Shadows & Tall Trees, Volume 8

by Michael Kelly

  *

  Someone was knocking at the door. My wife was out for Sunday lunch with a friend and for a moment I’d assumed she’d forgotten her key and had come back without it, but when I looked down from the stairwell the figure I saw through the translucent glass of the door was shorter than my wife, who’s pretty tall for a woman, and slimmer.

  That morning I’d heard movements in the living room next door. I’d stopped to listen, wondering if it was Raymond, but I didn’t hear any swearing so had decided it was his wife. Then, later, I’d heard two voices arguing, women’s voices, Raymond’s wife Mary and another voice I couldn’t place. Then the door had slammed.

  At that point I’d gone upstairs to take a pee. After a few moments I heard the knocking at the door, and after a small delay I realised it was our door that they were knocking at and not Raymond and Mary’s door next door.

  I think even then I knew who it was.

  I recognised the shape of her through the translucent glass of the door.

  Mylene, I said, squinting against the bright diffuse daylight.

  Startled, her expression broke out into a smile.

  Well isn’t it a small fucking world, she said.

  What do you want?

  Aren’t you going to invite me in? she said, staring up at me with big blue eyes set very slightly too far apart. Put the kettle on?

  No, I said. I don’t think I am. What do you want?

  My sister told me the neighbour might know where her useless husband is. I didn’t realise the neighbour was you.

  I nodded as if I agreed.

  I’ve no idea, I said.

  Mylene was leaning against the wall, looking at me sort of sideways, clearly amused by the whole situation.

  Okay, she said, suddenly annoyed by what I assumed was her failure to elicit a reaction from me. Well, if you see him, say I need to talk to him.

  She turned away. I watched her walk down the drive. At the gate, she turned back, smiling again.

  About what? I asked.

  Tell him I’m pregnant, she said, and started to laugh.

  Fucking Raymond, I thought, suddenly nauseous with what I can only describe as jealousy, and shut the door. It shook in the frame. When I opened it again, Mylene was gone.

  *

  The next evening when I took a beer from the box in the utility room and went out to the shed the chairs were gone, the broken one and the one that wasn’t broken. Coming out of the shed, I saw my wife stood in the doorway, watching me.

  A woman called round earlier, she said.

  Oh, I said.

  She had the wrong address, she said.

  Right, I said.

  My wife thought for a moment.

  I kind of recognised her, she said.

  Uh huh, I said.

  I realised I was nodding, but not at anything she had said, so I made myself stop.

  Suddenly my wife smiled.

  What’s happened to the chairs? I asked.

  Oh, I chucked them out, said my wife. One of them was broken.

  She shivered.

  And they were starting to rot. Honestly, did the smell not bother you at all?

  Contributors

  • • ∞ • •

  Seán Padraic Birnie is a writer and photographer from Brighton, England. He holds a B.A. degree from Manchester Metropolitan University in English Literature and Creative Writing and an M.A. in Photography from the University of Brighton, where he works as a Technical Demonstrator on the Photography courses. In 2016 he was one of ten winners of the Magnum Photos/Photo London Graduate Photographers Award. His short fiction has appeared in venues such as Black Static, BFS Horizons and Litro, and his articles on photography have been published in scholarly journals such as Photographies and Critical Studies. For more info, see: seanbirnie.com.

  Rebecca Campbell is a Canadian writer and teacher. NeWest Press published her novel, The Paradise Engine, in 2013, and you can find more of her short fiction online at whereishere.ca.

  Kay Chronister lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she is completing a Ph. D. in Literature. Her fiction has appeared in venues such as Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Shimmer, Black Static, and The Dark. Her first collection, Thin Places (Undertow Publications), will be out soon. Find her online at kaychronister.com.

  Kristi DeMeester is the author of Beneath, a novel published by Word Horde, and Everything That’s Underneath, a short fiction collection published by Apex Books. Her writing has been included in Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year volumes 9 and 11, Year’s Best Weird Fiction volumes 1, 3, and 5, in addition to publications such as Black Static, Pseudopod, The Dark, and several others. She is at work on her second novel. Find her online at www.kristidemeester.com.

