Shadows & Tall Trees, Volume 8

by Michael Kelly

  He said one night, “You expecting again?”

  And I said, “I think so,” because I was, though not a child.

  After dinner we shared a cigarette and a bottle of gin and the sharp March air, and I thought I felt her go; in my head I was already hammering my nail into the center of her heart, but she came back when I took off my silk and put on my cotton nightdress. In her dreams, the tree came through the window to pull me out of the bed and out of the house and out of the hills. And I was scared, but I was light, I didn’t ever stop. She ran me down the state highway on my bare feet until Hell opened up and swallowed the white-washed house inside it. I knew then you’re never a witch until the day you got to be one, and when I came to, I went to the closet to cut the broken coin out of my dress.

  The love spell inside the dress fought me. I was weak; I had six days of hammering in my heart. But I fought too and at last the threads gave and the coin hit the floor. I lifted my nightgown over my head and put on the silk. In a fountain of blood I cooked breakfast, in a fountain of blood I went out to cut down the alder tree. When the tree came down, I took the back of a hammer and forced that nail out until my death was a crooked piece of iron with bark stuck in its end. Then I buried the nail deep in the dirt and filled the hole back in.

  Inside, Mr. Rishner scraped the dregs of his eggs from his plate, looked me over and said, “You think you’re running a fever?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “I need you to come out and say something over the fields,” he told me. “Gotta earn your feed sometime.”

  We went, his fingers drumming a rhythm on the truck’s steering wheel. I sat with the family Bible in my lap and sang one of Grammy’s old songs. Mr. Rishner fussed with the fence line so long, he never saw me climb up into the driver’s seat and get the engine running, the tail of my silk dripping blood on the gas pedal beneath me. I took the truck down into the foothills, then stranded it in a pile of thorns and walked. He could look; he’d never find me.

  I figured the others might come with me. We’d make a V across the hill country as we flew north. Mrs. Miellon with her burns fading into scars, watching the town get smaller and smaller from the smudged window of a Greyhound. Annabelle Leahy going out at night, cutting her hair short. Mrs. Donahue sitting in a fancy restaurant booth, telling some eager young man how she opened up the chicken coop and ran her husband’s livelihood into a woods full of bobcats and lions. My Miss Angie reading tea leaves in a truck stop town under a false name.

  You have to keep a leash on that kind of hopefulness. No one goes halfway bewitched. When I left town, only Miss Angie followed me out. She pulled money from a sock to pay our cab fare, then fifty miles down the road said I was a long way from even deserving Grammy’s name and left me on the side of the road somewhere in hill country.

  In the hills I got comfortable, tilled my own fields of roots and grasses, slept on a bed of leaves with alder branches hanging over my head. At midwinter, I bore a child so dark and damp and forested, she might not have had a drop of her daddy’s blood inside her. I hear that’s how witches are born; I surely hope so. My child isn’t going to be the marrying kind.

  Tattletale

  Carly Holmes

  • • ∞ • •

  Tattletale, we said. Tattletail. Rattletail tattletale. We pulled her skirt up and pushed her down, sprawled her on the ground. We slapped and pinched her spine, pretending to feel the scaly thrust of tail pushing through the thick cotton of her knickers. We ran and span in a circle around the crimson blur of her screams, clapping hands and skipping over kicking legs. We leapt the reveal of bruises that trellised her thighs ochre and violet, layering dawn and dusk onto her flesh. We never tattletaled on those.

  Tattletale, prattletale, nasty lying rattletail. Dirty-faced at the front of the class, arms flaking fleabag scabs, elbows grey and cracked. We followed the lurch of her eyes as they jittered left and right, fingers a squirm of snakes in her lap, grimacing at the teacher. We waited for her to find the spiders in her desk, the bubble gum on her skirt, and then we waited outside when she stayed behind to tattletale on us.

