My skin feels . . . it feels lighter, thinner. The pain is disappearing. Perhaps like a fever it comes and goes. I draw my sword, but as I pass through this hall packed tight with benches inhabited by so many, many trolls I realise I am regarded with merely a lazy curiosity. Not a one of them thinks me worthy of fear. Not a one of them pauses more than a few seconds in their chewing and slurping to attend to me.
The attention from the high table eventually fixes on me as I get closer. There is a hum and the air vibrates with the noise from a multitude of throats. The troll-queen, shaped like a malformed lump of clay, sits on her rough-hewn obsidian throne. Her tiny black eyes blink at me and she grins, jagged-toothed, and utters one word: ‘Child.’
That stops me. That recognition. That ache, that thrum, that sense of truth from this mouth so foul.
‘No,’ I say. I look at Theodora. She doesn’t seem to recognise me. How can she not run to me, call me ‘child’?
Again I say, ‘No. There is my mother. I have come for her and my aunt.’
And the troll-queen answers, pointing a gnarled finger at her own solid chest, ‘No. Here is your mother, she who moulded your flesh, who sent you into the world.’
Theodora weeps then, her reserves all gone, and this is what convinces me. That at her very core she knows, that she believes, that her heart tells her this is so by its breaking. And my own heart continues to pulse in a calm slow reptilian rhythm; that there is no shock or shame for me in this truth. That after all these years as a cuckoo in Theodora’s nest I at last recognise myself.
Who is she to me now? What do all her years of care and love weigh? How much do I love my once-mother? My not-mother? How much do I love this unknown aunt? This not-aunt? Is my affection real or simply learned as a result of rote instruction? Are they merely meat to me? Do I offer them up here as not-so-fatted calves?
How much do I care? Enough to stay? Enough to let go of this flesh, this humanity? Do I dare dig beneath my skin and see what really lies there? Do I dare find where I belong?
‘Let them go and I will stay,’ I say to my true-mother; this horror of a mother whose blood recognises mine.
She snorts. ‘You lie. You will flee. You will cling to your life of light and soft flesh, just like the other one. You will not choose our kingdom of underneath. You are too much her creature.’ She gestures to Theodora as if my once-mother somehow ruined me on purpose.
‘No. I say I will stay. This bag of bones is no blood to me, but let her go for the years she gave me succour. And let her sister go or this one will return. I tell you that I will stay.’ My body, released from its magical bonds, knowing at last its own larger limits, stretches and reaches and grows into my true shape. I do not need a mirror to tell me how different I appear.
I look at Theodora, drink in her pain, her distaste and her hatred. See how my transformation has washed away every trace of affection. All the love she poured into me, all the care she took, the protection she gave, all were for nought. The knowledge that she was too late to save her own child so long ago, that she already sheltered a thing, will weigh on her forever, I think. She will not return for me this time. I am no longer hers. I never was.
‘My own child?’ she asks the other mother, her voice raw.
The creature makes a sound that might be a laugh, might be contempt. ‘Was delicious.’
I wonder if this will break Theodora, but no; she is stronger than that. She straightens and takes Polly by the arm. Will she return to the manor, take her sister there and try to make up for the life she missed? Perhaps she will return to Lodellan, find Faideau once more. Perhaps he will tell her the truth of it all and she will forgive him. She is still young enough to have another child, if she is brave. Part of me wants to ask what she will do. Part of me is too cold to care.
To see the light one last time, I follow the two women as they shuffle up the ramp towards freedom. They slowly move between the great doors into the fresh air and I reach out my hand, let it bathe in the sun. It turns white, delicate. I look at it, at what I was. I retract my arm and embrace my new skin. The doors close slowly on the sight of my not-mother’s back.
AFTERWORD:
SOURDOUGH AND
GALLOWBERRIES
FOR US ALL
by Jeff VanderMeer
I STILL remember that first adolescent rush of excitement when I discovered the short fiction of The Other Angela, Carter—the way in which she created, using that amazing style and voice, updated fairy tales that changed the point of view, the emphasis, from male to female, and in so doing revitalised a whole type of story. In some cases, Carter also restored the authenticity of the tales’ origins.
