Author’s note: This week’s Flash Fiction Friday offering is based on Sarah Faxon’s first of two prompts: With Mother’s day in mind: The big day is here.
The man who stands at a strange threshold,
Should be cautious before he cross it,
Glance this way and that:
Who knows beforehand what foes may sit
Awaiting him in the hall?
The proverb - passed down from time immemorial - rang fiercely in his ears, despite the shrieking winds of the moors. Only he stood under the brooding expanse of gray sky in that long derelict realm, before the rune marked doors of the ancestral hall. Any man in his right mind would have eschewed such haunts, remaining in the verdant valley below, in the embrace of his wife and children. But the tradition - closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet - called. The day and hour had arrived. It was useless to resist.
Pushing open the wrought iron door, still strong on its ancient hinges, he stepped into the gloom. The hearth, which once had glowed like the furnace of the Eternals, was a barren maw of darkness. Where warriors once sat feasting at table, serenaded by poetesses fair, stood the ruins of regal hospitality splintered beyond recognition. The once stout walls, corrupted with decay, shook with the buffeting of the wind. And at the farthest end sat the old judgement seat, draped in utmost dark, where she waited -
The Abiding Mother: bearer of the elden line and keeper of the Wyrd, left to the hills by her sons as they gave their hearts to the greed of conquest. But she endured, weaving the web of fate under the noses of her haughty descendants, now the rulers of the fruitful lowlands. And she demanded homage.
“Closer my son,” came the crooning call. “I see the custom endures for another year. Now, bow to your Mother.”
The man fell to his knees, hearty frame rattling as he clutched his throat. His vision became tinged with crimson as he struggled against the formless force - in vain.
The Mother would have her due.
© Conor MacCormack, 2026. All rights reserved.
This is ominous. Should I know the due or infer?
Mother will always have her due…love how this ends.