  Nobody likes a tattletale, a filthy deformed girl with a tail. We tipped her over the wall and into the ditch so the spiteful sea of nettles would drag her down and drown her. When she crawled out, a splutter of lumps and bumps, a frenzied hop of hives, we used our sticks to poke her straight back in. Hungry for our dinners, we didn’t stay to watch but left her flailing, sinking, not waving but drowning. Second helpings all round that night.

  Don’t touch the tattletale, the twitching, scratching rattletail. Her germs bob and float above her head like a speech bubble, like a balloon filled with pus. If it bursts over you she’ll infect you with her bugs. We needed to clean the tattletale. For her own good. We decided to give her a bath in the pond behind the green. We tossed stones onto the thick crust of its surface and nodded as we watched them waver and sink, the weed closing above them as if they never were.

  Stupid greedy tattletale, eyes piggy pink with tears but hand held out for the sweets we dangled. We pressed humbugs into her soggy palms, threaded lollies through the lank dribble of her plaits. Trailing wrappers like rainbows, she trotted in our wake, snorting breath through gobbled toffees. We led her along the lane and across the green, sprinkling the way with shiny treats. She only looked around her properly when we stopped, two in front and two behind, pressing close, but she still kept chewing, jaw flapping and clicking as she ricocheted between us.

  Tattletale, we said. Stinking, slimy tattletail. That rattletail of yours needs a proper wash. We held our noses and danced around her, waving hands in front of our offended faces. We put on the yellow gloves taken from our mothers’ sinks, stroking the stolen squeak of rubber up our arms and snapping the ends like nurses in a drama. Tattletale hissed and hunched, spinning loose and jerking back as we tugged the elastic of her shorts and twirled her, swung her, stripped her down. Then, naked, she crouched at our feet and began to writhe.

  Look at the tattletale; that spike, that stab of rattletail. The whip of muscle in its rippled sleeve of skin birthing from her spine, arching over the cobbles of her back and then springing round. A hum, a buzz, a shriek of sound as she pivots to control it, twitching the maraca tip, thrashing it across our faces so they stream scarlet and our marigold hands rush upwards and bloom with poppies.

  The tattletale all rattletail, a slither now, a weave and dance. Grin wide enough to swallow us whole, teeth sharp and curved as rusted hooks. We turn to run, a push and shove of skirts and screams, a snap of girls, ankles swept by rattle tail. And suddenly we’re rabbit-still, rabbit-fascinated by the rise and wriggle, the looming slink. A huddle beneath her flickering kiss, hearts scurrying in our furry chests.

  The Somnambulists

  Simon Strantzas

  • • ∞ • •

  The lobby of the Hotel Russo was large enough to lose one’s self in, despite the enormous golden chandelier covered in crystal that hung at its centre. It hovered so close to the ground that Seymour felt an irresistible urge to duck his balding pale head while passing beneath it. He jotted down a reminder in his pad to ensure it complied with municipal code.

  At the front desk, the young woman didn’t immediately see him. He had to clear his throat before she looked up, and when she did her confused expression suggested she wasn’t certain what to do. She was the only clerk there, dressed in a fine vest and pressed white shirt beneath a burgundy nylon jacket, and eventually it occurred to her to ask if she could be of any help. Seymour looked into her eyes—a pair of dilated pupils surrounded by deep flecked green—and doubted her ability to deliver.

  “I’m here for your preliminary inspection,” Seymour said, producing a business card with his name and occupation printed squarely upon it. Perhaps the clerk was dressed more like a bellhop, with the sort of round hat he thought only existed in movies. The clerk’s eyes grew wide and shifty while her forehead convulsed.

  “Do—
do you have a badge?”

  “No. I have a card.”

  The bellhop clerk continued to stare at it as small beads of sweat appeared at the edge of her eyebrows. Seymour snatched the card from her hands.

  “Just get me the manager,” he said, and turned away to make another entry in his notebook.

  Nothing about the Hotel Russo appealed to him. It felt impermanent; transient. There had been a gas station on this street corner a few days earlier. What happened to it, and how did the Russo get built so quickly? Seymour did not remember seeing permits or builders, and yet here it was, erected so swiftly it was a blur. Something about the place made his whole body tense. Some sense of familiarity he couldn’t put into words.

