November 2020 -- A whole Heap of Other Stuff -- No2 -- All Saints to Armistice

This one is a ghost story but it was written as a response to a painting. 

Memoire

This corner is my favourite haunt, as the warmth of terracotta gives back heat from the day, and shadows lengthen and pool in corners, underneath arches, behind stones, beneath greenery, and sacred scents of basil, rosemary, thyme and geranium blend and mingle in the evening air.

I remember as a girl, sipping the sharp lemonade my grandma always made, listening to grandpa, uncle Jacques and their old comrades telling tales of how they won the Great War almost single-handed, nothing left but cigarettes, a letter from home and a shred of hope, as they fought through mud and doom to get back home, and how despite it all, they’d persevered. They’d done their bit. And auntie Marie-Claire would smile wryly while the claque of her needles, regular as the passing of time, never stopped, as they might have been the ticking of a sun dial.

Mémé and maman flitted always to and fro, bringing refreshments.

“Encore des histoires de dormir debout!” Mémé’d say and wink at me.

My mother’s laughter filled the air. I drank it all in. My little brothers, who could never be still, played soldier-boys, whacking each other with sticks for swords, in and out between the shrubs, thrashing and parrying until grenadine, red as blood, was poured into tall glasses and they would gulp it down, their mouths sticky with red. Then papa would stride home from field or vineyard, carrying some seasonal fare: a brace of rabbits or clutch of wood pigeons, salmon or trout, cherries or cob nuts, or in August, dripping from a large wash bowl, a wedge of honeycomb, big as the doorstep, warm and golden, still studded with bees.

Soon a neighbour would arrive, or two, or three, or the postman on his bicycle, or an old friend of grandpa’s who happened to be passing this way just on time for the casse-croûte and he could perhaps be persuaded to un petit verre. All were welcomed. All were fed. It was like that in our family – no friend or stranger ever turned away.

And it was like that until the day I left; left to join the resistance, eager to do my bit. I imagined nothing had changed and that nothing ever would change in that peaceful place so full of love. When I was captured, it was this that kept me going, that gave me the courage to fight on until the last. I would die rather than betray its memory.

I suppose, from their point of view, I never came back. But the truth for me, is that I never left this paradise I was fighting to protect. And I am here still, a shadow among shadows in this corner of my past. The warmth of terracotta gives back memories of my life.

 ©2018 Oonah V Joslin. Previously published in Writing in a Woman's Voice

November 2020 -- A whole Heap of Other Stuff -- No1 -- All Saints to Armistice

Today is All Saint's Day and the perfect antidote to 31 days of Horror is this story that was published in The Shine Journal. 

Just Another Step

Sofia could see no one above her; no one beneath her. There was just the stair spiralling on and on, upwards and downwards, thicker in the far reaches below, ever narrowing towards the top and with one, slim, central support.

Here the stair comprised crystal wedges, difficult to make out as steps and more than a little disconcerting. She could see through them to the vertiginous depths. Exhausted from climbing, overwhelmed in scale and dizzied, like in an Escher painting, she felt at any moment she might faint and fall -- fall to doom.

‘If only I could step off. Take a moment’s rest.’

As if in answer to her thought, beside the step on which she stood, a wide, grey expanse opened up all around, extending as far as the eye could see like a great lounge in some endless hotel. She stepped off and stood ankle deep, in a carpet of thick cloud, furnished with soft hummocks, whiter or darker, that formed chaises-longues all draped with rainbow quilts. There were deep armchairs piled with pillows, and fluffy footstools. Not far off, under a silver canopy, a waterfall flowed into a drinking basin of ethereal blue. Sofia drank and splashed her face and arms. Never had she known anything so refreshing.

“Sit, Sofia!” It was barked out like an order rather than an invitation and a great white dog bounded across and shook itself so she was drenched in silvery raindrops.

“Toby? Toby is that really you?”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” it laughed. “You were always telling me to sit so I thought...”

