literature

The Thirteenth Child

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“The Thirteenth Child”

“Daddy tell me a bedtime story!” the child in the bed cried as his father was about to exit the room. The man turned around slowly.
“What kind of story? Daddy’s very tired tonight…” he explained to the child, hoping to deter him. The child was persistent.
“A real story! A scary story!” the young boy exclaimed, sitting up. The man raised an eyebrow.
“A scary story? This late?” The father looked concerned, but his child looked eager and so the father sat down at the foot of his young son’s bed. “Alright…” he sighed.
“There was once a man, who married a lovely woman. Together they had a great number of children.”
“How many children?” the boy asked curiously.
“I was getting to that. Together, the man and wife had twelve children. They were all very happy together, but they were also very poor; the man had to work very hard in the field all day as a servant to his landlord, just to get them enough food to eat.”
“What did the woman do?”
The father paused for a moment, before responding, “The wife also worked. She worked as a seamstress who took in--”
“What’s a ‘seam-stress’, Daddy?” the boy asked, drawing out the syllables in “seamstress” as children often do when they are unfamiliar with a word.
“I was going to explain that. A seamstress is someone who sews things, you know, like clothes.” The boy nodded in understanding, so the father continued, “As I was saying, the mother of all twelve children sewed clothes for a living while her husband worked in the field for their landlord. One day they learned that the woman was going to have another baby…”
“Did a stork tell them?” the child asked. The man glanced over at his son.
“…Yes. A stork told them.
“Anyways, this would be their thirteenth child. Now the common belief where this family lived was that thirteen was an unlucky, undesirable number. This is of course ridiculous, no lumber can be lucky or unlucky, but that was their belief. And so, when the child was born, the man snatched the baby boy away from his mother and ran to the crossroads, where he would abandon the child, hoping someone would find it. The man tried to leave his son there, but it was the middle of the night, and he found that he did not have the strength to do such a thing. And so the man sat down in the middle of the crossroads and waited for someone to come by.
“The first to come by was a priest. He looked at the man, sitting there with his child, and asked, ‘My son, what are you doing here with this child?’ The man looked up sadly and replied, ‘Father, this is my thirteenth child, a boy. I cannot afford to keep him, and I need someone to watch him.’”
“Is this a true story?” the child interrupted once again.
“You already asked for a true story. And yes, this is true.”
“It doesn’t seem very true to me.”
The father sighed, “Well it is. Now if you’ll let me continue…
“The priest looked down at the poor man, who he recognized from the local church services. ‘Maybe I could take the child in as a monk, if only you’d have paid your tithing every week.’ And so the priest continued walking.
“The next person to come up was a woman, a sinner. She smiled down at the man and his son, and said, ‘Well, what do we have here?’ The man looked up at the woman and replied, ‘This is my child, whom I cannot afford to keep. I am looking for someone to care for him.’ The woman shook her head. ‘If he were a girl, I’d take him. But sadly, he is not.’ And so the woman, too, carried on her way.”
“This isn’t a scary story!” the boy complained, interrupting his father again. The man pinched his nose and replied, “That’s because it isn’t done yet.” He waited until the boy was settled back against his pillow before continuing.
“Now it was the wee hours of the morning, and the man was nearly asleep he was so tired, when suddenly the air got very cold. The wind began rustling the auburn leaves in the tree against which the man rested. His son began to cry and a strange laugh filled the air.
“’Ee-hee-hee-hee-hee! What have we here?’ someone asked, circling around the tree. ‘A babe and his father, no doubt! Ee-hee-hee-hee!’ The man looked up to see the creator of this strange laugh only to see a man, dressed all in black, step from around the tree. He knew very well who this man was…”
“Who was he?” the child asked, leaning forward in suspense.
“The man was none other than the undertaker from town. Now, an undertaker, if you don’t know what that is, is someone who takes care of dead people; cleans them up, buries them and whatnot.” The man looked over at his son, whose eyes were wide with curiosity now. “Perhaps we should finish this another night…” he suggested.
“No! I want to know how it ends!” the boy protested. The father grinned slightly and then continued.
“Alright. The man noticed that it was the undertaker. He had with him a shovel. The man asked, ‘What are you doing at such a late hour?’ ‘I’m taking care of business as usual,’ the undertaker replied with a grin. ‘The question should be, what are you doing up this late, Mr. Kennebec?’ (for that was the man’s name). Mr. Kennebec swallowed hard before replying, ‘I am waiting for someone to come that is willing to take my son. He is my thirteenth, and I cannot afford to feed or clothe him.’ ‘Hmm, quite the predicament, I see…’ the undertaker replied. ‘I suppose I could take him if you are willing to do me a favor.’ The man was unsure, but he agreed to listen to the undertaker’s request.
“’Business is slow, you see, and I’m in need of more work…’ the undertaker began, ‘I need some way of getting my hands on some more bodies…’ Mr. Kennebec paled at the thought of what the undertaker might ask but kept silent and let the other man continue. ‘If you would be willing to do an… exchange… I could take your son off of your hands for you. After all, I have plenty of room up at my place, and I do get lonely…’ Mr. Kennebec swallowed again and replied, “I don’t know what kind of work you want me to do, but if you’ll take good care of my son, I will willingly do whatever is asked.’ The undertaker grinned. ‘I was hoping you’d say that, Mr. Kennebec. I don’t ask much… just that you do some heavy lifting for me. See, I have a bad back, and I cannot do what is necessary for my business to flourish. If you could offer your assistance, I’d be more than happy to take your son…’ The man looked unsure, so the undertaker added, ‘Take your time, as much as you need. The dying are in no hurry.’
“Finally the man looked up at the undertaker and sighed. ‘You have a deal. Just don’t let my son know what his past is, and don’t let him know what you do.’ And so a deal was formed. The child would be kept in ignorance of his adopted father’s profession as well as the life of his birth family.” The man looked over to his son, who was now sound asleep. He smiled and kissed his son’s forehead and patted his hand. “Goodnight, Samuel,” he said as he got up and went to the door.
Once out in the back area of his house, he looked around. Cadavers surrounded him, though they were all covered up so the boy wouldn’t see what they were if he ever snuck in here. A small bell rang as the door was opened from the outside. There was a man there, standing in the pouring rain.
“Ee-hee-hee-hee… Hello again, Mr. Kennebec…” the father said to the man in the door. “Got another one for me?”
Inspired by the fairy tale "Godfather Death", but I added a few twists and turns and changed it up so it's only halfway like the original... In the original the three people at the crossroads were God, the Devil, and Death. But I wanted to change it up a bit... Was the ending a surprise or was it totally expected? (I'm just curious lol)
Let me know what I can do to get better, but seeing as this was written in a total of an hour and a half (it was broken up into two parts... I had to eat dinner halfway through...) at my grandparents' house on my grandma's laptop as just a piece to help me through a long day, I don't expect that it's very good hahaha... :P
Enjoy my piece of crap writing, and let me know what you think of the way I wrote it (with the kid interjecting every now and then). I wanted it to seem as if this was actually a story that some dad was telling his young son, but I'm not very familiar with small children so I had to try my best //fail//

Also, I really don't know what to put this under, so I did "General Fiction". If any of you have a better place for it, let me know. :D

~SD
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