Issue 8: Old Gods and Cosmic Horror
Fathom the Unfathomable with Emerald City Ghosts!
Dear Reader,
One of my favorite things about the cosmic horror genre is how it rarely answers all of your questions. Cosmic horror leaves so much to the imagination—and that’s what makes it so great. Cosmic horror thrives on the idea that there are some things that are beyond human comprehension
But our poems and stories this month are about more than the fear of the unknown—they’re about the sense of awe and wonder that we feel when we are confronted with things that evade our understanding—things that overwhelm our senses and leave us questioning everything.
I hope you enjoy this month’s offerings. I hope that they leave you with the sense that the cosmos is vast, unknowable, wondrous, and maybe just a little terrifying.
Yours,
Lo Corliss
Grot
By Madeleine Armstrong
A Song for Corpses
By Nate Ritchie
The Contented Woman
By Brittany Hague
The Oneir-a-who
By Bridget Houlihan
The Last Priestess of the Elder God
By Julia Rajagopalan
March News
Grot
By Madeleine Armstrong
In the cracked mirror, the whites of my eyes were greenish. I blinked and a bead of emerald slime oozed out and trickled down my face, leaving a trail like a stagnant stream.
***
Green rot, they called it, or grot for short. No one seemed to know what it was – only that its murky tendrils had crawled out of the sea one day and onto beaches from Blackpool to Brighton, Southend to Scarborough. Frilled fingers clung to stones and sand, advancing a few centimetres each day, until vast swathes were covered.
At first, no one took it seriously.
GROT A LOT OF RUBBISH, one headline screamed.
People still went to the beach, seeming to take a perverse pride in setting up their deckchairs amid the khaki slime, wading through it to get to the water beyond. Kids flung it at each other, laughing as bogey-like scum splatted against their chests.
I stopped off at Bournemouth beach one weekend, when I was visiting Mum, just to see what it was all about. But I stopped short of smearing grot on my face, like the women who swore it had beautifying properties.
When I got to the care home, Mum was sat in the same chair as always, staring out of the window. I tried to show her the photos I’d taken of the grot, but she barely looked at them.
“Serena’s daughter comes here every day.” She pointed out an old woman with a lilac rinse and sniffed. “Two lovely grandchildren, she’s got. When I was your age, I’d already been married ten years.”
“I know, Mum,” I said, then spent the drive back to London wishing I’d thought of a witty reply. That night, in my studio flat watching Countryfile, it felt good to be alone for once. But then they started talking about grot, so I switched it off.
***
Around my nostrils, there was a trace of what looked like moss. I tried to wipe it away, but there was more underneath. I yanked at a tiny stalk and the flesh of my nose crumbled into my fingers.
***
A week later, poor little Sammy Douro died after a day out at Margate. Sepsis was the official verdict, but his mum said on TV that she’d noticed a green sheen to his face before he’d taken his last, painful breath.
“He went in the sea,” she wept, the camera close enough to catch the snot on her face and the grief in her eyes; close enough to make me squirm. “No one told us not to go in.”
Tests on his little body found a brand-new pathogen.
The government ordered a cordon around all beaches. Men in hazmat suits appeared, erecting barbed wire fences along seafront promenades. A few eco-warriors bemoaned the loss of our coastline, but most people shrugged. I’ll throw you in the grot, became a common threat among harassed parents, while grotface was the new insult for an ugly woman. It was still a bit of a joke.
Until it spread beyond its cages, across roads and into gardens. People who’d paid millions for sea views started waging a war against the grot that wormed its way into their houses, attacking it with chainsaws and industrial pesticides. But it kept coming.
***
My fingers were coated with a fine green dust, the skin puckered like I’d spent too long in the bath. I turned my hand over; my nails were furred with fungus, jade crescents collecting in the cuticles. I turned on the tap, scrubbed and scrubbed, but it wouldn’t come off.
***
No one really worried until more people started dying. Mortality rates rocketed in coastal towns, but it took a while for the government to realise that this was something more than just the usual problems in neglected areas.
A pattern of symptoms emerged. Grot lung, they called it. The first sign was a rattling of the chest, then a greening of the eyes. It progressed to a phlegm-filled death within days; there were no known survivors.
There was a mass exodus away from the shore – at least for those who could afford it. Those who couldn’t were left in ghost towns, picking through scraps and waiting to succumb.
I drove down to Bournemouth to get Mum, but by the time I arrived at the care home she was already in a bad way. She couldn’t talk, but she spat a gob of olive mucus at my feet.
Why didn’t you come sooner? her eyes said.
There were only a few residents left, and one staff member. I didn’t ask what had happened to the rest of them, just carried Mum to the car, where I lay her squirming body in the back seat as gently as I could.
I set off with her thrashing and screaming that she was drowning, even though air blasted through the open windows.
The roads were jammed that day so the journey back to London took hours. Eventually her screams became a bubbling moan, then she gurgled into silence. When I stopped outside my flat she was dead, green suckers creeping out of her mouth, searching. The hazmat-suited men picked up her body within the hour, and that was the last I saw of her; no funeral, no speeches, nothing.
***
My thumbnail broke off at the stem. I peeled it away, expecting a gory mess underneath, but there was only a viscous green sludge.
***
The army was sent in to kill the grot, dumping chemicals out of chinooks, leaving the earth parched and broken, but the puckered fronds still waving. Scientists measured the daily creep and reported back during an evening bulletin. After several weeks of shock and awe, there was finally some good news: the grot had stopped spreading.
