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Frog Song

James Callan

From the highest turret of Lily-pad Castle, Lady Brona combs the maggots out of her hair. They fall, fat droplets of wriggling rain, cascading from her high window to splash into the pond below. The black water ripples outward, its mirrored surface warped with each impact of bombarding larvae. The tadpoles come to feast, and the frogs rejoice for their brood.


At the edge of the pond the tall grasses part for the approach of a mallard leading her ducklings --little yellow devils, Lady Brona regards them. They cut the water in a neat line, a team of marauders to rob the frog spawn of their spoils. Their downy feathers bob over the surface of the pond, their dark, webbed feet agitating the water with their infantile frenzy. High above, Lady Brona watches from her window seat and sighs into the setting sun, its amber rays coating the length of the castle tower. At its base, the pond gently laps against its great stones.


One final pass through her flaxen hair; one last swipe with a fine-tooth comb. Brona leans out from her bedroom window, tussles her tresses, and the remaining stragglers are exiled to the reed-choked water below. Plump, transparent bodies fall with a splish, splash, splosh, rupturing the film of algae that spreads like a swamp-maiden’s wedding dress from the foundations of Lily-pad Castle. Emerging from the mud and tangle of weeds, eager maws embrace the maggot rain, the falling worms that are destined to feed the froglets and fish.


The sun absconds beyond the horizon, taking all the kingdom’s daylight with it. Alas, Lady Brona is left in the dark with nothing to occupy her troubled mind, nothing to fill the silence but the frog song and rustle of reeds among the wind. It is pleasant music, though not so intoxicating as to divert her thoughts from Sebastian, her lover, who lies three-days dead in her bed.


Oh, Sebastian! Must you succumb to your mortal end? Why yield to the plague, which is nothing next to the power of our love? How, dear Sebastian, have you let death take away what we had, setting aside our enormous passion for the irksome rigors of a tiny pathogen? Sweet Sebastian! Take it back. Take back your life and be done with your demise, this premature departure that has threatened to end our lively bond.


Threatened to end --yes-- but not yet ended. Not while Lady Brona lives and breathes. Not while Sebastian’s earthly remains occupy her lavish bed. With nothing else to do, no maids or castle-staff alive to serve her, to console her, to fill the void of nothing that has fallen over Lily-pad Castle, Lady Brona lies upon her bed beside her silent, still lover. His kisses have grown cold. His eyes, vacant. His lips... Well… They have fallen off, chewed by the maggots that reached them first. Sebastian has soiled the mattress with an undefined ooze, the black innards of his soul-departed husk. He is no longer the warm and avid lover that he was last week --certainly last month-- but he is there beside her to fill the arms of Lady Brona. She holds him dear, ignoring the maggots migrating up her wheat-colored hair.


Evening passes in long, treacherous hours of tears and horrific odors. Throughout the moon-lit night, frog song fills the chilled bedchamber. A lifetime later, the sun returns from its nightly jaunt to the other side of this unforgiving world, once again showering the kingdom in a glow of visibility, a touch of warmth.


Brona kisses her lover on his brow, which sticks to her lips. Rising from her bed, she peels away the strip of gray flesh to let fall among the stale rushes at her feet. She walks to the window and leans out into the morning light, combing her hair free of the occupants that have moved in overnight. They fall in clusters, a scattering of housefly progeny. They hit the stagnant water far beneath her, and the tadpoles break their fast.


Quack, quack, quack goes the duck; hideous music that drowns out the beautiful frog song. Cheep, cheep, cheep go the ducklings in a line from behind their mother. Their din is enough to spoil the morning. Their presence is enough to drive Brona mad. And look! Now they rob the frog spawn of their morning meal!


Enough is enough.


Lady Brona combs her hair with strokes of rage, sending eruptions of maggots and tufts of ale-hued hair to catch the wind and drift to the pond water below. She bids her lover a brief adieu, curtsying, smiling, before allowing her righteous anger to transform her features after leaving her bedroom to race down to the pond outside. She steps over the dead guards at the base of the stairwell, dragging a prone sentry away from the iron-studded, hardwood door. Leaning into its heavy frame, she pushes with all of her dwindling strength so that she might open it outwards to the castle yard beyond.


