The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2013

by Angela Slatter

  I’m just starting to say thanks when there’s a massive Boom! from somewhere up above. The two of us shrink back against the wall, Day Junior acting like a fairy tale hero as he spreads out his arms and shields me. The noise is over quickly, but now there’s a strange light from up there, not the rising sun or a little skull lamp but a big, hot, hungry light. And people shouting. Fire!

  Day Junior takes my hand. “Downstairs, quick!”

  I hesitate for about two seconds, then people start streaming down the stairs from the floors above us, and the only thing we can do is go down with them. There’s an alarm woop-wooping, and smoke starting to fill the top of the stairwell. People are in their nighties and pyjamas, with kids wrapped in blankets and old folk clinging onto the dodgy hand-rail, but nobody’s panicking, and we all make it down to the ground floor and out onto the plaza where the Day and Son delivery van’s parked, gleaming white in the sunlight.

  The fire fighters arrive and we get moved away from the building. The fire’s on Oak Level. I can see smoke billowing out of the windows. I look around for Barbara, but I can’t spot her or Rory in the crowd. Still, the fire’s a long way up; in the basement they should be safe. Firies head up the stairs; down here on the plaza there’s a truck with a massive extension ladder and hoses being screwed onto water mains and lots of activity. Someone asks Day Junior to move the van. He asks me if I’m OK and I say yes, so he hops in and drives it away.

  I haven’t seen Susie. I haven’t seen Sophie or Miranda. But Kye’s here with his mum and his little brother, and they live on Oak Level. I can’t make myself go over and talk to them. My head’s gone muzzy and my legs feel weak. I collapse onto a bench with Mimi on my knee, staring up at the thickening smoke and thinking about that lump of wax Barbara threw into the stove. How it sizzled and burned. How it filled my nostrils with a smell like death. I want to say a prayer, but I can’t think what should be in it, so I put my head down on the bench and press Mimi against my cheek and close my eyes. Magic is real, just like in Grimm’s fairy tales.

  The day after the fire, I’m leaving Westmoreland Hospital, where they’ve kept me in overnight for observation. A social worker from Defence Welfare is letting me stay at her place until Dad gets home on compassionate leave. Her name’s Siobhan, she lives near my old house and she’s told me she has three cats called Winken, Blinken and Nod. Siobhan seems to know a lot about what’s been happening to me, even though I’ve hardly said anything. She tells me a Mrs Barbara Jaeger rang the office and told her where I was and that I needed help. And Mrs Moss from school rang too, a while ago, asking why I hadn’t come back this term and if I was OK. I ask Siobhan if Mrs Jaeger is the concierge at Woodside Gardens and she says yes, and that Barbara said to pass on her best wishes for the future.

  Before I go home with Siobhan, I visit my stepsister Sophie, who’s in a different ward getting treated for smoke inhalation. Miranda’s in surgery this morning—her hands got burned—so I can’t see her. Sophie looks terrible, hospital-sheet-white with big bruises under her eyes, but she scrapes together a smile.

  “Lissa. You’re OK,” she whispers.

  “I’m OK. And you will be, too.” I know the next thing I should say is that I’m sorry about Susie, but the words won’t come out. I’m sorry it happened the way it did. But I can’t be sorry she’s gone.

  “Look in the drawer,” Sophie says on a rasping breath. “Got something for you.”

  I open the drawer in the bedside table, and there’s the little doll I was making before Susie sent me down to get light. She’s unharmed, just waiting there quietly for me to fetch her so I can finish embroidering her face. She’s lying on the lacy shawl Sophie was knitting, and under that I see Miranda’s Aran sweater with the fancy cables. I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

  “Our Dad’s coming,” Sophie says. “They let me call him. He cried when he heard my voice. All this time, he didn’t know where we were.”

  I start to understand why my stepsisters were sometimes unkind to me. I guess they were every bit as lost and afraid as I was. I feel strange, sort of sad, sort of relieved, but mostly just very tired.

  “Miranda stopped to grab our work as we were running out.” Sophie’s looking at the doll, which is on my knee now. “That’s how her hands got burned. I’m sorry we couldn’t save your book, Lissa. I know you loved it.”

