by Tanith Lee
Later also, when a descendant of our line infected the house with himself, and thence a brood of some sixteen children, seeing I never noted them after my first dismay, nor they took heed of me, there also I gave thanks. The first years of my Bliss scarcely ever disturbed – save, and this not of frequency, by the ancient warrior ghost in mail, from whom I hid. My horror at the later invasion therefore, by those other phantom Children of Adam, may now be better apprehended. And thus, as so it has fallen all are gone – my ecstasy and true relief.
Now and forever, let me be alone. It is all I ask.
Villainous Fate! O pitiless Contrivance! Tell me only how a dead man may die, and I will work it for me! Must I, still sensible of All, crawl under the earth into a grave! So then it shall be.
In the last sunset of a month of leaf fall, when the castle ruin and the sinking house glowed yellow as tarnished ormolu, from a high window, I saw a shape upon the sward. Let me be plain in what I saw. Much of a year had passed since my liberation. I had counted it in days and even in hours, like a miser with his hoard of precious coins. During this while also, the soulless prowling of those other dead-living things about the grounds had eased. For, despite being somewhat unaware of them, their general absence did make itself felt by me. Such happiness this gave me, at all lack of company.
On that night, however, as the golden glister faded into twilight, I saw, as clearly as the drawn blade of a knife, what wended toward my sanctuary. And yet, too, not quite clear enough. For what might it be that the figure was? And, too, what strayed about with it as it came on, winding around it somewhat, and now pulling in close, or else unwound a little distance off, yet the larger figure always keeping it by, so it would seem held upon some kind of flimsy rope? Is it that the greater form is that of a woman? And is it too that she has a hound upon a leash? But she, and it also, the dog, are phantasmal, for though solid enough when stared upon by me, yet the last ray of the sun gleams through them both, and sceptic as I am, I see it too. Two ghost things come again to plague me, then. I am betrayed.
Mother And Child
Such a way we com.
And all alone. Just him and me.
Corse, no food or nothn. But he dont, and I dont, need to eat or nothn. Not now.
Fuckin weird tho. Still not used to it. He ent scared tho. Genius he is. He trusts me. Hes had to, like, what else. Sory for the words. I never got learned to read. Nor talk like, if it com to that. Dont want to say bout my life ifor I died.
For that zomby thing got hol of us. It was all shit wern it.
Tryn to git outa Londun we was and walkn on the ralway line cos no trains no mor was ther. And we was OK but then this zomby com out one of them shed things and I cant run, Im too big and heavy by then and it slams its fist in my face, like a thouznd fuckers hav, but I spos it breaks my nek and so we, me and my darlin, are ly on the trak and it eats a bit of me then wonder off of the line. Later I cum to and Im dead and Im nother of them – nother zomby, and so I spose he is, my lovly boy. So we go on agane, on up the trak. Walks miles we dun and then the citys gon and after we clime the slope up and go on along the rode.
Weeks, walkn. And then somethin but I dont kno whot. We just wore out maibe. Died agan, praps. Mustve. Both of uz.
But when we cum to next we rize up, him and me, and wer gostes.Weer goests. But wot we leeve behind on the rode is wot wed turn into, zomby thing, me and him. Ded as dedd. Onl stil alive this gost way, we twoo. Him and me. Nevr be parted now, I luv him so, and him me. Hes only one evr lov me. His farther nevr dun. Just one time in the back of a stole car. And by the time I kno whot happn, wurlds falln apart. But him here still with me always. He dont mind it. He say so, onli not in wurds. I call him Aragorn. Dont kno what name com from, just remembr it like. I like that name. I can spel it.
Look at him. Evn like thiz hes lovli. Bles. Bless him. Im so glad Im not aloen.
Lot of the tyme he get carrid inside me, corse. But nown then he com out and walks with me. But I hold the burthcaud – they tol me wot it waz at the hosptal – the Umbillycal Corde – just to gyde him like keep him close, in case. An he turn and laufs at me, and he makes the caud twang like a stringg on a gutar. An we both lauf then. Dont hurt, him or me. And inside, when I carry him that way hes not hevy or weari me. I lov him so. At night, tho we don slepe, he settles back in me and I hold him in my belli with my arms, and ysee we can touch. I dont knoe how cos weer gostes and we just pass thru stuff, tree and wals, but he and me can touch. Paps coz weer stil part of each over. Hes warm and he says I am, onli not in werds. Aragorn. My Sun.
