A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales

Foreword

by Alex Woodroe

I want to talk to you about the concept of allowing yourself to be transported.

There's a skill to delivering yourself into the arms of a story; a sort of active participation that goes far beyond what the story could single-handedly do to you. Yes, it has to pull its weight—moods, plot twists, sights and sounds—but there is also an element of basic empathy that we, as readers, bring to the table. A door that we leave open to the most vulnerable parts of us.

There are two ways in which this book, in particular, comes knocking on that door. One is with the immediate body of the stories; their windswept mountaintops and creaky asylums, their deadly secrets and haunted corners. If you open the door, they'll seduce you with dark histories and the promise of a romantic kind of horror where you're a treasured guest, rather than a hapless casualty.

The second, equally important one, is with the soul of these stories. In a world where women are losing hard-earned rights they never should have had to earn in the first place, and being erased from the history of literature they founded, and continue to be treated as second-rate beings and citizens, an anthology of stories by women can't help but be rooted in our grief and anger and hope for a better future.

What we wanted most of all was to give these women space to tell a story. We wanted to pull back and ask them what they have to say, and truly listen to the answer. This anthology is the result of that desire.

It can fold you into the cozy and familiar world of Gothic Horror, and into the also unfortunately familiar world of voices who wanted their turn to speak—some of them, for the very first time.

If only you allow yourself to be transported.

Introduction

by Stephanie Ellis

What is it about the gothic tradition that sees it continue to flourish as a genre in the 24/7 internet world? Why do stories of secrets and lies, ghosts and gloom and ancient buildings snag us from the very first page? The answer, I believe, lies in my question. Today, our lives are increasingly laid bare, we are—theoretically—visible in a manner never before experienced. Even if you avoid the lethal tug of the web and the entrapment of social media, you are monitored in other ways. CCTV records your movements on the road, in the street, in the shop. You can’t travel very far without your image being captured in one form or another. And then there’s the trail of electronic payments, of mobile messages and GPS. Where is there left to hide?

When all is jaded, when all is shown and told, there is nothing left to an imagination which grows hungry for exercise, demands the obscure and the hidden, the ghosts and the places unknown. This is the gothic and it is into this realm the anthology invites you. In the preceding foreword, reference was made to this being a collection created from the pens of women writers. In my discussion here, I will stick to this aspect, for it is one of the few genres—in my opinion—where a female author is seen as equal to their male counterpart. From the start, women came to the fore, delighting in the genre as both writers and readers, all recognizing this desire to stretch the imagination, to play in the shadowlands and at the same time evoke the thrill—and chill—of darkness.

Ann Radcliffe, author of work such as The Mysteries of Udolpho (published by G. G. and J. Robinson of London, 1794), speaks to this need to be intrigued, for ‘glimpses through obscuring shades…which excite the imagination to complete the rest’ (‘On the Supernatural in Poetry’, Vol.16, New Monthly Magazine, 1826). Even earlier, Anna Laetitia Aikin, author, editor and poet, asked what was the appeal in reading ‘well-wrought scenes of artificial terror’, and declared those words formed by ‘a sublime and magnificent imagination’ delivered the ‘excitement of surprise’. Indeed, ‘the more wild, fanciful and extraordinary are the circumstances of a scene of horror, the more pleasure we receive from it’, (On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror, with Sir Bertrand, a Fragment, Anna Laetitia Aikin, 1773). Nor can the gothic be discussed without reference to Mary Shelley, when writing about how she came to create Frankenstein, declared that she sought a tale ‘that would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood and quicken the beating of the heart’. (The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume 1).

The stories within these pages speak to this tradition and to its pioneers and reasserts the position, indeed the primacy, of the female—in its all-encompassing definition—as arbiters of excellence in the genre. The torch has been passed to a new generation and they all burn so very brightly.

Lyndsey King Miller’s ‘Penance’ is full of unbearable pain, a building manifestation of self-punishment triggered by the keeping of secrets which blind us to the truth and only cause harm. Hurt and suffering leach from the page as the maelstrom whirls and draws you into its vortex.