“Toby!” Sofia put her arms about his neck and buried her head in his thick coat and remembered that wet, doggy smell she’d complained about so many times. Now she welcomed it. He jumped up beside her and his tail thrashed happily against her leg. Dear Toby! She had a million questions but she was so tired now that she just lay back on the pillows, feeling safe as she always had with Toby by her side.

When she woke Toby had gone. ‘Strange dream,’ thought Sofia. Then she realised she was indeed lying on cloud and through its middle a little way off, she saw the glimmering stair. “It was no dream,” she said aloud.

“No. It isn’t a dream.” The speaker was a child.

“Should I know you?”

“I never lived but you carried me once.” The child sat beside her.

“Where did Toby go?”

“I expect he’s in a field somewhere chasing sheep. You’ll see him again.”

“Is this Heaven?”

“No that’s far above.”

“It’s such a climb! I thought they just – took you there, you know?”

“Do you remember the first steps?”

Sofia nodded; those first steps had been hard. They were of black, volcanic glass, wide and slippery, and full of dark memories. At least she’d left all that behind. Higher up they’d turned to granite then narrowed to silvered glass and now the purest crystal.

“You are doing well,” assured the child.

“Why did I not see this platform before?”

“Because you didn’t need it before. You became discouraged and fearful and it is here. What more can you ask?”

“But what if I’d fallen?” Sofia shivered to think of the untold depths.

“You weren’t allowed to fall,” said the child. “Higher up, when the steps become invisible, you must remember that.”

“Invisible?” an alarming thought. “Then how will I know where to put my feet?”

“Eventually you will learn to climb without steps, without feet, even. Rest now, Sofia.”

“Please, how long may I stay here?”

“Until you are ready to leave.”

Time was without measure here and Sofia lacked nothing, but eventually she felt she could climb again and approached the spiral stair to begin. Ahead she perceived only three crystal steps, barely visible, and she remembered what the child had said. There was no telling how far she had still to climb. Perhaps there would be other resting places, other friends to be met and this was just another step, but every step demanded new courage. As soon as she took it, the stairway dissolved beneath and above, and she found herself drawn upwards on glowing wings; climbing without feet. Perhaps one day she would fly without wings too, ‘towards the light,’ she thought. ‘Always towards the light.’

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No31 -- Happy Hallowe'en

Happy Hallowe'en 

today I have a story for you that was published a couple of years back in Twisted Tales. It is the last Hallowe'en Horror but I will be posting an antidote to Hallowe'en tomorrow so I hope you will join me again -- and maybe even follow me in my own wee Oonahverse for more FREE READS in the future.

No Contest

He turned quickly on hearing a crash and found the pumpkin staring at him. It was still wearing the face he’d just carved, but the expression was altered, and it was not alone. It seemed that every pumpkin in the patch had arrived at his door.
“How in the Devil’s name…” he began then stopped.
In the devil’s name…In the devil’s name…In the devil’s name… His words echoed back.

The door of his Last-a-Lifetime Security Shed had been ripped off its hinges. Kit automatically reached for one of his tools from the bench behind him. Instead of the sturdy wooden handle, his hand touched something wet and grainy.
“Ugh!” He shuddered. Looking down he saw the cold innards and seeds, the open womb of a pumpkin, but it smelled like blood. Hastily he wiped his hand on his apron.

In the lurid evening light he saw pumpkin faces. He recognised them, every single one, going back years. Competition after competition won. This shed had for years been his trophy house for countless certificates and rosettes, Best Fiery Face, five Bronze and Silver Pumpkin Medallions, The Golden Grin Pumpkin Award and the prestigious Gold Glow. The hobby had become an obsession, the obsession an addiction and the addiction a curse. He had to win and he’d sacrifice anything. He’d put his very soul into growing the best, and attaining the top prize. He tolerated no rivals.