WE STOPPED THE GROT! one newspaper proclaimed the next day, next to a cartoon of a pickle-like alien waving a white flag.
A public holiday was declared. Pubs served grot burgers and green-tinged beer. A few brave souls even ventured to the coast, cutting holes in the fences so they could get to the sea. I didn’t go this time, but I watched on TV, cocooned in my flat. The grot was still there, even though everyone was pretending it wasn’t. As families stomped across beaches that looked like green fields, it seemed to be mocking them, waiting for its chance to return.
Sure enough, only weeks later, the grot began inching forward again. This time, the pesticides didn’t work. Grot pushed into farmlands, replacing neat furrowed rows with a spongy sage carpet. Crops failed, and the sea grot became so thick that container ships couldn’t get through.
GROT POTATO, the papers shouted into the deepening void. People were dying of starvation now, too. It was too late to leave, even if I’d had anywhere to go. Millionaires fled in their private jets, but crashed straight down after take-off; the grot had furred up their planes’ engines. After that no one came in, or went out.
***
I screamed, the sound dying in my throat with a gurgle. My breaths came in frantic wheezes, and the more I panicked the worse it got, until I was doubled over, green water spilling out of my mouth and onto the bathroom tiles, staining the white grouting.
***
The days became an endless search for food. There were rumours about people eating grot; some said that cooking it got rid of the toxins.
Eventually, I had no choice. It was the only plentiful thing left in a barren land. I coated some in soy sauce and forced it down, telling myself it tasted like crispy seaweed.
The next day I woke up with a rattle in my chest. I jumped out of bed and rushed to the bathroom on shaky legs, staring at my reflection.
My face was pale green; my eyes had a limey glow. My hair was slick with grease, falling onto my shoulders in kelp-like fronds. My nose, my hands, my gums – all were infused with grot.
Green tears dribbled down my cheeks as I tried to calm my frenzied breaths.
I knew what was coming next. Now the grot was inside me, there was no stopping it.
Still, I rubbed at the patina of fungus on my cheeks, digging my diseased nails into my flesh, scratching as if it might actually help me.
That’s when I felt them: slits on each side of my jaw, then regularly spaced along my neck. I slid a finger into the hollow of my throat, tilted my head, peering more closely into the mirror. They looked like gills.
I ran to the pond in my communal garden, stuck my head under the grot-infested water. After a minute or two I realised I was breathing more easily – if you could call it breathing.
With a bucket of water beside me on the driver’s seat, I headed to the coast. Every now and then I’d have to submerge my face, but it’s not like there was anyone around to crash into; the motorways were deserted, the houses and shops empty.
The sun was high by the time I reached Brighton beach. There wasn’t another soul around, no sound except the sluggish washing of waves against grot. I missed the squawk of seagulls and the screams of kids on funfair rides. The green stretched as far as I could see, crawling out of the water and up the struts of the pier, covering the amusement arcade, wrapping around the white turrets.
I wriggled through a hole in the fence and stepped onto the slimy stones, bursting blisters of grot with my bare toes. When I made it to the surf I sank down, already calming, pushing my face under, not bothered by the salt sting in my eyes.
I undressed and waded in. The pressure on my lungs eased as I swam deeper, still tangled in the grot, fighting against the slimy fingers that tried to pull me back, until I was free, kicking into clear blue.
I surfaced in a spray of water, squinting against the sun as it reflected off the waves. Up ahead, another creature bobbed, shiny as a seal. I swam towards it, keeping my gills submerged.
When I got closer, the creature turned to me. It was another grot-woman, green-skinned and smiling, her hair a mass of bladderwrack.
She raised a hand from the water and waved, then threw her head back and let out a keening cry. More heads popped up from beneath the waves; tens of grot-people, maybe more than a hundred.
Their voices joined hers, weaving together into something I instinctively knew was a song of welcome.
I waved back, noticing the verdant membrane that had formed between my fingers. Taking one last look towards the distant pier, I dived under, ready to join them.
An Interview with Madeleine
Why did you write this piece? This story came from a Writers’ HQ flash face-off prompt of “delicious vs disgusting”. I saw a picture of a mouldy orange and kind of went from there. The name and description of grot came first, and then it took on a life of its own, much like the grot in the story...in fact, this started off life as a 500-word piece.
What are your favorite and least favorite parts of writing? I love having ideas - that first furious scribble to get things down is so exhilarating. I’m not so keen on editing - hence the procrastinating from editing my novel.
What other writing projects are you working on? I’m currently embroiled in editing a romantasy novel, which itself grew from a 100-word story. But I’m endlessly procrastinating by looking for new challenges and competitions. I’m really into tiny stories at the moment, because they’re fun to write, and I can start and finish one in a day. I take part in the Globe Soup micro challenge each month, and social media-based competitions like Kismet Quarterly’s new Monday meet cute.
What are your hobbies? Do they ever play into your writing? I love running and compete for an athletics club called Croydon Harriers. I find that running clears my head, and I often come up with new ideas for stories while I’m out for a run.
Tell us a few facts about yourself--anything from where you live to whether you like cilantro. I love cats and have two of them. They’re always trying to talk to me, and I wonder what they’re trying to tell me. Probably just asking where their dinner is.
Madeleine’s Links
A Song for Corpses
By Nate Ritchie
The tower of dead steel beckons them, six ephemeral women twirling uphill in sparkling red dresses and open heels. Decayed remnants, a ghost signal carries of a dark song profane to living ears. Dispersed through gelid, electromagnetic wind, it dances upon my throbbing eardrums, strums my spinal nerves, and, like sweet poison, creeps through my withering veins. Enthralling is that verboten rhythm. My body moves as if possessed, but what’s wrong with that? It’s a beautiful song deserving of eternal, self-destructive reverence.
