She Walks in Shadows
Read She Walks in Shadows Online
Authors: Silvia Moreno-Garcia,Paula R. Stiles
SHE WALKS IN SHADOWS
edited by
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
and Paula R. Stiles
Copyright © 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its author.
Published by Innsmouth Free Press
Vancouver, BC Canada
http://innsmouthfreepress.com
ISBN paperback: 978-1-927990-16-2
ISBN hardcover: 978-1-927990-17-9
ISBN e-book: 978-1-927990-15-5
Cover by Sarah. K. Diesel
All material original to this volume.
“There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through.”
— H.P. Lovecraft
CONTENTS
Ann K. Schwader
Penelope Love
Amelia Gorman
Violet is the Color of Your Energy
Nadia Bulkin
De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae
Jilly Dreadful
Angela Slatter
Premee Mohamed
E. Catherine Tobler
Gemma Files
The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad
Molly Tanzer
Selena Chambers
Arinn Dembo
Lyndsey Holder
Laura Blackwell
Pandora Hope
Eugenie Mora
Inkeri Kontro
Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum, December 1961
Sharon Mock
Rodopi Sisamis
Mary A. Turzillo
Wendy N. Wagner
Priya Sridhar
Valerie Valdes
Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas
INTRODUCTION
THERE IS A
paucity of women in Lovecraft’s tales. Keziah, Lavinia and Asenath are his most notable women, even if they never take center stage. Some fans of Lovecraft’s stories have even questioned whether Asenath should be considered a woman, since it is her father who inhabits her body. In a way, Asenath functions as a literary Schrödinger’s cat: She can be interpreted as a man and a woman at the same time. Philosopher Judith Butler would have a field day discussing her and issues concerning the materiality of the body.
In a couple of his collaborations/ghost-writing jobs, Lovecraft seemed to give women more prominent roles. Whether it was because ghost-writing client Zealia Brown-Reed Bishop asked for this is unclear. At any rate, collaborations with Brown-Reed Bishop yielded Marceline and Audrey, the latter the only point-of-view woman Lovecraft ever dealt with. However, in general, whatever women appear in Lovecraft’s stories lurk distantly in the shadows.
The present volume assembles stories about women, by women. Why an all-woman volume? The first spark was the notion, among some fans of the Lovecraft Mythos, that women do not like to write in this category, that they
can’t
write in this category.
Though, for a long time, the Lovecraft Mythos was a male-dominated field and tables of contents by men were commonplace, we have seen in the past decade an increasing number of women creators and fans joining both the Weird fiction and the Lovecraft scene.
Beside long-standing authors such as Caitlín R. Kiernan and Ann K. Schwader, we can find relative newcomers like Molly Tanzer and E. Catherine Tobler. In the arts, Liv Rainey-Smith has distinguished herself with her woodcut creations. Editors such as Paula Guran and Ellen Datlow have assembled more than one volume of Lovecraftian fiction. This year saw the release of the first South Korean film adaptation of a Lovecraft story. “The Music of Jo Hyeja” casts women as the leads, with a woman — Jihyun Park — also directing.
Yet, the perception that women are not inclined towards Weird or Lovecraftian fiction seems to persist. We hope this anthology will help to dispel such notions. We also hope it will provide fresh takes on a number of characters and creatures from Lovecraft’s stories, and add some completely new element to the Mythos. Most of all, we hope it will inspire new creations and inspire more women to write Weird or Lovecraftian tales.
Women have emerged from the shadows to claim the night. We welcome them gladly.
— Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles
AMMUTSEBA RISING
Ann K. Schwader
At first, a spectral haze against the darkness,
some apparition less of mist than hunger
made visible afflicts our evening. Stars
within it flicker, fettered by corruption
we sense but dimly. Terrible & ancient,
it murmurs in the dreams of chosen daughters.
Not
it
, but
She ...
Chaos Incarnate’s daughter,
thought-spawned at random from that primal darkness
past memory or myth returns. What ancient
sorceries survive to wake such hunger
in times like ours? What spirit of corruption
endures to threaten these well-charted stars?