But they were still tales, and as much as I idolised them, the stylised, baroque qualities of the prose means they must be read like you’d eat rich truffles, or, perhaps, gallowberries: each time you wink out, come back dislocated and needing a break. Today I admire such tales, but they don’t speak as personally to me.
Which brings me to Angela, Slatter. Now I’m older and less susceptible to writer crushes. I’ve read a lot more, seen a lot more, and survived a lot more, and one reason I adore Sourdough and Other Stories is the feeling that Slatter has, too. There’s a sense of wanting to infuse her fantasy fiction with the invisible outlines of personal victories hard-won, of chances taken, and of a restless passion.
You could call what she’s created her ‘take’ on folk-tales, but I think that’s too limiting. She’s not just riffing off of what’s gone before but creating something new that’s less stylised and more three-dimensional. The opener, ‘The Shadow Tree’, is a glorious and complex start to staking out her own territory, with its examination of the deliberate and thoughtless cruelty of those with unlimited privilege. But Slatter’s narrator isn’t there to relay a story so much as to be her own true self—someone in exile, in a difficult situation, using every advantage at her disposal. The queen and the sociopathic kids aren’t out of your normal fairy tale scenario, either. They have a freshness and a specificity that carries weight without being weighty. This means that the narrative can accomplish more than lesser efforts that start out with the stale crumbs of ‘Once upon a time’.
In short, these characters exist somewhere on the edges of our real world. They aren’t just echoes of echoes passed down through oral storytelling—they’ve popped out of the tapestry on the wall and into our lives. Slatter’s narratives stay true to this fact by being firmly wedded to the concerns of the people in them.
The strength of the voice in stories like ‘Gallowberries’ or ‘Sourdough’ is also a joy. No matter how uncertain the fates of the women in this collection, there’s nothing uncertain about their storytelling ability. There’s also the lovely frisson of pitch-perfect moments like this one in ‘Gallowberries’: ‘He lifted both of my legs onto the worn padding, then pushed my skirts up to my knees. The right ankle seemed to swell even as we watched, the flesh hot and pink. His hands touched the heated skin and I shivered, as much from excitement as from the coolness of his palms.’
It’s difficult to convey passion and love in ways that don’t seem like they came out of bad romance novels, because it’s such an exposed position to be in, such a heightening of the senses. But Slatter manages it in part by her restraint—by focusing on an ankle, for example.
As exciting for the reader is the level of invention, especially devilish invention. Slatter writes that gallowberries taste ‘without exception, of rotting flesh and spent seed—their garden lies at a crossroads, under the gallows . . . The lives of such men shudder to a halt, their last breath and last pleasure simultaneous.’ What a wonderful/horrible line in the best possible sense!
But description without completion is meaningless, and the completion is as much of a joy as biting down on the flesh of a less ghoulish fruit: ‘She popped one of the gallowberries she habitually carried into her mouth. As she moved forward, she mouthed a word or two, bit down hard and blinked out of existence.’ Voila! For me, t
hat’s a blissful fictional moment.
Several other stories, like ‘A Porcelain Soul’, abound in this effect akin to the taste explosion after sampling an exotic fruit. Slatter matter-of-factly tosses off lines like ‘Pious mothers bring newborns here and donate their babies’ breath.’ A lesser writer would spend paragraphs (stretching like boring hours) explaining, when the explanation is already hardwired into the description. (Slatter’s adroit at getting on with the story.)
Later, she writes ‘Selke slipped five homunculi in amongst the church choir. A harmless enough trick and, if anyone had paid attention, they’d have noticed the blankness on the ill-painted faces and known them for the soulless little abominations they were. She set them to explode when the hymns were sung.’ Huzzah! That sound you’re hearing an echo of is me cackling fiendishly at that detail, and a myriad of others throughout this collection.
