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I
wiggled my fingers and the rosella hopped awkwardly from one foot to the other.
It was obvious now, that the left wing was loose, the stitching not quite tight enough to hold it firmly in place. Annoying. Always had problems with wings. It was hard to find the time to sew properly, and my little hobby wasn’t exactly something I wanted to be caught doing.
The rosella had been out near the old Elgas station, slightly flattened, its feathers gritty with road dust. I’d worked hard to plump out the body with cotton wool, tighten up the joints with stiff thread and wax. No matter how good they were when I started, it was impossible to tell if they were right until I animated them.
Rewrapping the red-feathered corpse, I stowed it in my backpack.
The memorial park was my favourite hunting ground. That time of year, the grass was dry and brown, crunching underfoot like frost. The place was deserted.
There was nothing under the powerlines or along the back fence. Next to the toilet block was a single cockroach, belly-up. Rubbing my hands together, I cracked my knuckles, circled the roach with a fingertip, and gestured for it to move. Watched it twirl like a ballerina on one spindly leg, before a piece of it fell away. Apologetically, I let it be, gently laying it back down.
Scouting along the final boundary of conifer hedge, my ears pricked up at the sound of laughter and kids squealing.
Stretching out on the dry grass to peer through the tree trunks, I saw a pair of lilac sneakers. One of them moved, digging a toe in the dirt.
Rocking back onto my knees, I put a hand on the ground to lever myself up.
That’s when then I saw the baby bird. Fresh out of the nest, already gone, it lay, unmoving, just under the dense, lower branches. An army of tiny, black ants already starting to explore it. I stared at it. The temptation of those shoes was too much. I had an audience at last, and no one would ever know it was me. I couldn’t help myself.
Leaning to one side, I shuffled a little further under the trees, easing my way in. No matter how I tried to be quiet, the pine needles shifted, whispering my intent.
One purple sneaker edged closer to the hedge in front of me, then paused as if someone had stepped in to listen.
Peering through the thick foliage, I made out a tall girl, solid, with shoulder-length, toddler-blonde hair. A paper crown fell over her eyes, blinding her. She pushed it back, annoyed. Her movements clunky, awkward, like a puppy.
Behind her, on a low deck jutting into the yard, a family cheered, glasses tinkling, as they took turns reading out lame jokes from the Christmas crackers. From somewhere inside the house beyond, kids were racing each other up and down a hallway—quick footsteps then a thud, followed by squeals of laughter. The ideal family Christmas.
I lay there, chewing my lip.
Flicking my fingertips at the dead bird, I threw an invisible halo around it, pushed it to move toward the other side of the hedge. There was a soft crackling as the hatchling resurrected, and it scuttled deeper into the shadow under the pine trees.
The blonde girl ducked, shading her eyes, trying to make out what the sound was. The mass of fallen pine needles was thick and fusty. It would be easy enough to dismiss the rustling as just a scrub-hen scratching around for slugs.
I gave my hands another small twitch, and the tiny chick squirmed out of the leaf litter in front of her. Newly hatched, its yellow throat was wide open. Squawking, it stumbled and rolled to one side, claws grasping at the air to regain balance. I saw the moment it caught her eye, the dopey expression of surprise on the girl’s face.
I expected a bit of a squeal at least, but she stayed silent. Kneeling, she crawled through the branches to reach out to it but, as she got closer, the ants swarmed over its pin feathers and she stopped.
Its grey skin was teeming with them now. The bird’s eyes—black seeds beneath stretched skin—were sunken. It looked dead. It looked like it shouldn’t move and yet somehow it was. Totally creepy. I smirked, proud, trying to ignore that hot little streak of cruelty inside me.
The blonde edged back, risking a glance over her shoulder at her family still at the table, and I quickly wrung out my hands, releasing my hold over the bird. Turning back to look at my little Frankenstein monster in the pine needles, she found it no longer moving. Lying motionless and quiet. Dead.
