Silk
Page 1
Praise for Silk
Winner of the International Horror Guild Award
for Best First Novel
Finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel
Nominated for the British Fantasy Award
“Caitlín R. Kiernan draws her strength from the most honorable of sources, a passion for the act of writing…. A wonderful book.”
—Peter Straub
“Caitlín Kiernan is the poet and bard of the wasted and the lost.”
—Neil Gaiman
“Caitlín R. Kiernan is an original.”
—Clive Barker
“Caitlín R. Kiernan writes like a Gothic cathedral on fire…. If the title alone doesn’t make you want to read Silk, the first page will do the trick. Kiernan’s work is populated with the physically freaky, mentally unstable, sexually marginalized characters who have caused so much consternation in conventional circles—but Caitlín Kiernan is headed in an entirely different direction. Her unfolding of strange events evokes not horror, but a far larger sense of awe.”
—Poppy Z. Brite
“[Kiernan] has what it takes to excite me as a reader…. I just loved this book and can’t wait to see what she writes next.”
—Charles de Lint
“An observational coming-of-age novel that astutely and empathetically provides connection between characters and readers…an incremental triumph of texture and layering, harkening back to an earlier tradition of supernatural fiction, an era when storytelling took as much time as it needed to accrue the maximum effect…. Hers is a dark and mellifluous voice to which we should listen.”
—Locus
“Kiernan’s writing is meaty, atmospheric, and evocative; her prose is well crafted and terrifically engaging…. Silk is a strong first showing, and Kiernan should have a bright future ahead of her.”
—Fangoria
“A novel with an uncommonly rich texture…should establish [Kiernan] as an important writer of the future. This novel transcends the goth genre.”
—Necrofile
“Spun as beautifully as the many webs within…. You absolutely must read it.”
—Carpe Noctem
“A masterful story by an extraordinary new voice in literature…on her way to becoming an incredibly well-known—and well-respected—talent. Silk is simply the extraordinary beginning of an incredible journey, both for Kiernan and her readers.”
—Alabama Forum
“Kiernan is uniquely herself, but even if you miss the endorsement by Neil Gaiman, you cannot fail to see the kindred spirit that flows through their writing. I feel no risk in voicing the opinion that if you enjoy one, you will relish the other.”
—SF Site
“Kiernan’s writings seem to be a successful blending of…Poppy Z. Brite and Dean Koontz…. Will appeal to audiences of both authors.”
—Bookbrowser
Threshold
Winner of the International Horror Guild Award
for Best Novel
“Threshold is a bonfire proclaiming Caitlín R. Kiernan’s elevated position in the annals of contemporary literature. It is an exceptional novel you mustn’t miss. Highly recommended.”
—Cemetery Dance
“A distinctively modern tale that invokes cosmic terrors redolent of past masters H. P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood…. A finale that veers unexpectedly from a seemingly inevitable display of supernatural fireworks to a subtly disarming denouement only underscores the intelligence behind this carefully crafted tale of awe-inspired nightmare.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Caitlín R. Kiernan is] the most singular voice to enter the genre since Neil Gaiman popped up in graphic novels and Stephen King made movies live inside books…. If you haven’t sampled her work yet, you haven’t really been reading the future of horror and dark fantasy, only its past.”
—Lisa DuMond, SF Site, ME Views
“Threshold confirms Kiernan’s reputation as one of dark fiction’s premier stylists. Her poetic descriptions ring true and evoke a sense of cosmic dread to rival Lovecraft. Her writing envelopes the reader in a fog concealing barely glimpsed horrors that frighten all the more for being just out of sight.”
—Gauntlet Magazine
Low Red Moon
“Kiernan only grows in versatility, and readers should continue to expect great things from her.”
—Locus
“The familiar caveat ‘not for the faint of heart’ is appropriate here—the novel is one of sustained dread punctuated by explosions of unmitigated terror.”
—Irish Literary Review
“Effective evocations of the supernatural…a memorable expansion of the author’s unique fictional universe.”
—Publishers Weekly
Murder of Angels
“[Kiernan’s] punk-rock prose, and the brutally realistic portrayal of addiction and mental illness, makes Angels fly.”
—Entertainment Weekly (A-)
“I love a book like this that happily blends genres, highlighting the best from each, but delivering them in new configurations…. In Murder of Angels, the darkness is poetic, the fantasy is gritty, and the real-world sections are rooted in deep and true emotions.”
