The Dark Issue 14: The Dark, #14

By Carrie Laben, Seanan McGuire, A.C. Wise and Steve Duffy

Each month The Dark brings you the best in dark fantasy and horror! Edited by award winning editor Sean Wallace and brought to you by Prime Books, this issue includes two all-new stories and two reprints:

“Postcards from Natalie” by Carrie Laben
 “There is No Place for Sorrow in the Kingdom of Cold” by Seanan
McGuire (reprint)
“The Last Sailing of the Henry Charles Morgan in Six Pieces of
Scrimshaw” (1841) by A.C. Wise
“The Marginals” by Steve Duffy (reprint)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prime Books
• Release date: Jun 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533759092

Book preview

THE DARK

Issue 14 • July 2016

Postcards from Natalie by Carrie Laben

There is No Place for Sorrow in the Kingdom of the Cold by Seanan McGuire

The Last Sailing of the Henry Charles Morgan in Six Pieces of Scrimshaw (1841) by A.C. Wise

The Marginals by Steve Duffy

Cover Art: The Shades of Nothingness by Ben Baldwin

ISSN 2332-4392.

Edited by Sean Wallace.

Cover design by Garry Nurrish.

Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

Copyright © 2016 by Prime Books.

www.thedarkmagazine.com

Postcards from Natalie

by Carrie Laben

Of the first six postcards from Natalie, I only have three. Mom was able to intercept the other three while I was at school or, after June, working a shift at the Tractor Supply Store. I wouldn’t even have known about them except that she made sure I knew, saved them until I got home before she ripped them into the smallest pieces her stiff-knuckled fingers could manage and set them on fire in her ashtray. She was angry at Nat but punishing me was the closest she could get now.

I’d manage to get a few pieces out of the garbage just singed after she went to sleep, every time, but Nat’s handwriting was so big and loopy that I’d only get a few letters or a short word, an is or an I or a too. I wish now that I’d kept them and tried to piece them back together like a scientist on one of those cop shows, but at the time it didn’t seem like a good idea to defy Mom straight-up like that. So I stared at them until I had taken everything I could from the letters, and from the pictures on the front, and then tucked them back in the trash and washed my hands.

The three I did get, when Mom was the one working late, I saved of course. I hid them inside of a copy of Little Women that someone had given me as a present and I’d never read. The first one was from not long after Nat left. It was from Ohio, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it was all things are so good and so in love and talked about how Keith had gotten—stolen, since she didn’t say bought—her a silver ring with onyx chips that made a turtle. She drew a cartoon turtle at the bottom and signed it Love You Always Little Mandy, From Nat.

The second one was from the Big Bend Family Campground in Michigan. They’d been there a while, I guess, because she complained about having to send the same card twice. She said there weren’t that many to choose from. Also I figured out that they’d picked up a puppy somewhere along the way because she was proud of having almost taught Strider not to hump on people even though Keith would laugh and egg it on. We’re a real family now! she said, and the bottom of my throat squeezed for a moment, but I couldn’t be sad that she was happy. That was what someone like Mom did. And she signed it Love You Always Little Mandy again and turned the a in Mandy into a heart, and I felt better.

The third one was from Sleeping Bear Dunes in Wisconsin. I could see that something had happened even before I read the words, because Nat’s handwriting was still big and slanted but the letters looked thinner and shakier. I hid in the bathroom with the shower running to read it, in case Mom came home and I was too distracted to hear her.

Keith left, it said without a greeting. He did it the worst way, Mandy. I passed out partying last night and when I woke up I was under an old down tree in the woods and the fire was dead and he was gone. He took the car and Strider and my bag—everything. I woke up colder than I’ve ever been. I don’t know what I’ll do now. I just feel sick and sad.

She’d underlined ‘sick’ and ‘sad’ with wavery lines. She signed this one Love You Miss You Little Mandy.

I left the bathroom and hid the card with the others, and then I went back to the bathroom to throw up. I couldn’t tell why. I just knew that when I thought of Keith leaving her all alone to wake up under a dead tree full of bugs and rot, everything on my body prickled and I felt as though the whole world was full of nothing but humiliation the color of pencil lead. Part of me wanted to find Keith and punch him in the face while I screamed at the top of my lungs, and the other part of me knew that no matter how hard I punched or how loud I screamed it would never make this not have happened, would never again change the balance of the universe into one where people treated my beautiful big sister the way she deserved. Those two parts went in opposite directions and made my lunch come up.

The next thing I did, after I drank a glass of water to take away the taste, was call Tractor Supply and quit with no notice. I might have had some thought that Nat would come home now, and that Mom might not let her in—although of course Mom would let her in, how else would she get her back to punish? The real reason was that I knew that I couldn’t let Mom get her hands on any more of the cards.

I made it through dinner as though everything was normal, and went to bed early. It was only when I was curled up on my side in the dark, trying not to think about Nat waking up all alone and confused, that I thought instead to wonder how she’d gotten a postcard and a stamp if Keith had taken all her stuff with him. She must be ok, I told myself, if she got a postcard and a stamp.

I finally told Mom I’d quit a week or so later. She made a lot of remarks about how I was lazy and spoiled and worthless, but she was pleased to have me around all the time. I’d known she would be. She could offload all the cooking onto me now, and all the laundry and the yard work too. Plus I think