Lullaby Women

         All of us are raised on stories. The ones my grandmother preferred were ghost stories. She filled every silence with them, and I devoured them as eagerly as food, no matter how they frightened me. Despite the way they terrified me, I loved them all-- the devil and the tailor, the old man of the forest, the burning serpent, the monster of the pass, the well to hell, but one of them stood far above them all. It was the stories of the lullaby women.
          "The lullaby women are ladies who died in childbed, Misha. They died during the labor, and they died before they could even see the baby. All that time they spent, waiting and wishing for the baby, all gone. And then when they were gone and buried... their families forgot them, and the vines grew all over their graves, and they were alone. And that's why they hide by the roads at night, and they sing their lullabies to try and call people to join them. But answering that call, Misha, is death."
          I know it's true because I have answered that call.
          I was only 17, and an utter idiot in thinking I was wise. The world had yet to puncture that assertion. I had long ago shifted from childhood, where I was ruled by the taxonomy of ghosts and boogeymen that my grandmother had raised me on, to a young man who was far above such nonsensical superstitions. I scoffed when my grandmother tucked a knot of horsehair in my pocket and asked me to come sit with her before a journey.
          "Grandmother, I'm only going to Vasily's. You can see his house from the kitchen window."
          She shook her head, waving her cigarette in her hand. Her white hair curled in wisps around her head, frizzed in the heat of the kitchen. "Journeys may be short, but they are always journeys."
          "Grandmother, I'm already late, I don't have time."
She pressed her lips together in disapproval as she turned back to the stove, stirring the stewpot there. "I will watch, then. From the window. To make sure you get there safely."
          I laughed and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. "I will. I always do."
          The journey to Vasily's was easy, with no incident. It took barely five minutes, and it didn't even take me through the woods. I hardly remember what happened at Vasily's-- he had been my friend since childhood, and I spent as many evenings at his house as I did at my own. All the evenings blurred together, as they tend to do when you assume that life will always be this way. We must have done what we usually did-- laughed, played our stupid games, gossiped about the girls in the village, complained about school-- until far too late. It was after midnight before I even glanced at the clock. Ordinarily, I would have simply curled up on the couch cushions piled at the foot of his bed and headed home in the morning, but there was something that prevented me that night-- a trip planned for the next day, or simple desire for my own bed. I put my jacket on and slipped out the door, into the dark night.
          It was a cloudy night, with little in the way of stars or moonlight to guide me, but that didn't matter. I knew the way between our two houses as well as I knew the way between my bedroom and the kitchen. Down the road, I could even see the faintly flickering light of the porch light that always burned when she waited for someone to come home.
          I was halfway home when I heard something rustle in the wheat field. It was more than the usual murmur of the wind through the crops, I knew that much. I knew that, because the night was as still as the grave. Something was moving in the field. Something was beginning to sing.
          "Kitty, little kitty
          Kitty little gray tail,
          Come to us and stay the night..."
The strange voice trailed off, and I turned towards the sound, fear beginning to creep up my spine. Who would be out in the fields at this time of night? It was after midnight, heading into the deepest, darkest part of the night.
          But that fear trickled away when I saw a woman standing there, just inside the field. It was just a woman, after all. "Hey! What are you doing out there? Old man Kolavev doesn't like people in his field!"
          She lifted her arms and started to sing her song again, swaying softly to the rhythm of her song.
          "Kitty, little kitty
          Kitty little gray tail,
          Come to us and stay the night..."
          The song brushed up against something familiar in my mind, but didn't raise anything but that vague sense of familiarity. I raised my voice, stepping closer to the edge of the field. "Hey, I mean it! You'd better get out of there! He's got a shotgun, you know." She must have been drunk, lost on the way back to the hostel in the village. I glanced towards the faint light at my grandmother's house. "Come on! I'll show you the way!" I was relieved when she stepped forward, closer to the road. She seemed steadier on her feet than any drunk I'd ever seen, but that didn't mean much. Then she stopped again and began to sing again.
