“Lean on me, love,” he said as he sat beside her on the bed. “Help’s coming. Just hold on.”
Mary smiled, then; her face so sad as she stroked his face. “She’s coming, Alan. Don’t let it get her.”
Mystified, Alan nodded, and held Mary’s hands as she breathed through another contraction. He heard a cry, cut off suddenly, and saw his daughter lying on the sheets even as she breathed her last.
Mary sobbed, and reached out to her baby, then screamed and started batting at the bed. “Get away! Get away from her!”
Alan heard the distant whoop of the ambulance’s siren, signifying it had found the lane to their cottage. He ran downstairs and unlocked the front door, leaving it ajar for them – they’d be with him in moments. Then he ran back up the stairs to his wife.
When he opened the door, he stopped in his tracks; unable to process what his eyes insisted he was seeing. Mary was crying, stroking their daughter’s lifeless body – and a shadow was reaching out, ushering what looked like a phantom infant towards her still form. He screamed as the shadow-child reached his daughter, and ran forward. The shadow drew back, clutching the long-dead infant to its chest, and vaguely he was aware of Mary shouting “The cradle! Get rid of the cradle!” He rushed over and lifted the cradle, grimacing as it fought in his grip, the spirit of whatever poor soul had lost her baby in the cradle trying to wrest it from him, to be returned to its place by the window. He wrenched it free, and – opening the window as wide as he could – hurled the cradle out into the night. There was a flash as it hit the ground, and he saw, just for a moment, a young woman clad only in a white shift, holding a screaming infant out to him, pleading for her child. “Save her,” she sobbed. “Save my baby!”
The ambulance reached them then, the blue light’s strobe casting the nightmarish scene in an impossible light. It drove over the cradle – the spirit screamed and was torn to shreds, fingers of mist dissipating in the wind even as the sound was fading, fading. Then the night was still, apart from the normal sounds of the wind, and of the ambulance parking and its crew getting out and coming to the door.
The child on the bed mewed and moved, mouth open in a maw of distress as its little arms and legs waved around. The ambulance crew took one look and, while one went to Mary and started to examine her, the other wrapped the infant in a blanket and gave it the once over. Satisfied it was a healthy birth, he offered the child to its father, who was crying in the hall.
“This one’s a fighter,” he said, smiling. “She wants her mother.” He looked back into the bedroom and then held the child tighter. “You can give her to her in a minute.”
Alan smiled. “Mary’s okay?”
“She’s fine, sir. A bit shocked, hysterical, really; but then she’s been through a lot.” The man smiled at him, then, his expression kindly. “They’ll both feel better when Mum can give baby a cuddle.”
Alan nodded, and took his daughter from the medic’s arms. He looked down at her face, pink and distressed, and took the waving fist in his own. The baby quieted, and he smiled at her as she watched him, curious now rather than afraid. “Come on, little one,” he whispered. “Let’s go and see Mummy.”
Afterword
The last evening of the 2010 World Horror Convention is one of those nights that I will always hold very close to my heart. It was the night that I signed with the pen name ‘Edgar Allan Poo’ on a book written by Tim Lebbon. It’s also the night that I think really cemented my friendship with Marie O’Regan and her other half, Paul Kane. I was telling them, and a few others (in a jokey way, you understand), about an idea I had for a story about a dwarf that was bitten by a werewolf and was then turned into a were-dwarf. Now, it might have been a combination of the fatigue everyone was feeling after the end of a very successful convention (the biggest one I have ever been to in my life), it might have been the fact that people may have had a little too much to drink – but something about my silly idea made everyone laugh, and Marie and Paul (from what I can remember,) were laughing the hardest.
And in 2012, my short story ‘The Were-Dwarf’, was published. It took a long time to write, but I always thought that if the story made anyone titter as much as the idea of it did, I was onto a winner. And I have Marie (and Paul) to thank for it (I’ve thanked her in public, but here it is in print).
But back to Marie. Us bloody writers, hey? You’re asked to do a piece about someone and they always revert it to writing about themselves.
I love Marie’s writing. In 2011 I was very honoured to have her write a story for me for a book I was editing called Bite Size Horror. The story was ‘The Unquiet Bones’ and I can still remember reading it as if it was yesterday. Alex’s jittery body twitching around the room, looking at books on shelves although she cannot see. The burning painting. The monk. You’ll have read the story now, so you’ll know what I’m talking about. Marie’s story played out like a demented Hammer Horror, and her tale, along with Reggie Oliver’s, are my favourites in that anthology. I was also thrilled to use her story ‘Someone to Watch Over You’ in the first Best British Book of Horror. It was a ghostly tale, tremendously evocative, and as I was reading it; I knew then and there that it would go straight onto the ‘must use’ list without the need of reading it again.
Marie’s writing is crisp, beautiful, but never – not for one second – makes you feel like you’re safe. Her writing can be edgy, dangerous even. With ‘The Cradle in the Corner’ Marie makes you feel real unease, and as a parent, I felt the thrill of nausea course through me. Bravo, bravo indeed!
