The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2013

by Angela Slatter

  The giant feline deigns to sniff my hand, then gives itself a cursory lick. It raises no objection when I stroke it gently.

  “She bites,” says Barbara.

  I don’t think this cat’s going to bite me. She’s purring now. “What’s her name?” I ask.

  “Rory. Aurora.”

  I go on petting her for a while, and Barbara goes on standing there watching me.

  “Sorry,” I say eventually, remembering that it’s late. “I miss my own cat. Is it OK for me to have some candles, please?”

  “Ah,” says Barbara, and I realise the door is shut and I’m alone with her and her house is seriously weird. I get to my feet and think about the twelve flights of stairs and the dark. “I have candles,” she says. “I have lighters. I have all manner of things down here, as no doubt you’ve heard. They tell all kinds of stories about me.”

  “I don’t get out much,” I squeak. “But I did hear you have candles, yes.”

  “Can you pay?”

  “Oh.” My heart sinks. “My stepmother didn’t give me any money.” Stupid! I should have thought of this.

  “Nothing’s free, young lady. But there are other ways of paying.”

  I back away toward the door. If I can get out, if she hasn’t locked it, I should be able to outrun her. She’s a big heavy woman and she looks sixty at least, maybe even older.

  “Can you cook?” Barbara asks.

  I stop backing. “Yes,” I say. I’ve been cooking since I was a little kid. Since Dad went away I’ve been doing pretty much all the housework, including preparing meals for four. If that’s all she wants me to do, fine. Even if it takes until midnight.

  Barbara flings open an inside door to show a dark old kitchen lit by more skull lamps. The stove is one of those ancient iron ones with a wood fire in a little compartment; there’s a basket of logs sitting next to it. Bunches of herbs and onions and garlic dangle from the ceiling. In the middle of the room there’s a wooden table and on it are a big bowl of fruit and veg, a basket of eggs and some little sacks that look as if they might hold rice or beans. In the corner stands a big red cupboard with a design of fruit and flowers painted on it, like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Then she shut her little brother in the red cupboard, and when she opened the doors again he was quite, quite gone.

  “I’m going out,” Barbara says. “Work to be done. You’ll make my dinner, three courses, each finer than the last. Lay it out on this table before I return home, and be sure it’s a meal fit for a queen. If I’m satisfied I’ll give you what you came for. But take care you leave my kitchen tidy. If I find the smallest thing out of place, I’ll consider eating you for my dinner instead.”

  Seems as if she’s heard most of the things the tenants of Woodland Gardens say about her and finds them amusing, not upsetting. I’m beyond being surprised by anything at this point, so I put on an apron, wash my hands and get to work. My gran had a wood stove like this so it’s not too much of a challenge.

  Making a three course dinner takes me a while. I put Mimi on the table, propped up against the fruit bowl. Rory the cat comes in at a certain point and hunkers down in a corner to supervise. As for Barbara, she’s flung on a cape and gone off, slamming the front door behind her. It’s pretty trusting of her, seeing as she’s never met me before tonight. I wonder what work she could be doing at this hour.

  I think about Susie, upstairs getting angrier and angrier in the dark. The doll I was working on will be lying on the table up there, all lonely, waiting for me to finish embroidering her face. Like all the dolls I make, she has in her a hair I plucked from my own head and knitted in with the wool. Someone’s out there waiting for that doll, and unless I get this job finished and take the candles upstairs they’ll have to wait a day longer, and Susie . . . I can’t let myself think too hard about that; I have to concentrate. I dare to open the red cupboard and find it’s a pantry full of useful ingredients. It’s a long time since I’ve had so much good stuff to work with.

  For starters I make a tomato and basil soup, with shaved parmesan and a herb scone on the side. I put together a spiced fruit compote and vanilla custard—there’s no fridge in Barbara’s kitchen, but the bottle of milk in the pantry is still OK, and so is the chicken waiting to be jointed and cooked. The main course will be breaded chicken pieces on herbed couscous, with vegies baked in olive oil and rosemary. In herb lore, rosemary means a strong woman, so it seems a good choice. I hope the meal’s substantial enough for Barbara. She looks like she might be a big eater. I wonder who would have cooked her dinner if I hadn’t been here.