The open air is blessedly fresh, filling Brona’s lungs with a tonic for her ailing lungs. She does not rest to savor the outside world, its purifying gifts, but rushes to the edge of the pond water at the base of the highest turret. She wades in the shallows up to her knees, gathering the baby ducks and, one by one, wrings their necks. The mother mallard quack, quack, quacks and then she too succumbs to strangulation.


Delighted, enthralled, invigorated --Lady Brona collapses into the cattails and water lilies, lying on her back and watching the sky, listening to the frog song that fills her empty world.


*


Night after night, Lady Brona lies with her lover, Lord Sebastian. Undeterred by the plague, the sun comes every morning. Unfailingly cheery, always bright, he carries on, despite the hardship that has devastated the kingdom. In his blessed warmth, his lovely light, Brona visits the pond and combs the maggots from her hair. Among the shallows, she divvies out the plump bodies to the tadpoles who come to feast, shunning the ducks, the fish, the turtles and water snakes.


The tadpoles grow over time, enlarging, sprouting limbs. With daily, protein-rich breakfasts served to them by Lady Brona, they metamorphose into froglets, and later, full-bodied frogs. Each night, in thanks for the food that Brona has brought to them, in gratitude for her efforts to escort them into adulthood, the frogs sing out in uproarious, amphibious anthem.


Lady Brona sleeps in the skeletal embrace of Lord Sebastian, and the night is blessed with wondrous frog song. Croak, croak, croak. How the frogs sing! Their’s is no somber death dirge, but a reverie to be delighted.


Throughout the passing weeks, with repetitive listening to their glorious, frog-throated music, Lady Brona deciphers meaning in their lyrics. It is simple: they are calling to her. More than that, they call to her in the voice of her fallen love. Amid the night, clear as day, Lady Brona hears Lord Sebastian beseeching her to join him in the eternal rapture of the pond.


Oh, Sebastian! Is it truly you?


Croak, croak, croak. Yes, my lovely Brona. It is I, none other, your beloved  Sebastian.


And there it is --the truth!-- delivered as plainly as any army of frogs might herald good news. It is beyond any doubt… Sebastian lies within the heart of the pond.


Brona reasons it out. It makes perfect sense. The tadpoles have been fed with the maggots, which, in turn, have eaten her lover’s decaying body. In essence, the tadpoles had consumed Lord Sebastian, his remains packed into lunch-sized parcels that were delivered to the ravenous pond-dwellers. Through the calories and proteins of his decay, the tadpoles have become frogs. They have become Sebastian --all of them as one! The pond holds Sebastian's soul!


The rest is easy. The plan is straightforward. And the timing is perfect, what with no more maggots digesting Sebastian’s festering corpse, his flesh all but stripped clean from his bones. Lady Brona leans out from the window of the highest turret of Lily-pad Castle. She looks below to the fresh brood of tadpoles awaiting their meal. She knows that after her death her body will teem with a fresh crop of maggots, that they will devour her earthly husk just as they had Sebastian’s. She knows, too, that the tadpoles will feast on the fat larvae that will bore through her rotting innards, and that these tadpoles, metamorphosing into frogs on the rich fuel that she has provided, will become the amphibious hosts to house her eternal soul.


Shielding her eyes from the cheerful sun with her blackened, nailless fingers, Lady Brona leans farther out of the window, falling to the pond below. As gravity takes her, she smiles, knowing that soon she will be singing, filling the night with glorious frog song.

AUTHOR BIO

James Callan is the author of the novels Anthophile (Alien Buddha Press, 2024) and A Transcendental Habit (Queer Space, 2023). His fiction has appeared in Bridge Eight, BULL, House of Arcanum, Mystery Tribune, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. He lives on the Kāpiti Coast, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Find him at jamescallanauthor.com

JUDGE'S REMARKS

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FLASH FICTION JUDGE

Amy Debellis 

Amy DeBellis is a multi-genre writer and the author of the novel All Our Tomorrows (CLASH Books, 2025).

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