I don’t remember much of my mother. Her scent was the first thing about her that faded. The second thing was her voice.

My mind barely held on to the memory of her face. Although, the portraits of her that I’d plastered all around the house have played their parts in that. I just wish I had a picture of her smiling. I wish I'd gotten to spend more time with her. I lost her so early on in my life and I solemnly wish that the last thing I’d ever witnessed of her was something other than her death.

It has been exactly twenty years since that wretched night, but I still wonder from time to time; if things had been different that night, would I have had the chance to live a half normal childhood? If I hadn’t lost the last of my relatives on that same night? Would I have had somebody to celebrate Christmas with? like most people around me? For all I have to keep me company right now, is the crackling coming to my ears from the fireplace, and the brightness reflecting from the white coat of snow covering the entire town, my eyes always and very easily get lost in it.

Who wouldn’t wonder though? It sounds fairly human to do so, especially on Christmas, the anniversary of her death.

Come to think of it, I wonder if I ever had a chance at a normal life at all, being a Reznik and all.

I don’t believe that members of my family, just like myself, were ever meant to have a conventional existence, not in this town, at least.

Christmas is very understandably a special event for obvious reasons all around parts of the world, but in GrayBird town, it is memorable for a peculiar and quite frankly terrifying one. Starting from sundown on the twenty fifth of December and ending at sunrise the next morning, everyone must stay confined in the warmth and safety of their homes.

If anyone was ever foolish enough or forced by their own unfortunate circumstances to wander the grounds in that lapse of time, their deaths wouldn’t be guaranteed but… If they have the miserable luck to encounter one of “them” their demise would certainly not be swift. I should know something about that, I had a first-row seat to that dreadful show… Twenty years ago.

In the old town’s church, at the very top of its highest tower, a gigantic bell is perched. The sound of its ringing reaches to cover the entire turf of GrayBird, but oddly enough its sound ceases at once right beyond the town’s welcome sign.

The custom wants that on the last Friday of every month, at precisely nine o’clock, this bell must be ringed at any cost without failure, and it can categorically not be done by someone other than a member of the Reznik family. There is a “why” and a “because” to that of course, but that is another story for another day.

Well, as I casually mentioned before, I am a Reznik, and the last Friday of December twenty years ago happened to also be the twenty fifth of that same month.

I was but a child, I couldn’t grasp the implications of that at the time. It was my mother’s job to worry about it then. I remember her pacing the living room back and forth, unsure of which rule to prioritize that night. I had my eyes glued on her the whole time, as I picked small chocolate pieces from their box and deposited them in my mouth. I couldn’t stop looking at my mom because on that night she had her long hair loose, unlike her usual. She’d always had it up in a bun.

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Now that I think of it, I bet she did it on purpose, to prevent me from seeing her face. She probably thought I wouldn’t recognize her because of the fear and terror screwing her traits.

Eventually, considering many people lived to count the tale of their Christmas night out, she decided it was best to uphold the bell duty.

It was eight thirty in the night when she put a soft and thick blanket around my shoulders, told me to stay put and to not open the door to anyone, unless I heard her voice behind it. I remember crying for her to take me with her. I didn’t like the idea of staying home alone, so she told me I could sit on the couch by the window, to keep an eye on her as she went. She promised me that it would only be an hour before she came back to me, and I… Believed her.

I watched as her figure moved further and further away from our house until it faded behind some trees ahead. I stayed in place and waited for what seemed like an eternity, until I heard it… The bell, she’d made it there.

Just like she’d disappeared, she reappeared half an hour later. This time I observed her silhouette as it drew closer to me, resembling more and more the woman I knew my whole life to be my mother.

I was so happy to see her, that she was only a few feet from the door, so focused on her that I didn’t notice the other figure dangerously trudging towards her. When I paid closer attention, it looked like nothing more than a woman, but I found it odd, her lack of shivering considering the clothes she was wearing. I was sure that one white, light and long night gown was never going to keep anyone warm, but then I saw her lips move and my mom stopped walking and turned her attention towards the stranger.

She closed the distance between the two of them, I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I couldn’t see their faces but then, my mother turned to face our house, I could swear she was looking straight at the window she knew I was gazing through. She gave me one miserable smile.

I watched as the woman laid a hand on my mother’s shoulder and drained her of any and all colors. My mother’s skin was turning blue then leaned towards the gray shades, very slowly, as if life was being sucked out of her lungs and eyes, until she finally fell to her knees then face planted in the snow.

The stranger stood in place without wavering. When she looked in my direction, the only things that I’d gathered about her were her harsh traits, her closed face as though she could never love or forgive another soul in the world. She walked closer to the window. She was so close that I could feel the cold emanating from her. That woman could freeze one’s blood with a touch and I had proof of it. I wanted to scream and shout, but she spoke first…

“Oh, why the tears dear, tis the way of sin, for rotten seed stroll these grounds and so, the scion must square the debt that their ancestors left behind,”

My tears glacial on my cheeks, I couldn’t fathom her words at the time. I wasn’t a stupid child by any means, but I was no genius either. When she finished speaking, I could swear there were others standing behind her, other ice women just like her. I didn’t bother counting their numbers, busy being a mess.

Today I understand, the meaning of her statement. Whoever pissed them off lived in GrayBird long ago, and now they are making us pay for it. Although cruel and unjust I can’t help but stop to wonder, about whatever it was that happened to those women, who they were and what their lives were like back in their days.

I mostly wonder if I’ll get to see them tonight as well since… I am the last Reznik alive in this town, and it’s already eight o’clock on this last Friday of December… Merry Christmas to you all.