first young, he said, and losing them had broken her.
She wasn’t made to be alone.
Looking at her here…I wasn’t so afraid of this one. I just felt sad.
The Chanter almost didn’t fit in its tube.
I wasn’t really surprised by this - Dad had always compared it to the sun when he described it, large and round and burning with hate.
But the sun doesn’t have slick, stretched skin the colour of sand. It isn’t covered in eyes and mouths, blinking and licking and seeking with every movement. The sun doesn’t snatch children from the dark and draw them into itself, melding them together into its body, into its hivemind of crying, chanting kids.
When I look at the sun, it doesn’t look back.
I covered that tank back up again.
Somehow, putting Lady End in a tank seemed wrong to me.
Dad had always described her so elegantly, so inevitably, that to see her here, crammed into a tube with her dark hair floating around her, it looked wrong beyond words. Like someone had killed Death.
She was pale as bone, with dark, shadowy veins snaking up her body. Her nails were dark, but not in a way that lacked light. Rather, they stole the light from around them, wrapping the area in a silky blackness.
Dad said she was kind. She wasn’t cruel, nor did she seek to claim a life sooner than necessary. Lady End was gentle, fair and entirely inevitable.
I tore my gaze away, but I still felt hollow.
I couldn’t even identify the Blind at first.
She was facing away from me, for starters, her dark grey hair a cloud around her. I had to turn the tube around to even get a decent look.
She was beautiful. I know that’s strange to say about a monster my dad is making in our basement, but it’s the truth. Her hands were clutched to her bare chest and her lips were parted under the oxygen mask. Her cheeks looked soft, a few freckles artfully dotting them.
She looked like she could be an ordinary woman. Someone I could be friends with, or date. The only other that set her apart was the blindfold, soaked in deep crimson.
It was the only colour in the whole tube.
In contrast to the blind, I recognised the Huntress immediately.
Her hair is crimson, bright in a way that draws the eye, but it’s not even the hair that gave it away.
It was the angles in her cheeks, the point to her elbows. It was the fox tails and fur coats that were so intrinsic to her very being that they merged with her skin. It was the tilt to her lips even as she slept, the red tint to her hands, the deep scars down her lean body. It was the way she reached at least eight feet high.
How did my dad even make these so well? That’s what I want to know. He’s a dentist, not a sculptor, but looking at these creations…as horrifying as they were, they were incredibly made.
I don’t know if my dad had help, but looking at her, I started to wonder.
I could see others, too, ones I didn’t immediately recognise.
An androgenous figure in shades of pale grey seemed only half made, all limbs but one ending in stumps. Negentropy, maybe? The rhymes are vague, but all of the Day of Absolution tales speak of a ‘pale figure’. Is this it?
Flipside of sinner and careful of mind / Negentropy dawns to balance the tides / Tall of stature and pale in figure / The Sin is coming and you must deliver / Balance the scales in the eyes of the White / Cleanse your sins for the brightest of lights.
The rhymes don’t land. I’m not sure if it was meant to be as unsettling as it is.
Some of Dad’s creatures weren’t even built enough for me to guess their identities. They were just half constructed limbs, all sewn together. Though there was no blood, it was enough to send a shiver up my spine.
There were thirteen tanks in all, but only two thirds were full. Each of them was marked with coded jargon - EM3TW, ED12SM, EJ1MF, etc. My dad’s handwriting was so bad I could barely read it in the first place.
It was all so…stark.
I felt dizzy by that point. My thoughts were slowly shutting down from shock or fear or both, and I could barely think. All I knew was that I had to get out of that basement. Forget the car parts I came here for; clearly they weren’t there anyway, and I was terrified that Dad would come home early. If he walked in on me, he’d…
He’d…
…I didn’t know what he’d do. I didn’t know what I’d do. The thought sent fear shooting through me so acutely it took everything in me to keep from running up the stairs.
Instead, I put everything back in its place. I covered up the test tubes. I climbed the stairs, turned off the lights, relocked the door, put the key back in its hiding spot, then I went to my room and cried for a while.
I was calm by the time Dad came home. Calm, or numb. I don’t know. I just know that, if Dad suspected anything was off, I couldn’t tell.
I checked the basement again today. Dad’s working late today, which is why I felt safe enough to go back down. I guess I thought I might’ve imagined it.
I didn’t, though. And this time, I took photos. I don’t know what I’ll do with them.
I don’t know what I’ll do with this, either. Part of me is tempted to just delete it, forget all this ever happened. But at the same time…I know I can’t. How could I ever forget?
I had to get it all out of my head. And if I put it into words…maybe somebody else can help me. I need to know if I’m going crazy, and if Dad is long past it. I need to know if these holidays are real.
Can Dad really bring these things to life?
It’s crazy. It is. But staring at the photos on my phone and the entirety of my memories, I can’t help but feel like he can. And if that happens…well, I can’t imagine anything more terrifying.
Twelve entities. Twelve holidays. But there were thirteen marked tubes. Is it just a spare, or is there something more to it? If anyone knows anything, I’m begging you to help me. I don’t know what else to do.
I’ll update you if anything big happens. In the meantime…help would be very much appreciated.
Oh, and, one more thing. When I went back into the basement, I found a letter. It didn’t say much, but it did mention something called The Church of the Thirteenth Hour. Google didn’t offer much in the way of answers, but from the name alone, it sounds culty.
God, I hope my Dad hasn’t formed a cult.
Tanya, out.