A Cathedral of Myth and Bone
Page 24
“It makes the story better,” Francesca said, “if it’s told like that.”
“How so?”
“Well, isn’t it more fun to think of them in conspiracy together? Instead of the prince being some kind of foot fetishist and Cinderella just waiting around, happy to marry whoever shows up with her shoe?”
“When you put it like that, yes.” Vaughan traced the words braceleting Francesca’s wrist, words he had written there: “and only in the mirror to see the other.” The phrase was unchanged on her skin, unchanged in the photograph. Others weren’t and his skin prickled as he read them. “Francesca, I don’t think it’s my camera doing these things.”
“No. I don’t either.”
• • •
Every Maze Has a Monster
This is a triptych of photographs, done in sepia. The first two are cross sections of a labyrinth, old, with crumbling rock walls. At the bottom, running through the twists of the maze, is a golden thread.
In the third photograph, there is the same labyrinth, the same thread, but now we are in its center. A woman stands there. She holds a spool of golden thread in one hand, and she is smiling.
It is impossible to tell if she is unwinding the thread or gathering it back up.
Stories change. They become unexpected and require a braver sort of belief. Not belief in what is, but belief in what could be.
Possibility.
Power.
“The picture didn’t change,” Francesca said.
“Did you expect it to?” asked Vaughan.
She thought of the cool air, the dry scent of dust, the strength of the cord she had wound through her fingers. “No. No, I didn’t. The way you composed the shot, Ariadne was making her own choice.”
“You’re still not going to tell me what direction you were winding the thread, are you?”
“What direction do you think I was winding it?” Francesca smiled.
• • •
Half-Sick of Shadows
A boat rests beneath a willow tree.
Scattered near the boat are pieces of discarded armor. Among them, the white shield, three bends gules, of Sir Lancelot.
A white dress drapes the armor.
The lady is in the water, not drowned, but smiling.
The light on the water is brilliant, bright glints like scattered diamonds. Like the pieces of a shattered mirror.
“Have you ever,” Vaughan asked, “thought about taking your own pictures?”
“Actually, yes. I know exactly the one I want to start with.”
• • •
Freedom
Francesca Ward’s photograph is composed in a manner that echoes Escape, by Matthews. But while the two images are in dialogue, Freedom is no mere imitation.
Rather, Ward’s self-portrait is a reimagining. The strong lines of her body, the frank gaze with which she looks out from the photograph, make clear that this is the story of a woman, not of some thwarted god’s prize.
The tree is split, and she is stepping out of it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to all of the editors who first published these short stories. I’m so grateful for your support and encouragement, and for the excellent homes you gave my writing. Thank you also to those kind friends who read these stories in draft, who gave me the tiny pieces of things that grew into ideas, who have been my support as a writer. In particular, thank you to Maria Dahvana Headley, Megan Kurashige, and Sarah McCarry.
Thank you to my agent, Brianne Johnson, who is a rock of support, and to my editor Joe Monti, who suggested that this book exist. Thank you also to everyone at Saga for all your hard work and support of my writing.
I could not have written “Once, Future” without reading Helen Macdonald’s powerful book H Is for Hawk.
As always, my thanks and love to my family, and in particular to my parents.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photo courtesy of Shane Leonard
KAT HOWARD is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Roses and Rot and An Unkindness of Magicians. Her short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, anthologized in best of and annual best of collections, and performed on NPR on the Public Radio International program Selected Shorts. She lives in New Hampshire, and you can find her online at kathowardbooks.com and on Twitter at @KatWithSword.
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Also by Kat Howard
Roses and Rot
An Unkindness of Magicians
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Compilation copyright © 2018 by Kathleen Howard
“Once, Future” and “Saints’ Tide” copyright © 2018 by Kathleen Howard
The following stories were reprinted with permission: “A Life in Fictions”—Stories: All New Tales. William Morrow, 2010 • “The Saint of the Sidewalks”—Clarkesworld, August 2014 • “Maiden, Hunter, Beast”—Lightspeed, January 2016 • “Translatio Corporis”—Uncanny, March/April 2015 • “Dreaming Like a Ghost”—Nightmare, February 2014 • “Murdered Sleep”—Apex Magazine, August 2012 • “The Speaking Bone”—Apex Magazine, March 2011 • “Those Are Pearls”—Guillotine Series #10, 2015 • “All of Our Past Places”—Unlikely Story, 2014 • “Painted Birds and Shivered Bones”—Subterranean, Spring 2013 • “Returned”—Nightmare, January 2015 • “The Calendar of Saints”—Beneath Ceaseless Skies, October 2011 • “The Green Knight’s Wife”—Uncanny, Nov./Dec. 2016 • “Breaking the Frame”—Lightspeed, August 2012
Jacket photograph copyright © 2018 by Amy Haslehurst
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Interior design by Vikki Sheatsley
Jacket photograph copyright © 2018 by Amy Haslehurst
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Howard, Kat, author.
Title: A cathedral of myth and bone : stories / Kat Howard.
Description: First edition. | New York : Saga Press, [2018] | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018000666 | ISBN 9781481492157 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781481492171 (eBook)
Classification: LCC PS3608.O9246 A6 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000666
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