November 8, 2025
10:00 PM CST

It started on a Wednesday, after Maeve’s husband died.

She hadn’t the strength to cook. Grief dried her appetite like late autumn wind curling the leaves. But when she trudged into the kitchen that night, the old iron stewpot—one she’d left dry and empty—was bubbling.

Steam curled upward from a rich, dark broth.

Maeve, half-starved from mourning, ate without question. It was the first warmth she’d felt in days.

By morning, the pot was empty again.

She thought she’d dreamt it. But that evening, it filled again. This time with a thick rabbit stew, peppery and wild.

Only later did she notice the ashes in the fireplace.

Black flakes where she had tossed her husband’s bones after the cremation. She hadn’t thought much of it—there’d been no urn, no ceremony. Just silence and sorrow. And a need to let go.

But now, each morning after the stew, she found new ashes. The pile growing larger. Yet she hadn’t added anything more.

By the third night, the meat tasted strange. Less gamey. More familiar.

The cat disappeared.

Then the raccoons.

When a knock came at the door—a lost traveler, asking to rest—Maeve saw the hunger in his eyes. Not for food. For fire. He was old, thin, nearly transparent with age.

She let him sleep on the hearth rug.

The next morning, the ashes were deeper.

The stew richer.

Her stomach full.

Maeve stopped asking questions. She understood the rhythm now: burn the bones, eat the stew.

It didn’t always require the living. Sometimes dead things wandered in on their own—drawn to her door, like moths to warmth.

Eventually, she forgot the taste of bread. Of butter. Of anything that wasn’t birthed from that pot.

One night, she dreamt of hundreds like her—women in kitchens all over the world, ladling meat from cast-iron pots into chipped bowls, firelight dancing on bone-white faces.

Some cried. Some sang. But all of them stirred.

And all of them burned.