Rubbing at her eyes, she tried to refocus, to clarify what she’d seen. There was the spot where it had tunnelled up and a trail of freshly turned mulch from its tumble, hard to deny.
Shimmying my way back out from the trees, I got to my feet, chuckled to myself.
My humour lasted until the bigger girl barrelled through the hedge, knocking me down, the air crushed from my lungs by the weight of her body on my chest.
She forced my arms above my head and pinned them there. “What did you do?” she demanded.
I squirmed, trying to buck her off. She bent my hand back sharply toward the wrist. “Stop, stop, stop!” I babbled.
The pain eased. “How’d you do it?” The girl looked down at me with a red, curdled face.
“What are you talking about?” I tried to weasel away. “I wasn’t doing anything. You looked funny, I laughed...” Her expression instantly made me regret my words. It was a wild, gleeful, vicious look.
“Looked funny, hey?” she said. “See how funny you look with a broken arm.”
She had a strong grip. Pressure twisted at my elbow, and I screamed.
From the other side of the trees, a woman’s voice suddenly called, “Alice? Alice!”
The girl whipped around, leapt off. Shoved her way back through the branches. “Lucky for you,” she spat as she disappeared.
I bolted.
* * *
When I reached the orchard on the other side of town, I pushed my way through the wire fence, the long grass, slumped under one of the pear trees.
Alice. What kind of a name was Alice? People called Alice should wear headbands and be kind to rabbits, not attack people. It was a simple enough rule.
Nursing my sore arm and feeling sorry for myself, I had a good cry before finally pulling it together enough to head home.
All night, I lay there, imagining that girl replaying what she’d seen. She’d known exactly what was going on and she’d known I was controlling it. Her words ‘How’d you do it?’ churned in my head. I was sick with anxiety.
* * *
A few days later, I was back at the orchard, working on my latest project, when I heard something whisper through the long grass behind me.
I scrambled to shove the sewing under my bag, keeping the trees between us.
She was even bigger than I remembered.
“Martha, right...?” Alice trailed off with a smile. “That’s what your dad told me.”
I swallowed, lungs constricting. This girl had spoken to my dad? She knew where I lived. “What do you want?” I said.
“Your arm okay?”
“What do you want?” I repeated.
She pointed at the bag. “How do you do it? That’s all I want to know.”
It was the admiration that spoke to me—almost a longing sigh.
So, she didn’t like people laughing at her, well, I guess we had that in common. Though, at least to date, I’d never tried to break anyone’s arm for it. Rubbing my hands together, I cracked my knuckles. Undecided.
“Promise I won’t tell, swear to God.” She stared at me, eyes dark, waiting.
Hesitantly, I lifted the bag. This one was a magpie, fresh. Almost done. Just needed to finish the stitching at the side of the ribs, where the wool had gone in.
“I recognised you, you know,” she said, dreamily. “Think we met once, a long time back. I remember your dark hair and freckles, and you were just the same, all wide-eyed, like you were scared. I kind of wanted to see you again, see if you still looked the way I remembered.” She smiled oddly then, pinching softly at her wrist, and pointedly not looking at me while she did it.
I didn’t recognise her. I would have remembered. And she didn’t know me. I more got the feeling that I reminded her of someone she used to know.
Maybe it wasn’t such a risk. Swallowing fear, I lifted my chin. “I have to finish the sewing,” I said, watching her.
“Can I hold it?” she asked.
I offered up the dead bird. The wings flopped backwards, showing its chest and throat. Exposing its heart.
“Cool.” Alice traced a blunt finger over the needlework.
My lip instinctively curled. Elfin-faced and uneasily pretty within her tall frame, there was something inherently ugly about her touch that twisted my gut a little. Shaking off the thought, I picked up needle and thread, sat down at the foot of the tree.
She settled alongside, leaning a heavy shoulder on mine. Straight away, I felt smaller, more fragile, beside her bulk.
“Can you teach me?” Alice asked.
I frowned.
“Can you?” she prompted.