  It’s starting to feel as if midnight might have been and gone, and my eyes are gritty with tiredness. The meal is pretty much ready, with only the couscous to steam. I make myself coffee, give Rory some chicken scraps in a bowl that looks like it might be hers, and sit down at the table for a bit. The kitchen’s full of good smells; even with those skulls staring down at me, it feels safe in here. The coffee should give me enough energy to clean up, then I only need to set the table and I’m done. If Barbara likes the meal, I can grab the lighter and candles and head on upstairs, and I’ll still have time to finish the doll before morning.

  I find crockery, a glass, knives and forks. I check the kitchen: bench wiped clean, dishes washed, dried and put away, floor swept, fire made up, kettle steaming on the wood stove. Everything’s ready. And I hear noises from outside the front door—Barbara’s back.

  Whoosh! Rory leaps onto the table, sending the open bag of couscous flying. Around two kilos of the stuff spill out all over the floor, the tiny granules rolling and scattering into every corner. I jump up and they crunch under my shoes. Rory has terrified herself; now she’s standing on the table with one paw planted on the clean plate, fur on end, yowling. There’s a rattle at the front door as Barbara sticks her key in the lock. What was that she said about eating me for dinner?

  I scramble for the red cupboard where there’s a dustpan and brush, and I slip over on the carpet of little grains. I land on my hip, putting new bruises on the old ones. I want to curl up on the floor and cry. Instead I look at Mimi, who’s still standing beside the fruit bowl.

  Give me a kiss, says Mimi.

  The front door squeaks open. I struggle to my feet, reach out for the doll, kiss her embroidered mouth.

  Give me a hug.

  Quick, quick, I will her as I lay my cheek on hers.

  Now let me dance!

  I throw her high; in the few seconds we have left before fate catches up with us, she may as well enjoy herself. She twirls, tumbles, falls back into my waiting hands. Dear Mimi, my true friend in good times and bad.

  Sit on the chair, close your eyes, lift your feet and keep that cat out of my way.

  I manage to gather up Rory, who weighs half a ton, and sit down at the table again. I can hear Barbara walking about in the other room, muttering to herself. There’s no way this can be cleaned up before she comes in, no way.

  Somewhere near my feet there’s a little sound like rats scuttling about. In my arms Rory tenses, making a deep-down whining noise. My body feels like it’s strung on a wire, every bit of it jangly and terrified.

  Hold on to that cat and keep your eyes shut.

  Something small and woollen brushes against my ankle and is gone. The scuttling moves around the room, from cupboard to table, from table to bench, from bench to stove.

  How much couscous does your recipe require? asks Mimi.

  “A cup.” This is crazy.

  The scuttling moves up onto the table; becomes more of a pouring sound.

  Done.

  I open my eyes. The floor looks completely clean. Mimi is exactly where she was before, regarding me with her woollen gaze, and the couscous is back in the bag, most of it anyway. The enamel cup I had ready for measuring is filled precisely to the top.

  The door opens and there’s Barbara, tall and imposing, her dark eyes taking in the tidy kitchen, the neatly laid table, the various serving dishes waiting.
I put the cat down, then move the couscous over to the bench and measure a cupful of water into a small iron pot.

  “Please, do sit down,” I say a bit shakily. “Are you ready for the first course now?”

  She sinks weightily onto the chair. “I could eat a horse,” she says, sounding as if she actually means it.

  Barbara eats the tomato and basil soup, the parmesan and the herb scone without saying a word. While she’s getting through that, I steam the couscous, which seems none the worse for its stint on the floor.

  “Good.” Barbara wipes her mouth with a large hand. “What’s next?”

  I serve the couscous, the chicken pieces and the baked vegetables: creamy potatoes, golden pumpkin, ruby-red beets, glistening onions. My mouth is watering, but she doesn’t suggest I sit down and share her feast, and I don’t either.

  When she’s eaten about half the main course, she sets down her knife and fork and stares at me. “I need entertainment,” she says. “A story. Think you can manage that?”