Jen Meirisch’s ‘The Painted Man’ delights in changing reality, step by step, bringing in hints of murder and betrayal. An ancient house, a beautiful and enigmatic owner, a painting, a mystery. All perfect ingredients for a puzzle demanding to be solved. But at what price?

Miriam H. Harrison’s ‘She Drips’ is a piece of flash which turns a haunting on its head, takes fear and sends it packing. Imbued with atmosphere and utilizing the senses it draws you in to discover the truth of the ghost. There is a wonderful ambiguity in the ending, not in terms of how it ends, but its effect on you as the reader in what your response should be.

Kasimma’s ‘Slave of the Dead’ delivers the gothic via a different cultural setting, showing you don’t need a draughty manor or windswept moor to tell a gothic tale. A family curse spinning down the generations continues until its cause is discovered. Little touches of humor dance alongside the presentation of the woman as a possession, the ultimate reflection of this being in the horrifying way in which the ghost is appeased. A conspiracy of poverty, secrets and ghosts.

Mary Rajotte’s ‘What the Dead Whisper to the Living’ is truly a tale of the hidden. A hidden room, hidden secrets, hidden voices. In a world of shadow, father and daughter seek to be reconciled. Tragic but oh, so delightful.

Catherine McCarthy’s ‘Mercy’ reads like a classic gothic of the 19th century. In fact, you could imagine it being published alongside a Dickens tale in the monthly magazines popular at the time and read to the family sat in the parlour by a roaring fire, the children wide-eyed as the tale is told. Here is a story of the power over life and death and the consequences of its use.

Patricia Miller’s ‘Picture Perfect’ is another short tale set in a mysterious house with a mysterious owner. Family truth is painted on canvas but so much remains in the shadow adding a chilling ambiguity to the phrase ‘blood will out’.

Jessica Lévai’s ‘Down with the Holly, Ivy, All’ is a perfect offering of inheritance, greed, and ancient superstitions set in an old country manor. A traditional gothic setting, it invites in the supernatural which adds to the enjoyment of this particular story. To believe or not to believe? That is always the question.

Emily J. Cohen’s ‘The Lake in the Water’ is a heartbreaker, a story of loss and coming to terms with it. Blame, self-recrimination, guilt, all conspire against a wintry backdrop to chill the reader as the tale unfolds. Then when all is done, reality is challenged by a ghostly touch to deliver that little thrill of the imagination, the whisper in the ear.

Kathleen Palm’s ‘The Door to Other Places’ is pure darkness. Loneliness and isolation are painted so vividly, you almost weep at the shadow world of demons and madness which tumbles off the page to create an unbearable existence.

Evelyn Maguire’s epistolary tale, ‘Hello my Name is Goya Wyeth’, brings a mystery of delightful ambiguity. An old woman is haunted by her past, or is it the ghost of something more? There is a calmness in the telling which juxtaposes so effectively with what might-or-might-not have happened which leaves you wondering the whole time as the truth is teased out, drop by drop.

Cindy O’Quinn’s ‘Like-Minded’ is set in that most gothic of places, the asylum. The telling is a classic piece of misdirection delivered by an unreliable narrator who questions her place in the world and where she belongs. The ending delivers the perfect twist.

April Yates’ ‘A Kindness of Ravens’ is a terrific tale, with its raven and an unhappy marriage, betrayal and isolation and the revenge which comes. A clever mix of the supernatural, almost dreamlike, element of the raven with a stark and logical reality. The story ticks every box of a gothic chiller.

Erica Ruppert’s ‘Something After’ is the story of revisiting the past and returning ghosts. Throughout, however, is the ambiguity of the haunting, the never quite sure, until subtle little touches convey the truth.

Alexis Dubon’s ‘An Endless Kind of Nothing’ takes you on a looping journey. Dreamlike to start with, it becomes more tangible, until the ending reveals the nature of the ghost in a truly horrifying manner. There is so much to stretch the imagination in this story!

Mo Moshaty’s ‘Henry’ is a short flash of murder and possession and darkness. What is regarded as the truth by the locals turns out to be anything but. Secrets are yielded in the most brutal of ways.