  Brian Evenson is the author of over a dozen books of fiction, including, most recently, the short story collection Song for the Unraveling of the World, and the novella The Warren. He has been a five-time finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, a finalist for the Edgar Award, and has received an International Horror Guild Award. His work has been translated into a dozen languages. He lives in Los Angeles and works at CalArts.

  James Everington mainly writes dark, supernatural fiction, although he occasionally takes a break and writes dark, non-supernatural fiction. His second collection of such tales, Falling Over, is out now from Infinity Plus. He’s also the author of The Quarantined City, an episodic novel mixing Borgesian strangeness with supernatural horror—“an unsettling voice all of its own” The Guardian—and the novellas Paupers’ Graves and Trying To Be So Quiet. Alongside Dan Howarth, he has co-edited the anthologies The Hyde Hotel (Black Shuck Books) and Imposter Syndrome (Dark Minds Press). Oh, and he drinks Guinness, if anyone’s asking. You can find out what James is currently up to at his Scattershot Writing site.

  Kurt Fawver is a writer of horror, weird fiction, and literature that oozes through the cracks of genre. His short fiction has won a Shirley Jackson Award and been previously published in venues such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Aeons, Weird Tales, Vastarien, Best New Horror, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. He’s the author of two collections of short stories—The Dissolution of Small Worlds, and Forever, in Pieces—as well as a novella, Burning Witches, Burning Angels, and two chapbooks, Pwdre Ser, and Problems in River Heights. He’s also had non-fiction published in journals such as Thinking Horror and the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. You can find Kurt online at www.kurtfawver.com or www.facebook.com/kfawver.

  Carly Holmes lives and writes on the west coast of Wales, UK. Her debut novel, The Scrapbook (Parthian) was shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award in 2015, and her literary horror short story collection, Figurehead, was published by Tartarus Press in 2018, to much critical acclaim. One of the stories within was selected for reprint in Best Horror of the Year Volume 11 (Night Shade Press) and five further stories were given honourable mentions. Her award-winning short fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, such as Ambit, Black Static, and The Ghastling. Carly works as an editor for Parthian Books.

  Michael Kelly is the former Series Editor for the Year’s Best Weird Fiction. He’s a Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award winner, and a World Fantasy Award nominee. His fiction has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Black Static, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21 & 24, Postscripts, Weird Fiction Review, and has been previously collected in Scratching the Surface, Undertow & Other Laments, and All the Things We Never See.

  V.H. Leslie is the author of a short story collection, Skein and Bone (Undertow Publications), and a novel, Bodies of Water (Salt Publishing), and her short stories have appeared in a range of journals and anthologies. Her fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award and she won the Lightship International Prize. She has been awarded fellowships for her writing at Hawthornden in Scotland and the Saari Institute in Finland, and her non-fiction has appeared in Histor
y Today, The Victorianist and Gramarye. She also works as a writer for an interdisciplinary project, WetlandLIFE, lead by the University of Greenwich and funded by the Valuing Nature programme, exploring folklore in the landscape.

  Alison Littlewood’s latest novel, Mistletoe, is a seasonal ghost story with glimpses into the Victorian era. Her first book, A Cold Season, was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club and described as ‘perfect reading for a dark winter’s night.’ Other titles include Path of Needles, The Unquiet House, The Hidden People and The Crow Garden. Her short stories have been picked for several year’s best anthologies and published in her collections Quieter Paths and Five Feathered Tales. She has won the Shirley Jackson Award for Short Fiction. Alison lives with her partner Fergus in Yorkshire, England, in a house of creaking doors and crooked walls. She loves exploring the hills and dales with her two hugely enthusiastic Dalmatians and she has a penchant for Earl Grey tea, fountain pens and semicolons. Visit her at www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk.

  C.M. Muller lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife and two sons. He is related to the Norwegian writer Jonas Lie and draws much inspiration from that scrivener of old. His tales have appeared in Shadows & Tall Trees, Vastarien, Weirdbook, and a host of other venues. As editor and publisher, he is responsible for the annual anthology series Nightscript, as well as Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles, a themed anthology featuring 22 unique visions of the doppelgänger. His debut collection of stories, Hidden Folk, was released in late 2018. For more information, please visit: www.chthonicmatter.wordpress.com.