The highlight of this collection is her novelette ‘A Garden For Lily’ (previously published as The Curse of the Ghost). Her work on this reminds me of those Mistresses of the genre: Shirley Jackson, Cynthia Asquith and Edith Wharton. Marie’s work in Curse really is that good.
It would be remiss of me not to mention her other role as editor, and alongside Paul Kane, she has edited some remarkable anthologies. However, for me, The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women is a crowning achievement – it is by far one of the best anthologies Robinson ever published and is the perfect companion piece to Lisa Tuttle’s Skin of the Soul.
Marie is also very sharp, funny, a brilliant and sympathetic person to chat to – one of the hardest working people in the genre, and that she’s taken on the UK chapter of the HWA just shows how committed she is and how the genre flows through her veins – and how she could never quit it, even if she wanted to!
Marie’s first collection was published in 2006, and her second ten years later. I hope it’s not a further ten years before we see a third collection. That would be a cruel thing indeed. Marie is an author that demands reading, and in this age where people are going on about moving away from ‘proper horror’ and turning their noses up at it, I’m glad that Marie is leading the charge, writing ‘proper horror’ and telling it like it is.
I’m proud to call her a friend, and I’m proud to have asked if we could get a new collection from her. I’m so glad she said yes. I bet you are too.
Johnny Mains 2016
Story Notes
The Real Me.
This story came about because of a chance thought when seeing the ubiquitous pictures of celebrities, both online and in magazines, that had had ‘work done’, or were suspected of having done so. In most cases, the person concerned is still recognisable; in the best cases, you can barely tell anything’s been done. But sometimes, just sometimes, you’ll see a picture of someone and realise you didn’t even recognise them – not a thing about the face staring out at you with a well-known and remembered name underneath is familiar. I started to wonder how that would affect you; if every time you stared into the mirror a complete stranger was staring back at you, some other ‘self’ that couldn’t even show the discomfort it was feeling at its new appearance. Wouldn’t it drive you crazy, seeing a stranger staring blankly at you, day after day, without expression? Trevor Denyer happily accepted the story for publication in Midnight Street, #1
6, and it was reprinted for International Short Story Day on the Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog in 2012.
In The Howling of the Wind
I wrote this one for a Festive issue of an ezine, Estronomicon. It’s no secret that I love ghost stories, and this gave me a chance to set one at Christmas – a classic time for such a tale. I had an idea about a boy trapped in a house, the wind howling outside, the boy just waiting for his parents to come home, begging his grandfather for information about when they’re going to return. After that, the story almost seemed to write itself, and even now I’m pretty happy with the result. I read this out one Christmas, at an event in Derby. I made half the audience cry.
Cat and Mouse
This one came about because I was asked for a story for the Femme Fatales of Fright anthology; something ‘fun’. I had an image of a woman pretending to be scared so she could toy with her attacker, the twist being of course that the attacker is really something else. Again, this story came into being very quickly, and hopefully fulfilled its remit. It was reprinted in the Deadly Dolls anthology later that year.
Listen
The idea for ‘Listen’ came out of an image I woke up with one morning; a picture of a young boy listening to a story in a library, rapt with attention, gradually realising that the tale isn’t what he thought. From there the idea developed into what you’ll have read – a boy who is gifted with a vivid and powerful imagination, and thus can see the reality of what he’s hearing. A boy who knows that unless he makes the other children wake up there isn’t going to be a happy ending, and enlists the story itself to help him. This story was published in the British Fantasy Society’s Spring Journal, 2012, and reprinted in ‘Unconventional Fantasy, A Celebration Of 40 Years of the World Fantasy Convention’, available to attendees at World Fantasy Convention 2014, Washington USA.
Plus Ça Change
This one came about through a request for a story on the subject of phobias; the anthology Phobophobia, edited by Dean Drinkel, consisted of stories that each dealt with a different phobia. After racking my brains for a few days (and watching some phobias I’d have enjoyed writing about get taken by those quicker to nab an idea), I came up with metathesiophobia, or the fear of change. From there I found the neurotic woman who can’t abide change in any way, and flipped that to show she had a valid reason for not letting anything get out of control. Bad things ensue when she relaxes her attention.
In Times of Want
This is probably one of the oldest stories in the collection, and it was a tale I dreamed in its entirety. Odd as it is, it’s written as it was dreamed, as near as I can remember it. I could never quite figure out where to place it, so it’s languished on my computer until now.
The Unquiet Bones
When editor Johnny Mains came to me asking for an ‘old-school’ horror story, novella length, it took me a while to come up with an idea. As often happens with my stories, they start with a picture – whether that comes when I’m consciously trying to come up with something or whether it’s when I’m asleep (this happens a lot). This time it was bones. Lots of bones, little ones, big ones… all trying to escape from their brick prison, all trying to rejoin each other; to reconfigure themselves. Then I started thinking of some of the old-school tropes that I knew Johnny would like, and suddenly I had witchcraft, a castle or monastery… the rest of the story grew easily from there and was published in Bite-Sized Horror.