  Across the lobby the clerk spoke with a short dark-haired man. This, presumably, was the manager. The two indiscreetly glanced Seymour’s way, but he pretended not to notice. Perhaps his indifference would make him more intimidating.

  The manager waved the nervous clerk away and immediately strode toward Seymour, hand extended before he arrived.

  “There you are,” he said. “I’m Goodwin. I was wondering when you’d appear.”

  The manager smiled and looked so familiar that Seymour was momentarily shaken. As though he were someone Seymour had forgotten from a long time ago.

  “I’m here from the Ministry to ensure you’re properly equipped to receive guests.”

  “Of course that’s who you are. But this is a dream hotel. Just look around.”

  “Yes, it’s very nice, but you cannot operate without an inspection.”

  “I don’t think you understand—” Goodwin said, but Seymour cut him off.

  “Let’s not start on the wrong foot. The less you fight me, the faster this will go.”

  “But I wasn’t—”

  Seymour held up his hand.

  “Take me to the guest rooms. I want to assess the amenities.”

  Goodwin hesitated, about to say something, then changed his mind.

  “You got it. Follow me.”

  Goodwin reached behind the front desk and opened a concealed small door no taller than shoulder height. Before Seymour could react, the manager crouched and passed through without a word. The clerk appeared oblivious to Goodwin’s exit, as though it hadn’t actually happened. A small part of Seymour doubted what he’d seen until Goodwin’s voice echoed from beyond, beckoning him through. With hesitation, Seymour crouched and followed.

  The two stood in a long carpeted hallway, wooden doors alternating along the length of both walls.

  “Are you going to be sick?” Goodwin asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “You don’t look so well.”

  Seymour looked back at the door they’d come through, and wondered if it had shrunk. How had he and Goodwin fit through? It was barely large enough for a child.

  “The door—”

  “I told you. This is a dream hotel. You get used to it.”

  “I don’t understand...”

  “Here,” Goodwin said, opening one of the hallway doors. He was holding a giant key ring, but where had it come from? “Let’s go inside and I’ll try to explain.”

  Once past the door, the room did not look like a hotel suite. It looked more like the guest room of a house, with its bland decorations and worn furniture. Seymour had seen this layout, this mix of old and new, time and time again. Even as far back as the spare room in his parents’ home. They were all the same. Through the walls he heard the murmurs of an argument he couldn’t quite make out. It was no different from anything else there; whatever he tried to focus upon blurred and slid into the periphery of his senses.

  “What is this? Is this a suite or some sort of joke?”

  “What do you mean? These rooms are fantastic,” Goodwin said. He pointed at the notepad. “Make sure you work that into your report somehow.”

  Seymour was not in the mood. Goodwin’s effort at being good-natured slipped briefly, and he sighed.

  “Sit down,” Goodwin urged him. “You’ll need a moment when you hear this.”

  “Hear what?” Seymour said, taking a seat on the edge of the small bed. The argument through the walls was nominally distracting.

  “Where are we? Right now, where are we?”

  “In an unusually decorated guest room at the Hotel Russo.”

  Goodwin looked around, then nodded.

  “And how did we get into this guest room?”

  Seymour glanced around, then offered: “We walked through a small door.”

  “But did we?”

  Of course they had, Seymour thought, but when he tried to retrieve the chain of events from his memory he found he couldn’t. It was gone. Despite how many times he desperately wished he could forget moments from his past, now that it had happened he found the sensation disturbing.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Goodwin stepped closer. His face was covered in tiny creases like a crumpled paper bag. His eyes, a pair of small black buttons.

  “I told you. You’re in a dream hotel.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s...” He threw his arms wide into the air. “It’s a dream hotel. That’s what it means.”

  Seymour said nothing. He tried to take his notebook out of his pocket, but his hands were shaking. The Ministry would not approve of this.

