Winter Made Flesh- Sample

Chapter 1

The mist on Samhain night wasn’t like other mist. It clung, cold and granular, tasting of iron and forgotten things. Bronwen pulled her wool coat tighter, the cheerful yellow of her scarf a futile protest against the deepening grey. Rhiannon, a splash of violet in her puffer jacket, crunched through the frosted bracken ahead.

“I swear it was just here,” Rhiannon called over her shoulder, her breath a plume. “Old Man Evans said he saw it while checking his fences. A perfect skull, he said. Would look brilliant over the bakery door for the wassailing.”

“Stealing from a field for decor,” Bronwen said, a smile in her voice. “Very pagan of you, Rhian.”

“It’s not stealing if the horse is two hundred years dead. It’s archaeology.”

They pushed through a final curtain of skeletal hawthorn, and there it was. Not in a field, but in a small, silent clearing where the mist seemed to coil deliberately around the base of a lightning-split oak. The horse skull lay half-buried in the damp black earth, not scattered, but placed. The bone was a pure, spectral white, picked clean by time and elements, the hollow eye sockets staring at the leaden sky. The first snowflakes of the season began to drift down, landing on the ancient arch of its nasal bone and melting.

“Creepy,” Rhiannon whispered, her usual bounce subdued. “Feels like we’re being watched.”

“It’s Samhain,” Bronwen replied, her own lightness forced. “Everything’s watching.” Yet she felt a pull, a curious magnetism that drew her forward. Her boots sank into the soft earth as she knelt. The silence here was thick, absorbing even the distant, haunting pipe melody that had followed them from the village edge.

“Don’t touch it, you nutter,” Rhiannon hissed.
But Bronwen already was. Her fingers, cold and flecked with soil from her pottery studio, brushed the smooth dome of the skull.

A jolt, like static but deep in the marrow of her bones, raced up her arm. The world didn’t spin, but it hushed. The distant pipe song cut off. The sigh of the wind died. In that absolute silence, a visceral cramp seized her stomach, a hollow, yawning ache that was less about emptiness and more about… expectation. A demand. It was so sharp she gasped, snatching her hand back.

“Bron? You okay? You’ve gone white as the bone.”
Bronwen stood, rubbing her palm on her coat. The normal sounds of the twilight woods rushed back in. “Fine. Just cold.” But the ache in her belly remained, a low, insistent thrum. She looked at the skull with new wariness. “Leave it, Rhian. It doesn’t want to be a bakery ornament.”

Rhiannon looked from her friend’s pale face to the skull and nodded, suddenly decisive. “Yeah. You’re right. Let’s go home. I’ve got a basket of soul cakes waiting, and they’re best warm.”

The walk back was quieter. Bronwen fought the urge to look over her shoulder, the sensation of being watched now a physical pressure between her shoulder blades. The hunger, though, was worse. It was a living thing, coiling and pressing against her ribs. It wasn’t for a meal; it was for a feast.

The warmth of Bronwen’s cottage, with its smell of clay and woodsmoke, did nothing to dispel the chill in her core. Rhiannon bustled about, putting the kettle on and unpacking her basket. The soul cakes were small, round, spiced with nutmeg and dotted with currants, their tops cross-hatched with a knife.

“Here, eat. You’re shivering.” Rhiannon pushed a plate towards her at the kitchen table.

Bronwen took one. It was good—sweet, dense, fragrant. She finished it in three bites. The hollow ache pulsed, unabated. She reached for another.

And another.

Rhiannon’s cheerful chatter about village gossip slowed as she watched. Bronwen wasn’t eating; she was consuming. There was a single-minded intensity to it, a rhythm that had nothing to do with pleasure. Crumbs dusted the table, her lap, the front of her dress.

“Bloody hell, Bron,” Rhiannon said, a laugh tinged with concern. “I know they’re good, but save some for the spirits.” She nudged the basket closer anyway.

Bronwen didn’t answer. A strange, humming warmth had begun to spread through her veins, starting from her full, tight stomach and radiating outward. It felt like mulled wine and deep contentment, at odds with the frantic way her hands moved. The whispers started then, not in her ears, but in the back of her mind: a susurrus of winter wind through bare branches, the crunch of snow underfoot, the distant, joyous clamour of a song. Mari Lwyd… The name rose from the whisper, not understood, but felt.

