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The snow melted on her cheeks, softly, as if it were caressing her. The great white arm of the oak cradled her so familiarly. The white sky seemed to smile down at her.

“Rock-a-bye baby,” She whispered softly, “on the treetop…”

A deer snapped a twig somewhere below her. She was too lazy to look down at it. Too afraid she might fall.

“That’s how little Johnny died,” she echoed her mother’s words from oh so long ago. Th deer raced away at the sound of her voice.

There was a creaking sound below her.

“Bound to be natural,” She whispered to herself. Bound to be natural in this kind of wind. It creaked again. Well, it couldn’t be the deer, because the deer had run away. Must be another animal. Another creature. She smiled. Just a creature, nothing more.

“Rock-a-bye ba-” It creaked again. “-baby on the-” and there it was again. What kind of creature wouldn’t be afraid of her voice?

Creature…the word ventured through her mind looking for something to connect with. She shook the word away. Animal. Not creature. Above her a crow cawed. She tried to shout out at it, chase it away, but all that came out was the whispered tune to a nursery rhyme. The creaking continued. It was really such a horrible sound. She wished it would stop. She really did…wish that the creature would stop it’s creaking and the crow its cawing. She clasped her hand around her mouth in a soundless gasp. She forced a smile. It wasn’t that bad. Sh simply sounded like an Alice in Wonderland character. Creatures cawing and crow’s creaking. She forced out a laugh. What could be funnier. Cawing creatures and – no, cawing crows and creaking creatures. It was a horrible sound though. Most dreadful. She tried to think about something else.

“Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree-” the crow interrupted with a caw. It would be awfully nice if she could just finish the first verse without being tormented by that horrible sound. Horrible, horrible creaking that could fill every crevice in her mind.

“-top,” she continued. “When the wind blows, the cradle-” The creaking again. ‘Cradle…cradle…cradle…’ her words were caught on the wind and carried away, only to return. A sob escaped her. She gasped. She wasn’t in a crying mood! Not in the least!

“CRADLE!” The crow cawed above her. No. Not possible. Her pulse quickened.

“CRADLE!” It cried out again. The wind carried the word around, to her, once more as the creature below her started its creaking. Creaking the cradle – the cretin – as the crow continued cawing, crying out about the god-damned creaking that the cradle released when the cretinous creature creaked it on command of the cawing crow.

“No!” she cried out, the sound creeping into every crevice of her brain, criss-crossing across her cranium, cramming every square inch of her being with the creaking, the cracking, until there was nothing that remained of her but the sound. The sound of death

“Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby, cradle and all,” She whispered softly to herself as she looked down to the soft snow that seemed oh so very far away, where her tiny bundle lay.

The snow melted on her cheeks, softly, as if it were caressing her. She had always wanted a child. Just not right now. Not today, or the day before, or even tomorrow for that fact. Her mother had always said, as she was throwing out the rotten apples,

“When something is of no use, what use is it to keep it?”

But she had always wanted a child. Just not this one. No, she wanted a daughter, her hair as dark as ebony, her skin as white as snow, and her lips, her lips – as red as three drops  of blood on snow.

Here’s the original version 🙂 unedited and raw.