Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

Cece, a Mi’kmaw woman, wakes in the middle of her first night in her new house to a woman’s voice singing a lullaby. She goes into the hall and, finding a small doll made of sticks and strings, screams and runs down the stairs. Cece hoped this house would be a fresh start after a difficult year: She lost a pregnancy and then broke up with her partner. Now, Cece speaks to the house, saying she means no harm and wondering about the doll’s presence.

When she was a child, Cece loved dolls. She remembers her grandmother teaching her the Mi’kmaw word for doll: apsute’gan. Cece believes a child made the stick-doll and left it. She manages to fall asleep but once again wakes in fear to the lingering sound of a voice singing. Cece gets out of bed but, with no car and nowhere to go, Cece goes back upstairs to her room. In her room, a woman with empty eye sockets confronts Cece, shrieking that this is her house. The door to her room locks and Cece is trapped, the walls becoming pulsing flesh. Cece begs to leave and then passes out.

Cece wakes to find a dollhouse replica of the house in her room. With her are the woman and a girl. The girl tells Cece that Cece will become her “little Indian doll” as punishment for not leaving (155). Cece feels her body stiffen as she becomes a porcelain doll, her skin darkening, adapting to the spirits’ perception of her. For a brief moment, Cece reflects that it might be nice to live in the dollhouse. Suddenly, she hears her grandmother’s voice calling her “tu’s” (daughter), and fear courses through Cece. She throws herself onto the dollhouse, shattering both the house and her porcelain body as the woman and girl scream. Cece wakes up in the morning, finally feeling at home.

Colin, a 10-year-old Ute boy, sits up late into the night, excited to hunt with his father in the morning. It is winter, and the wind is fierce. When the back door creaks, Colin investigates and hears a whistle outside the window. He whistles back and flashes the backyard light on and off quickly, thinking he sees a figure with red eyes.

Colin and his father arrive at the woods early the next day and prepare to find Sergeant Rock, a large elk that continuously eludes them. It is still dark, and when Colin hears a whistle, he whistles back. However, Colin’s father covers Colin’s mouth and shines his flashlight around when another whistle sounds. They see a figure walking through the forest, its eyes red. Colin’s father grabs him and they run, hiding beneath trees.

Colin falls asleep and wakes with a mouth full of blood. He pulls out two molars and notices that the nails on his left hand are gone. Colin hides the teeth in his pocket, and he and his father continue their hunt. They find Sergeant Rock, and Colin’s father lets him take the shot while he downs a different deer. Colin hits Sergeant Rock but the elk does not drop: It looks at Colin, eyes red, and flees. Colin and his father chase it only to find what looks like an organ waiting for them in a clearing. The organ squirms, levitates, and explodes, spewing bugs all over. Colin flies back, hits his head, and loses consciousness.

When Colin wakes up, they go back to the deer Colin’s father killed and find it mutilated. Colin vomits at the sight and finds two teeth in his vomit. Without thinking, he puts them back in his mouth. Suddenly, Colin is captive in his own body, looking out of his eyes as if he were a spectator. The mutilated elk begins kicking, and whatever now possesses Colin calmly walks over and kills it. Colin speaks to his father, but the words are not his. On the ride home, Colin’s father suspects something is wrong. When he tells Colin that they are going to his uncle, Chaytan’s, place for “some good medicine for an ailment [they’ve] suffered before” (172), Colin feels relief. However, as Colin smiles inwardly, he loses his eyesight and hears a voice say, “Your body is mine now, and this time, your family won’t be able to kill me” (174).

Joseph sits in the courtroom and watches his mother as the foreman announces that the jury cannot decide whether Joseph is guilty of killing his brother. 

As a child, Joseph was sent to live with his father, aware that his mother favored his younger brother, from whom he was now separated. Afterward, Joseph came home to Tennessee and tried to connect with his brother. Joseph’s mother gave him work at her convenience store and rented him the room next to it.

One night, after closing the store, Joseph found a box of puppies freezing outside, so he went back into the store for dog food and milk. He forgot to lock the door, and two men walked in after him, knocking him out and robbing the store. Joseph woke up with a horrible headache. He cleaned up the mess, grabbed more supplies, and brought the puppies home. He then returned to the store and called his mother. Joseph turned out to have sustained a severe concussion, a fact later used in court to explain his actions. 

On the night of the robbery, Joseph’s mother came to the store with his nephew and waited while Joseph answered the police officers’ questions. After they left, Joseph’s mother hugged him, and he felt the love he never did as a child—until she asked whether he had committed the robbery. Offended, Joseph pushed her down and ran out of the store.

Granny Bess, the grandmother who raised Joseph, once used an alarm clock wrapped in a blanket to calm orphaned kittens; she said it simulated their mother’s heartbeat. Recalling this, Joseph was therefore fetching a clock from his room to use for the puppies when someone knocked at his door. Nervous, Joseph grabbed a bat only to find his brother at the door. Joseph’s brother berated him for shoving their mother, and when he saw that Joseph was not listening, he pushed him. Joseph fell and hit his head again. Before he could think, Joseph jumped up and swung the bat into his brother’s head. He knew immediately his brother was dead and brought him to the bed, where he put the ticking clock, wrapped in a blanket, on his brother’s chest and curled up beside him.