I reached out, a hand hovering over her blonde head then plucked a stray feather from her hair. Instantly, it felt overly familiar. I expected her to baulk at the gesture, but there was no reaction. Letting go, the feather tumbled away over the scrubby grass-heads.
“Maybe,” I mumbled, unconvinced.
* * *
The hot summer days hung around long after Christmas and everyone in town stayed indoors when they could. The whole place seemed like it was in lockdown.
Except for the whirr of insects, the streets were empty and quiet as I walked to the edge of Alice’s farm. I’d shown her a thing or two over the last couple of weeks, but she was always keen to learn more.
She leaned against the fencepost, waiting with arms crossed, and greeted me with a sour expression. “I’m sick of sharing a room,” she said.
I’d gotten the picture pretty early that she didn’t like to share, but she was stuck bunking with the small cousins, Albie and Luca.
“They breathe all snuffly and thick, it’s dis-gust-ing.”
I shrugged. Not much of a one for talking.
“Come on, then.” Alice led the way. Down by the creek, a sheep had garrotted itself on the barbed-wire fence and bled out.
We worked at it for about fifteen minutes. Alice was always eager to get her hands dirty, but she lost patience in no time, so we got nowhere fast.
She held the needle out. “I’m no good. You do it.”
I looked at what she’d done so far. She was right: it was bad. The stitches were lopsided and uneven, some small, others big and loose. In places the skin was torn through completely from pulling the thread too hard.
Unpicking the work, I started again.
Alice skidded off down the bank to wash her hands.
I’d just finished the line of stitches, cutting the thread, when there was a sharp intake of breath, and I looked up to find a tall, weathered man frowning at me.
He took in the dead sheep, me with bloody hands and all, and gaped. “What in all hell is going on here?” He exhaled.
I half-straightened. Heard Alice halt a step behind me. A cold wash of dread flooded my chest.
“She wanted to practice, Pa,” said Alice, quietly.
I stood frozen. What did she just say?
“Martha. Remember? I told you about her.”
I moved to take a step back. Alice caught my wrist, keeping me close.
“This is Martha?” said the old man. Judging my scruffy hair and freckles.
His granddaughter nodded, wide-eyed, all innocence.
My legs shook. I wasn’t dumb. I knew bad things would happen if people found out about my secret. “But...but...you...” I babbled.
“Now,” he said to me, holding up a hand. Shaking his head, he indicated the gory scene at his feet. “Alice has a tendency to jump in without thinking. You’re better leaving off this kind of thing, wouldn’t you say? Gives people quite the wrong impression. Not exactly ladylike, now is it? You go wash your hands.” He smiled, nodding toward the creek.
Without hesitating, I put the needle down on the carcass and eagerly headed down the bank. Behind me, angry voices sounded. I swear I heard him say, “This isn’t safe behaviour, Alice.”
Beside the creek, staring at the water snickering over the pebbles, I took plenty of time to scrub any traces of blood away with the fine sand. When I came back, they fell silent.
The grandfather stepped forward again. “Alice generally doesn’t introduce us to friends,” he said. He glanced at the sheep. Smiled grimly. “You hardly need the practice. Let’s hope you’re not standing over a body the next time we meet.” He paused to look at me sternly. “Make sure you don’t let others lead you astray.”
Dumbly, I nodded and, together, we watched him go.
Turning, Alice rolled her eyes, slipped a clammy hand in mine, pulled. “Come on.”
Cold sweat crept over my scalp, but my face was hot. I tugged my hand free.
“What?” Alice grinned. “He didn’t care. I told him you want to be a doctor.”
Seeing the unexpected flare of my anger, her eyes lit up. She bit her lip, reached out to touch my cheek as if pleased. “I always wonder just how mad you could get. You’re such a dark, little thing, aren’t you?”
I didn’t say a word. Didn’t bother to pick up my things. Just walked.
Behind me, she shouted, “All that effort and we don’t even try to move the damn thing? Serious? Jesus, why waste all your time reanimating birds? Yeah, better run on back to the caravan park where you belong!”