Helen Glynn Jones’ ‘A Scent of Cloves’ is a haunting by the sea and is a story told in the tradition of Ann Radcliffe’s writing method in terms of its ending. If I say anything more, it will spoil the tale which is a truly clever web of suspicion and lies.

Anna Fitzgerald Healy’s ‘The Half-Moon Casita’ has got to be a gothic for our times. The isolated setting, the silence of the surroundings, all chosen for the purposes of Instagram. It provides an analysis of self and relationships and the silence between people which is brought to a head by a ghostly presence.

Victoria Nations’ ‘Scabrous’ is a tale of dread, of waiting for something to happen in a place which trapped so many innocents. Will another be added to the midst? The suspense builds at the thought of what might happen, what the ghosts want to happen. Tension oozes out of these dark corners.

Deana Lisenby’s ‘Arbor Hills’ is just beautiful. The setting of the residential home, the reactions of staff and residents combine to keep the uncertainty of the truth flowing throughout its telling. Who is haunting who here?

Jolie Toomajan’s ‘Old Lady Name’ brings not just a haunting, but obsession and possession into the mix. An old friendship is revived but its survival depends on acceptance of a more supernatural kind.

Briana McGuckin’s ‘Speak Ill of the Dead’ offers us ghosts and their voice, or at least their actions, from beyond. There is a difference in this story to others in that the ghosts are accepted, their existence not questioned, and above all else, they are kept firmly in their place. Yet it deserves its place in the gothic, the almost hallowed air of the autopsy room is a chilling setting, secrets are present, written in the bodies and their manner of death.

Nor does the volume finish here. At the end is the ‘extra’ story, the lagniappe, S.H. Cooper’s ‘The Sweetlings’. Life sometimes feels beyond our control but to have our future taken out of our hands and dictated by something else, something not human is horrifying.

So there you have it, a volume of tales to ‘curdle the blood and quicken the beating heart’, a volume to revisit again and again on a dark winter’s night when the shadows reach out and the candle flickers. The gothic tradition is thriving in the safe hands of these excellent writers.

Penance

by Lindsay King-Miller

You open the door before the psychic knocks. Her curled fist hangs awkwardly in the air for a moment. It’s not the shock of being preempted; it’s the sight of you that leaves her motionless. You’re wearing nothing but a sports bra and sweatpants you’ve clearly had on for no less than 48 hours, and your hair is a mess, but all of that is secondary to the absolute exhaustion in your eyes, so deep it hurts to look at.

Hi, she says after a moment, smoothing the surprise from her face. I’m Thelma. I assume you’re Robbie.

You must be psychic, you say.

She’s polite enough to ignore this. You stand back so she can come through the door, and she ignores this, too, your care not to speak words of invitation aloud. Not that it matters. What torments you is already inside the house.

Thelma comes to a stop just inside your foyer, turning slowly, taking in the house. You haven’t bothered to tidy. You don’t much anyway, but today especially you don’t want to hide the evidence; you want her to see the full extent of what you’re dealing with. You want her to understand how bad it’s gotten.

The index finger on Thelma’s right hand ticks while she looks around, as though she’s counting the phenomena she observes. One: end table overturned. Two: kitchen cupboards yawning open, glasses and plates smashed on the floor. Three: painting hanging askew, glass gone supernova as if from a fist. Four: smear of blood on the wallpaper, eye level.

Yours? Thelma asks, gesturing to the blood.

You shake your head. It was there when I woke up, uh, yesterday morning. In fact, you discovered the blood three days ago; your sense of time has gone vague over the last few weeks. It’s unclear whether Thelma notices.

Is this the worst of it? Are the occurrences localized in this area?

No, you say. No, definitely not. You lead Thelma deeper into the house—deeper into the damage. She steps carefully, avoiding broken pottery and glass. You don’t. You walk in straight lines, despite your bare feet. Some people might mistake this for bravery, but Thelma does not.