The basket was empty. Twelve cakes. Bronwen stared at the crumbs, her breath coming slow. Her stomach was a hard, pronounced dome under the fabric of her linen dress. She felt profoundly, impossibly full, and yet the hum in her blood whispered of more. Of endless, sustaining bounty.

“Well,” Rhiannon said, clearing her throat. “I suppose that’s a compliment to the baker.” She got up, fetching a cloth. “You’ve got a bit of a food baby going on there. Cute.”

Bronwen pushed back from the table, the movement awkward. Her body felt different. Heavier. The dress, which had fit loosely that morning, pulled across her hips and strained at the seams under her arms. It wasn’t just bloat. The curves were solid, new weight settled on her frame.

Panic, cold and clean, cut through the warm haze. She stumbled to the small hall mirror.

The woman looking back had her dark hair, her green eyes, her freckles. But her face was rounder, her cheeks filled out with a soft, ripe plumpness. Her shoulders had lost their sharp angles, flowing into fuller upper arms. And her body… her silhouette was utterly changed. The slender frame was gone, replaced by a lush, generous figure. The dress was now indecently tight, the buttons over her bust threatening to pop. Where her waist had been, a smooth, rolling curve flowed from her ribs to her newly expansive hips.

“What…” Bronwen’s voice was a rasp. She turned, seeing the way the fabric stretched across her back, the way her thighs now pressed together.

Rhiannon appeared behind her in the reflection, eyes wide. “Whoa. Okay. That’s… fast. You allergic to nutmeg or something? This is some next-level inflammation.”

“It’s not an allergy,” Bronwen whispered. She could feel the weight of it, the solid, real presence of it. And beneath the shock, beneath the rising tide of fear, the hum persisted. A song of winter fullness. A promise of growth.
She pressed her hands to her stomach, to the soft, firm swell of it. The memory of the skull’s bone against her fingertips was as clear as the ache it had planted inside her. This was just the beginning. The first verse of a long, demanding carol.

Rhiannon placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, her expression shifting from bafflement to determined practicality. “Right. Okay. New plan. No more soul cakes. Tomorrow, we’ll go to the doctor. Or a priest. Or both.”

She tried for a smile. “In the meantime, I’ve got more baking at home. Scones. You’re going to need… bigger clothes.”

Bronwen barely heard her. She was listening to the whispers, to the deep, resonant hunger that was already, unbelievably, stirring again inside her newfound flesh.

The feast had only just begun.

Bronwen stared at her reflection, the hum in her blood a counter-rhythm to her pounding heart. “Did you just say… scones?”

As if in answer, her stomach issued a sound. It wasn’t a gentle gurgle of digestion. It was a deep, long, rolling rumble that seemed to originate from the very core of her new weight. A guttural, empty growl that vibrated through her frame, utterly at odds with the painful tightness she felt beneath her ribs.

The hunger was back. Not as an idea, but as a compulsion. It rose through the panic, a thick, urgent wave that washed everything else away—the fear, the confusion, the questions. There was only the need.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Rhiannon breathed, hearing the sound. “Bron, you’ll pop.”

Bronwen was already turning from the mirror, her movements driven by something older than thought. She walked back to the kitchen table, her new hips brushing the doorframe with a soft, solid sound. She sat, her stomach pressing firmly against the table’s edge. Her hands, which had felt so clever and precise at her pottery wheel just hours ago, now looked like plump, grasping things as they reached for the empty basket.

“There’s nothing left here,” she said, her voice distant. “You said you had more. At home.”

“I was joking! Mostly. Bronwen, look at you. This isn’t right.”

“I need to eat, Rhian.” The statement was flat, absolute. Her green eyes had lost their familiar spark of wit; they were dark, focused pools. The whispers were louder now, a rising chorus of winter appetite. Feed the form. Sustain the song.

