The clasps that held the lid in place made a shrill peeping noise as Dylan peeled them back. He asked for his brother’s assistance in lifting off the lid.

One glimpse of what the box contained caused Will to lose his grip. The lid crashed against the dining table, knocking over one of the high-backed chairs in its descent. Dylan brought a hand to his mouth.

The infant corpse was hideously well preserved. Its flesh, which looked as though it had been doused in powdered azure, still sat plump upon the bones. Its eyes were shut but its mouth was mangled wide, its final mewl trapped silently in time. Naked as the day it was born—if born it had been—the babe’s body glistened under the electric chandelier’s clinical light. Will, who was unable to bring himself to study the thing closely, assumed this sheen was creek water, but he made no effort to confirm this.

The creature’s head was horrible. Will was unsure whether it was supposed to be a canine or a swine. Either way it was misshapen, like a hammer-forged sculpture by an unskilled artist. It also looked like it had been skinned. Its anatomy was terribly apparent.

“Look,” urged Dylan, “come see. This figure. It’s just so…”

“Gruesome?” offered Will.

“…so real…”

He was touching it now, his fingers passing in a reverential pattern over arms, belly, and tortured face. “Feels like it’s made of wax.”

This process ended with a hiss. Will looked at his brother, whose fingers were welling up with blood.

“Its eyes are filled with pins.”

Will’s brow furrowed. He leaned into the coffin. His brother’s blood droplets sat as miniscule gems upon the infant’s livid brow, shimmering like beads of a sanguine rosary. Dylan was correct; what had been inlaid into the waxen eyelids were not lashes but rows of keen pins. The tongue appeared to be some form of curved blade. Will was also able to see the strange studded rows that lined the baby’s wrists, shoulders, waist. They were nails; rugged and angular, the kind an old-world blacksmith might have wrought with hammer and flame. Some of the nails had been welded to the coffin itself. These held the figure in place, bound it. (Though he hadn’t meant to, Will accidentally observed that the infant was sexless.)

“There’s salt in its mouth,” Will added.

Radiating from the casket’s interior was the stench of musty vegetation, the decay one smells just before winter buries autumn’s rot. Shielding his nose, Will stared down at the collection of waterlogged roots, leaves and petals that clung to the bottom of the box. This strange potpourri had formed a bed for the idol of crib death. The underside of several iron bands also bore the same mad engravings as the cross on the lid.

“We should call someone,” suggested Will.