The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2010

by Elizabeth Bear

  When the Christina put in at Southampton Island in 1836 he had been cut off from his own kind for three years. The captain—the same man who had left him there—was astounded when he recognised, among the natives who crowded to the ship to trade for goods, the figure whom he had long thought dead. He was even more astounded when Wallace indicated—in the halting tones of one mastering a foreign tongue—that he sought passage back to New London. He spoke vaguely of business, but further than that he would not be drawn, except to say, of his time in the north, that he did not know whether he had found heaven on earth or an earthly heaven.

  His igloo is finished. Small as it is, he has had difficulty lifting the last few blocks into place. He is vaguely surprised that the seal meat, coming as it did to revive him after his body’s stores had been depleted, has not given him more energy. Instead, it seems almost as if his body, having achieved surfeit in one respect, is now demanding payment in another regard. After days, weeks, months of driving his body ever onward, all he can think of now is sleep; of the beauty of lying down under his fur robes and drifting into slumber even as the ice bearing him drifts closer to those unknown regions about which he has dreamed for so long.

  Wallace’s reference, in his article, to the west coast of America and “Bering’s Strait” suggests that he felt an attempt on the Arctic should be made from that side of the continent, and this would have been in keeping with Symmes’s own beliefs. No such formal expedition along the west coast was to be made until 1848, when the first of the expeditions in search of the Franklin party set out, but it is clear that Wallace undertook an informal—and ultimately fatal—journey of his own more than a decade earlier. An open letter from Wallace, published in the Richmond Enquirer in April 1837, states his intention of travelling via Honolulu to Hong Kong and thence to Siberia, “which location is ideally placed as a base for the enterprising Polar traveller, and has inexplicably been ignored as such by successive governments, which have declined to take the sound advice of men such as Mr. Symmes, whose work I humbly continue, and whose theories I shall strive to prove to the satisfaction of all save those who are immune to reason, and who refuse to acknowledge any thing with which they do not have personal acquaintance.”

  Wallace’s letter continues, “I shall be travelling without companions, and with a minimum of provisions and the accoutrements of our modern existence, for I have no doubt that I shall be able to obtain sustenance and shelter from the land, as the hardy Esquimaux do, until such time as I reach my journey’s end, where I shall doubtless be shown the hospitality of those people who are as yet a mystery to us, but from whom we shall undoubtedly learn much which is presently hidden.”

  It is not known when Wallace left Virginia, but the diary of the Rev. Francis Kilmartin—now in the possession of the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu—confirms that he had arrived in the Sandwich Islands, as they were then known, by March 1838, when he is mentioned in Kilmartin’s diary. “Mr. Wallace is a curious mixture of the refined gentleman and the mystic, at one moment entertaining us all with his vivid and stirring tales of life among the Esquimaux, at another displaying an almost painful interest in any news from the ships’ Captains arriving in port from eastern realms. His theories about the Polar region seem scarcely credible, and yet he appears to believe in them with every fiber of his being.” In an entry from April 1838 Kilmartin writes “We have said our farewells and God speeds to Mr. Wallace, who departed this day on board the Helena bound for Hong Kong. While I am, I confess, loath to see him go—for I do not foresee a happy outcome to his voyage—it is also a relief that he has found passage for the next stage of his journey, which he has been anticipating for so long, and which consumes his mind to the exclusion of all else.”

  From We Did Not All Come Back

  He had not wanted to return to Virginia, but there was that which needed to be done, preparations he needed to make, before setting out once more. He was uncomfortable with his parents, although not as uncomfortable as they with him. His father declared, publicly, that he would wash his hands of the boy, as if Wallace were still the feckless lad who had abandoned his studies so long ago; his mother thought, privately, that she would give much to have that feckless lad back once more if only for a moment, for she found herself frightened of the man who had returned from a place she could barely imagine.