  KL Pereira’s debut short story collection, A Dream Between Two Rivers: Stories of Liminality, was published in 2017 by Cutlass Press. Pereira’s fiction, poetry, and nonfiction appear or are forthcoming in the British Fantasy Award winning anthology Years Best Weird Fiction vol. 5, Shadows and Tall Trees, vol. 8, Literary Hub, LampLight, The Drum, Shimmer, Innsmouth Free Press, Mythic Delirium, Jabberwocky, and Bitch Magazine, among others. She lives in a Victorian garret across from a haunted cemetery with her feline familiar.

  Steve Rasnic Tem is a past winner of the Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. He’s published over 450 short stories. His most recent collections are The Harvest Child and Other Fantasies (Crossroads), Everything Is Fine Now (Omnium Gatherum), and late 2019’s The Night Doctor & Other Tales (Centipede). His last novel Ubo (Solaris, February 2017) is a dark science fictional tale about violence and its origins, featuring such historical viewpoint characters as Jack the Ripper, Stalin, and Heinrich Himmler. Yours to Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Writing, written with his late wife Melanie, appeared from Apex Books in 2017. In 2018 Valancourt Books published Figures Unseen, a volume of his Selected Stories.

  Before earning her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, M. Rickert worked as kindergarten teacher, coffee shop barista, Disneyland balloon vendor, and personnel assistant in Sequoia National Park. Her first novel, The Memory Garden, was published in 2014, and won the Locus award. She is the winner of the Crawford Award, World Fantasy Award, and Shirley Jackson Award. Her third short story collection, You Have Never Been Here was published by Small Beer Press in November, 2015. Her story, “Another F*cking Fairy Tale” is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A certified yoga instructor, she teaches yoga in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

  Simon Strantzas is the author of five collections of short fiction, including Nothing is Everything (Undertow Publications, 2018), and editor of a number of anthologies, including Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 3. Collectively, he’s been a finalist for three Shirley Jackson Awards, two British Fantasy Awards, and the World Fantasy Award. His fiction has appeared in numerous annual best-of anthologies, and in venues such as Nightmare, The Dark, and Cemetery Dance. In 2014, his edited anthology, Aickman’s Heirs, won the Shirley Jackson Award. He lives with his wife in Toronto, Canada.

  Steve Toase was born in North Yorkshire, England, and now lives in Munich, Germany. He writes regularly for Fortean Times and Folklore Thursday. His fiction has appeared in Three Lobed Burning Eye, Shimmer, Lackington’s, StarShipSofa, Not One of Us, Cabinet des Feés and Pantheon Magazine amongst others. In 2014 “Call Out” (first published in Innsmouth Magazine) was reprinted in The Best Horror of The Year 6, and two of his stories have just been published in Best Horror of The Year 11. He likes old motorbikes and vintage cocktails. You can keep up to date with his work via his Patreon www.patreon.com/stevetoase, www.tinyletter.com/stevetoase, facebook.com/stevetoase1, www.stevetoase.wordpress.com and @stevetoase.

  Neil Williamson is a writer and musician from Glasgow, Scotland. His stories and books, including The Moon King, Secret Language and The Ephemera, have been shortlisted for British Science Fiction, British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards. At Halloween he carves a traditional turnip lantern. Just in case.

  Charles Wilkinson’s publications includes The Pain Tree and Other Stories (London Magazine Editions, 2000) and Ag & Au, (Flarestack Poets, 2013). His collections of strange tales and weird fiction, A Twist in the Eye (2016), and Splendid In Ash (2018) appeared from Egaeus Press. His short stories have come out in many magazines and anthologies, including previous numbers of Shadows & Tall Trees, Nightscript, Bourbon Penn and Supernatural Tales. His chapbook The January Estate is forthcoming from Eibonvale Press and a full-length collection of his poetry is about to appear from Eyewear Publications. He lives in Powys, Wales, where he is heavily outnumbered by members of the ovine community. More information can be found on his website: charleswilkinsonauthor.com.