  A book is only a book. It’s the stories in it that matter. “Thank you,” I say, putting my hand on hers.

  “Mum,” Sophie whispers. “She threw that skull thing across the room, and suddenly there was fire everywhere. I don’t know how it could . . . I don’t understand . . . ” Her voice fades to nothing.

  “They think it may have been an electrical fault,” puts in Siobhan from the doorway.

  There’s a silence, then I say to Sophie, “Let me know how you’re getting on, OK?” When it’s finished, this doll will be for her, and I’ll make another for Miranda. Companions for a new life.

  Siobhan comes in to put a little card on the bedside table, with contact phone numbers and addresses so Sophie and Miranda can find me if they want to.

  “I have to go now,” I say. I look at Sophie, and she stares up at me with her shadowy eyes, and the thing unspoken between us looms as huge and dark as the monster in every child’s worst nightmare. “It’ll be all right,” I say, which is the best I can do at the moment.

  Before she closes her eyes, Sophie whispers something. Maybe, sorry.

  On the way to Siobhan’s house, we drive past Woodland Gardens, where the clean-up is still happening. I don’t look up at Oak Floor. An old woman in a purple dress is walking across the plaza, with an enormous ginger cat dawdling along behind her. I fish Mimi out of my pocket, hoping Siobhan’s too busy driving to notice. I have a big question for my doll, a question about right and wrong and magic and responsibility. It’s a question that’s too big to be put in words.

  Give me a kiss! demands Mimi.

  I touch my lips to her woollen mouth.

  Give me a hug!

  I hold her against my heart, hoping the faceless doll in my other pocket won’t get jealous. Her time will come.

  Now let me dance!

  One flip is all she gets, and not a very high one. I stand her on my knee, gaze into her knitted eyes and ask my question.

  “All right?” asks Siobhan, giving me a sideways glance but keeping her hands firmly on the wheel.

  “Fine,” I tell her. “Could you drive around the block before we go home, please?”

  Being a social worker, Siobhan is probably used to people acting weird. At the next corner she turns left and we begin a circuit of Woodland Gardens.

  Start working on it now, Mimi says, and by the time you’re an old woman with white hair, you might know the answer to that question. Now can we go home, please?

  As we come around the plaza again, Barbara’s still there, waiting while Rory does her business in a patch of dirt. I don’t open the window and shout. I don’t ask Siobhan to stop. I just look across at the two of them and mouth the words, “Thank you.” Barbara turns and looks straight back at me. She lifts her hand in a sort of wave. Her mouth is not smiling and not frowning, but something in between. We drive on past, leaving Woodland Gardens behind us.

  About The Contributors

  Lee Battersby is the multiple award-winning author of The Corpse-Rat King and Marching Dead (Angry Robot Books, 2012 and 2013 respectively) and the upcoming Magit and Bugrat (Walker Books, 2015) as well as over 70 stories across Australia, the US and Europe, a number of which are collected in the collection Through Soft Air (Prime Books, 2006). Winner of the Writers of the Future, Aurealis, Ditmar and Australian Shadows Awards, he lives in Mandurah with his wife, author Lyn Battersby, and a pair of insane children. He is obsessed with Lego, Nottingham Forest Football Club, Daleks and dinosaurs, and blogs at the Battersblog battersblog.blogspot.com

  Deborah Biancotti is best known for her collections Bad Power and A Book Of Endings. She
has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, the William L. Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Book, the Aurealis Award and the Ditmar Award. She is currently working on too many projects.

  Trudi Canavan lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has been making up stories about people and places that don’t exist for as long as she can remember. While working as a freelance illustrator and designer she wrote the bestselling Black Magician Trilogy, which was published in 2001-3 and was named an ‘Evergreen’ by The Bookseller in 2010. The Magician’s Apprentice, a prequel to the trilogy, won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2009 and the final of the sequel trilogy, The Traitor Queen, reached #1 on the UK Times Hardback bestseller list in 2011. For more info, visit trudicanavan.com

  Robert G. Cook is an Anglo-Irishman from Kent, who lives in Brisbane, is a Registered Nurse, and writes fiction that nearly always comes out weird. “Glasskin” was his first published story. In late 2014, Brisbane publisher Tiny Owl Workshop will be publishing his flash fiction in a world-building project (The Lane of Unusual Traders) and in a Christmas cracker (Krampus Crackers). He can be stalked on twitter at @robgcook.