  He left Richmond—which he had long since ceased to think of as home—in early summer of 1837, and made his way to the Sandwich Islands, thence to Hong Kong, and thence—but later he could hardly remember the route by which he had attained the frozen shore of that far country about which he had dreamed for so long. He seemed to pass through his journey as one travels through a dream world, the people and places he saw like little more than ghosts, pale and inconsequent shadows. It was not until he stood on that northern coast, saw once more the ice stretching out before him, that he seemed to awaken. All that he had passed through was forgotten; all that existed now was the journey ahead, through the ice which stretched as far as his eyes could see.

  The ice moves, obeying laws which have existed since the beginning of time. Currents swirl in the dark depths below, carrying the ice floe upon which he has erected his igloo, carrying it—where? He does not know. It is carrying him onward; that is all he knows.

  Kilmartin’s fears were well founded, for it is at this point that William Henry Wallace disappears from history. What befell him after he left Honolulu is one of the minor mysteries of Arctic exploration, for no further word is heard of him; we do not even know if he successfully reached Hong Kong, and from there north his passage would have been difficult. His most likely course would have been to travel the sea trading route north to the Kamtschatka Peninsula and then across the Gulf of Anadyr to Siberia’s easternmost tip and the shore of the Chukchi Sea, from whence he would have been able to start out across the treacherous pack ice toward the North Pole.

  Whether or not he made it this far is, of course, unknown, and likely to remain so at this remove, although one tantalising clue exists. When the crew of the Plover were forced to spend the winter of 1848–9 in Chukotka, on the northeast tip of the Gulf of Anadyr, they heard many tales of the rugged coastline to the west, and met many of the inhabitants of the villages, who came to Chukotka to trade. One of the party—Lieutenant William Hulme Hooper—later wrote Ten Months Among the Tents of the Tuski about the Plover’s experience, and in one chapter touches on the character of these hardy coastal people. “They are superstitious almost to a fault,” he wrote, “and signs and events that would be dismissed by most are seized on by them as omens and portents of the most awful type. . . . One native told of a man who appeared like a ghost from the south, who had no dogs and pulled his own sledge, and whose wild eyes, strange clothes, and terrible demeanor so frightened the villagers that they—who are among the most hospitable people on Earth, even if they have but little to offer—would not allow him a space in their huts for the night. When day came they were much relieved to find that he had departed, across the ice in the direction of Wrangel Land to the north, where the natives do not venture, upon seeing which they were convinced that he was come from—and gone to—another world.”

  Historians have debated the meaning behind Hooper’s “a man who appeared like a ghost from the south.” The author would, of course, have been hearing the native’s words through an interpreter, who might himself have been imprecise in his translation. Hooper’s phraseology, if it is a faithful transcription of what he was told, could mean that the stranger appeared in ghost-like fashion; that is, unexpectedly. However, another interpretation is that the man appeared pale, like a ghost, to the dark-skinned Chukchi people; this, when taken with the direction from which the man appeared (which is the course Wallace would almost certainly have taken) and his decision to head northeast toward Wrangel, means that Hooper’s description of “the man like a ghost” might be our last glimpse of William Henry Wallace, who would have gone to certain death in the treacherous ice fiel
d; although whether before, or after, finding that Symmes’s theory was just that—a theory only—will never be known.

  From We Did Not All Come Back

  The land ice—the shelf of ice permanently attached to the shore—was easy enough to traverse. He towed a light sledge of his own devising behind him; he had no need of dogs, and now laughed at Symmes’s idea that reindeer would have been a practical means of transport. Here there was one thing, and one thing only, on which he could depend, and that was himself.

  An open lead of water separated the land ice from the pack ice, and it was with difficulty that he traversed it. From that moment his journey became a landscape of towering ice rafters and almost impenetrable pressure ridges, formed by the colliding sheets of ice. On some days he spent more time hacking a trail through the pressure ridges, or drying himself and his clothes after falling through young ice or misjudging his way across a lead, than he did travelling, and would advance less than a mile; on other days, when his progress seemed steady, he would find that the currents carrying the ice had taken him further forward than he anticipated.

