The Lattice of Bone

The fall of that year brought the Havershams to the lot behind ours, a family of three with a moving truck that groaned like a dying beast. They arrived in a swirl of late September heat, and within days, the air was thick with the shriek of chainsaws. They felled every maple and oak that had stood as a living fence between our properties, leaving only a single, malformed elm at the center of their yard, its bark peeling like a leper’s skin. My husband, Dale, saw the woodpile as a gift—the tree service was all too happy to dump two truckloads of logs at our back gate, saving them a trip to the landfill. We spent the better part of a week splitting that wood, the thunk of the hydraulic splitter a rhythm to our labor. Our son, Toby, would haul the pieces to the stack by the shed, his small arms straining. But as the days shortened and the first chill crept into the air, I began to notice strange flickers in our backyard—not the steady glow of porch lights, but a hesitant, dancing luminescence. I’d sit on our deck, smoking a cigarette, and watch them: fireflies, but they had no business being out in that cold. They pulsed erratically, like a heartbeat gone wrong, and they seemed to congregate near the back fence, as if drawn to the ground where the Havershams’ yard met ours.

One evening, as I watched, the lights began to move in a pattern—not the random meandering of insects, but a deliberate, almost geometric dance. They formed a line, then a curve, then a lattice that seemed to hang in the air for a moment before dissolving into chaos. I felt a knot tighten in my stomach, and I went inside, telling myself it was just a trick of the light, the onset of a migraine. But the strangeness didn’t stop. That week, we had two nights of violent wind, gusts that bent the pines and sent loose branches tumbling across the lawn. Dale and I, now smoking outside to spare the house, huddled under the eave, and we heard them—sharp, rhythmic snaps from the Havershams’ yard, like something breaking sticks with intent. Not the random crackle of wind, but a deliberate, percussive sound, almost like a code. Our dog, Loki, a skittish shepherd mix, was at the fence, his hackles raised, and he sniffed at something in the grass. He let out a yelp and jumped back, then ran whimpering to the porch, his tail between his legs.

I knew it had to be an opossum—I’d joked about it at the start of summer, how we always got some new critter in our yard. But when I shone a flashlight, the beam caught a glint of something white among the shadows, something that looked like a bone, partially buried. But it was too big for a raccoon or a possum. I called Dale, and he came out with a shovel, but when he went to dig, the soil was frozen solid, despite the mild weather. He left it, muttering about a dead deer. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing the lattice of lights, the pattern they made. It looked like a map, or a blueprint. And I kept hearing that snapping, as if something was being assembled, joint by joint, in the dark.

The next morning, I walked over to the fence, curious about what Loki had found. The grass was matted in a strange pattern, almost like a circle, and in the center was a small pile of what looked like twigs, but they were white and brittle. I knelt down, and my blood went cold. They were finger bones—not human, but not quite any animal I knew. They were too long, too slender, and they had an odd sheen, like polished ivory. I scooped them into a bag and took them to Dale, who is a retired biologist. He examined them, his face growing pale. He said they were from some kind of primate, but one he’d never seen, and that the joints were fused in a way that suggested the creature was still growing. He asked where I found them, and I pointed to the fence. He said, ‘We need to move that fence.’

But we didn’t move the fence. That afternoon, the Havershams’ son, a boy of about twelve with hollow eyes, came to our back gate. He didn’t say hello. He just stared at me with an unnerving intensity and said, ‘You have to stop digging.’ Then he turned and left, his gait uneven, as if he were learning to walk. I stood there, frozen. I hadn’t told anyone about the bones, not even Toby. How did he know? That evening, I saw him in his yard, standing by the lone elm. He was holding something—a stick, or a branch—and he was moving it in intricate patterns, like a conductor leading an orchestra. And as he did, the fireflies appeared again, forming a lattice around him. But this time, they weren’t just lights. They were solid, metallic, and they clicked together, forming a structure that rose into the air, a lattice of bone and chitin that writhed and twisted, taking shape.

I grabbed Dale, and we watched in horror as the lattice grew, forming a humanoid shape, its limbs too long, its fingers like the bones I’d found. It stood over the boy, and the boy laughed—a high, thin laugh that chilled me to the marrow. Then, the creature turned its head—if it had a head—and looked directly at us. Its eyes were pits of darkness, and they seemed to suck the light from the air. It took a step toward the fence, and the fence began to warp, the wood twisting like taffy. I screamed, and Dale dragged me inside. We called the police, but when they arrived, the Havershams’ house was dark, the yard empty. The only thing left was the elm, and at its base, a pile of white bones, neatly arranged in a lattice pattern.

We moved out a week later. We never spoke of it to anyone, not knowing what to say. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I still see it—the lattice, glowing faintly, and I hear the snapping of bones, coming closer. And I know that whatever it was, it followed us. Because last night, in our new backyard, I saw fireflies, dancing in that same pattern. And they were heading toward our house.