Slatter also writes clever, short teasers for openings that I find especially good because they’re deceptive. ‘There were too many apples.’ When you finish the story you realise those lines meant more than you thought. ‘All I ever wanted was the tower.’ Even better, they’re lovely hooks that don’t oversell the story through over-emphasis or hyperbole. ‘I’m just a boy, I keep telling them. A common footpad.’ Or, sometimes, that opening is just a great opening salvo into complexity of situation or character: ‘My father did not know that my mother knew about his other wives, but she did.’
These, then, are the impeccably imagined moments that allow the loud, big, deep human moments to hold the foreground with such authority. Slatter’s characters are witches, nomads, exiles—seekers, travellers, chance-takers. They’re fully three-dimensional, and they provide the reader with the joy of encountering people who aren’t by any means perfect, but who seem real—women in disguise, in extremis, both sure and unsure of their identities—and who you want to know more about even after story’s end (even the weird ones; especially the weird ones). ‘The Shadow Tree’s’ Ella is the quintessential narrator of Sourdough and Other Stories—resourceful, nuanced, clear-seeing and clear-thinking—but so is Magdelene in the last story, ‘Under the Mountain’. One is our entry into story and one is showing us the way out. ‘How much do I care? Enough to stay? Enough to let go of this flesh, this humanity? Do I dare to dig beneath my skin and see what really lies there?’
Earthy, hearty, cheeky, and wise, Sourdough and Other Stories delivers so many different types of reading pleasure that perhaps it ought to be a crime. Which is another way of saying I’m in love with these stories, and if you’ve come this far I hope you were, too.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I need to thank a lot of tolerant people who have read and commented on and edited drafts of these stories as they made their way into the world—some were very messy births indeed.
First and foremost must be my family: my sister, Michelle, for believing in me; my father, Peter, for the support and helpful cash gifts; my nephew, Matthew, for reminding me that fairy tales aren’t really for little kids; and to my mum, Betty, for starting it all with the words ‘Once upon a time’, and for her ever-constant heart.
To my Other Brain and author extraordinaire, Lisa Hannett: without your keen eye and ability to come up with place names, this collection would never have seen the light of day. To my fellow write-club buddy and tormenter of unicorns, Peter M. Ball, for providing the choclit [sic] and the time-space continuum in which to write like a word-monkey.
Thanks also to:
Lisa and Steve for encouraging me to start writing again and for giving me the place in which to do it.
* My beautiful beta-readers, Donna Hancox, Angie Rega, Lynne Carol Green, Pene Davie and Lee McGowan, for your time and well-thought-out, considered feedback, and periodic kicks in the backside.
* To Ron Serdiuk and Diane Waters for your proofreading, confidence, friendship, encouragement and the long-term lending of ears.
* To Kate Eltham and Robert Hoge, for organising Clarion South and for being my friends, and to the Clarion South class and tutors of 2009, for all the coffee, crits and sleepless nights.
* To Jack Dann for constant support, and to Sean Williams for the uber-edit on an early draft of ‘Dibblespin’ that helped me see what the story could be.
* To Ann and Jeff VanderMeer for your guidance, humour, intelligence and generosity to a newbie.
* To the inimitable Rob Shearman for all the friendship and support and for emails that kept me smiling on the bad days.
* And to Rosalie and Ray of Tartarus Press, thank you so much for taking a chance and making Sourdough and Other Stories possible.
* To Miranda Banks for her support and steadfast belief. To David, who helps keep me on the path.
Contents
Contents
INTRODUCTION
THE SHADOW TREE
GALLOWBERRIES
LITTLE RADISH
DIBBLESPIN
THE NAVIGATOR
THE ANGEL WOOD
ASH
THE STORY OF INK
LOST THINGS
A GOOD HUSBAND
A PORCELAIN SOUL
THE BONES REMEMBER EVERYTHING
SOURDOUGH
SISTER, SISTER
LAVENDER AND LYCHGATES
UNDER THE MOUNTAIN
AFTERWORD:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sourdough and Other Stories Page 24