But there was nothing, just the special dough proofing under a kitchen towel. I opened the pantry: a jumble of smells wafted out but nothing appealed to me. My mouth watered as I inhaled the enticing scent of the yeasty little manikin—musky cinnamon and cloves dusted in brown sugar.
Not for you, Mama had said.
“Well, why not? She can make another,” I said to the silent room. Then I put Mama’s concoction in the oven.
I sat on a stool and watched the dough transform. When the top was golden I yanked it out, searing myself on the tray. My skin burned brown, not pink.
“No matter,” I said and inspected the steaming bun. The raisins had sunk into the head. I tore a leg off and shoved it into my mouth.
My tastebuds sang with pleasure at the caramelised spices. It was soft and moist and I soon devoured it all, licking sugar off my fingertips.
After my tummy settled I left the house, the shock of the sudden chill outside goose-pimpling my skin. Gripped by an urge to visit my father, I took the left branch where the path forked. Frost crackled underfoot and the late autumn trees shed coppery leaves around me.
“Berry!”
Daniel hurried toward me.
“I knocked on your door but no one was home. What are you doing out here?”
“Walking,” I said, and offered him my arm. The graveyard huddled in the new forest, so-called because it had been logged so heavily it scarcely resembled the old forest. Groves of evergreen conifers displaced the deciduous oaks, beeches and maples. Father slept beneath a mound thick with pine needles, slightly off-centre in the clearing. I dropped to my knees and traced the words on his headstone. I couldn’t read. Daniel leaned over my shoulder.
“William Baker,” he said. “Beloved Husband, taken too soon.”
“I don’t think about him, really,” I said. Daniel kissed my palm. I grabbed his hand and tugged him away. We meandered in silence, straying off the path.
Daniel glanced around, his eyebrows creased with worry. “I think we’re in the old forest. Look how different the trees are, and there’s more undergrowth. We should go back.”
I ignored him. Under an ancient oak I stopped and spied a sliver of rock obscured by a layer of leaves. I hunkered down and picked it up. The stone was icy but I dragged the sharp edge across my skin. Red liquid welled from the wound.
“Berry,” he gasped. “What are you doing?”
I raised my arm to my lips and touched my tongue to the cut. Syrupy, it hinted of raspberries and sugar. “Try it,” I said.
He frowned and shook his head. I sighed, grabbed his wrist and with a quick movement cut him. He cried out and flinched away from me. “Have you gone mad?”
“Quite mad,” I agreed and lunged forward to lick the crimson line that oozed down his skin. The metallic drop burned my tongue.
Daniel looked as though he might throw up. “Is this what everyone’s blood is like?” I asked.
He grimaced. “Well, I don’t make a habit of drinking it, but yes, I suppose so.”
I thrust my bleeding arm under his nose. He recoiled but I snapped, “Smell it. Taste it. Do it!” I backed him against the oak tree, and he raised his hands to ward me off. “Just do it, you coward,” I said.
He slumped and leaned in to sniff like a dainty cat inspecting its food. A wave of confusion washed over his face, and he touched a finger to the sticky fluid. “Berry?”
“Go on,” I said.
He stuck the tip in his mouth, then shook his head. “It’s not possible,” he said.
“I know, and yet, it is.”
“What does it mean?”
I sighed and sagged, suddenly weak. “It means my Mama lied to me, and I think I ate a baby. But not a real one. One like me.”
Daniel scratched his head, his eyes wary. “I still don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, Daniel.” I patted his shoulder. “I’m probably just a little bit crazy. You should go home.”
He gazed down at me, emotions running over his face as fast as a hunted rabbit, too fast to catch. “Let’s go back,” he said.
I shrugged and followed him through the trees to the path, where he hesitated before saying, “I think you’re a bit wild for me.” He had the grace to hang his head as he hurried off.
* * *
The house was cold for the second morning in a row, which meant Mama was still seeing to Annie. Dawning sun softened the hard angles of the room. I got up and stoked the fire, shivering while I waited for the warmth to penetrate my bones. Did I even have bones? I tapped my fingers on the floor and concluded that yes, I must have.