“Remember me?”
The voice, mellow and dark, somehow familiar, chilled him, transfixed him. He turned, this time slowly. It couldn’t be.
“Hello, Kit. I see you’ve not changed a bit.”
Kit squinted in the diminishing light. It was indeed his former friend and one time arch rival, Jim but his head was a pumpkin head, the very same Kit had stolen from him, the award winning Golden Grin, now crowned with a halo of candlelight.
“Did I make a good mulch, Kit?” The pumpkin eyes scanned the trophies. God knows how many Kit had cheated him out of before the confrontation that final, fateful Hallows’ Eve. “Seems you did fairly well out of your bargain with Beelzebub. Hope it was worth it.”

It was dark except for glinting eyes that flickered all around.
“Pumpkindred,” said Jim in declamatory tone, “Members of the Patch, behold our tormentor! Kit Karver.”
A clamour of voices chorused, high and low, remonstrating, hissing, jeering. And Kit realised, in that moment, where his tools had gone. They were in the hands of those he’d fed, cared for, nurtured, killed and mutilated over decades. Medium saws, fine tooth saws, razor-edged scoops, small, medium and large carving loops for peeling rind, double sided sculpting tools, pokers, wheels and sharp, heavy duty drills, hole and circle punchers. Kit was a professional. He knew their use only too well.
“In the Devil’s name, Kit?” repeated Jim.
Kit opened his mouth but found his voice would make no sound but a high squeak.
“Very well, pumpkins, let’s to work!”
His vocal chords were the first thing they cut.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No30

Today a trilogy of unconnected poems -- perhaps something for everyone. The first relates to the Northumberland coast just north of Bamburgh (click the title link to see more.) 

The second is an actual nightmare I had during lockdown earlier this year. 👀  

The last is -- entertaining.

The White Stag 

 The white stag stands

in two dimensions

between land and sea, sea and sky,

air and rock.

Whoever placed him there

'twixt myth and reality,

understood those boundaries

to which we must adhere,

taboos, thresholds

that should not be crossed,

portals to the past that seamless, disappear,

protecting everything the modern world has shed.

But on some moonless night, unseen he turns,

skips lightly through a crevice to that other place,

to dance with myths and legends and return

at first light to the sight of mortal men.

The white stag placed here just beyond our reach

for us to yearn, and learn

the light and darkness

mysteries may teach.

Washing

Washing my hands

Washing my hands in a sink

Washing my hands in a sink full of birds

in a sink full of birds rainbow bright

rainbow bright colours

rainbow bright colours fading

colours fading and dying and the birds

and the birds begin to die

birds begin to die in my hands

my hands covered in faded feathers

hands covered in faded feathers and blood.

Washing hands in a sink of dead birds, faded feathers and blood.

I look in the mirror

but the mirror is empty.

Living with Logic

If I hear a thud on the bedroom floor

the creaking of an upstairs’ door

or footsteps on the landing coming close.

When I hear that tread upon the stair

that makes me call out, ‘Who is there?’

if I suspect in short, that it’s a ghost,

I’ll tell no one. I won’t insist

my husband call an exorcist

or that a priest be brought to calm my fears.

His scepticism would enlist

the aid of a psychiatrist

besides

we’ve lived in a bungalow for years.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No29

 

Blast

Sylvia knelt down and held the man’s face in her hands. He was soaked in blood, whether his own or that of others, and rain and tears streaked his face with grime and falling dust.

“You’ll be all right,” she lied. And then, as loud as she could shout over the cacophony of vehicles and din of confusion, “Is there a doctor somewhere? A medic?

Paramedic?”

The man looked up at her, his eyes wide with terror. He could make no sound with half his jaw exposed. She called out, “This man needs...” But her voice was swallowed up in the welter of surrounding noise and when she looked again, the man didn’t need anything. She stood up, and stumbled towards the next heap of offal-coloured rags.

She’d been in a café and could still taste coffee on her tongue. She never saw a flash or heard a blast. It was like she’d been propelled out of the chair and then the world had begun to fall slowly about her and she’d run out — except there was no “in” to run out of. The roof had gone. All the roofs had gone. The shopping Mall had gone and the street was filled with rubble and bits.