Rhiannon hesitated, a war playing out on her face. Concern, fear, and a bizarre, burgeoning sense of responsibility. Her friend was changing in front of her, possessed by some Samhain madness. But she was also, undeniably, hungry. And Rhiannon was a baker. Feeding people was her language of care.

“Right. Okay. Stay here. Don’t… move. Or burst. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Rhiannon fled into the night. Bronwen sat in the quiet cottage, her hands spread over the taut shelf of her belly. She could feel her own heartbeat in it. The hunger was a gnawing cavity, a black hole centered in her fullness, demanding to be filled. She closed her eyes and saw the bleached skull in the mist.

The door banged open sooner than expected. Rhiannon staggered in, her arms laden with a cardboard box. The smell hit Bronwen first: butter, flour, sugar. It was the most profound scent she had ever encountered. She salivated instantly.

“I brought the scones,” Rhiannon said, dumping the box on the table. “Cherry and almond. Also a leftover loaf of bara brith. And some sausage rolls from the fridge. Because this is clearly a protein-and-carb emergency.”

Bronwen didn’t wait. Her fingers closed around a scone. It was still slightly warm from Rhiannon’s oven. She didn’t bother with a plate or butter. She took a huge bite.

Crumbs cascaded down the swell of her bust, catching in the fabric of her straining dress. A low, involuntary moan escaped her. It was good. It was more than good. It was necessary. It was right.

She finished the first scone in four massive bites and reached for another.

“Slow down!” Rhiannon cried, but she was already pulling up a chair, watching with a kind of horrified fascination. She broke off a piece of the bara brith and handed it over. “Here, try this. It’s damper. Less crumbs.”

Bronwen accepted it without a word, her chewing methodical, relentless. The food was not tasting so much as it was being absorbed. The humming in her veins crescendoed, a symphony of satisfaction with every swallow. She could feel it happening—the subtle, immediate expansion. A new tightness in her shoulders as they softened further. A heavier drag on her arms. The table edge dug into a belly that was, without question, growing thicker and rounder by the minute.

Rhiannon kept feeding her. A sausage roll, torn in half. Another scone. A thick slice of bread slathered with cold butter. It became a pattern. A silent, compulsive communion.

“Your dress,” Rhiannon whispered, pausing with a piece of bara brith halfway to Bronwen’s mouth.

Bronwen looked down. The simple linen dress, her favourite, was a prisoner of war. The seams at her sides were visibly straining, tiny threads popping. The buttons over her stomach were so taut the buttonholes were distorted into thin slits. The fabric across her broadened back was stretched sheer. With every breath, every shift of her now-substantial bulk in the chair, it creaked in protest.

She didn’t care. She took the offered bread and ate it. The hunger was a sharp, sweet pain now, a demanding rhythm in time with her chewing.

Finally, after the last crumb of the last scone was gone, after the box was empty, Bronwen stopped. Her hands fell to her sides, heavy as lead weights. She was so full it was an agony. A breathtaking, monumental fullness that pressed up into her lungs, making each breath shallow, and down against the confines of her pelvis. She was a vessel filled to the absolute brim. She couldn’t move. She could only sit, anchored to the chair by her own immense, impossible body.

A single, fat tear rolled down her rounded cheek and splashed onto the vast, trembling curve of her stomach.

“I think,” Bronwen gasped, her voice thin and strained, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Don’t you dare,” Rhiannon said, her own eyes wide. “I did not just feed you a week’s worth of baking for you to waste it.” She reached out a trembling hand and very gently laid her palm on the dome of Bronwen’s belly. It was hard as a drum, hot through the thin, distressed linen. It gave a slow, seismic roll beneath her touch—a final, settling shift of the colossal feast within.

They sat there in the silent kitchen, the only sound Bronwen’s laboured, shallow breathing. The transformation was no longer subtle. She was immense, soft and solid, spilling out of the chair. The old Bronwen was buried deep within this new, overwhelming form.

And beneath the pain of the fullness, beneath the terror, the winter hum sang a lullaby of profound, contented stillness. For now, it was satiated.

But the night was as long as winter would be. And the Mari Lwyd’ feast, Bronwen knew with a cold, certain dread, it was never just one meal.