Then I remembered what I’d done.
“Mama will be angry,” I said, opening the door and searching for her round form. A few leaves skittered across the ground but the path remained empty.
I rushed into the kitchen and began throwing ingredients together to make a replacement. My technique was not refined: all I managed was a lop-sided effigy. I poked and pushed at it but couldn’t create an exact replica of the one I’d eaten.
I frowned, stepped back and contemplated it from every angle. I deflated. This wouldn’t work. The kitchen towel settled over the sub-standard thing, hiding it from view as I retreated to the living room to brood.
I heard heavy footfalls outside and jumped up. Sweat gathered under my breasts. The door swung inwards and Mama followed it, beaming at me even through her haggard mask of exhaustion.
“A hard birth?” I asked, moving forward to help her sit.
“Long and hard, but the wee lad and Annie are fine.” Mama’s eyes misted over. “Such a bonny lad. I would have loved a son, you know.”
“I’ll get you some tea,” I said, “stay there.”
I bustled around the kitchen, brewing chamomile tea. A shadow at the corner of my eye made me turn; Mama stood staring at the towel-covered tray.
“Mama,” I began but she strode forward and pulled the towel off. Her gasp pricked at my heart, and my hand shook as I reached out to her.
“What have you done?” she said, mouth trembling, gaze cold.
The lie, unlooked for, fell from my lips. “I’m sorry, Mama, a racoon got inside and ate it. I tried to make another, but I’m not as good at it as you. I tried.” I bit the inside of my cheek and stood still and straight as a beech.
Mama looked around, for evidence, perhaps. “But, it was . . . ” She rounded on me. “You stupid girl! How could you let this happen?” Her eyes narrowed and she loomed over me. “You’re going to leave me soon, aren’t you? You’ll leave me to my tears and my loneliness!”
“Mama, please . . . just make another?”
“It’s not that simple,” she said, shaking her head. “The Mother-starter needs to be fed, the spices have to be just right . . . all I ever wanted were babies, lots of babies, and while breeding sows like Annie Croft pop them out every year I must suffer this burden alone.” Mama sagged against the bench. I touched her arm and she glared up at me. “You stand there, blossoming like a fertile flower, taunting me, on the cusp of abandoning me. Get out. Get out of my sight.”
I got out.
* * *
Twilight spread dark shadows through the woods and I realised I was lost. Fingers of dread brushed my spine as nightfall loomed in the old forest. Trees twisted into menacing forms. I hugged my shivering body and pushed through the undergrowth, the path lost to me some time ago.
Smoke drifted on a faint breeze. Buoyed, I followed the acrid scent. I tripped over roots but stumbled on as the smell of smoke and baking bread grew stronger.
In the dimness I saw a thicket of brambles that almost entirely covered a small A-frame cottage. Thorns trailed down the wooden planks, grey with age, but I stepped up and knocked carefully to avoid the spikes.
The door opened and an old woman looked out. Her grey hair draped like spider web across her shoulders, and written in the wrinkles of her face was the wisdom of a lifetime. She raised her eyebrows but still ushered me into the warmth.
“Well, what do you want?” she said, popping a kettle on the stove. “What’s your name, girl?” She peered at me. “Why can I smell jam buns?”
Flustered, I replied, “My name is Berry,” and skirted some rather odd-looking sculptures of men with giant protuberances. “My mama—”
“Yes, yes,” she said and brushed a bony hand against the red smear on my arm. With a nail she scraped at the dried crust and then stuck the fingertip in her mouth. “Ah. I think I know who your mama is. She didn’t quite follow orders, did she?”
I stared. “I don’t understand.”
The kettle whistled and she poured a tea. Spearmint steam curled from the surface as she handed it over.
“Sit,” she said, waving at a small chair covered in crocheted blankets. I perched gingerly, afraid of spilling the boiling liquid on myself.
She sat opposite me and sighed. “Do you know what you are?”