An Interview with Nate
Why did you write this piece? This poem stems in part from my recurring obsession with the dancing plague. I also live in the Rust Belt, where derelict infrastructure is fairly common, so I like to explore the horror in forsaken, corrupted, or decayed entities from the past. For example, I live near a looming electrical tower that has seen better days. That tower served as the initial inspiration for the poem.
Do you have a favorite place to write? I prefer to write fiction and nonfiction exclusively in my bedroom, which doubles as my office. As for poetry, however, I might write the first draft in the wilderness, the local library, my closet - wherever I happen to feel like writing it.
What other writing projects are you working on? I’m currently working on a nonfiction book on the history of cannibalism. I also have a couple short fiction stories in the works, and I plan to write plenty of poems this year.
What are your hobbies? Do they ever play into your writing? I am very much into gardening and botany. That interest often manifests in my poetry and works its way into descriptions in my fiction. I also have a fascination with reptiles, various insects, and human anatomy. I think the latter is somewhat represented in this poem.
The Contented Woman
By Brittany Hague
In the mountains of upstate New York, you can find hidden treasures: hot springs, artists colonies, mansions, waterfalls, and breathtaking views. You can also find addiction, unmarked graves, wickedness, and hopelessness. And if you look hard enough, you can find places that are magically remote, even in this age of connection; eerie and accursed places, that, for obvious reasons, will not be named.
In one such place, a contented woman gratefully inhaled a bitter winter wind, sharp enough to slash your throat and burn your lungs. Her footsteps crunched up the snowy path to a bench where a cranky woman was feeding birds. The contented woman, wrapped in a quilted eggplant coat at least forty years old, trekked up the path in boots lined with shedding, matted faux fur. She caught the cranky woman’s attention and made a silly sound to acknowledge the chill.
The cranky woman responded by throwing a handful of seed at the jittery animals and muttering, “Thought I was the only fool dumb enough to come out in this weather. Me and the birds. Some little nurse told me cold is good for the aching. But it’s not.” She made a sound of disgust as a deformed pigeon wobbled up, its face a jumble of wrinkly, red protrusions. “Must have flown down from Goety,” the cranky woman said, jerking her head towards the doomy mountain behind them.
“They don’t really call it that anymore, do they?” the contented woman asked, setting down her brown paper shopping bag.
The cranky woman just shivered and kicked snow at the ugly pigeon.
“May I feed them?” The contented woman smiled.
“I only have so much.” The cranky woman poured out the remaining seeds onto the dirty snow, causing a frenzy among the birds, then discarded the tabloid newspaper she had fashioned into a seed vessel. The contented woman’s eyes widened at the crinkled photograph of a smiling blonde in a bikini with her arms around someone outside the fold. “Bimbo Vanishes!” the headline shouted. The cranky woman noticed her looking.
“Trash.”
“What?”
“This!” The cranky woman grabbed the newspaper and shook it at the town below, “The world.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Just look at this view.”
The town the two women looked down on, in the shadow of this dismal mountain, sagged under a weight of despair. The cranky woman shifted, annoyed by her companion’s optimism, then softened when she noticed that the contented woman’s ankles had begun to redden in the cold.
“Better cover those before you get frost bite.”
“I forget sometimes. Forget that pain is a bad thing,” the contented woman stood up and walked not down into town but north through the trees, onto the mountain path. The cranky woman nearly yelled out a warning. No one goes up the mountain! But it caught in her throat. The contented woman was bobbing her head and humming a strange tune that stirred a faraway but familiar fear in the cranky woman.
Tales about the mountain had cast a shadow over the cranky woman’s youth. The mountain that heaved and grew larger overnight, the mountain that trilled with chanting, the mountain that foolhardy men climbed only to come down changed and deranged. As she grew, those stories, once exchanged freely, were whispered, then not spoken of at all, and finally forgotten. By that time, newcomers began to arrive in town, and they didn’t understand the ways of the mountain. A few, eager to be left alone, even built homes up there.
The fire had broken out before sunrise on a clear winter night. The flames glowed not orange but green and purple against the serrated silhouettes of the pines. The cranky woman and her husband, awoken by the strange sounds the fire made, left their beds to watch the blaze. She had held her crying baby, his soft red hair tickled her nose. Within the black tendrils of smoke, warped faces howled. She looked to her husband to see if he too had seen the horrors. He was rooted at the spot, frozen. He made no motion to help, despite the pride he took as a volunteer firefighter. The fire burnt itself out and did not spread beyond the mountain’s eastern side, assuaging the townsmen of any guilt, because no one else ran to help, either.
No one went up the mountain after that.
***
The walk up the mountain was long, but the contented woman did not mind. The tall trees on each side of the path reminded her of those fuzzy-hatted palace guards she’d seen on TV, standing at attention as she returned from a rare visit to town, an extension cord, cat food, and powdered milk in tow.
These noble trees were green and thriving but, as she neared the clearing where she lived, the foliage grew brittle, grey, and curved away from her home as if to avoid its stink. The house was a dismal prefabricated one-level with brown splintered shutters and a weeping beige exterior. She smiled at the sight of her home and whistled her tuneless song while replacing the cord that connected the generator. As she trudged to the lopsided screen door, she noticed a banged-up Range Rover parked in the dirt. California plates.
