The Girl Who Lived with Bones
Robin walked home from school, gripping her backpack tighter.
She already knew what was coming.
“Hey Bone Girl!” someone shouted from behind a fence.
“Ever think of getting skin to go with all those bones?”
Laughter. Running feet.
Robin didn’t flinch.
She’d heard it before.
Every day.
She reached her house — a place the neighborhood kids called The Bone House.
Because inside… were bones.
Not a few. Dozens.
Animal skeletons hung from the ceiling like wind chimes.
A wolf snarled in permanent silent rage near the kitchen.
A human skeleton stared blankly from a stand in the living room.
All part of her father’s collection.
A retired museum curator. Now just… obsessed.
“Respect the dead, Robin,” he’d say.
“They speak, if you listen.”
She never did.
That night, Robin had an idea.
“If I bring the kids inside,” she told her dad, “maybe they’ll stop being afraid.”
He wasn’t thrilled, but agreed.
The next afternoon, three classmates followed her home.
Brian, Rosie, and Tam.
They giggled and pointed.
Until the lights began to flicker.
And the bones moved.
A skull turned toward them — without a breeze.
The cat skeleton skittered across the floor on its own.
And the human figure’s jaw opened slowly, like a silent scream.
Rosie screamed first.
Then Tam.
Brian ran into a wall trying to escape.
The house fell quiet again.
Robin blinked, frozen in the hallway.
And then she heard a voice.
Not loud. Not human.
“You brought us new ones,” it hissed.
“You're one of us now.”
Robin turned — her father's prized skeleton stood inches from her.
Except now it had eyes.
Bone-white. Hollow.
And smiling.