  I’m OK at cooking and I guess I’m OK at stories too, thanks to Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I start to tell her a story about a girl who goes into the woods to find an old witch who lives in a hut on hen’s legs, only Barbara keeps interrupting and asking questions, and it turns into a story about a girl whose stepmother takes her away from everything familiar, until the only friend she has in the world is the little doll her mother taught her how to make. A girl who only gets let out when her stepmother wants something; a girl who’s lost touch with the good things of her past, and only sees the cruelty and loneliness of her future.

  “Is this the doll?” Barbara asks, looking at Mimi, who stares back boldly from her spot by the fruit bowl.

  I tell her. I explain about the other dolls I make and how Susie sells them as fast as I can get them finished. I don’t tell her about the strands of hair; that feels too secret, even though Barbara’s listening with interest and her expression’s quite kindly. She’s finished the main course, a meal big enough to go around all four of us at 1205 with leftovers to spare.

  “Ready for dessert?” I ask politely, wondering what the time is and whether Susie will have given up on me and gone to bed by now. Maybe I can sneak in without waking her up.

  “Mmm.” Barbara stretches, moves her chair back a bit from the table. “Who taught you to cook, Lissa?”

  “My mother.”

  “She did a good job. You could be a chef someday.”

  I say nothing. You don’t get to be much at all if you haven’t finished high school. I bring out the fruit compote and the custard, and I make a pot of tea.

  “Sit down,” Barbara says at last. “Fetch yourself a cup, a bowl and a spoon.”

  We eat the dessert course together. It tastes wonderful; each mouthful reminds me of summer and sunshine and being safe. It reminds me of Mum and Dad and the way things used to be.

  “Well, then,” says Barbara when the compote and custard are all gone and we’re sitting over our cups of tea. “You’ve told me your story, and a fine one it was, full of joy and sorrow, good times and bad. Now it’s your turn. I’m sure you have plenty of questions for the old woman in the basement with her voodoo spells and her cantankerous familiar. Go ahead, ask them.”

  My mind fills with questions. I’d love to know about her past, and what brought her to live at Woodland Gardens, where she doesn’t belong at all. I’d like to know what the brass plate on the door says, and what language it’s in. I’d love her to tell me what work she does out there at midnight. And I want to know about spells: whether there’s one that will rescue me from Susie.

  Suddenly it seems dangerous to ask much at all. It feels like prying into something best left alone.

  “I only have one question,” I say.

  Her eyebrows go up.

  “Is magic real?” I ask, hoping she won’t laugh her head off.

  She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me, and I remember the thing with the couscous. I think of the hair I put into my dolls, as if that might somehow make them as real to their owners as Mimi is to me. Of course magic is real. But then I remember Susie and my bruises and how I’ve never been brave enough to ask Kye if I can use his phone, and I think no, it can’t be.

  Barbara goes on looking at me and sipping her tea, and I think she isn’t going to answer at all until she gets up, goes to the red cupboard, opens a little drawer at the bottom and brings out something that looks a bit like a melted candle. When she shows it to me I see it’s like a doll, with arms and legs and a head, but blobby and crude as if someone got tired of making it halfway through.

  “What if I told you this was a voodoo doll?” she asks, and a shiver runs through me. It doesn’t take much to imagine this little thing with pins stuck all over it, or being held over a lighter flame until it drips away to nothing. “What if I taught you how to work a curse?”

  Now the room is bristling with magic, the Grimm’s fairy tale kind where girls try to hide terrible secrets and wicked stepmothers dance in red-hot iron shoes. I take a deep breath, then reach out and pick up Mimi. “No,” I say. “Not even if it gets me out of trouble. Not even if it fixes up the future the way I want. It’ll cost too much. That kind of thing always does.”

  Barbara smiles. She reaches over toward the stove, opens the iron door with her bare hand and throws the wax thing inside, where it sizzles, making a vile smell. She clangs the door shut. “You’ll be wanting that light, then.” She stands, takes one of the skull lamps from the shelf and hands it to me. There’s a wire running through a couple of holes on the top, so I can carry the skull. The tea-light candle inside has been burning a while; this lamp may be out before I even get to Oak Level. Perhaps the power will be back on by then. Perhaps Susie won’t hurt me. After the voodoo thing, I can’t seem to make myself ask for more.

