Page 1 of Bone Collector’s Mate

Chapter One

Noir

My name is Noir like the night I was born of. Creatures like me don’t have a mother or a father. We did, but they were memories so far away, they might as well have not existed.

We were created from foul wishes and whispers of death in the darkness. Plagues. Revenge.

There were tales we rose from nightmares. From unearthed graves. From the tears of widows and the cries of orphans.

At times, I felt the sting of others’ loss in the skull that was my head. In the chest that had a heart despite not being fully human.

I was given up as a baby. Left in the forest to die. I didn’t have my skull head yet. That was given to me on a night I didn’t speak of anymore.

A night as terrifying to me as I was to the rest of the world.

I have a name no one speaks. As good as a ghost for all the stories and murmurs about who I am. All silly, of course, but some have come close.

So fearsome, I’m not even a character in one of the humans’ books or movies.

They see me sometimes, roaming through the forest, collecting what nature has left behind from decay. The bones picked clean by time and bugs feasting until there wasn’t a scrap of flesh left.

That night, the one I try not to think of, especially when the thunder booms, I chose this half existence, hovering somewhere between life and death. Collecting the bones. Giving them honor in my own way. Walking amongst the living and the gone at the same time.

Here, but never in their world.

There, but with a body and a beating heart.

The forest had taken on a chill my skin recognized as winter, though the rest of me rarely felt the difference in the seasons anymore. Not that it felt anything good. Not love. Not the touch of another. It had been years, decades, maybe millennia since I’d been touched by another.

Touch-starved.

I stopped in my tracks as the buzzing, that awful, painful, vibrating sixth sense caught my attention.

Bones were all over the place. Buried. Washed away. Put in boxes of all kinds.

But there, to my left, were some exposed ones. The worms and bugs had taken their meals and now, they lay on the ground, no more important to humans than a blade of grass or a twig fallen from a tree.

To me, they should be honored. And my calling demanded I do so.

I gathered the bones with my worn, human hands. My fingers and palms were calloused. There weren’t many of them. Not a full skeleton.

Not even human. Cow. I took some vines and strung them together, the lengths making it more beautiful, my design. I leaned against an oak tree, doing my work, wondering what the bones of a cow were doing here, so far from a farm. Did she stray from her herd? Did someone steal her and then abandon her from the others?

Either way, every being deserved their structure, the skeleton that held them up all their lives, to be honored.

My hangings, wind chimes in my eyes, or lack of eyes, were lovely. The hollow calcium and mineral tubes clanged in the wind, playing a hymn fit for a funeral or a celebration of life.

The bones were suspended from a tree branch, facing the setting sun. Its oranges and lavenders would shine on them for years to come until the weather and Mother Earth claimed them or some fool brought them down. Struck them.

I walked this earth alone. That was my plight. We bone collectors didn’t have a fairy-tale life. I found myself envious of humans. Destined to find their partner or mate or husband. Have children. Let happiness and the falters of life solidify their love.

I knew what I’d done, accepting the fate of a bone collector. My soul would always be alone. When this body died, I would choose the forest to cradle me. One day, another bone collector, like myself, would collect all of me and make their art from my remains.

The sound of rushing water beckoned me, and so I walked. My legs sometimes ached with the number of miles I put in every day, but staying in one place for too long wasn’t acceptable.

People saw me from the corner of their eye but then turned, ignoring me or running. There had been more than a few running for their lives and screaming. But I didn’t want their lives. I wanted their death, what time froze in their bones.

“Mama, look at that man.”

Silly child, calling me a man. I wasn’t. I was a monster. The rivers and water showed me my mirror image. Yes, I could shift back, but there was no point anymore. Scaring people kept them away from me. Kept me safe from their incessant questions and pointed accusations.

No, I didn’t kill people.

No, I didn’t wish them dead.

I didn’t take pleasure in finding bones. That meant someone’s life had ended.

I honored what was.

“That’s not a man. That’s a shadow.” The mother tugged on her little one’s hand a bit too hard. I cringed. If I had a child, I would be gentle.

“No, he’s a man. I saw his hands.”

“No. You didn’t. Come on. That’s not a man at all.”