—Charles de Lint
“Kiernan can write like a banshee…. [She] paints her pages in feverish, chiaroscuro shades. A bridge to the beyond, built out of exquisite dread.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Daughter of Hounds
“The plot springs abundant surprises…an effective mix of atmosphere and action.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kiernan’s storytelling is stellar, and the misunderstandings and lies of stories within the main story evoke a satisfying tension in the characters.”
—Booklist
“A thrilling page-turner that also features the depth, complexity, and unflinching willingness to contemplate the dark that we’ve come to expect from [Kiernan’s] books.”
—Locus
“Caitlín R. Kiernan pays homage to Lovecraft in the very scary Daughter of Hounds. There is a sense of the foreboding gothic that creeps out the audience, and the antagonists who set much of the pace seem freaky and deadly. Reminiscent of Poppy Z. Brite’s darkest thrillers, Ms. Kiernan provides Goth horror fans with a suspense laden tale that keeps readers’ attention.”
—Alternate Worlds
SILK
Caitlín R. Kiernan
A ROC BOOK
ROC
Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Roc trade paperback edition.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-1239-4
Copyright © Caitlín R. Kiernan, 1998
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reprod
uced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
For Elizabeth and Jada
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Part I Apolycis
Chapter One Daria
Chapter Two Niki
Chapter Three Spyder
Chapter Four Yer Funeral
Chapter Five Robin
Chapter Six Keith
Chapter Seven Stiff Kitten, and How Shrikes Fly
Chapter Eight String Theory
Chapter Nine Paperweight
Part II Ecdysis
Chapter Ten Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory
Chapter Eleven Loose Threads
Chapter Twelve The Mules That Angels Ride
Chapter Thirteen Sineaters
Chapter Fourteen Orpheus
Epilogue
About the Author
Author’s Note
The section headings have been taken from the successive stages of the arachnid molting process. To quote Dr. Rainer F. Foelix (Biology of Spiders, 1982): “In a strict sense molting comprises two different processes: (1) apolysis, the separation of the old cuticle from the hypodermal cells, and (2) ecdysis, the shedding of the entire old skin (exuvium), which corresponds to what most people think of as molting. Apolysis precedes ecdysis by about one week.”
I would also like to acknowledge the works of Drs. Joseph Campbell and Carl G. Jung (and in particular Synchronicity, 1960) as indispensable resources during the writing of this book.
Silk was written between October 1993 and January 1996, and during the writing and since its original publication in 1998, very many people lent their assistance in very many ways. In particular, I would like to thank (in no particular order) Jada Walker and Katharine Stewart, David Ferguson, Poppy Z. Brite, Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, the late Kathy Acker, Clive Barker, Joe Daley, Harlan Ellison, Brian Hodge, Charles de Lint, Douglas E. Winter, William Schafer, Liz Scheier, Laura Anne Gilman, Merrilee Heifetz, Laura Tucker, Richard Curtis, Kelly Hall, Paula Guran, Darren McKeeman, Ed Bryant, Victor Stabin, Christa Faust, Barry Hoffman, Tamara Babyock-Zannis, Matthew Grasse, Scott Crumpton, and Kathryn Pollnac. Also, I would like to note that the Birmingham, Alabama, appearing in this novel is a fictional, wishful fusion of Athens, Georgia, in the early 1990s and Birmingham in the late 1980s and, as such, has never existed outside the pages of Silk. Don’t go looking for it anywhere else.
“All the events in a man’s life would accordingly stand in two fundamentally different kinds of connections; firstly, in the objective, causal connection of the natural process; secondly, in a subjective connection which exists only in relation to the individual who experiences it, and which is thus as subjective as his own dreams…. That both kinds of connection exist simultaneously, and the selfsame event, although a link in two totally different chains, nevertheless falls into place in both, so that the fate of one individual invariably fits the fate of the other, and each is the hero of his own drama while simultaneously figuring in a drama foreign to him….”
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Prologue
Parlor Game, And Flies With Faces
Two nights before Halloween, as if it matters to anyone in the house, as if every day in this house isn’t Halloween. As if every moment they live isn’t the strain and stretch, the hand reaching back, groping through bottomless candy bags down to where front porches glow with orange-flicker grins and skeletons dance hopscotch sidewalks and ring doorbells. And they are all here, here around her where they belong.
When someone passes Spyder the little pipe and the plastic lighter, she pushes her bone-bleached dreadlocks from her face, matted as close to dreads as her stringy, white-girl hair allows, virgin black showing at the roots. She sucks, pulls the delicious, spicy smoke into her mouth, and the embers in the bowl glow warm and safe as jack-o’-lantern light.