Every mirror is broken. Every book and figurine is knocked to the floor. Every photograph is facedown. The bed is stripped of sheets and a deep red stain mars the center of the mattress, so dark it almost looks like a hole, a tunnel to somewhere even worse.

Is this where… Thelma asks.

No, you say. She waits for you to elaborate, but you don’t. (Though can’t might be the more accurate word.) Thelma sits down on the edge of the bed, far away from the bloodstain, and gestures for you to join her.

Do you want to tell me how it happened? she says.

Instead of sitting, you pace across the room to the dresser. One of its drawers has been yanked out and dumped on the carpet, leaving a dark space like a mouth with a missing tooth. You put your hand on top of the dresser to steady yourself.

Thelma looks at you carefully. Now that you’re standing still, she has an opportunity to study your aura, the haze of energy that startled her when you first answered the door. You’re crackling with psychic power, flashing red and gold sparks in a field of bruise-blue grief. It would be naked-eye obvious to anyone who knows you, but Thelma doesn’t need to recognize your tells to understand that you’re in deep, heavy pain. On a better day—in a better life—you might be successful in her line of work; your raw metaphysical energy is astonishing. But now…

You’re like an amplifier, she thinks, blaring a feedback loop of rage and grief. The noise is so distorted, it’s impossible to make out who’s screaming.

You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, she says. But the more I know, the more I’ll be able to help.

You nod. Take a deep, shivery breath.

Gently, Thelma prods: Did she die here?

It startles a laugh from you, a sound that falls from your lips like a dropped teacup and shatters. You stand very still, afraid to cut yourself on the fragments.

No, you say. No, my mother never set foot in this house at all. Not while she was alive.

Do you want to tell me why not?

The usual reasons, you say with difficulty. I didn’t want her here. I didn’t want her to know how I lived.

Thelma’s voice gets even softer. Does someone else live here with you?

Not anymore, you say. She left… a while back. You hope Thelma thinks you’re being evasive, instead of realizing the truth, which is that you don’t know what day it is, or even, with any degree of confidence, what month. Mother-in-laws are bad enough when they’re not pissed-off ghosts. When Thelma laughs, you wince. You can hear her pity.

So your mother wasn’t accepting?

Of me being a dyke? You stick your thumbnail in your mouth, a nervous habit you’ve had since childhood—not actually biting, just holding it between your teeth. I don’t even think she knew. I never told her.

Thelma nods, although she doubts the accuracy of your assessment. Your hair is buzzed short on the sides, long and floppy on top. You have a forearm tattoo of a pinup girl on a motorcycle. Your given name is Arabella, but you go by Robbie. Your dead mother had many failings, but she was not entirely an idiot.

I moved out as soon as I could, you say. Went to college out of state. Never came home, not really. Barely even visited. I don’t know, I guess I thought… one day I’d find a way to tell her, even if she hated me for it. But I never got the courage, and now she’s dead.

And you think that’s the reason for the phenomena?

Yeah. You chew your thumbnail harder, still holding back from biting through it completely. She was big on gratitude. Duty. Stuff like that. She’s pissed at me for being queer, definitely, but mostly for abandoning her. Your face and voice don’t change when you add, I wasn’t even there when she died.

Thelma gives that a moment to settle, understanding that anything she says to comfort will only hurt you. Everything hurts you right now. You’re the emotional equivalent of a terrible sunburn, radiating agony and cringing from the slightest touch.

Finally, she says, Let’s try to make contact.

In the living room, you sit on the couch where you’ve slept for the last week, and Thelma drags up a kitchen chair to sit across from you. She holds her hands out, palms up, and after a second of hesitation, you place your hands in hers.

Thelma doesn’t flinch, like you worried she would, but you can’t miss the way her face goes still when skin touches skin. She saw it as soon as you opened the door, but seeing is different from feeling. The fear, the exhaustion, the loneliness and shame—everything you’ve been carrying all these weeks is visible in her deep brown eyes. You look away.

Okay, is all she says. What’s your mother’s name?

Magdalena Kovar.