Minds blind to science, doubtful of the stars,
accustomed to dominion over daughters
& wives alike, defy this world’s corruption
with ignorance. No curse, but blessed darkness
obscuring every sin — or any hunger
for truth beyond the authorized & ancient.
Above us now, authority more ancient
than mankind manifests. As fading stars
surrender up their essence to a hunger
yet unsuspected by our science, daughters
of ignorance awake. Unveiled from darkness,
they lift their faces. Savor sweet corruption.
Arched like a crime-scene silhouette, corruption
assumes the form of female. Feral. Ancient
opener of all the ways to darkness,
Her mystery eclipses tarnished stars
we kept for wishing on. Perhaps our daughters
will walk in shadow gladly, holding hunger
inside them for a weapon. Nameless hunger
reshaped their spirits: should we fear corruption
in doing likewise? All of us are daughters
denied some truth or other; craving ancient
wisdom like the bitterness of stars
against Her tongue, expiring into darkness.
No dawn remains. O daughters called by ancient
hunger, know the truth of your corruption:
Devourer of Stars, perfected darkness.
TURN OUT THE LIGHT
Penelope Love
A re-imagining of the life and death of Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft.
“
THE OPERATION WAS
a success,” the voice said. “Everything was done to ensure her comfort. Then, during the night, her condition deteriorated. I’m sorry, but early this morning, she died.” The telephone line buzzed and clicked mechanically.
He stood, wrapped in his dressing gown, bare feet on the cold linoleum of the rooming house hall. It was late in the May of 1921.
He had been roused by the ringing of the telephone from lucid and horrible dreams. The dreams were forgotten on waking, but the nightmare aura still clung. He could not take the news in. He became convinced that there was no human on the other end of the line. This was an alien voice, something that only pretended to be human, that stole a human face to speak and human hands to feel.
Prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and mechanical skill
….
“Everything that could be done was done. My condolences. You’ll want to see her, of course.”
The voice stopped.
“No, not at all.”
The negation shot out before he could think.
“No.” He shrank back, appalled.
He had never ventured inside the building, not even when she was alive.
“Last night,” he blurted out, “the lights were left on? All the time, as per our instructions?”
“Everything was done to ensure her comfort,” the voice mechanically repeated.
“Of course. Yes. My Aunt Lillian will make the arrangements,” he said.
Afterwards, he went back upstairs to his small room. The news sank in at last. His hands shook. They had argued when they last met. He had been angry with her and she had wept. A harsh mechanical voice buzzed in his head. The distance they had struggled with all their lives was now made infinite by death. He took an old, brown and creased paper from his pocket. He hesitated. He examined the childish scrawls. Then he crumpled it and threw it in the bin.
He sat at his desk. He drew pen and paper towards him, and wrote. He wrote as tears blotted paper and blurred ink. He wrote with sudden and desperate furious intensity. He wrote as if words,
mere inconsequential scribble
s, could bridge the abyss between life and death.
“Supper!” Sarah squinted out the front door. “Come in, son.”
It was a bright, hot day, Summer 1910. The rooming house on Angell Street was far from the green shade of College Hill. The glare outside threatened to bring on one of her headaches.
She glanced at herself in the hall mirror, but was aghast at her reflection. She saw an ageing face with a wan prettiness that was fading fast. Her clothes were dowdy. Her hair was merely neat. Her hands, though, were still long and white. They, at least, were still beautiful. “If only I could have run a little business,” she said to her reflection, “I could have supported us.” A shiver ran down her spine at her own daring. She leant closer. “An interior decoration business,” she breathed. She was an accomplished painter, with an artist’s eye. She could turn any house into a stylish nest. The shiver became a frisson. She retreated in fright from herself.
Her crowning rage, however, was that she was not a man ….
She should have been born a boy. A man’s brain was figured differently. If she were a man, she could have taken charge of her inheritance instead of being sidelined by her sister Lillian. As it was, the money vanished when her father died, like a malignant conjuring trick. It was no use wishing. Lillian would never let her work for a living. She was more frightened of Lillian than dying.