The door clanged shut. Standing in the wood paneled living room, between the small TV and a couch that was home to several sleeping cats, was the woman from the tabloid. Blonde, thin, tall, she was wearing knee-high boots and a lynx fur coat. Her daughter.
“Good afternoon, Kitty, Bear, Lovey, Fuzz, Scuttle, Foofie, is that you under there, Bwada? And you too, Belinda.”
“I’m guessing you don’t have many guests.” Belinda said.
“No. No one comes up the mountain.”
“Is it because they’re afraid? Or does the stench of all these little rodents keep them away?”
The contented woman shooed the comment away with her hand and chuckled. Belinda almost wished for the mother of her youth, the topless bejeweled maniac, often high on cocaine and what not, screeching at her to leave the orgy room or for interrupting seances. This dizzy, smiling fool standing in front of her was pathetic.
“Have a seat, dear.”
Belinda scanned the corduroy couch crawling with cats and winced. “I don’t think there’s room.” She waltzed over to the kitchen, opening a window despite the cold, to dissipate the piss stink. She sat at the small table in an uncomfortable wooden sheaf back chair and sighed. Belinda’s thick makeup was beginning to bleed and gather in her creases. Huge rings adorned each finger, as if she had fled with her valuables. Which, her mother began to think, she probably had.
“Where are my manners!? Let me get you some food. You must be hungry, I know I am.” Her mother fussed around the kitchen, absently chewing on a banana peel as she grabbed boxes of crackers and granola bars from the cabinets.
“Jesus, mom. What are you doing?” Belinda pointed to the garbage her mother was devouring.
Her mother only laughed and then shrugged. “I’m sorry. Why don’t you look around for something suitable for you to eat.”
Belinda looked. “This is all expired. Why are you living like this?”
Her mother winked. Belinda knew why. “I’m not hungry anyway.” Belinda sat down again, not quite ready to talk.
“So, how is California? Did you have any of that flooding? You find work yet?”
“Do you even watch my show? It was a huge hit.”
“Oh, but it isn’t very nice, is it?”
Belinda scoffed. “What difference does it make to you? You eat garbage and live in filth. You’re happy with any junk. Some happiness, ha!”
“Contentment, Belinda. Contentment. And it has its limits,” her mother said. The words stung. Belinda had hoped her mother’s sense of conjured contentment would have extended to include acceptance of her own daughter.
“Well fame has its limits, too. I need help. Is Pappy still with us?”
“Pappy is asleep, Belinda, and we are not going to wake him.” Her mother froze, eyeing the vinyl floor under Belinda’s chair. “Are you hurt?”
Belinda looked down. Grey and ochre ooze dripped from the wooden chair and formed a reeking puddle. Her mother came around and removed the lynx coat. She discovered a large gash in Belinda’s back, poorly bandaged. When she removed the soiled gauze, she saw slimy, purplish growths beginning to bulge from the wound. Thick rivulets of slime were dripping down Belinda’s back. “I told you. I’m in trouble.”
“This wound won’t kill you.” The mother said. She found a sewing kit to begin repairs. “How did you manage those?” she pointed to Belinda’s large breast implants which had been hidden under her coat.
“Mom, in Los Angeles you can find someone to do just about anything if you have enough money.”
“Money,” her mother said with condescension. “I suppose that would come with FAME. But you know that’s not what I meant. I mean, they must have had to cut into you and…”
Belinda sighed and a smirk she had perfected decades ago in her teens spread across her face. “I remembered some of the THINGS you used to say.”
Her mother laughed. “Since when did you ever listen to me?”
“I don’t mean like that. I mean things you said in the old house.”
“Well you should forget all that. Not very nice.”
Belinda had been using her mother’s spells for years. But their power had been fading lately. Just like her beauty. Just like her fame. A simple spell of mind erasure was particularly useful when anyone witnessed the physical... changes dark magic had wrought on her body. This latest brawl between herself, a call girl, and her lover/co-star, Sebastian, had left Belinda slashed and bloodied. But the real calamity was that the spell hadn’t worked. Sebastian awoke remembering even more details of the evening’s debauchery than Belinda had, and as she tried to explain the bloodied bathroom, Sebastian stared at her as if she were a monster. She hated that she had to leave that life behind and start over. She hated asking her mother for guidance even more.
“Mom, is your contentment fading with age?”
Her mother only shrugged but a darkness fell across her face. “I’m sure I’ll be dead soon anyway.”
“Can we please wake Pappy?”
“Belinda! Enough. And what would you ask for, anyway? More money? A movie career? Look what you got last time? On the front of some tabloid, married to some pornographer, star of some cheap little show. I want you to be happy, like me, Belinda. Content.”
“Sebastian is a lingerie mogul! And our ‘cheap little show’ ran for nine seasons and started honest conversations about polyamorous relationships. Read the articles! You, of all people, should appreciate that. At some point, you could have, anyway.”
“My one regret, you know. You were too young when you made your choice. A teenage girl with that kind of power. It was a silly decision, and I am sorry. I should have stopped you, guided you with my wisdom.”
Wisdom. Ha! Belinda realized that to live this life of perfect contentment, her mother must have erased the dark, oozing pains of Belinda’s childhood. The black magic that defined her early days, a father so fearsome and distorted he was barely human in the end, and the maniacal mother who only wanted, wanted, wanted, wanted, wanted for herself.... until the beautiful, perfect son was born. Only then did her mother feel the need to make things “nice.” Of course, her mother would have to forget. But Belinda did not, even if it was all jumbled the way childhood memories are when no one else acknowledges the truth of them. Still, this reframing of her past left Belinda speechless. Exhausted, she gnawed on her acrylic nail wondering how she could get her mother to help while one of the pests rubbed its kitty cat face against her heels.