* * *
The sun was rising. The park gradually lit up, dark silhouettes resolving into pine trees and slides. At my back, reassuringly solid, was the boundary fence.
The chain of the swing sang as I rocked, waiting for Alice.
The day before, there’d been a note shoved under my door, suggesting I come get my stuff. It had been a while since we’d seen each other. The morning air was heavy with it.
At last, I caught sight of the heavy, blonde figure crossing the field and stood, uneasy.
Alice carried a limp body in her arms. Even at a distance, her face was lit up like a candle.
As she got closer, I saw the damp hair plastered to the boy’s forehead, the slack skin around his mouth and eyes. He was wearing pyjama shorts, the fabric thick with water, and runs of it trailed down his skin. He wasn’t sleeping. Jesus. It was the little cousin. Albie. I gaped with horror at the babyish hands and chubby feet dangling.
“Oh, God.” Instinctively, I reached out to touch, to comfort the boy, but he was already gone. He was so little.
Alice didn’t react. She was glowing. “This one’s all mine,” she announced, proudly. “No stitching required.”
I shook my head, mute, trying to understand. What?
Alice set Albie down, leaning him lopsidedly against a tree, and stood back to stretch her arms. Then she rubbed her palms together. Cracking her knuckles, she traced a circle in the air above the boy’s head and tried to move him. She’d been practising. His shoulder twitched, jumping like a rabbit, and I screamed.
A hungry grin flashed across Alice’s face.
Another voice called through the dawn, as the pillar of their grandfather rounded the park hedge.
“Albie!” Quickly crossing the distance, he pushed Alice aside, dragging the little one upright. The boy’s legs were still pliable enough to sag. “What did you do?” he bellowed, turning on his granddaughter.
Alice’s face drained of all its earlier colour and light. Silently, she lifted an arm and swung it round to point at me.
But the old man gripped Alice’s head, forcing her to face him. “What. Did. You. Do?”
Her dark eyes rolled back like a spooked horse. “Nothing,” she whispered, “nothing.”
The old man bundled the tiny body to him. Hand lingering on the bare feet, he paused, breathless.
“He wet the bed,” offered Alice, stupidly, by way of explanation.
Her grandfather knelt, blinking slowly. I could see his jaw quaking. “What?”
“I put him in the bath.”
Silence.
“He must have fallen asleep.”
“Liar.”
Alice got to her feet wearily, chin weak. “I’m misunderstood.”
Taking a step back, I rubbed my palms together, sticky with sweat.
The morning light was a pale grey now, lightening to butter. Against that dawn backdrop, I saw the sharp profile of my sewing scissors, clenched in Alice’s hand.
There was the wet thud of metal in meat, as she drove them into her grandfather’s back.
The old man jerked forward with the force of the blow, and little Albie tumbled loose to rest in the grass. Sobbing in shock, the old man scrabbled to reach for him. As he tried to turn away, to shelter the body of his grandson, Alice raised the scissors again.
Sickened, I cracked my knuckles and drew a fresh halo in the air over Alice’s head. Pulled tight.
There was the squeak of grinding teeth. Alice clenched her jaw, trying to resist. Fighting against her own white knuckles as the point of the scissors turned away from her target, toward her. She twisted to look over her shoulder at me, glaring with suspicion: the sensation must have felt oddly familiar.
There was no question, it was harder with living flesh; one will instinctively fought another. But it worked. After all, I’d been doing it for a while now.
I wanted to vomit, but I made sure to look straight back at Alice, hold her gaze.
Oh, I could teach her something alright.