She holds the smoke inside until it seems she might never have to breathe simple air again, and then releases it slow through her nostrils, passes the pipe to Robin. Robin sprawled on the floor at her feet, almost naked, black panties and black lace wrapped loose around her shoulders, hair dyed the color of absinthe.
“Ummm,” Robin murmurs, accepts the pipe, but her wide, acid-bright eyes never waver from the television screen, from the silent gore and splatter of a pirated second-generation Italian zombie flick, sound all the way down so that everything becomes an impromptu video for the Skinny Puppy or Marilyn Manson pounding from the stereo. But Robin knows where all the shrieks and moans belong and on cue she opens her mouth wide, perfect teeth and pink tongue, and Spyder shuts her eyes, feels the scream tear itself from Robin’s throat and wash over her, filling up the room until the jealous music pulls it apart.
Someone claps loudly, and Byron glares from the sofa where he’s still making out with the pretty black boy from Chicago, the boy who brought the sheets of blotter. Spyder smiles at him, runs her fingers through Robin’s improbable hair, dares him to say a word. Then Robin laughs and spills gray smoke from her lips, gives the pipe to someone else before she nestles snug into Spyder’s lap. And Byron turns away and hides his face deep in the boy’s neck.
Spyder squints through the gauze of marijuana and cigarette smoke hanging a few feet above the hardwood floor, through the strange half light, salt-and-pepper TV glare blending into the gentler glimmer from the candles scattered around the room. She lingers, admires the tattoos that cover both her arms from shoulder to knuckle, dark sleeves, tapestry of webs rendered in silvery blues and iridescent highlights against a field of deepest black and indigo.
On the screen, another latex disembowelment and the sudden seethe of maggots like boiling rice.
“Oh,” and Robin flinches like she hasn’t seen this tape fifteen times before, like there’s anything left to shock. Spyder closes her eyes again, tight, savoring the smoky aftertaste and the industrial throb and crash from the speakers, the soft snarl of Robin’s hair.
This moment, she thinks, and her head is clear, no acid or X and certainly none of Walter’s ugly little mushrooms. Only enough of the rich Mississippi pot to deal with the distractions, the blurry edges of her attention. This one moment, and behind her eyes, she imagines bottling the seconds, one whole minute, in antique green glass or amber vials, drives the cork in deep before it goes to past like vinegar or slips away.
Everything, she thinks, and everyone here around me.
“Ohhhh,” Robin says, almost whispers, “Oh fuck, oh fuck, that’s so beautiful.”
Later, the last precious hour before dawn, and the sable-skinned boy from Chicago has gone, and the hangers-on have gone, the girl from Atlanta with her tarot deck and the nameless child treading on her shadow, both so skinny it hurt to see. The two drag queens who dropped by looking for Walter, looking to score a quarter bag after their last show of the evening.
Just Spyder and Robin all but asleep in her lap, still tripping deep and hard on her three hits, three tiny white tabs stamped with prancing blue unicorns and dissolved like sugar on her tongue. B
yron sits alone on the sofa now, staring at the television, Murnau’s original Nosferatu in scratchy blacks and whites like celluloid watercolors, and his eyes are somehow vacant and expectant at the same time.
And Walter, squatted like a ragged gargoyle before the stereo, digging noisily through her CDs and cassettes, singing or mumbling to himself. He settles on something, slips it into the deck and the Cure’s “Plainsong” pours like honey and raindrops from the speakers.
The girl rises from her bed like a living ghost and sleepwalks along the edge of a balcony; her bare feet, jerky tiptoe stride, barely seem to touch the stone balustrade. Byron picks up the remote, presses Pause, and she freezes in midstep. He holds her that way until the song’s overture is done and Robert Smith releases them both.
“Spyder?” and Robin’s voice slips from her like an echo of itself, something shouted far away and faded thin and hollow by the time it finally crosses her lips.
“I’m here,” Spyder answers.
“Talk to me, Spyder. Tell me the story.”
“You already know the story, Robin.”
But Robin squeezes her hand hard, sudden, unexpected pressure, and her eyes flutter open.
“Please, Spyder?” she asks. “Please? I need to hear it again. I need to hear you tell it.”
Byron has set the remote down, watches them, arms crossed and waiting. Walter pretends to organize the careless scatter of jewel cases on the floor, pretends he hasn’t heard.
“It’s very late,” Spyder says, brushing Robin’s bangs from her eyes. “You look so sleepy.”
“No. No, I don’t want to sleep yet. Please, Spyder.”
When Spyder glances at Byron, he shifts his eyes quickly back to the television, back to the terrified solicitor and the vampire, and Walter shrugs and stacks the CDs.