          "Kitty, little kitty
          Kitty little gray--"
          I shook my head and cut her off, beckoning her forward. "No, no, finish your song later, just come out of there!"
          She took another step towards the edge of the field, but she stopped just short of it. Instead, she reached out one pale arm into the night, holding it out to me with an open palm.
          "Kitty, little kitty
         Kitty little gray tail,
         Come to us and stay the night,
          Rest with my little baby,
          Lay your head at my feet..."
          I wanted to call out to her again, but my voice trailed off before it could begin to start. Her voice was so beautiful, high and clear like a bell, and it flowed across the air like honey. I didn't know her, but I wanted to.
          "Kitty, little kitty
          Kitty little gray tail,
          Come to my house under the earth,
          Rest with my little baby,
          You won't feel the cold..."
          It hadn't seemed like a cold night, it was barely September, but I felt the frost creeping up from the ground and into my boots. I stomped my feet and rubbed my hands together, shivering.
         Both her hands reached out from the wheat field. Her hands were so pale and cold, but I thought unbidden of how warm it would be to rest in her arms. Maybe she would smell like wilted flowers, the way I vaguely remembered my mother smelling. Maybe I would push through the wheat and my mother would be there. Maybe that was why the song called to me.
          "Kitty, little kitty
          Kitty little gray tail..."
          I stepped closer to the woman in the wheat field, close enough to see the white fabric, practically translucent with age and damp, clinging to her pale, slender forearms. I was nearly on the soil of the field, and she reached out and placed her hands on mine. The hands were strangely cold, but she had been out in the cold for longer than I, I thought. She tugged me gently into the wheat with her, and I saw her face for the first time.
         She was pale, with long dark hair down to her waist, curls tangling into each other. Her features were delicate and elegant, like the marble madonna in our church. I met her eyes and something burned within them. Her eyes were like two smoldering coals, burning deep in the sockets of her pale, pale face.
          The lullaby women are the most terrible, Misha... they long for the baby they never knew in life, and they call to the boys and girls from the fields at night, trying to lure them in with songs and lullabies they know... they call to them and try take them under the ground with them. The restless dead don't like to be alone...
          Her hands had slid up to my cheeks, stroking me with her cold, cold fingertips. She sang the song again, and her fingernails dug into my cheeks like splinters of ice. I tried twisting in her grasp, but she only tightened her grip as the tone of her voice softened. She was singing that lullaby for me and only me, that soft, soft voice promised. An end to pain, an end to hunger, an end to the cold on the inside and outside.
          Her teeth were sharp. I saw that when she smiled.
          With everything in me, I wrenched myself away, my eyes fixed on the light of my grandmother's porch. It would be warm there... it had to be... I thought of my grandmother's tuneless humming, the drone of it across the kitchen as she peeled potatoes. I tried to remember the sound, to let it fill my head and drown out the sickly sweet melody of the lullaby, to wake my mind from the endless sleep she wanted me to join her in.
         I wrenched myself away and stumbled backwards, out of the field and out of her thrall. I looked up and saw her as she truly was-- a pale, skeletal wraith, wrapped in the tattered remnants of a nightgown, a half-remembered song oozing out of her cut throat like blood, those coals burning in the dark, infinite sockets of her eyes, the sharp teeth of her smile turned to a snarl. The fear coursed through my veins, and I knew neither cold nor heat, only the need to run as fast as I could toward the light of my grandmother's porch.
          As I reached the front door, I heard the song turn into an outraged scream. My hands trembled, but I yanked the door open and fled, slamming it shut against that scream. I ran to my room, wrapped myself in the quilt, and lay awake until dawn, watching the sunlight bloom over the wheat fields.
          The next morning, I got up and dragged myself to the kitchen. My grandmother was already there, putting on a pot of coffee and preparing breakfast. As always, she was humming, using the graceless, absent-minded sound to keep time as she worked. I settled into one of the mismatched, unsteady kitchen chairs, watching her. I froze as I realized where I had heard that melody before.
          "Kitty, little kitty
          Kitty little gray tail,
          Come to us and stay the night,
         Rest with my little baby,
         Lay your head at my feet..."