So, it’s day ninety three of the October Frights blog-hop, we’re five months into the William Hope Hodgson celebration, and I have at least fifteen longdogs needing a walk. No, something’s wrong there. Never mind. A bit of fiction and a bit of art in today’s short post.

The fiction is from me. I thought I’d share a little dark fantasy/folk horror piece of mine for fun. My hard disk is getting very heavy, and I need to take some files off it before it goes through the floor.

But you, my best beloved, come first, and so here’s the latest from  Hermida Editores of Madrid, who publish Spanish editions of William Hope Hodgson.  Alejandro of Hermida Editores contacted me with mention of their new illustrated edition of The House on the Borderland, and I thought it would look nice here. I’m wondering if the illustrations are by Sebastian Cabrol, who we mentioned in the last post, as I know he’s done at least one Borderland illo before (if I’m wrong, someone will tell me, I’m sure). Might see if we can get a copy of the interior art to share as well.

And on to a bit of free fiction for the October Frights blog-hop. For some time I’ve been drafting a piece which nowadays might be called either dark fantasy or folk horror, concerning the Cunning Folk. I also like the Italian term benandanti, or ‘good walkers’. Christian or non-Christian, they stood mostly on the side of their villages and villagers against darker practices, and were healers, hex-averters, midwives and the like. The book isn’t finished, because I write too many short stories at the moment, but here is the standalone piece which introduces one of the sections, for amusement.

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The old woman stiffened in her chair.

She knew that something was coming, could hear the wrongness in the corners of the room. The sign that one of them was near. She reached to turn the television down, but the remote control evaded her, slid from arthritic fingers. It fell to the floor.

“…With a chance of heavy rain in the Southeast. Moving on to the rest of the November forecast, we expect to see…”

The set went dead.

“An end to the game.” said a voice to one side of her.

She turned her neck, wincing at the pain. She saw what she’d expected, so she turned back to the blank screen. There was a cobweb between the television and the plant stand, a dusty strand connecting the two. The home help had missed that, the lazy beggar. Not that it mattered now.

“I don’t have it. I sent it somewhere safe. Safer.” she said, clutching at her pinafore.

A sigh. She could hear the silence now. The refrigerator had stopped its low gurgle, the kettle had stopped mid-boil. All those tiny humming noises that you got used to had gone. A dead house.

“Unfortunate.”

It moved softly, slipping round the high-backed chair and standing in the middle of the room. It was a male. She didn’t want to say ‘he’. Wrong to use a normal word like that.

“Who, and where?” It didn’t raise its voice, or threaten, because it didn’t need to.

She had always wanted to die with dignity. No tubes, she’d told her family. None of those machines, pumping things in and out of me, beeping and hissing. I’ll face it myself, as God made me, however it comes…

And here she was, on the edge of wetting herself and begging to be spared. She was ashamed. A couple of years ago, there wouldn’t have been a cobweb, either. She’d have seen to that straight away. The spark of other days flared up inside her, and she felt a flush of real anger.

“It was never yours to use.” she said, her lips dry. Hard to get the spittle up these days. “It was a trust, and you broke that trust a long time ago. So the burden passed to us.”

“We will have it again. And use it.” Cold eyes stared at her, but she managed to meet them.

“You can do what want, but you’ll get no help from me. I’ve dusting to get on with. If you don’t mind.”

She pressed both hands to the arms of the chair, pushing herself up…

It was next to her, over her, moving in that way they had, that way where limbs did things they should not. Its narrow, almost triangular face was painted with hatred.

“Who and where?” it repeated.

She knew then that it would look into her, its eyes so sharp that they would slice her memory open. And they might still see what she had done, even if it was only a hint. She did not have the strength any more.

“I have something, maybe…”

Its head moved, tilted.

“What?”

The old woman reached into the pocket of her pinafore, the same frayed, flowery pinafore that her mother had worn until she died. It had poppies and corn-cockles on it, but the bright reds and blues had faded. All colour in her life had faded. She drew out the Card, the only one she had kept. The one which would never fail her.

The intruder hissed as it saw the green and gold of the Card’s back, its stick-thin fingers clutching at the air in anticipation.

“Give.” it said. “It is ours.”

“It is mine.” she replied, and drew on her old heart for one last effort. She felt vessels burst, valves flutter and tear from one final surge of blood, but she turned the Card to face her enemy…

The room around them was flooded with the scent of honeysuckle, of blackberry ripeness and summer still high and fine. Soft feathers brushed her skin, easing her pain, and she smiled.

“Remember me.” she whispered, knowing now that her people would sense this too, and share her life, not her death. Each holder of the Deck of Seasons would know that a Card had been used, and why.

The creature before her shrieked as it sought the corners and angles of its escape, but it was too late. A more terrible presence silenced it, and her last sight was of the Summer Rook, his gentle black eye on her as he tore the intruder apart in a scream of stabbing obsidian beak and claws.

The authorities could never explain, even months later, why the dead woman’s house smelled so sweetly of honeysuckle and wild roses…

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Countdown now to the next large part of our WHH blog-fest. Part Two: The Voice of Horror is coming in a few days, and will feature audio horror and its implications for our earholes. Tune in, or… well, just tune in, eh?

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