  “I’ll see you out,” Barbara says, leading me through the room with the embroidered cushions to the red front door. When she opens it, Rory streaks out, quicker than her bulk suggests is possible, and darts up the steps to the ground floor.

  “Thank you,” I say. “It’s been interesting talking to you.”

  Now she does laugh, but in a good way. “And you,” she says. “Hasten upstairs, Lissa. Dawn is breaking, and a new day comes.”

  A new day? Already? I see that she’s right, because up the top of the seven steps the door to the plaza is open, and as Rory sprints out, the darkness starts to lift. Out there, it’s nearly dawn, and upstairs in 1205 Susie’s going to wake up and find I’ve been away all night. Can I really have been talking for as long as that? Did I somehow fall asleep and not even notice? Either way, this is a disaster.

  “Farewell, Lissa,” says Barbara softly, and the door closes behind me.

  Grimly, I start the long climb. Pine, Cedar, Yew. Beside each painted name there’s a little silhouette of the tree; nice idea, wrong place. Beyond the stairwell windows the sky turns violet, pink, gold. Elm, Ash, Eucalyptus. Let her be still asleep. Let me get inside and be sewing before she wakes up. But that isn’t going to happen, because I have to do the twice three knocks on the door. She’s going to kill me. Cypress. Poplar. My legs are on fire; I have to stop and catch my breath. I sit down on the steps with Mimi on my knee, and look out the window as somewhere beyond the concrete towers the sun edges over the horizon.

  Down below, the stairwell door opens. The guy who walks through is not much older than me. His hair’s the colour fairy tales call golden, and he’s wearing snowy white overalls with a logo on the pocket, a smiling sun with Day and Son, Fresh Food Deliveries underneath. The guy’s carrying a little crate, and in it are loaves of bread and bottles—old-fashioned glass bottles—of milk. Like the one in Barbara’s pantry. “After you,” he says politely.

  We go on up, me first, the milk guy—Day Junior—second. I wait for him to ask me what I was doing sitting on the stairs at what must be about five in the morning, or to comment on the skull lamp, but all he says is, “Going to be a lovely day.”
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  “Mm,” I say, my mind full of Susie. Why am I so stupid? Why didn’t I ask Barbara if she’d let me use her phone to call the welfare people, instead of cooking her a giant dinner and asking her about magic? No wonder I’m in so much trouble.

  Day Junior and I climb through Juniper, Aspen and Willow. Outside, the sun comes up and proves him right; weather-wise, at least, it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day. Seems as if he plans to start his deliveries at the top. When we get to Oak Floor, he balances his crate on one arm and uses the other to hold the broken door back so it can’t fall on me as I go through.

  “Thanks,” I say, and head off toward 1205, not looking back to see who on Oak Floor can possibly afford a fresh food delivery.

  The hallway is full of light; outside, the sun’s climbing. I reach our door, knock three times, wait, knock three times again. The door flies open. She’s been waiting. Her face is all squeezed up with rage. Her arms stretch out to drag me inside.

  “Here,” I say, holding out the skull with its pitiful, flickering candle inside. Too little, too late. Susie takes it, and the look on her face makes my flesh crawl. My fingers move to touch the comforting shape of Mimi in my pocket. She’s not there. Somewhere on the long climb up, I’ve dropped her.

  No time to think. I turn my back on Susie and bolt for the stairwell. Day Junior hasn’t got past the first doorway, and when he sees me rushing down the steps he comes after me.

  “Hey! Slow down or you’ll hurt yourself. What’s wrong?”

  I gasp out an explanation, and instead of laughing at me he helps me search. As we go down, Willow, Aspen, Juniper, checking every step, I do wonder why Susie hasn’t come after me, but nothing’s as important as finding Mimi. Without her, a bit of me’s missing, and I don’t have a lot to spare.

  It’s Day Junior who locates Mimi, wedged between concrete step and iron railing on Poplar Level. He gets her out carefully, dusts her off, hands her back to me. “Safe and sound,” he says. “Must have jumped out of your pocket.”