When the numbness wore off, she became aware that emergency services were arriving and wandered over to the briefing. There must be something for her to do. Her nursing experience might be invaluable here. Triage could make the difference between life and death.

They didn’t seem much interested in medical skills but they needed lots of people to go around and just, “pick up the pieces,” they said — not a nice job. Volunteers were issued with yellow, heavy-duty rubber gloves, plastic bags and a town centre map. Anything from a tie pin to a spleen they said — anything that could be used for DNA or other identification and if you could mark down where you found it — even better.

That’s what she’d been doing when she found the man — the man whose shattered face would haunt her forever. The stench of death and dust clogged her nostrils. The rain trickled down inside her clothes and into the gutters in eddies of mud and blood.

On she plodded through it all, searching now in the twilight, wondering if anyone was going to bring her a torch. A few torches had winked on at the other side of this pile of rubble and a street lamp glimmered beyond the area of devastation, as if nothing had happened.

In its weak glow, she saw something — a hand. She yelled for someone to come and help. “I think there’s a woman buried under here!” Surely the woman wouldn’t still be alive after all these hours. But you heard such amazing survival stories. There was always hope.

Perhaps, if she could move some of this debris... She touched the hand to determine whether there was any warmth in it. As she reached in the hand came away. It wasn’t a woman, just a hand — all that remained.

A ring on the finger flashed in sudden torchlight from behind. It was clearly visible and very distinctive — shaped like a daisy, four petals of gold and four of platinum, a central raised crown and five small diamonds — why, it was just like hers.

She removed one yellow glove to check the similarity, then looked for an answer in the face of the fellow carrying the torch. But his gaze and the light went through her like the realization that there was no hand inside the glove.

“Blast” ©2008 Oonah V Joslin. Previously published in Bewildering Stories

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No28

 

Henderson’s Hand

For my sister Esmé and Oliver Kilbourn (of the pitman painters) whose work inspired this dark tale of light, and for all those who make light and beautiful, the dark and ugly parts of this world.

His mother screamed and wept when he was handed to her and immediately gave him back to the midwife. “I don’t want it,” she said. “Take it away. I won’t look at it again.”

And so Jim Henderson was placed in an institution to be raised and educated.

“Let’s pretty that up for you.” Smikkers was a plain boy who had nothing remarkable about him except that he was lanky and manipulative. His side-kick, Garrety Grey had taken paints from the art room and gave the gang a tube each. Petri and Bill Bidder held Henderson and muffled his screams for help while the others pulled off his mitt and smeared paint on the appendage that passed for a hand. Smikkers stood back, paring his nails with a vicious looking knife. Henderson was twisting like a python but by the time he got free, they’d claried his hand in oil paints. A teacher rang the bell for class and they ran like hell.

“Who did this, Henderson? Where’s your mitt?” demanded the Master in a tone that conveyed such displeasure that Jim wasn’t sure whether the teacher’s concern was for the assault, the paint theft or merely the sensibilities of other pupils with regard to his deformity, so he refused to tell. Anyway, it would only make things worse next time. There was always a next time.

But Henderson knew his left hand couldn’t help being ugly and he bore the disfigurement as a badge of individuality. He kept the three claws of fused finger bone and purplish-brown flesh hidden so that others wouldn’t have to see its ugliness and so that it would not have to witness theirs: for Jim had seen ugliness, in the faces of bullies and friends alike. Ugliness and more; hatred, loathing, fear epitomised in all its sharp focus, any time the hand was exposed to view. In his heart he knew with a certainty others could never perceive, that all ugliness comes from within, as does all appreciation of perfection.

At every opportunity, when he was alone, he allowed his hand to experience beauty. Out in the meadow, Henderson would remove his glove, bathe his hand in Bethesda-like springs, allow it to touch the soft petals of celandines and buttercups, poppies, gentians, purple clover and meadowsweet, feathery grasses and ripening berries. Always he would take out his paints and pad and place a brush between the thumb and first pronged hook and his hand would paint the delicate blooms in shades of pastels. It painted glittering streams and brooks that seemed almost to burble up from the page; trees and field margins, hedges and thrushes’ eggs. Jim had nothing to do with it. The hand simply and expressively painted what beauty felt like in a style all its own.