GUEST EDITOR
LEE MURRAY is a multi-award-winning writer and editor of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (Sir Julius Vogel, Australian Shadows) and a three-time Bram Stoker Award® nominee. Her works include the Taine McKenna Adventures, collaborative series the Path of Ra (co-written with Dan Rabarts), debut collection Grotesque: Monster Stories, several books for children, as well as stories and poems in notable venues such as Weird Tales and Space&Time. She is proud to have edited fifteen speculative works, including numerous award-winning titles. Co-founder of Young New Zealand Writers and the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers, she is HWA Mentor of the Year 2019 and an NZSA Honorary Literary Fellow. Lee lives in Tauranga where she conjures stories from her office overlooking a cow paddock. Read more at https://www.leemurray.info/ She tweets https://twitter.com/leemurraywriter
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CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
JOANNE ANDERTON is an Australian author who, until recently, was living and working in Japan. Her spec-fic includes the novels Debris, Suited and Guardian, and the short story collection The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories. She has won multiple awards including the Aurealis, Ditmar and Australian Shadows Award. Her children’s picture book The Flying Optometrist was a CBCA notable book, and her non-fiction has been published in Island Magazine and Meanjin. You can find her online here: http://joanneanderton.com
JAY CASELBERG is an Australian writer based in Germany. His work—poems, short fiction, and novels—has appeared around the world and been translated into several languages. From time to time, he gets shortlisted for awards. More can be found at http://www.caselberg.net
TOM DULLEMOND is a Dutch/Australian author of weird stuff, mostly short fiction. He has sold stories to magazines like Antipodes, Betwixt, Aurealis and SQ Mag, as well as sundry anthologies across the globe. He writes a regular science fiction column for the CSIRO’s Double Helix magazine and is co-director of the writing management site www.literarium.net. Chase him down on twitter @cacotopos.
ANTHONY FERGUSON is an author and editor living in Perth, Australia. He has published over forty short stories and non-fiction articles in a range of magazines and anthologies in Australia, Britain and the United States. He wrote the novel Protégé, the non-fiction book, The Sex Doll: A History, edited the short-story collection Devil Dolls and Duplicates in Australian Horror and coedited the award-nominated Midnight Echo #12. He is a committee member of the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA), a submissions editor for Andromeda Spaceways Magazine (ASM) and has been a judge for the Australian Shadows Awards. His works have been shortlisted for both the Aurealis and Shadows Awards. His latest book, Murder Down Under: Australian Serial Killers, will be published by Exposit Books in 2021.
JASON FRANKS is the author of the novels Bloody Waters, Faerie Apocalypse, and Shadowmancy and the writer of the Sixsmiths graphic novel series. Most of his work, in prose and comics, falls into (or out of) some combination of the horror, fantasy, science fiction and comedy genres. Franks’ books have variously been shortlisted for Aurealis, Ledger and Ditmar awards. In the mortal world, he works as a software engineer and data scientist. Find out more at https://jasonfranks.com
REBECCA FRASER is an Australian author of genre-mashing fiction for both children and adults, whose short fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous award-winning anthologies, magazines, and journals. Her first novel, a middle grade fantasy adventure, was released in 2018, and a collection of her dark short fiction is due for release in 2021 (both through IFWG Publishing Australia). To provide her muse with life’s essentials, Rebecca copywrites and edits in a freelance capacity, and operates StoryCraft Creative Writing Workshops for aspiring authors of every age and ability...however her true passion is storytelling. Say G’day at writingandmoonlighting.com Facebook @writingandmoonlighting or Twitter/Insta @becksmuse
J. A. HAIGH was raised in the wilds of Tasmania and her writing is full of magic and myth. Her work has been published in such places as Kill Your Darlings, Aurealis, ASIM, and Syntax & Salt. She currently resides in Newcastle, where she scrabbles away at her dark fantasy novel, while juggling two delightful rug-rats and their witty father. You can follow her at https://twitter.com/southern_dark
MELANIE HARDING-SHAW is a speculative fiction writer, policy geek, and mother-of-three from Wellington, New Zealand. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as newsroom, Daily Science Fiction and The Best of British Fantasy 2019. Her Censored City near-future thriller novelette series is available now. You can find her at www.melaniehardingshaw.com and on Twitter @MelHardingShaw
JULEIGH HOWARD-HOBSON’S poetry won the NSW ANZAC Award and has been nominated for “Best of the Net”, The Pushcart, the Elgin and a Rhysling. Her dark works can be found in Dreams and Nightmares, The Audient Void, Coffin Bell, The Literary Hatchet, The Haunted Dollhouse, Eye to the Telescope, Polu Texni, Abridged Magazine, Illumen, Eternal Haunted Summer, Mandragora (Scarlett Imprint), Five Minutes At Hotel StormCove (Atthis Publishing), and other places. A post-modern ex-pat drop-out, she currently lives beside a dark forest in the USA, with her husband and a dog. The dog may or may not be mortal.
