Fate, she discovered, had moved her in a full circle. She found herself back at the island. A boat, not unlike Father’s, was tethered to the dock.

It was only when she went to steer her raft toward this dock that Desdemona realised she was walking, or rather gliding. She crossed the lake and the lawn.

She found the family vault restored, down to the great iron door, which had been reattached and re-locked. The great house was a welcome sight, but it nonetheless seemed somehow altered. It was paler, blurred, like a poorly-snapped photograph in an old album.

Desdemona entered the house with an ease that unnerved her. She slid through the scullery and the foyer and up the spiral staircase. The house was tidy and visibly cared for.

There were voices down below.

She moved down to the dining hall. She found them: Celeste and the two men who were laughing with her. The heavy curtains were drawn and the tapers sat burning in the candelabras. Celeste would never tire of playing night-time.

She uttered Celeste’s name but found that her voice was distant and warbled. She moved around the long table, slipping behind the drapes.

Peering out through the opening between the curtains, she was delighted when Celeste turned her head and saw her, or so Desdemona thought, hoped. She hearkened back to the warm summer afternoon when she had seen some apparition, something indistinct, through these very curtains. Had she seen a premonition of herself that day?

She told Celeste to not be sad, that she couldn’t be with her just now, but that she would be with her soon.

Just as soon as the men called her back to the great house.

The two men were staring intently at the tabletop. An adjustment of her perspective allowed Desdemona to see Mother’s Tarot cards laid out in a King’s Cross spread. She knew that the deck was missing Chariot and Ruin, but she watched intently as the men attempted to decipher her future, or perhaps her past.

Desdemona hoped that their reading would somehow spell out a way for her to fully return to the island. She was here but not quite here. Part of her still felt adrift on her chariot, inside that grey void.

Fate, which had so kindly kept her and Celeste together for so very long, had now driven a cold, painful wedge between them. Desdemona imagined herself as a pale queen in a distant grave. She clung to the hope of reunion.

Publication History

Publication History

“Scold’s Bridle: A Cruelty” is original to this collection.

“Chain of Empathy” is original to this collection.

“Banishments” was first published in Looming Low, edited by Justin Steele and Sam Cowan, Dim Shores, 2017.

“Fragile Masks” was first published in The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories, edited by Stephen Jones, Skyhorse Publishing, 2018.

“Neithernor” was first published in Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas, Undertow Publications, 2015.