Theres a bildin heer. Big ol plays and we stand at the dore as darknis cum. We culd pass strait in, but we dont.
Remind me of a stori my gran tol me wen I was little. She tolt me to scair me, shee was crule, like. But I nevr forget. Sum gurl go in a dor of a bigg hows, an thiz gyant com and ait her up.
So we don go in, nor nock.
We just wayte.
An starz cum on in the skie like diemonds.
The Recluse
In the Name of the Highest, it is not a dog on leash. It is – it is a child of her womb unborne, and still enchained to her by the cord of birth! But it moves outside her, and she, to keep it safe, holds to the cord with one hand. There is no wound nor schism. They are as one.
The child is an embryo of perhaps seven months maturing, yet one may make out its features; also that it is male. The cord itself is, too, uncommonly, monstrously long, and very flexible, silvery in colour, like woven smoke.
They do not enter my house. I, by the upper casement, stare down on them. They are seated together on the narrow terrace. They seem to watch the stars of Heaven. It comes to me, in the silence of the gathering night, that once I too was a child within the body of a woman. But she, bringing me forth with pain and exertion, had thereafter no liking for me, and punished me for it. And for the matter of that, therefore, had I no liking for her, or any.
The moon rises late, almost at her full, milk pale, and they, these two, look up, and she murmurs to the child, and he lifts up his hand, smaller than the paw of a kitten, and he waves to the moon in greeting. And then – ah God! – Turning about he waves to me.
Mother and Child
An old man in a grene cote has com down and out the door and show us we can go in. And Aragorn duz, so I must.
The old man has funny hair, like in telly series – curli and stiff, wiv powda in it. Dont kno.
Like TV movi inside the hous an all, like the ol stuff they show for the lectricks go. But Aragorn is like pleesed. The ol man duznt do nothin bad. Only he stand by the wal and hes cryn, but his teers arnt wet. But he crys on and on, and the teers like diemonts or stars. But Aragorn drag me, and when he get cloze, he lifts up a bit in the air and his hand up to the ol mans cheek.
Thers no touch. Cant be, onli he an me can touch won another. But the old man looks at him, and then he sits down, the ol man, on the posh old floor, and Aragorn sits rite by him, and so do I. Its not bad then, sort of peecefull. Sort of like some other thing I dont kno wot. And we watch the big moon together thru a windowe, not wet, but like a white whyt teer.
So the darkness shall be the light,
and the stillness the dancing.
Four Quartets
T.S. Eliot
(1888 - 1965)
About the Author
Tanith Lee was born in North London (UK) in 1947. Because her parents were professional dancers (ballroom, Latin American) and had to live where the work was, she attended a number of truly terrible schools, and didn’t learn to read – she is also dyslectic – until almost age 8. And then only because her father taught her. This opened the world of books to Lee, and by 9 she was writing. After much better education at a grammar school, Lee went on to work in a library. This was followed by various other jobs – shop assistant, waitress, clerk – plus a year at art college when she was 25-26. In 1974 this mosaic ended when DAW Books of America, under the leadership of Donald A Wollheim, bought and pu
blished Lee’s The Birthgrave, and thereafter 26 of her novels and collections.
Since then Lee has written around 95 books, and over 300 short stories. 4 of her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC; she also wrote 2 episodes (Sarcophagus and Sand) for the TV series Blake’s 7. Some of her stories regularly get read on Radio 4 Extra.
Lee writes in many styles in and across many genres, including Horror, SF and Fantasy, Historical, Detective, Contemporary-Psychological, Children and Young Adult. Her preoccupation, though, is always people.
In 1992 she married the writer-artist-photographer John Kaiine, her companion since 1987. They live on the Sussex Weald, near the sea, in a house full of books and plants, with two black and white overlords called cats.