“You must be tired,” said her mother. In this one thing, her mother was right. She had driven so long and so far and her body needed to rest and heal. “You can have my room. I don’t mind the couch with my babies,”
“Of course you don’t.”
Belinda spent the rest of the afternoon in her mother’s dim bedroom struggling to get comfortable in the scratchy, unclean blankets. She was surprisingly grateful for the lack of cellular service and eventually napped, imagining she was far away from the real world. Which, in many ways, she was.
When she woke, the room had grown even darker and the only house sounds were the scurrying of cats. Belinda peeked out and saw a tabby, possibly Bwada, perched on her mother’s chest, slowly rising and falling. The cat glowered at Belinda, and she gave it the finger before tiptoeing down the hall to the other bedroom. Pappy loved her, and Belinda was sure he would not mind being awakened. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, all she found was more cats. Calcified cat litter crunched under her bare feet. She shut the bedroom door as soon as it was clear Pappy was not in there, fearing the stench would knock her out if she had to inhale it much longer.
She tiptoed to the front door. It let out a whiny groan. She paused but her mother did not wake up, then she stepped into the freezing silent night. Where could he be? She leaned against the hood of her car, examining the sagging shape of this home, the kind of home her mother would never have sat foot in before her “contentment.” Belinda spotted a screen covering the entry to a crawl space. She got on her knees and peered into the darkness.
“Pappy! Pappy, it’s Belinda. Are you there?” She heard nothing.
“He’s not here, Belinda.” Her mother stood over her. “He’s somewhere safe. After what he did for us, after what we asked of him, he deserves a long, long rest.”
Belinda followed her mother back inside, but she stayed up most of the night, conniving to find the old house, their true house, the place where her strange memories had formed. The place she hoped to find Pappy.
Belinda woke to the hum of the generator. As the weak morning sun strained through the dingy window, she dug through the dresser drawers hoping to find appropriate attire for the chilly walk ahead of her. She found some men’s trousers that were long enough for her tall frame and a belt to prevent them from falling down. She found a Yankees sweatshirt her mother would have never bought and noticed a framed photograph of strangers on top of the dresser.
A single clear memory: heat at her back, striding down the mountain, holding her mother’s bony hand. Her mother was wailing. Even after the contentment, cast many years before, she was wailing. Their walk ended at this place; this sad home unwisely built in the domain of monsters. Had this smiling couple in the photo run out to help the mother and daughter covered in soot? She looked closer but could not remember them. The house must have belonged to someone before her mother invaded it. Belinda was ashamed this was the first time this thought had crossed her mind. She flipped the photograph face down and put the sweatshirt on. It smelled of dust and time.
“Just getting some air!” This version of her mother was easy to lie to.
Belinda surveyed the woods. The way to the true house was easier to find than she expected. The path they had taken the night of the fire was still charred and grey. Nature deigned not to regrow. Belinda hiked up the singed trail. She knew she was near when the smell of burnt wood grew stronger, still acrid even after all these years. She could have cried thinking of how many (twenty-five?). But she was going to do something about that.
She knew the house had burned, but it was shocking to see it reduced to nothing but the foundation. Impossible, really. The eccentric cabin with its strange hallways, hidden rooms, and ghastly secrets, should have withstood anything, even fire. She traced its outline. Here was the foyer, here the apothecary, and here was the emerald drawing room where she fed the lizard. Some of the memories seemed too fantastical, even for someone who had lived them.
And here… Her brother had been ten years old. Burned alive. Horrid sounds. Against his blackening and popping skin, his teeth glowed white and clean. He spat powerful hexes from his smoldering lips that should have done horrible things to her, but Pappy loved her and had accepted the sacrifice. Her brother was rendered powerless against her wishes, finally. Looping back to the foyer, she stopped tracing, stopped remembering. Pappy was not here, she had run out of ideas.
She returned to find her mother at the breakfast table, nibbling on Triscuits that had turned to dust and babbling on about the generator, the recent snowstorm, and the antics of the cats. “I just love it when I see little kitty footsteps on a freshly made bed,” she told Belinda, not paying any mind to her daughter’s frozen tear-streaked cheeks. The image was cozy to Belinda, and she smiled, wondering again if there was any way to appeal to her mother.
“Mom.”
“No, Belinda. The sacrifice, it’s too great.”
Belinda said, in a whisper, “I think the sacrifice was pretty fair.”
Her mother shook her head. The limits of her contentment were being tested. “Your brother, he was a good boy.”
Belinda stood and venom spewed out. “He was not! You had just gone into goo-goo land, where everything is great! He was a monster. He was everything dad was and more.”
“You were always so dramatic.”
“Me? Dramatic?! You had no problem sacrificing dad. Not after he grew so big his head hit the ceiling, when all the color left his flesh, when he talked in that, that… language that made me vomit. You had no problem when he was required for your happiness, and I had no problem with the cost of mine. You don’t know the things my brother was capable of. The things he did!”
Her mother sat silently, discontented, and it was fearsome. The mother of old, the one Belinda had fleetingly wished for yesterday, was now before her. Belinda immediately wished her away. Her mother let out a sigh. “Leave.”