“What I am?” My lip trembled. “Are you a witch?”
Her laugh was the crackling of autumn leaves: dry and papery. “Not every old woman in the woods is a witch.”
My cheeks warmed. “Sorry.”
She waved away my apology. “Why are you here, girl?”
I shrugged, sipping at the hot minty liquid. “My mama got mad, and now I’m lost.”
She squinted at me for long moments. “Let me tell you a story.
“Once upon a time there was a woman who wanted to have a baby, but no matter how much she and her husband tried, no baby would grow inside her. She went to a herb woman, a midwife, and begged for help.
“The herb woman was troubled but gave the younger woman a special Mother-starter, one that had been handed down for hundreds of years. She told the young woman to make a little unbaked bread-baby, and tend it carefully for a month. At the end of the month she would be able to conceive.” The old woman paused, staring at me with a frown. “Here is where my knowledge ends. The fertility charm was changed, somehow.”
“So you are a witch.”
The old woman blushed. “It’s such a negative word,” she replied.
“So what happened? Why am I what I am?”
She put her tea down and picked up her crochet needle. “Is it just you and your mother, dear?”
I nodded. “Papa was killed . . . ” my mouth dropped open. “Oh. Before I was born, she told me.”
The old woman leaned back and pursed her lips. “The charm was designed to enhance her fertility. Without her husband . . . ” She glanced at me speculatively for a moment. “Strange things can happen, when hope and desire and death change the course of magic. She must have tended you even after his death, and her love was eventually rewarded by a cry as you took breath.”
I pondered her words. A slow sickness spread through me. “Then, if you are telling me true, I ate my sibling.”
She smiled. “It was just bread, girl. You ate a delicious bun, that’s all. Without the blood magic to transform the fertility charm, it was just food.” As she spoke her eyebrows furrowed and she tapped her chin. “When you think about it, it’s an interesting proposition: a pregnancy stimulant eating one like itself. Who knows what might come of your actions?”
I made a dismissive gesture. “I did not lie with Daniel. What would have . . . happened to me had she gotten pregnant?” I bit my lip.
“I’m not sure you want to know,” the old woman replied. At my silence, she sighed. “At the first sign of pregnancy your mother was to bake and eat the manikin that became you.”
I struggled to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” said the old woman. “But be comforted that your mother chose to love you, and in doing so, gave you life.”
“My blood tastes like jam,” I said. “My sweat is sugary. Daniel is scared of me. What will I tell people?”
“Tell them nothing. People are afraid of things they don’t understand.”
I finished my tea, swirling the dregs around the bottom of the cup. My mouth was fresh from the spearmint. “I need to think.”
I stood and held the cup awkwardly. She took it from me and gazed into my eyes. My heart fluttered, a moth trapped in a bone cage.
“I’m sorry, Berry, that I had a hand in this,” she said. “If you need my help, seek me here.” Then I was out of the cottage and into the crisp air. The bramble thicket was an impenetrable mass at my back in the dark forest.
It seemed the birds sang nervously as I tried to retrace my steps. My hands trembled and I hummed a lullaby to calm myself. My feet crunched the brittle brown leaves that carpeted the ground. Shadows flitted through the trees; each time I saw movement I froze, then forced myself forward.
Stars glimmered in the sky when I at last pushed the door open. Mama cried and ran to me, gathering me up in her arms.
“I’m sorry, sweetling,” she said. “Forgive me.”
“It was careless to leave the shutters open.” The lie sat bitter on my tongue. “I’m sorry, too.”
“All is well,” she said, and beamed at me. “I made another. That Mother-starter is very old, but I had enough left to make a new one without feeding it.”
My cheek twitched. She clucked and sat me in a chair, draping a blanket around me and getting me some bread. I nibbled at it and licked butter off my lips.
“I found the herb woman in the old forest,” I told her hesitantly. “I know what you did. I know what I am.
“She thinks my father’s death changed the magic, and gave me life. Without that sacrifice, the dough baby won’t come to life.” I took a deep breath. “You must needs be content with me.”