  He headed ever northward. He passed Wrangel Land on his left, and could have confirmed that it was an island, not a land bridge across the Pole connecting with Greenland; but by now such distinctions were beyond him. All was one here, the ice and snow and he himself, a tiny dot in the landscape of white. Did he believe, still, in Symmes? Would he have recalled the name, had there been anyone to mention it? But there was no one, and with every step forward he left the world, and his part in it, further behind.

  Each night he built his house of snow. The Esquimaux had built their igloos large enough to accommodate several people; his own houses were small, large enough to accommodate only one, and consequently he had had to train himself to wake every hour or so, to clear the ventilation hole of ice so that he could breathe. It was not difficult to wake at regular intervals; the ice cracked and groaned and spoke almost as a living person, and more than once he sat in the Arctic night, listening to the voices, trying to discern what they were saying. One day, perhaps; one day.

  His provisions, despite careful husbanding, gave out eventually, and for several days he subsisted on melted snow, and by chewing on the leather traces of the harness which connected him to his sledge, his only remaining link with his past. In reality, he was almost beyond bodily needs; he only remembered that it was time to eat when the increasing darkness reminded him that another day was drawing to a close. The seal was the first living thing that he had seen in—how long? He did not remember; yet instinct took over, and he killed it and ate it, and when he had sated his hunger he had a moment of clarity, almost, when his course seemed laid out, stark and level. Either he hoarded the seal meat, turned, and set back for the coast, or he continued, onward through the ice, toward: what? An Open Polar Sea? Symmes’s hollow earth?

  It did not matter.

  Nothing mattered.

  His destiny was here, in the north, in the ice. It was all he had wanted, since—he could not remember when. Time meant nothing. The life he had left behind was less than dust. This was the place that he was meant to be.

  He would go on.

  He crawls into the igloo and fastens the covering over the opening, making a tight seal. His fur-covered bed beckons, and he pulls the robes over himself. Around and below him the ice cracks and cries, a litany lilting as a lullaby which slowly, gradually, lulls him to sleep.

  The ventilation hole at the top of the igloo becomes crusted with ice, condensed from his own breath.

  He does not wake to clear it.

  And the ice carries him, ever onward.

  About the Author

  Barbara Roden is a World Fantasy Award-winning editor and publisher, whose short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection, Horror: Best of the Year 2005, Bound for Evil, Strange Tales 2, Gaslight Grimoire, Gaslight Grotesque, and Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Her first collection, Northwest Passages, was published in October 2009; the title story was nominated for the Stoker, International Horror Guild, and World Fantasy awards. “The Brink of Eternity,” which originally appeared in Poe, gave her a welcome opportunity to put her love of Arctic exploration to good use; she only wishes that the reference book cited in the story, We Did Not All Come Back: Polar Explorers, 1818–1909, actually existed, as it would have been a useful research tool.

  Story Notes

  Barbara Roden has also written of “The Brink of Eternity”:

  It incorporates Poe’s belief that at one time mankind was united with the Godhead, and that there was a subsequent division, with man getting further away; at some point man will start to return towards the Godhead, and at the moment of collision, there will be ultimate knowledge, as well as annihilation. We see this in the protagonists of [Poe’s “Ms. in a Bottle” and “A Descent Into the Maelström,”]I mentioned, who fear their ultimate destiny, but also embrace it, realizing they will gain knowledge they desire, even at the cost of their own death.

  As an editor/publisher, Roden has long been an advocate of classic supernatural fiction and ghost stories. Although she frequently evokes the style of an earlier age with her writing, there’s nothing old-fashioned about its effect. Her Poe-influenced theme reminds me of one of my personal theories about horror, which was best summed up by Kurt J. Schneider: “Ecstasy is a glimpse of the infinite; terror is full disclosure.”