The curator was clearly impressed by the folio on offer but was just as evidently sceptical that the painfully shy and deformed creature he saw before him could have done such work.

“Each canvas is signed: by the Hand of Henderson. Pray, why is that?”

Jim explained that the hand did all the work itself with little or no direction from him other than provisioning paint and tactile inspiration.

“They are very -- textural and the light is -- interesting but not quite right. Where is the light source -- for instance – in this one?”

Jim could give only one answer. “Each thing carries its own light. Any light there is, in fact all light comes from within.”

“And you painted these yourself?”

“As I explained…”

“Single handed.”

“I am sorry I wasted your time,” spat Jim and he took his paintings and left.

A few canvasses sold to private owners but not enough to ever make a living. Henderson became more and more isolated and reclusive. He locked himself away in a poorest market area of the town and there he forgot and was forgotten.

Decades passed. The buildings were condemned and due to be demolished.

“What’s behind this door, Felix?” asked the site boss.

“Cellar, I think. Does it matter? It’ll all be gone tomorrow.”

“Break it down. Better make sure there’s nobody in there beforehand.”

With one blow the door shattered in a sudden burst of light.

“Cor blimey, Boss!” Felix reeled backward. “Would you look at this!”

Henderson was discovered. There in the basement, surrounded by works of astounding beauty. He had long since run out of food, water and materials but his hand still painted frenetically, covering the walls in portraitures of light, so that the dank space was ablaze in a triumph of luminosity. Slumped in the corner, a bundle of corrupt flesh and rag was all that was left of the corporeal remains of Jim Henderson. But the Hand would permit no one to remove the lifeless corpse of he, who had shown the only kindness it had ever known. It grew, stretched out and barred the way of all who approached: a ghastly clawed guardian.

And so they sealed the door to that glorious cellar and only when the site was razed and the natural light of the sun blazed in, were the dust of his last vestiges and the works of Henderson’s hand released together, to become part of the light of the universe at large.

Bewildering Stories 2015

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No27

Garra Rufa Revenge

By Oonah V Joslin

“Sylvie,” she called. Where was the girl? “Be a darling and fetch me another coffee–this one’s gone cold.”

Sylvie didn't mind about the coffee, but her name was Helen.

“Sylvie, would you mind awfully, darling, bringing me an extra towel?” This was supposed to be a luxury spa! One wanted one's moneys worth.

Patricia fetched the towel. 

“Just a little higher, Sylvie... Teensy bit higher? No, no, girl towards my neck... Ah that's better. My left shoulder has been quite tight lately.”

Not as tight as your arse, thought Gillian.

Massage, manicure, pedicure, spa treatments–this was her weekly pamper time and Linda Lux was used to the best of treatment. Why, between luncheons, bridge afternoon tea and various cultural persuits, one barely had a moment to oneself. She didn’t suffer from any particular ailment but she liked to look her best at all times and was determined her feet remain smooth and soft, so having kicked off her Gucci spa-shoes, she relaxed with a magazine as the little carp did their work.

She didn’t believe in all this tosh about how the fish might get sick or die from lotions and chemicals on the skin. She scoffed at the notion that tank conditions might not be ideal or consistent from spa to spa. And as for exploitation… this was a beauty parlour, for God’s sake, not an aquarium, and they were mere fish. It wasn’t as if they were intelligent or aware – rather like Sylvie, she surmised.

When time was up, Linda Lux put aside the article she’d been reading, looked down into the water – and screamed. Her feet – her feet were in shreds. Skin hung like rags from white bone. Unable to stand up, she screamed and screamed, Sylvie! Sylivie!! But no assistance came. There was no sign of blood but the fish were still feeding and she was above her ankles in water and still no one came -- no one at all.

Copyright: © 2011 Oonah V Joslin