NIKKY LEE grew up as a barefoot 90s child in Perth, Western Australia, before moving to New Zealand in 2016. By day she works as a professional content writer and by night authors speculative fiction, often burning the candle at both ends to explore fantastic worlds, mine asteroids and meet wizards. Her creative work has appeared in magazines, on radio, and in anthologies around the world. Her debut novel, The Rarkyn’s Familiar—a dark tale of a girl bonded to a monster—is due to be published by Parliament House Press in 2022.
Perth-based author MARTIN LIVINGS has been writing short stories since 1990 and has been nominated for Ditmar, Aurealis and Australian Shadows awards. Livings resides in Perth, Western Australia. He has had over ninety short stories published, and his first novel, Carnies, was published in 2006, was nominated for an Aurealis Award and won the 2007 Tin Duck Award for Best Novel by a Western Australian. His collection of short stories, Living With the Dead, was released in 2012 by Dark Prints Press, and an original story from the collection, “Birthday Suit”, won the Australian Shadows award for Best Short Fiction that year. Both Carnies and Living With the Dead are available now, along with his techno-thriller novel Skinsongs and the novellas Rope and The Final Twist. https://martinlivings.wordpress.com/
STUART OLVER is a medical researcher living in Brisbane. He relishes all things science-related, including a wide range of speculative fiction. His articles and stories have appeared in Aurealis, Midnight Echo and Writing Queensland Online, as well as several anthologies, including Short and Twisted, Monsters Amongst Us and Shelter From The Storm. His story “What Came Through” won the 2014 Australasian Horror Writers Association Flash Fiction competition.
DAVID SCHEMBRI is an author, artist and genre poet from rural Victoria. He is the author of the horror collections, Unearthly Fables (in collaboration with The Writing Show, 2013) and the Australian Shadows Awards-nominated collection, Beneath The Ferny Tree (Close-Up Books, 2018). David’s short fiction has been published by Chaosium Inc, Horror World Press, Things in the Well and Midnight Echo. His poetry has appeared in several issues of the Hippocampus Press Magazine, Spectral Realms, edited by S.T. Joshi. Poetry appearances are also noted within the Anno KlarkAsh-Ton Anthology by Rainfall Books, and issue 13 of Midnight Echo Magazine. Visit his website at: davidschembri.net
DEBORAH SHELDON is an award-winning author of short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum of horror, crime and noir. Recent titles include the novel Body Farm Z (Severed Press), novella The Long Shot (Twelfth Planet Press), and the collection Figments and Fragments: Dark Stories (IFWG Australia). Her short stories have been published in many anthologies and magazines including Aurealis, Midnight Echo, Andromeda Spaceways, and Dimension6. She won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Collected Work’ Award for Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories. Her fiction has also been shortlisted for numerous Aurealis and Australian Shadows Awards; long-listed for a Bram Stoker; and included in various ‘best of’ anthologies such as Year’s Best Hardcore Horror. As guest editor of Midnight Echo 14, she won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Edited Work’ Award. Her anthology, Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, will be published mid-2021. Deb’s other credits include TV scripts, feature articles, non-fiction books, and award-winning medical writing. http://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com
ALISSA SMITH has been an enthusiastic reader and passionate writer from a very young age. Throughout her childhood, she was happiest with her nose buried in a book. From Roald Dahl to Stephen King, she is fascinated by the art of imaginative storytelling. Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Alissa is currently editing her first fiction novel and writing twisted tales.