She takes a long breath, closes her eyes, and seems to sink into herself. It’s like the actual substance of her soul retreats deep into her body, and all you’re holding hands with now is a shell.

Magdalena Kovar, she says, and her voice sounds like it’s echoing from the heart of a labyrinth. I’m here with your daughter Robbie—

Arabella, you interrupt, as though your own mother wouldn’t know you, no matter what you name yourself.

We want to speak with you, Thelma says. Can you hear us? If you’re there, please give us a sign.

The chair Thelma sits in slides six inches to the left, as though someone invisible has kicked it. Thelma sways in her seat but doesn’t fall or let go of your hands. Her eyes remain closed.

Magdalena, she says again. Am I speaking to Magdalena Kovar? Tap the chair once more—gently, please—if the answer is yes.

There’s a long pause. In the silence, you take a long, shaky breath in. Mom, you say. I…

The same invisible force slams into Thelma’s chair again, much harder this time. The psychic skids sideways, the chair tilting, balancing precariously on two legs for a long, dreadful moment. You tighten your grip on her hands, but it doesn’t matter; she’s wrenched from your grip and flung to the floor. Her head lands on the hardwood with a nauseating crack.

Cursing, you jump to your feet. Thelma lies stunned, tears pooling in her eyes.

Impossibly, the still, musty air inside the house moves. A wind springs out of nowhere. Thelma drags herself to a seated position. You should help her, but you’re too distracted.

Mom! Please! you shout into the rising noise of the wind. With nowhere to go, it roars in a circle, eddying hot and fierce. The hairs on your arms stand on end, and the smell of lightning stings your nose and tongue.

Robbie, we should leave, Thelma says, trying to keep her voice steady. This isn’t safe.

She’s here, you say. Talk to her. Tell her I’m sorry.

I don’t—

Tell her!

The wind scoops up a votive candle in a glass jar and flings it against the wall, where the glass shatters. Thelma screams. You don’t. You just dig your fingernails into your palms, white-knuckle grip on nothing. You’re so strong. You’ve had to be so strong.

Magdalena, your daughter loves you, Thelma shouts into the gale. She’s sorry. She asks for your forgiveness.

I love you, Robbie, I say, but I don’t have a mouth and I don’t have a voice and you can’t hear me over the sound of your own pain. I was never able to say it so you could understand. I still can’t.

The air thickens, as if with smoke, although nothing is burning. In the shadowy, swirling wind, a face begins to take shape: sinkhole eyes and a wound of a mouth. It’s the face of your nightmare-mother, conjured from your deepest fears and given shape by your own mind, the enormous power you wield without even realizing it. This power, not me, is what’s been wrecking everything around you all these weeks. I’ve tried to make it stop, but I’m weaker than you are, darling. I can’t break through.

The nightmare-mother opens its mouth and wails.

As a toddler, you had awful tantrums, so furious I was afraid for you. You’d bite your chubby hands, throw yourself down and slam your little head into the floor. I never knew what to do except hold you tight, no matter how you raged, until the storm passed or you wore yourself out. I hated restraining you. I wept every single time, your cheek against mine sticky with both of our tears, part embrace, part violence.

Now my arms ache to hold you again, but they’re only the memory of arms and you can’t feel my touch. There’s nothing to stop you from beating yourself bloody. I don’t even have eyes to weep from.

The sound of the nightmare-mother’s cry, the bottomless grief and bitterness, shakes the floorboards of your house. Thelma tries to get to her feet, loses her balance and falls. She lands badly on her knee, but you barely register the wet popping sound. You’re still staring into the face of the nightmare-mother, your mind’s projection of a distortion of a memory, all warped into a new, better way to hurt yourself.

I’m sorry, you say into the maelstrom. I finally understand why you’d want to bite into your own flesh. If I still had teeth, I would rend myself to pieces between them rather than listen to your apology.

The smoke is getting thicker. You’re starting to cough, but you still don’t hide. You don’t look away from the punishment you’ve assigned yourself.

I am not trapped here. I can leave. If I cannot ease your suffering, I could choose not to watch. But I don’t look away either. You’d hate it if you understood how alike