  Rowena Cory Daniells writes the kind of fantasy books that you can curl up with on a rainy Saturday afternoon. She has been involved with SF fandom for almost forty years and has served on the state and national management committees of several arts bodies. Her best-selling trilogy King Rolen’s Kin, was released in 2010. The Outcast Chronicles, was released in 2012 and was a finalist in the Hemming Award. Her gritty-paranormal-crime The Price of Fame was also released in 2012. King Breaker (book 4 of KRK series) was released in 2013 and her original trilogy will be re-published as an omnibus in 2015: The Fall of Fair Isle. rowena-cory-daniells.com

  Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, dark fantasy and horror, and author of the multi-award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series featured more horror stories by Terry in its 21-year run than by any other writer. Terry’s horror collections are Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (International Horror Guild Award), Aurealis Award-winning An Intimate Knowledge of the Night and the World Fantasy Award nominated Blackwater Days. His most recent books are Amberjack: Tales of Fear & Wonder and debut novel, Clowns at Midnight. Terry’s latest short stories include “The Four Darks” in Fearful Symmetries and “Corpse Rose” in Nightmare Carnival. terrydowling.com

  Thoraiya Dyer is a three-time Aurealis Award-winning, three-time Ditmar Award-winning Australian writer based in the Hunter Valley, NSW. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Apex, Cosmos and Analog. She has stories forthcoming in War Stories and The Mammoth Book of SF by Women. Her award-shortlisted collection, Asymmetry, is available from Twelfth Planet Press. Dyer is represented by the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. She is a member of SFWA. A lapsed veterinarian, her other interests include bushwalking, archery and travel. Find her online at Goodreads, Twitter (@ThoraiyaDyer) or thoraiyadyer.com

  Marion Halligan AM is one of Australia’s most prolific authors. She was born and educated in Newcastle and worked as a school teacher and journalist before publishing her first short stories. She has been awarded the Age Book of the Year, the ACT Book of the Year (three times), the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, and the Geraldine Pascall Prize for critical writing. She has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Nita B. Kibble Award. Halligan has also served as chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council and in 2006 received an AM for service to literature. She lives in Canberra.

  Dmetri Kakmi is a writer, editor and presenter. His book Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. He edited the acclaimed children’s anthology When We Were Young. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. He lives in Melbourne.

  David Kernot is an Australian author living in the Mid North of South Australia and when he’s not writing, he’s riding his Harley Davidson through the diverse local farmlands. He writes contemporary fantasy, science fiction, and horror, and his stories have been published in a variety of anthologies, magazines, and e-zines in Australia, the US, and Canada, including the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror (2011), and Award Winning Australian Writing (2012). More information can be found at davidkernot.com

  Margo Lanagan is a four-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, in the novel, novella, collection and short story categories, and her work has won many Aurealis, Ditmar and other Australian awards, and been shortlisted/honoured in the Tiptree (twice), Shirley Jackson (twice), Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, Los Angeles Times and Printz awards, as well as several British awards. She’s written fantasy fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her most recent full-length works are the novels Tender Morsels and Sea Hearts, and her most recent story collections are Yellowcake and Cracklescape. Margo lives in Sydney.

  S. G. Larner is a denizen of Brisbane, Australia, where she complains about the heat, wrangles three children, and explores the dark underbelly of the world in her writing. You can find her at http://foregoreality.wordpress.com and on twitter @StaceySarasvati.