And Belinda left. She felt that without makeup and in this oversized outfit she ran little risk of being recognized by the local yokels. She trudged down the path towards town. She needed some real food anyway.
She came across a parking lot. A redheaded redneck was coaxing the cranky woman into the cab of a truck. “I’ll get a ride with Kenneth,” he was telling her. Belinda turned when he caught her listening and angled the baseball hat she wore as a disguise.
O’C-----s Restaurant Bar & Grill was painted brick red on one side, and a moldy pale yellow on the other. The small windows were crammed with dim neon. Bud Light. Coors Light. Miller Light. Inside, the tables were covered with shiny red tablecloths ripped in several places, little fluffs of white fuzz bulged out. A long wooden bar stretched across the back wall. A jukebox played something that would have been at home on FM radio, and the only family dining-in seemed to have uncountable screaming children. Belinda sat at the bar and the men, all men, reminded her of animatronics at Disneyland, with their wrinkly crevices and repetitive motions. And the lifelessness in their eyes. Belinda had never liked Disneyland, but she would take it over this place. Even the oddly wet and warm stench of that Bayou restaurant, the height of cuisine according to Sebastian’s youngest lover, was preferable to this stink of old beer and steamed food.
The redheaded man from the parking lot sat next to her. She knew someone would. Even with the disguise, even at her age, she had a captivating face. “Do I know you?” Here we go. She turned, ready to leave, but he continued. “You went to R----- High School, right?”
“No. I was home schooled. And I’m not from here exactly.”
“Whew, home schooled, huh? When I was a kid, that was only for weirdos but now it sort of makes the most sense if you don’t want your child indoctrinated.” He talked and talked. And talked. He joked about the calamari; he ordered them the French bread pizza, “the only edible thing,” and fumbled over how to order her a glass of wine. There was something about a tree removal business and being scrawny as a kid. Some more stuff about living in his mom’s house, Pennsylvania, his dad dying, his mom returning here. A bunch of hopes and dreams Belinda did not see coming true. His monologue left her with an impression of bleak ordinariness, and she felt a sad swell of pride in her unique, if monstrous, upbringing.
“Sorry, too much information. I guess everyone has sad family stuff.”
She stiffened but quickly relaxed. She wasn’t worried. She knew this round-faced man would never ask her anything about herself. She turned off completely to the rest of his ramblings until he mentioned something she was interested in.
“What about the mountain?” she asked.
“People here, well, they’re superstitious. Stupid. But I know what’s really going on.” He was boasting, but he was also whispering, genuinely concerned the older townspeople would hear him. “I was sick of the lies. I mean, a whole lifetime being told to shush about a damn mountain. They even call it ‘goety’ like witchcraft or something. Everyone’s just sheep. Afraid. I’m not afraid. So I went up there once. You know what I found? Some burnt up stuff and a blasted-out cave. My dog ran ahead and drank from a stream that ran out of it. Died the next day. All the stories: missing people, magical fires, cults, curses? It’s just a cover up.” He lowered his voice even more and now Belinda had to lean in. “It’s the government. Deep state stuff.” He looked around nervously.
Sure, the government. But she wanted to see this cave, certain it held what she was looking for, so she feigned interest. “You have to show me,” she smiled her megawatt TV smile. He couldn’t say no.
Without a car, they had to hike and the redhead, who she now knew as Chad, began to whine. It was cold. He had work in the morning. His mom would worry. She shook out her beach blonde locks from under her hat and acted coy, that worked for another mile or so.
Fortunately, the cave was not much further. If she had just searched a mile or so from the site of the old house, she probably could have found it on her own. But she wouldn’t have had this convenient sacrifice. It did not take much to entice him to enter the cave after her. “You were right,” she called to him. “Look!”
And when he looked, he fell to his knees, held his head, screamed, and was sick. Pappy, in all truth, did not look well. His form was bulbous and gelatinous, it had seeped up the walls of the cave and a discharge seeped out that was oily and bruised. Bones protruded and his head, at least the part that Belinda assumed was his head, lolled and the eyes stared. He had awoken.
“Pappy, it’s Belinda. Accept this sacrifice. I want my youth back!”
A sudden purple fire enveloped the man. Pappy ate the remains greedily. Nothing happened to Belinda.
“That’s not the way it works!” Belinda turned to find her mother standing at the mouth of the cave in her pajamas and worn-out boots. “You have to sacrifice someone you love. Stupid, silly girl.”
Belinda slumped against the cave wall. “I wonder if someone who loved him will wake up and make a wish and have it come true.” The image banished some of her guilt. Her mother just shook her head. “That’s not the way it works, either. Words need to be said.”
“I don’t remember saying any words.”
“That’s because I said them for you,” her mother said with an uncharacteristic warmth as she stretched her arms out to Belinda.
She hadn’t known! All this time, it had been her mother that had sacrificed her brother, who she loved so much more than Belinda, to give Belinda her dreams. Belinda crumpled and cried in her mother’s arms.
That was all her mother needed. She cooed into Belinda’s hair and pushed her towards Pappy’s purple flames. And Pappy, having just eaten Chad, made a slower and messier meal of Belinda. “Pappy, I am a good person. I did my best, you know that. Please let me forget everything that wasn’t very nice again. Let me know that I am a good person.”
The contented woman, a good person, walked down the mountainside, back to her humble home, smiling and enjoying the crisp evening air.
***
Down in the valley the next morning, the cranky woman woke to a quiet house. She cursed Chad for probably getting drunk and staying out all night again. When would her son grow up? She took a deep breath before rising, anticipating her body’s aches, and she wished the pain would just go away. As she lifted herself from bed, she smiled. She stretched her body this way and that. She laughed and wondered if some higher power had answered her prayer.
