by Jack Dann
Willoughby paused, astounded. ‘Why not? Haven’t I always been good to them? I’ve never abused them or punished them unduly. I don’t understand.’
Mrs Flynn was silent for a moment, weighing her words, wishing she’d not opened her mouth in the first place. How to explain? ‘It’s Emily. They’re scared of her,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Scared of Emily?’ His laugh was sharp. ‘How the hell can anyone be scared of Emily?’
‘She’s … different, Master James. Leave it at that. It scares them. They have their legends and she scares them.’
‘What bloody legends? What are you talking about?’ he gripped her upper arm tightly, squeezing a slight squeal from her as the flesh began to pinch between his knuckles. She could smell the sour brandy on his breath. He let her go, but insisted, ‘What legends, damn it?’
‘Sally said they come from the trees. They don’t belong anywhere. They bring grief and eventually they go back to the trees.’ Mrs Flynn batted away tears with the back of her hand.
Willoughby stared at her. ‘And you? What do you think?’
‘There are superstitions and then there are things we cannot understand, Master James.’ She bent her head, new tears fell onto the dough she was kneading; she folded them into the rubbery mixture and refused to look at him again. He left the kitchen, swearing and shaking his head.
Willoughby rounded the corner of the house, raised his eyes and saw his wife, her curved belly seeming to defy gravity, walking slowly towards the jacaranda tree. She stood before its thick trunk and placed one hand against the rough bark. As he watched, the slender pale limb seemed to sink deeply into the wood, and the rest of her arm looked sure to follow.
With a yell, he charged at her, pulled her away with a force driven by anger and despair. She was flung about like a leaf in the wind. Finally settling, she stared at him with something approaching fear, something approaching anger. He was too furious to see it and he ranted at her, finger pointed like a blade. ‘Never, never, never. You will never go near those trees again. You will never leave me!’
He locked her in their bedroom, then gave orders to his station hands.
‘Get rid of all the jacarandas. Cut them down, burn them. Destroy them all, all the ones you can find.’
So all the jacarandas within the bounds of Rollands Plain were razed; he even sent some of his men to walk three days beyond the boundaries and destroy any offending tree they found there.
He let her out only when he was certain all the jacarandas were gone.
Her scream, when she found the dead stump of the tree, was the sound of every violated, outraged thing.
Mrs Flynn ushered the child into the world that evening. Emily did not stop screaming the entire birth, but Mrs Flynn could not help but feel that the screams were more for rage than for any pain the tearing child caused, for there was very little blood. Strangely little blood. The milk that dripped from Emily’s nipples smelled strongly of sap. The child made a face at her first taste, then settled to empty the breast, her face constantly twisted in an expression of dissatisfaction.
Willoughby came to visit his wife and daughter, his contrite face having no effect on Emily. She opened her mouth and a noise came like that of a tree blasted by storm winds. Having not heard his wife utter a sound before, he was stunned; having not heard anything like this, ever, he was appalled. He backed out of the room, and retreated to his study and the bottle of brandy with which he’d become very familiar since his marriage.
Late one evening, a few weeks after the birth, Mrs Flynn saw Emily, standing slender and silver in the moonlight, motionless beside the stump of her tree. She held the baby at her breast; the child was quiet.
Martha was minded, though she knew not why, of Selkie wives, women stripped of their seal skin by husbands afraid to lose them, by men who feared them more than they could love them. She called quietly to Emily and gestured for her to follow.
She led her to a stand of eucalypts not far from the house.
Within the circle of gum trees stood a lone jacaranda, the one she knew Willoughby had missed, the one she kept to herself. The silver woman needed to be able to go back to her place or she’d haunt them forever.
Martha shivered. She was terrified of this ghostly creature, but she hoped she loved Emily more than she feared her, loved her enough to show her the way home. She watched Emily’s face as she recognised the jacaranda, smiled, leaned against the trunk and a sound like leaves laughing blew around the clearing. Martha backed away. She watched the woman’s hands slide into the trunk, saw her move forward, then stop.
The child would not go into the tree. Her diluted flesh and blood tied her to her father and his kind. Martha watched as the pale woman kissed the child’s forehead and laid her gently on the ground. Emily pushed her way into the tree, disappearing until the brown bark was visible again, undisturbed for all intents and purposes. The tree shook itself and let fall an unseasonal shower of purple flowers, to cover Martha and the baby she scooped up and held tightly.
Willoughby drinks; Mrs Flynn often pours for him. She is strangely disappointed each time he swallows back the brandy decanted by her own hand. Most of her day she spends with his daughter, who has her father’s dark curls and her mother’s violet eyes.
She is a quiet child, but on the occasions when her cries have a certain tone, a certain pitch, Martha catches her up and takes her for a walk to the stand of eucalypts. Rollands Plain’s sole remaining jacaranda will release a purple blanket no matter what the weather, and the child stares up at the tree as if she finds it very lovely indeed.