World Without End
This was written around the same time as ‘In Times of Want’, and it’s another story written down as I dreamed it. I had a recurring dream for a long time, that all my teeth fell out one by one, dropping to the bedcovers and leaving my mouth empty. Apparently that’s a confidence dream, and I haven’t had it for a long time now, whatever that means – but the story reminds me of it, and I still find it quite disconcerting. It was published in The Thinking Man’s Crumpet in 2009.
Someone To Watch Over You
When editor Paul Finch asked me to write a story for his anthology Terror Tales of London, he suggested I might like to write something about Finchley (as I’d lived there for about fifteen years before moving to Derbyshire). I thought about it, and remembered East Finchley station, which is an Art Deco building, still untouched. It’s also the first open air station heading north out of the city on the Northern Line (Barnet branch). I love ghost stories, and the more I thought about the station, the more I saw an old-fashioned character saving women who were about to be attacked. I could almost smell the tobacco smoke. Old Holborn, a brand my dad smoked years ago when he tried a pipe. From there the rest flowed quite easily, and this is a story I really enjoyed writing. The story was then chosen by Johnny Mains to be reprinted in Best British Horror 2014.
Such is Life
‘Such is Life’ was written not long after I started to get published, and I could never really find somewhere that seemed a fit for it – so it languished on my hard drive, waiting while I tried to figure out (occasionally) what to do with it. I was intrigued by the idea of life being wasted on the living (paraphrasing that old classic, ‘youth is wasted on the young’), and of a bitter ghost seeking revenge.
Play Time
You might have noticed by now that I’m rather fond of ghost stories. I was asked to contribute a story to an anthology called Darc Karnivale, with no specific guidelines other than word length and that it should be scary. I started to see a park playground, specifically a roundabout whirling around, alone and neglected. Spinning on its own, in other words. From there I found the character of a little dead girl, Mary. She’s fed up of being alone, and blames the world – and adults in particular – for her being in that condition. She likes the playground, and wants to play. She just needs a playmate. And a new mother. The story was reprinted in the Terror Tales anthology.
Inspiration Point
When editor Ian Whates asked me to contribute a story to one of two anthologies he was putting together – Noir and La Femme, the guidelines were relatively open. He wanted a crime story, a noirish tale with a strong female character – and that was it. As usual, I spent quite a while pondering the guidelines, wondering what would work – and then I thought of Marnie, a damsel in distress with a difference. And I wondered what someone like her would do if they ever found themselves abducted. One thing was certain; it wouldn’t be pretty.
A Garden for Lily
With this one, I was contacted by editor Peter Mark May with a request to write a novelette that would fit in with a series he was publishing called ‘Curse of…’ There’d be a Curse of the Ghost (which this story was originally published as), a Curse of the Wolf, Curse of the Monster and so on. I was happy to write another ghost story, but struggled with how to start. The ‘curse’ aspect seemed to be a stumbling block. One day I was looking through my file of unfinished stories and ‘A Garden for Lily’ leapt out at me. Here was a story of a woman haunted by a garden, and the garden in turn was haunted by a child, cursed to inhabit the pond he drowned in, and desperate not to be alone any more. After that, the story seemed to fly – and I was very pleased with the finished tale. I hope you like it.
Safe
‘Safe’ was the result of a request for a crime story from editor Johnny Mains for a proposed anthology. The anthology never saw daylight, so the story got filed away and forgotten – when I was looking for tales for this collection I came across it again, re-read it and still liked it; it’s a murder with a twist, short and hopefully not sweet.
In My Mind, Mine Understanding
This is another earlyish story – it was commissioned for an anthology called Dead Ends, to be brought out by Screaming Dreams Press. Once again, the anthology never came out, and the story got filed away and forgotten. Until now. As with the other early stories, I dreamed this one. What if you tried, really tried to be a good person, and buried all the bad thoughts way down deep when they occurred. And what if they got out, then took over?
The Cradle in the Corner
&n
bsp; This story was the result of a request for a ghost story from editor Ian Whates, for his anthology Hauntings. As happens so often, I started to think about what to do while I was going to sleep; and dreamed of a cradle. A very old cradle, which needed a new baby to go in it – but was still occupied by its previous owner. It was subsequently reprinted in e-book form, again by Ian Whates of NewCon Press, in Obsidian: A Decade of Horror Stories by Women.
About the Author
Marie O’Regan is a British Fantasy Award-nominated author and editor, based in Derbyshire. Her first collection, Mirror Mere, was published in 2006, and her short fiction has appeared in a number of genre magazines and anthologies in the UK, US, Canada, Italy and Germany. She was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Short Story in 2006, and Best Anthology in 2010 and 2012. Her genre journalism has appeared in magazines like The Dark Side, Rue Morgue and Fortean Times, and her interview book, Voices in the Dark, was released in 2011. An essay on ‘The Changeling’ was published in PS Publishing’s Cinema Macabre, edited by Mark Morris. She is co-editor of the bestselling Hellbound Hearts, Mammoth Book of Body Horror and A Carnivàle of Horror – Dark Tales from the Fairground, plus editor of bestselling The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women and is Co-Chair of the UK Chapter of the Horror Writers’ Association.
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