  FROST MOUNTAIN PICNIC MASSACRE

  SETH FRIED

  Last year, the people in charge of the picnic blew us up. Every year it gets worse. That is, more people die. The Frost Mountain Picnic has always been a matter of uncertainty in our town and the massacre is the worst part. Even the people whose picnic blankets were not laid out directly upon the bomb line were knocked unconscious by the airborne limbs of their neighbors, or at least had the black earth at the foot of Frost Mountain driven under their eyelids and fingernails and up into their sinuses. The apple dumpling carts and cotton candy stands and guess-your-weight booths that were not obliterated in the initial blasts leaned slowly into the new-formed craters, each settling with a limp, hollow crumple. The few people along the bombline who survived the blast were at the very least blown into the trees.

  The year before that, the boom of the polka band had obscured the scattered reports of far-off rifles. A grown man about to bite a caramel apple suddenly spun around wildly, as if propelled by the thin spray of blood from his neck. An old woman, holding her stomach, stumbled into a group of laughing teenagers. Someone fell forward into his funnel cake and all day long we walked around as if we weren’t aware of what was happening.

  One year, the muskets of the Revolutionary War Reenactment Society were somehow packed with live ammunition. Another year, all the children who played in the picnic’s Bouncy Castle died of radiation poisoning. Yet another year, it was discovered halfway through the picnic that a third of the port-a-potties contained poisonous snakes. The year we were offered free hot air balloon rides, none of the balloons that left—containing people laughing and waving from the baskets, snapping pictures as they ascended—ever returned.

  Nevertheless, every year we still turn out in the hundreds to the quaint river quay in our marina district to await the boats that will take us to Frost Mountain But we still turn out in the hundreds to the quaint river quay in our marina district to await the boats that will take us to Frost Mountain. In a hilltop parking lot, we apply sunscreen to the noses of our children. We rifle through large canvas carryalls, taking inventory of fruit snacks, extra jelly sandals, Band-Aids, and juice boxes, trying to anticipate our children’s inevitable needs and restlessness in the twenty minutes that they will have to wait for the boats to be readied. Anxious to claim our place in line, we head down the hill in a rush toward the massive white boats aloft in the water.

  We wait in a long, roped queue that doubles back on itself countless times before reaching the loading plat
form with its blue vinyl awning. Once it’s time to depart, the line will move forward, leading us to the platform, where the deckhands will divide us up evenly between the various boats. From there, we will be moved up river, to the north of our city, where Frost Mountain looms. From the decks, we will eventually see a lush, green field interrupted by brightly colored tents and flashing carnival rides, the whole scene contained by the incredible height of Frost Mountain, reaching into the sky with its cold, blue splendor.

  The sight of the picnic at the foot of Frost Mountain is so appealing that most of us will, once again, convince ourselves that this year will be different, that all we have in store for us is a day full of leisure and amusements—but sooner or later, one of the rides will collapse, or a truck of propane will explode near one of the food tents, killing dozens.

  Of course, every year more people say they won’t come. Every year, there are town meetings during which we all condemn the Frost Mountain Picnic. We meet in the empty tennis courts of the Constituent Metro Park where we vow to forsake the free bags of peanuts, the free baked butternut squashes, the free beer, the free tractor rides and firework expositions.

  We grow red in the face, swearing our eternal alignment against all the various committees, public offices, and obscure private interests in charge of organizing the picnic. Every year, there are more people at the meetings who are walking on crutches and wearing eye patches from the injuries they sustained the previous year. Every year, there are more people holding up pictures of dead loved ones and beating their chests. Every year, there are more people getting angry, interrupting one another, and asking the gathered crowd if they might be allowed to speak first. Every year, loyalty oaths are signed. Every year, pledges to abstain from the Frost Mountain Picnic are given and received freely and every single year, without exception, everyone ends up going to the picnic anyway.