The Bone Talker

Grandmother Bones has wound down like a clock. Gone are the tick and tock of her youth. Gone are the days when she laughed with family and friends. Now she creaks when she hobbles, and she spends her time talking to her tired old bones as if they were her children. Not even her husband can wind her up again.
The people in Grandmother Bones’s village stop by often to check on her. They bring her rich berry pies to tickle her tongue. They make merry music to wake her sleeping feet. They carry stones like jewels to set in her windows and catch the afternoon sun. But always she is the same – no tick or tock. Grandmother Bones seems lost to everyone. What more can her husband and the villagers do?