An Interview with Brittany
Why did you write this piece? This was my first foray into cosmic horror. Beyond the traditional horror plot, I was exploring the complications in a fraught daughter and mother relationship. My goal was to present a situation where a parent’s inability to take responsibility for their role in a chaotic or traumatic childhood causes lasting damage to the child. The story turned out to be, more broadly, a commentary on (some of) the boomer generation’s inability to accept criticism of any kind and their need to think they are “good” people, regardless of their actions.
Have you ever experienced anything paranormal? Yes. I’m always open to spooky stuff. But I experienced the most during my time in Providence, Rhode Island. Every corner of that town is haunted.
Why do you write? What itch are you scratching? What do you like about the horror/paranormal/folklore genre? When I’m not doing something creative, I tend to get pretty sad. For years I worked as a print and graphic designer, but I began writing short stories on my phone when I had a baby and was working less. Writing became a great outlet for me. Horror has excited me since I was a five-year-old kid watching The Third Eye on Nickelodeon.
What are your favorite and least favorite parts of writing? When you get into a flow with a particular voice, it really does feel like magic. When you are waiting months for a bunch of rejections, it makes you wonder what in the world you’re doing with yourself.
What are your hobbies? Do they ever play into your writing? I love watching movies, reading, going to museums, and cooking. I also have two teenagers, so learning to be dispassionate and tranquil has become my new hobbie. I think all experiences big or small can play into writing, so the more the merrier. Inspiration can come from noticing someone acting weird at the grocery store as much as it can from a life altering event.
Is writing your full time job? I have been treating writing as my full time job for the last couple of years. My freelance design work took a hit after covid, so I decided to devote some time to see if I could do this writing thing for real.
Tell us a few facts about yourself! I was born in Colorado, went to school in Providence, lived briefly in Austin, then moved to Brooklyn. Now I’m in Seattle, Washington, with my husband, two kids, and two cats.
Brittany’s Links
The Oneir-a-who
By Bridget Houlihan
Start at the edge of the forest, glance each way to make sure you weren’t followed. This place you can only reach alone and unbothered. The ground at first hard, then softens, with the cushion of mud, pine needles, lichen. It’s easy to get lost here, but follow the path of the bare maple trees, and you might find the way. Past the table rock, and the small stream that trickles over slippery stones. There’s a dim path that can take you where you want to go. Deep among the ferns is where you’ll find it buried. You’d miss it if you didn’t know, or simply didn’t tarry. The moss is thick and the earth is always damp, with a musty, rooty aroma from ages passed. It is the place of stolen dreams, and forgotten memories. This is the passage to somewhere no mortal should go. But for those that do, be warned, this keep is overseen by the Oneir-a-who. For those that have passed the threshold where the worlds cross, you now see an opening— a yawning crevice, that before was glossed. Take your courage and go, follow the dim light down the hole. For this is the place where you’ll reclaim your stolen memory, or dream that no longer grows. Be warned, resist your fluttering eyelids and softening gaze— do not fall asleep in this otherworldly place, for that calls to the guardian, the Oneir-a-who. Once summoned it will not relent, and your mortal life as you know it will be spent. So, you must take what you came for—take, take, take it, and go! For those that cannot fight the sudden stroke of sleep with its soft glow, There you shall stay, among the shattered dreams and lost memories, for what will be an eternity. Locked in place, and shelved away, a captive of the guardian, the Oneir-a-who. This is the price to pay for failing to revive your dream, or recall your memory, and once trapped, the Oneir-a-who will place you—comfortable to be sure—among the other dreams, other memories, other souls, whose fate is the same as yours. Nothing more shall worry you, and time will do no harm, but never again will you awake To return from where you came. If you can defeat the deep sleep that calls, grab the bauble with the name that speaks your dream, your thought, your rightful memory. There is only one way back, one way to reverse the gate. Follow the slow stream—the one you didn’t know was at your feet— for that is how you can step back, and step out, of this dark and dangerous hole. The Oneir-a-who will watch you, unseen and unheard, there's nothing now to be done to stop you. Return to the glade that holds this cave, but be sure, never look back. Never again can you return to the home of the Oneir-a-who, so cradle your thoughts with care this time. The Oneir-a-who is always ready to take those dreams, those memories, from those who let them die.
An Interview with Bridget
Why did you write this piece? This piece came to me when I was struggling with my career, and was worried I’d have to say goodbye to my dreams. It’s so disheartening to think about living in a world where we have to potentially do that in order to survive. After all, hopes and dreams are what make life worth living!
Have you ever experienced anything paranormal? Yes, while I was visiting Gettysburg.
Why do you write? What itch are you scratching? What do you like about the horror/paranormal/folklore genre? I write about what feels important to me. Whether that’s the observation of a cardinal at the bird bath, or the way the light trickles through the leaves of trees, noting these “everyday” occurrences helps me slow down and pay attention more.
I love reading works from the horror/paranormal/folklore genre, because it’s so endlessly creative. There’s always a new story or new poem awaiting us. Writers are so imaginative!
What other writing projects are you working on? I continually craft poems, and am working on finishing up a longer piece of fiction.
What are your hobbies? Do they ever play into your writing? I like gardening, bird watching, and spending time outdoors in all seasons. Yes, I would say that does inspire some of my works!