AFTERWORD
I’d had the idea of jacaranda women in my head for a while — my study looks out into the backyard where there is a giant jacaranda tree and one rainy day I was writing — or rather, not so much writing as staring out the window at the tree. It was in season and the bunches of purple flowers were so heavy with rain that they looked, well, pregnant — so that’s where that idea came from initially. I haven’t written any other stories set specifically in Australia, so I thought it was something I would/should try, to set a tale against a very Australian landscape. My mother’s family came to Australia with the Second Fleet and settled in Port Macquarie originally, and their family property was called Rollands Plain — so, that’s where the location came from — the idea of the woman going back into the tree came from having an Irish character and the Celtic legends of Selkie wives whose skin is stolen by their husbands. The jacaranda is found all over the world, so I liked the ideas of being transplanted, of not quite belonging, of a strangeness in the landscape. I quite like it as an Australian fable, still with its roots in a European fairytale tradition.
— Angela Slatter
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THE CONSTANT PAST
SEAN MCMULLEN
Award winning author SEAN McMULLEN gained a major reputation for his scientifically accurate ‘hard’ science fiction with his epic Greatwinter series, which includes Souls In the Great Machine, The Miocene Arrow, and Eyes of the Calculor. The Miocene Arrow won an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction, as did his earlier novel The Centurion’s Empire. With his Moonworlds series (Voyage of the Shadowmoon, Glass Dragons, Voidfarer, and The Time Engine), McMullen has firmly established himself as a fantasy author. In a review of Glass Dragons, Booklist wrote: ‘McMullen has a gift worthy of the best mainstream authors for creating memorable, finely nuanced characters, making him must-reading for fantasy enthusiasts weary of the routine sword-and-sorcery outings.’
Although his Moonworlds fantasy novels have been translated into many languages and spread his reputation across Europe, his last three awards have all been for science fiction stories — ‘Tower of Wings’, ‘Walk to the Full Moon’, and ‘Voice of Steel’. Even his Greatwinter science fiction series unfolded a little more in 2007 with the publication of his story ‘Schwarzdrache’ (‘Dragon Black’) in Germany. Television options have been bought for several of his stories. His short fict
ion can be found in magazines such as Analog, Interzone, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Universe, Aurealis, and Eidolon.
Sean is also an expert in the history of Australian science fiction and has won four William Atheling Jr Awards for excellence in science fiction criticism. He was an assistant editor of The Melbourne University Press Encyclopedia of Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy and author (with Russell Blackford and Van Ikin) of Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction. He also manages to work full time as a computer systems analyst, teach karate (he has a black belt), and work on his PhD in Medieval Fantasy Literature at the University of Melbourne.
‘The Constant Past’ has all the ingredients of a fine mystery story… murder, obsession, love, death, desire, and poetry. Oh, yes, and an added ingredient: time travel…
Mister Brandel did try to blend in with the fashions of the London of 2010, but only in the sense that he played down the more strident aspects of his own time’s fashions. He wore a heavy, calf-length garric overcoat, and it was such a dark shade of green that when I first met him I took it for black. This he kept buttoned all the time, and it reached down to a pair of black, fringed, knee-length boots. Although he wore a cadogan wig, which did tend to stand out, his black beaver hat was worn pulled down very low, so that the wig was almost lost between the hat and the collar of his coat. In his right hand was a Malacca cane, while in his left he held a well-worn leather folder filled with papers.
What intrigued me from the start was that he did not make a point of seeming from the late eighteenth century. A serious re-enactment fanatic would have used a quill and jar of ink, but Mister Brandel had found a ballpoint pen somewhere and was happy to use this for his writing. He did not write very much, but that which he did write was in an elegant script, and was mainly names, dates, places, and descriptions. He did read a great deal, however, and it was always the biographies of Elizabeth Crossen, the nineteenth-century poet. As a librarian I have noticed that most readers show little emotion as they read, but Mister Brandel generally scowled. For someone with such an interest in Crossen, he never seemed at all happy to be reading about her.
Mister Brandel never became a borrower, and this struck me as odd. Borrowing was far more convenient than playing book roulette with other library customers. As a former forensics professional, this also told me that he might have an identity to hide. Some of the staff were running a competition to find out both who he was and who he was pretending to be. On the evening that I learned both his name and his alias, he had been visiting the library on and off for seven months. As usual, he had gone to the shelves in search of the Crossen biographies, then come to the information desk.
‘Your pardon, the books about Elizabeth Crossen are missing,’ he said.
‘Do you mean the biographies?’ I asked.
‘Yes, yes. There were five of them.’
‘Just a moment.’
I checked our holdings. All five books were on loan.
‘They have been borrowed, all at the same time and by the same person,’ I explained. ‘Some student writing an essay about her, I’d say. We can reserve them for you.’
‘Reserve them?’
‘Yes. When they are returned, I’ll send you a message. What is your address?’
‘My address,’ he sighed. ‘I — I travel.’
‘Well, do you have email?’
‘Ah, no.’
‘What about a phone number?’
‘I have no phone number address. Sir, were I to come here in three weeks, will the books be, ah, reserved as you say?’
‘Well yes, but they might be returned early.’
‘But you said they were on loan for three weeks.’
‘Most books are returned before they are due.’
Mister Brandel looked both weary and exasperated, as if even something as simple as a library loan was too much for him to comprehend. He knew just enough of the system to find the biographies of Elizabeth Crossen, and had no interest in learning any more.