Mama looked away. She looked at the ceiling, at the walls, at the window. Then down to her hands where they clutched each other, and back up to my face.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said in a whisper.
I raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“I want a baby. With every part of my being. You’re growing up, will marry and leave me. I need another baby.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand on her warm knee. “I wish you could.”
Her expression changed. One moment her face was open and sad, the next it was closed and sly. She stood. “What I love about dough is that I can re-use it for almost anything, as long as it’s not baked.” She took a step forward. “I never baked you.”
Mama lunged for me. I shrieked and kicked her in the knees, jumped out of the chair. She fell hard onto her side, her head hitting the ground. I paused, worried, but her hand snaked out for my leg. The hunger was still plain to see on her face. With a bitter sob I fled the house.
* * *
A little dough baby was proofing inside me.
“Get rid of it,” I begged Granny, as I’d come to call her since the night I’d returned to rap frantically on her thorny door. Her face darkened.
“I dare not meddle. You’re a fertility charm impregnated with a fertility charm. I cannot know what effect the herbs might have.”
When my belly began to swell, I’d asked, “Will I ever be safe?”
And she’d sighed and answered, “From me, yes. My tastes are simple, and I have no hunger I cannot satisfy on my own.”
Which was little comfort.
I could feel the babe squirming. I imagined it devoured me as it grew, as I had eaten it. I was torn between two urges: give it to Mama and cure her of the madness, or abandon it in the forest for the wild creatures to feast on.
“It might just nibble its way out,” I said with a glum sigh. Granny rolled her eyes.
“I highly doubt that,” she said.
The baby was born in a gush of raspberry cordial. When I held her to my chest and breathed in, her cinnamon-clove scent filled my heart with joy.
“We’re the same,” I said, beaming up at Granny. “I’m not alone anymore.”
Granny smiled back, but worry tinged her eyes. “I’m glad for you, Berry, but there must be no more.”
My mind was already filled with thoughts of babies made from gingerbread, but I replied,
“Of course, Granny,” and stared down at my sweet baby girl.
Cinnamon turned her head to my breast and began to suckle. I closed my eyes and dreamed of a horde of sugary children to slip unnoticed among the salty ones.
Of the Colour Turmeric, Climbing on Fingertips
Gerry Huntman
Ball’s Pyramid was the ultimate climb for the three friends. It was a massive, ancient volcanic plug that projected over five hundred and fifty metres above sea level like a giant shark’s fin cutting through the Pacific Ocean. It had been scaled only a handful of times, and always by the easiest routes. It took three years for Jason to get permission for them to even set foot on the declared nature reserve. His fiancée, Becky, and best friend, Dave, were as eager as Jason to climb the monolithic rock from the hardest, sheerest route. No ‘beta’, as their craft described it—without the taint of any foreknowledge or advice.
The ocean wind swept across Jason, causing his hair to dance and his coat to flutter like a thousand butterfly wings. He was standing on a narrow ledge and had set several anchors in the rock to secure the group from being blown off the island. He glanced up the sheer face, rising four hundred and fifty metres, and then down the slightly off-vertical cliff one hundred metres to the sea. A large rubber dingy was moored to a rock outcrop, bobbing incessantly and maniacally in random directions, while much further out to sea was the Osprey, the charter boat from Lord Howe Island that brought the rock climbers to their Holy Grail. The boat would wait three days while they attempted the climb. The waves didn’t cause too much trouble when they transferred from the twin-engine dingy through the pungent sea-spray to the slimy rocks at the base of the volcanic plug. The winds were too strong to attempt the summit this day, especially when they were climbing it the hard way.
With the noise of the sea and the frequent winds, there was little point in working with walkie-talkies. Jason was given a small flare gun to signal if the party was in trouble, and the captain of The Osprey had instructed the rock climbers to abandon their efforts and return to their dingy as quickly as possible if a similar flare emanated from the boat.
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (Volume 5) Page 25