Bridget’s Links
The Last Priestess of the Elder God
By Julia Rajagopalan
They came for her in the night, with their torches and their vicious swords made from melted stone.
She was easy to find. The last priestess of the Elder God, in the last temple, at the mouth of the greatest cave in Yugra.
They pounded on the thick doors, the beams splitting and splintering with every strike. Adilla stood in front of the altar, trembling in the pale lamplight. A bouquet of purple flowers tipped over, tumbling across the floor.
She wanted to fight them with her poor wooden staff, but it was futile. It was time for her to join the God. As the door began to break, she stepped around the altar, pushed past a curtain, and ran down ancient stone steps.
The light from above faded, and for a few moments, it was pitch black, and she had to feel her way down. Then the God’s glow began.
The stairs poured into an enormous cavern, with soaring ceilings and huge columns. This was the true temple. At the far end lived the Elder God.
He looked like a glowing cloud, pulled from the sky, still warm from the sun. He grew out of the walls, covering the damp rock with his massive glowing body, eight times as tall as she. Nodules and lumps sprouted, and every time she visited, there were more, growing and glowing in the dark.
Heavy steps echoed behind her, and she fled toward the God, running to his glowing embrace. Closer to him, she could see his pale fingers, the reaching hands, the knotty thumbs that looked so much like common mushrooms on dead logs, but these where some thing more. Something divine.
“Good gods,” a man swore.
“It’s a monster and must be killed.”
Adilla touched the god, though she had never dared before. He felt soft but firm, and she cried into him as the men approached. With a rippling, Earth shaking movement, the great God shifted, fingers and arms opening to create a wide split before her. Adilla stepped into the space, into the glowing belly, and it folded around her, wrapping her in soft warmth and protecting her from the men.
It smelled yeasty and damp, like a loaf of freshly baked bread and glowed pale yellow around her. The God shifted again creating a path she followed it, walking further the being.
She continued, going further into the Earth. When she paused, the God closed behind her, pushing her on.
Eventually the ground rose, and the air lightened. Sunlight conquered the glowing, and the Elder God opened to the mouth of a cave. Adilla stepped into a fresh pine forest and the God closed behind her.
The last priestess of the last Elder God sobbed as she walked alone into the forest. The smell of smoke and roasting mushroom lingered as she fled.
An Interview with Julia
Why did you write this piece? This piece came from an article my husband sent me about the biggest living thing on Earth, which is thought to be a fungal organism found in the Malheur National Forest. This fungus lives underground and is believed to be over 10,000 years old.
What intrigued me about this enormous being is what ancient people must have thought about it. What if an ancient person stumbled upon a fungus like this in a cave? Without our knowledge, they must have thought it a monster or divine.
When I saw the prompt about the elder gods, I immediately thought about this story. I changed the location to ancient Hungary, as that is where my family is originally from, and the region I’m most familiar with.
The character felt just right for this story. The last priestess of the elder god, before worshipers of the new gods violently take over. It has built-in conflict. What would she do? What would the god do?
Have you ever experienced anything paranormal? I have several stories, but the most dramatic one was when I dreamt my mother and sister were in an accident. They were on a bus for my sister’s fieldtrip. I dreamt that they hit a small red car. Everyone was fine, except the driver of the car, who was injured but limped away from the accident.
When my mother called to check in, she said, “You’ll never believe what happened.”
I told her about my dream, and she confirmed, with a bit of surprise, that it was exactly what had happened. The driver wasn’t injured, fortunately, but instead had MS and was having trouble walking that day, which was why he was limping in my dream.
Do you have a favorite place to write? I typically write in my home office, a tiny room with too many books, too much art. It’s the warmest room in the house, and it’s a cozy little cave of creativity and imagination.
I do sometimes work at a local coffee shop, where I love to listen in on other people’s conversations. It’s unforgivably nosy, but I don’t care. I get some of my best ideas and my most interesting characters that way.
Why do you write? What itch are you scratching? What do you like about the horror/paranormal/folklore genre? I have so many ideas, I can’t help but get them down on paper. I also believe that writing helps me process the world. I have a hard time knowing what to say in the moment. Writing helps me organize my thoughts in a coherent way. I’m always questioning the status quo, and I hate straightforward narratives. My philosophy is question everything and decide for yourself.
I particularly love horror because I think it allows us to explore the edges of humanity and beyond. Folklore is made up of the stories that make us who we are. What’s even more interesting is that it’s constantly evolving and changing. It’s a dialogue between all of us, and yet it makes us who we are.
What other writing projects are you working on? I’ve recently finished writing an urban fantasy/romantasy novel about a world where everyone has special powers. It’s a dark mystery full of quirky characters, strange occurrences, and a whole lot of fun. I will be looking for an agent for my project very soon!
Julia’s Links
News
Current Submission Theme: Curses
Emerald City Ghosts is currently looking for stories and poetry on the theme of curses!
A child won’t stop staring at you. The magician at the theater singles you out and speaks strange words over you. You find an old silver tray in your attic, and the moment you touch it, your world spirals out of control. Incorporate a curse into your piece in any way you see fit!
An Upcoming Note on Themes
We’ve been looking for a way to stick to our Pacific Northwest roots without alienating writers from elsewhere, and we think we’ve found it. We’ve decided that every so often, one of our submission windows is going to be themed around a Pacific Northwest town.
Let us know in the comments which towns and cities we should feature!
What an incredible issue! Such a good read, congrats!
Thanks for sharing "The Last Priestess of the Elder God." I loved all of the stories in this issue. Such a great theme