  Perth-based writer Martin Livings has had over eighty short stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His first novel, Carnies, published by Hachette Livre in 2006, was nominated for both the Aurealis and Ditmar awards, and has recently been republished by Cohesion Press. martinlivings.com

  Kirstyn McDermott has been working in the darker alleyways of speculative fiction for much of her career, with many critically acclaimed and award-winning short stories under her authorial belt. Her two novels, Madigan Mine (Picador, 2010) and Perfections (Xoum, 2012; Twelfth Planet Press 2014) both won the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel, and a collection of short fiction, Caution: Contains Small Parts was published by Twelfth Planet Press in 2013. After many years based in Melbourne, Kirstyn now lives in Ballarat and is pursuing a creative PhD at Federation University. She can be found online (usually far too often) at kirstynmcdermott.com

  Claire McKenna is a Mebourne writer who has been writing spec fic for far longer than she cares to admit. She is a Clarion South Writer’s Workshop graduate and a general lush. “The Ninety-Two” is based on a true story, when an AFL player got into some strife with his local clan over a football jumper that allegedly gave folks cancer, just like its predecessor. The story presented itself during the funeral of a very loved and respected writer friend, Paul Haines, a completely staunch bloke, and the complete antithesis of Beaufort Kinsey!

  Catherine S. McMullen is a writer and film & TV professional, currently living in Melbourne. Her fiction work has been published in Nightmare Magazine, Aurealis Magazine, Dark Tales, and others, and her non-fiction work includes articles for Non-Fiction Gaming and Reading for Australia. She was the youngest person to ever to sell a story to a professional science-fiction magazine, selling to Interzone at age 10. Her short story “The Nest” was nominated for an Australian Shadows Award from the Australian Horror Writers’ Association, and her short story “Monday-child” was voted by Aurealis subscribers as Best Story of 2013.

  Juliet Marillier was born and brought up in Dunedin, New Zealand, and now lives in Western Australia. Her historical fantasy novels and short stories for adults and young adults have been published internationally and have won a number of awards including the Aurealis, the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Sir Julius Vogel Award. Her lifelong love of folklore, fairy tales and mythology is a major influence on her writing. Juliet has two new novels out in 2014: The Caller, final instalment of the Shadowfell series, and Dreamer’s Pool, first book in the Blackthorn & Grim series for adult readers. When not busy writing, Juliet tends to a small pack of waifs and strays. Her website is at julietmarillier.com

  Born and raised in Adelaide, David Thomas Moore has been a committed gen
re fan and writer his entire life. Now living in the UK, David has recently celebrated five years working in the publishing industry, and is commissioning editor for Abaddon Books. He has a handful of short-fiction credits to this name, including in Stories of the Smoke and Book of the Dead (Jurassic), Raus! Untoten! (KnightWatch Press) and Grimm and Grimmer (FringeWorks). He lives in the UK with his wife, Tamsin, and daughter, Beatrix.

  Faith Mudge is a Queensland writer with a passion for fantasy, folk tales and mythology from all over the world – in fact, almost anything with a glimmer of the fantastical. Her stories have appeared in various anthologies, the most recent of which include Kisses by Clockwork, Kaleidoscope and Phantazein. She also posts regular reviews and articles at beyondthedreamline.wordpress.com. Somewhere in the overcrowded menagerie of her mind, there are novels. She is even writing some of them.

  Ryan O’Neill’s short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His collection, The Weight of a Human Heart is published by Black Inc. He lives in rural NSW with his wife and daughters.

  Angela Rega is a belly-dancing school librarian in love with folklore, fairy tales and furry creatures. She drinks way too much coffee, often falls in love with poetry and can’t imagine not writing. Her stories have been published in Ticonderoga Publications, FableCroft Press, CSFG, Crossed Genres and PS Publications. She keeps a very small website at angierega.webs.com

  Tansy Rayner Roberts is an Australian fantasy author, blogger and podcaster. She won the 2013 Hugo for Best Fan Writer. Tansy has a PhD in Classics, which she drew upon for her short story collection Love and Romanpunk. Her latest fiction project is Musketeer Space, a gender-swapped space opera retelling of The Three Musketeers, published weekly as a web serial. Tansy also writes crime fiction under the name Livia Day.

  Nicky Rowlands lives in Canberra with her wife, son and dog. In 2009, she left her job in the community sector to return to university, completing her Masters in Creative Writing in 2010. Since then, she’s worked at home as a writer and stay at home mum. She has a keen interest in fantasy involving magic and mythical creatures, though story ideas that include neither come to her frequently. She’s also worryingly addicted to stationery, books and tea. She can be regularly found on Twitter at @Nicky__Rowlands.