‘If I return in three weeks, will the books be here for me to read?’
There was something subtly dangerous about the man’s attitude. In another career, almost in another life, I had worked in a police laboratory. I know the signs to look for, and Mister Brandel had them. In theory he had to be a member of the library to have books reserved in his name, but by now I was more than intrigued by him.
‘Return three weeks from today, the books will be here,’ I answered.
This was all that he wanted to hear, and his manner softened at once.
‘So much … everything … it is such a strain,’ he said wearily, as if almost beyond words. ‘My thanks, you do ease my path.’
‘That is what I’m paid to do,’ I said cheerily. ‘What name shall I put against them?’
‘Goldsmith. James Goldsmith.’
With that he turned away, strode for the doors, and vanished into the night. Upon the reference desk was his leather folder, battered with use and greasy with handling. I picked it up, suspecting that a man like him would be back soon. Very soon he was indeed back, looking flushed and wild-eyed.
‘Is this yours?’ I called, holding his folder up.
Our strangest customer came hurrying over and snatched it from my hand.
‘Yes, yes, praise all saints, I thought it lost,’ he babbled in relief.
‘You were lucky you left it on my desk,’ I said casually. ‘Try not to leave anything valuable lying about, the library is full of thieves.’
‘Indeed, is it so?’ he said, his relief still apparent. ‘My thanks for your warning.’
With that he gave me a curt bow, then hurried from the library again. Having a background in forensics I tend to pick up odd details about people, and Mister Brandel had just confirmed my suspicions about being a little out of the ordinary. Within the space of a minute he had grown at least two days of beard stubble.
It was not a busy night, so I plugged my phone into a USB port on the reference desk computer and accessed the image store. Mister Brandel had been separated from his leather folder for a little more than three minutes, yet this had been enough for me to use my phone to take twelve double page photographs of the notes he had made.
His real name, Edwin Charles Brandel, was on the inside of the folder. He was meticulous and methodical in his studies, particularly about dates. On the first page he stated the date to be 15th April 2010, and noted the name of Colonel Graham Harridane. Quite a lot of details were noted down about this man, including his first meeting with Elizabeth Crossen. This was on the 23rd of November 1803. Following this was the cryptic ‘marr. 3 May 1805’.
I looked up Colonel Harridane on an online genealogical database. He had been shot and killed in a duel on 25th November 1803. On the second page was an undated ‘Vale’ with a line drawn under it. I looked up ‘Vale’. It was Latin for goodbye. Next came an entry for Sir Gregory Cottington, noting that an introduction to Elizabeth Crossen had been arranged for 30th November 1805. Again there were details of addresses, dates of concerts, and even the names of brothels that the knight had been known to visit. Eerily, ‘marr.’ again appeared, now dated 16th March 1805, and again followed by ‘Vale.’
As I accessed another website dealing with Crossen, I already suspected that I would find an entry about an untimely death. Sure enough, Sir Gregory had been stabbed to death in the company of a prostitute the very next night after meeting with the poet. The woman had been hanged for his murder, and Crossen had even commented on the matter in a letter to her sister.
‘Sir Gregory has been murdered in the most scandalous of circumstances. He was found dead in the company of a common woman. And to think, he was in this very house just the day before. He was courting me, no less.’
I scanned the remaining pages of Mister Brandel’s notes. There were details of fifteen men who, to use the terminology of the time, were men of quality. All but one had died violently, within a few days of their first mee
ting with Elizabeth Crossen. The single exception had an entry on the very last page, and his name was Robert Bell. The name was familiar, but I could not quite place it. Unlike most librarians, I have little background in the arts and literature. Networks and databases are my areas. Give me a reference or a name and I can track it down, but without a reason to do the search I am lost.
Now I did a combined search on Robert Bell and Elizabeth Crossen. Bell was an early romantic poet of no particular talent, and the sample of his works that I glanced over involved medieval knights and ladies meeting after long separations, then marrying and living contentedly. Crossen had met him in 1809, and they had indeed married the following year and gone on to live happily for several decades.
The records of the Old Bailey are on the web, and it took only moments to call up the murder of Sir Gregory Cottington. A prostitute named Gwen Bisley had been convicted of the crime, but were modern forensics in use at the time she might have walked free. That was my opinion, anyway. She testified that she had entertained a very strange gentleman in her room by merely taking her clothes off. He had paid her and left, then she had gone in search of her next client. When she had returned with him, a man was lying ‘stabbed, dead and naked’ on her bed. The client ran screaming, raising a hue and cry. The authorities found Gwen’s bully drunk in a nearby tavern. The magistrate concluded that the pair had conspired to murder Sir Gregory, but that the bully had got ‘too far into drink’ with the money stolen from him, and had forgotten to dispose of the body.
I re-read the description that Gwen had given of her first client. He had worn a dark beaver hat whose brim shadowed his face, but she was sure that he had been wearing a wig. All else was concealed by his coat, but his voice had been that of a ‘Frenchy’, as she had put it. Apart from the accent, that was Mister Brandel’s description, and even I could fake a French accent.