  “Look, it’s very simple,” Goodwin said, walking to the tall window near the bed. He ran his hand slowly down its pane. “This hotel wasn’t built with bricks. It was built with dreams.”

  Seymour frowned. He was confused and resented being so.

  Goodwin continued.

  “Okay, listen, I’m not an expert on this. I’m just a regular guy who lucked into doing a job he loves. But here’s what I heard from someone at corporate but don’t ask me who because I can’t tell you. She said this hotel actually started with a guy named Russo. We are inside his dream.”

  Seymour coughed. It was his body’s unconscious reaction—an overwhelming mixture of incredulity and inevitability.

  “Some guy named Russo?”

  “Yes. At first, at least. There are about a dozen Somnambulists now. With just Russo the hotel persisted for only a few days at a time. I think he had part of the lobby in place. It was nice, pretty ornate, but so small and so short-lived that nobody could do anything with it. He treated it like a curse, which I guess it was. He never spoke about it, at least. But nevertheless that lobby would materialize at Front and Simcoe whenever he dreamed, and eventually people started going inside and looking around.”

  Seymour made a note, but the words appeared as gibberish. He rubbed his eyes but it failed to help.

  “Then this Russo guy meets Dressler. I’m sure you know Dressler. Big hotel magnate. He probably owns most of the hotels you’ve inspected. I have no idea how their paths cross—they shouldn’t have; they’re from two different worlds—but they do and someone mentions Russo’s lobby and Dressler decides he needs to see it for himself. So he takes his men and visits Front and Simcoe and finds the gas station there. Figures he’s been made a fool. Then, pop, there’s a half-lobby. Dressler gets one look at it and dollar signs light up his eyes. His guys round Russo up, bring him to a meeting, and Dressler asks how he can get into the Russo business. Deals are made, hands are shaken, and Russo gives everything up to sleep full time.

  “It does not go smoothly. They try different ways to build up the hotel and make it permanent—they feed Russo experimental drugs, they put him in a coma, they move him to different locations and different environments to evoke a reaction. It affects Russo’s mind to the point he can barely speak or remember his name, and Dressler doesn’t care because it makes Russo’s dreams more solid and tangible. But the hotel doesn’t get bigger or stay longer, not until—and you’ll love this part—Dressler’s personal secretary, the one who types up all his letters, sees a story online about a woman in France who dreams up kitchens. Just goes to sleep and, boom, a kitchen appears. A full-sized, restau
rant-grade kitchen. The lightbulbs ping in Dressler’s head. Before the week’s out, his team has found eleven more people with the ability to dream up different hotel rooms and Dressler pays to have them flown here and moved in with Russo. And, wouldn’t you know it, it works. Not only do these Somnambulists start dreaming the same dream, adding their pieces to the whole, but the hotel also becomes more stable, and once it is, Dressler decides it’s time to recoup his investment. That’s where I come in. I get hired to manage the place and make sure it turns a profit. It’s pretty damn exciting.”

  It made no sense. The story was familiar, but felt wrong, as though the events were out of order. Seymour rubbed his bald pate confusedly.

  “But who are these Somnambulists?”

  “Just a dozen random people Dressler’s company found.”

  “So then where are they?”

  Goodwin took a breath, then paused and smiled. The argument from the other room continued.

  “They’re definitely... somewhere. I’m not really sure where,” he said, his smile unsure. “Corporate doesn’t tell me everything, but I’m sure they know what they’re doing. The hotel has already sold out its first two months.”

  “And none of the guests are worried about what they’re getting into?”

  Goodwin looked incredulous.

  “Worried? Didn’t I just say we’re sold out for two whole months?”

  He stood up somewhat indignantly and brushed the sheen of his dark blue jacket. Seymour suspected Goodwin was less offended than he let on.

  “I suppose you need to write up your report now and let the Ministry know everything is okay. Sorry you had to waste your time coming here, but as you can see nothing needs inspecting. It’s a dream, and nothing breaks or wears out in a dream. There are no rats or roaches where people don’t see them. Other than a touch of vertigo from time to time, there’s nothing to worry about.”