Souls

By Terri Bruce

There's magic and mystery around every corner, if you know where to look. This collection of eleven short stories from science fiction and fantasy author Terri Bruce explores the hidden corners of our world. Blending fantasy, horror, magical realism, and folklore, these tales will delight, mystify, and unsettle. Unicorns roam the New Hampshire countryside disguised as a biker gang. Portals to other worlds hide on commuter train platforms. And be careful of what really lurks at the bottom of those quaint wishing wells that dot the countryside. Strip away the veneer of everyday life and dare to see what lies just below the surface.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mictlan Press
• Release date: Aug 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780991303670

Terri Bruce

Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats.

Book preview

SOULS

A Short Story Collection

––––––––

Terri Bruce

♦ Mictlan Press ♦

Table of Contents

Title Page

Description

Copyright Page

Also By Terri Bruce

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

My Lover Like Night

Before the Evolution Comes the Smoke

Death and the Horse

Stone Baby

Searching for Death

The Tower

Welcome to OASIS

The Lady and the Unicorn

The Ghosts of Acadia

The Greeley Street Apothecary

The Well

About the Author

The Afterlife Series by Terri Bruce

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Souls: A Short Story Collection

There's magic and mystery around every corner, if you know where to look. This collection of eleven short stories from science fiction and fantasy author Terri Bruce explores the hidden corners of our world. Blending fantasy, horror, magical realism, and folklore, these tales will delight, mystify, and unsettle. Unicorns roam the New Hampshire countryside disguised as a biker gang. Portals to other worlds hide on commuter train platforms. And be careful of what really lurks at the bottom of those quaint wishing wells that dot the countryside. Strip away the veneer of everyday life and dare to see what lies just below the surface.

Souls: A Short Story Collection

Copyright © 2020 Terri Bruce

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover artwork by Amanda McDonald | ANM Designs

Print cover design by Amanda McDonald | ANM Designs

Digital ISBN: 978-0-9913036-7-0

Print ISBN:  978-0-9913036-6-3

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

Also by Terri Bruce

The Afterlife Series

Hereafter (Afterlife #1)

Thereafter (Afterlife #2)

Whereafter (Afterlife #3)

Irene and the Witch (Afterlife #3.5)

Whenafter (Afterlife #4) (forthcoming)

Stand Alone Novellas

Unexpected Trajectory

Please leave a review of this book online (at the retailer site where you bought it and/or Goodreads), even if you didn't like it (no one trusts a book with only glowing reviews). Reviews help authors!

To those who see love, magic, mystery, and joy wherever they look, for they know it is all around us, all the time.

Acknowledgments

My Lover Like Night © by Terri Bruce. First published 2018 (MiFi Writers Press)

Death and the Horse © by Terri Bruce. First published 2017 (LeftHand Press)

Stone Baby © by Terri Bruce. First published 2019 (Flame Tree Press)

The Tower © by Terri Bruce. First published 2016 (Zoetic Press)

Welcome to OASIS © by Terri Bruce. First published 2015 (Kelly Ann Jacobson, Publisher).

The Lady and the Unicorn © by Terri Bruce. First Published 2018 (Spring Song Press). Subsequent publication 2019 (Plaisewedes Press).

The Well © by Terri Bruce. First published 2016 (Third Flatiron Press).

Introduction

Authors are expected to have a brand, a niche. And we’re expected to be able to articulate that brand/niche to agents and publishers. Think of Nora Roberts and you think of romance. Think Stephen King or Dean Koontz, and you think horror. Think Isabelle Allende, and you think literary historical magical realism.

The hardest part of being an author, for me, has always been figuring out what my brand is. I don’t write stories that can be easily classified in one (or even two) genre categories; my stories tend to have elements of magical realism, alternate reality, literary fiction, women’s fiction, and chick lit. And I write in several different umbrella genres—fantasy, horror, and science fiction. For a long time, I wasn’t even sure I had a brand. And then I put together this short story collection. Now, as I survey my body of work, I can definitely see there is a very clear vibe that identifies a story as a Terri Bruce story. My work is character-driven rather than plot-driven, and more often than not, it’s actually idea-driven. My work is quieter, more thinky. It tends to be slow burn. It almost always is set in the real world in which something isn’t quite what it seems. And there seems to be an undercurrent to the narrative voice—of being unsettled or not quite at ease.

What do we call this genre? That’s a good question. I once saw reference to China Mieville’s work as hauntological slipstream—hauntological has to do with being haunted, but not in the strict literal/ghostly sense. It can mean being haunted by a place, a memory, a feeling. Slipstream refers to science fiction or fantasy that crosses into literary fiction. It’s fiction that makes you feel strange or makes the ordinary feel strange—and I always thought that might be a good classification for my work as well. Certainly, hauntological slipstream defines the way I feel just living life, like there’s always something a bit unsettling or fantastical happening, ready to spring out at me unexpectedly. I live life in expectation that a unicorn really will just appear in the parking lot one day, but I also expect that unicorns will turn out to be terrible somehow instead of wonderful.

My husband says that Terri Stories are dark and/or bleak, but I don’t think so. Certainly, my stories don’t contain a lot of wonderment or awe, the way, say the Harry Potter series does, about the fantastic. My stories tend to view the fantastic as ordinary and, often, somewhat inconvenient, something we know exists but choose, instead, not to see. Instead, we (humans) choose science and logic and practicality so that we can continue going about our daily business. And that, to me, is actually the most hopeful thing of all.

SOULS

A Short Story Collection

My Lover Like Night

Written in 2016, this piece was penned the same night as The Tower. It first appeared in print in the Double Take anthology (2018).

Weaving, weaving, weaving...

It is spring.

The river smell, wafting into this high, high tower, is briny, like the sea. Far below, in silent shows, are fields of lilies and daffodillies, fields of barley and of rye—a golden carpet stretching out to that far away diamond city I can see but never touch.

Here, high, high, high above in these gray walls, all is darkness, all is gloom, except for me, except for my loom, and it is here that I quietly weave, weave, weave away my days. The silken strands tremble in the slightest breeze, the warp and the weft glistening and golden, the shuttle flying in and out. My hand never stays.

What does a maid, locked in a tower, weave all day, you ask. The ephemera below? The lilies and the daffodillies, surly village churls and red-caped market girls? Draw closer, then, and see what is woven here. See the spirals and the curls, deftly blended and suspended. No pattern, no design—well, perhaps better to say no landscape, no portrait. It has design and purpose, too. The gossamer strands—golden, tawny, bronzey, even brown—each one plucked, each one chosen, all dazzle and delight.

Weaving, weaving, weaving...

They say there is a curse upon me, that I cannot leave. I’m made to stay, made to weave. They whisper it and cross themselves when they think to lift their eyes to this spire high. The maidens come, dripping solitary tears, and lay flowers and cakes at the tower’s feet, asking blessings, ever confessing to sins real and deep. They come to me, with their whispers and prayers, their entreaties and cares. I am their golden lady, cursed one and savior both. Funny that, that I—trapped here in a tower, held here by a curse—could save them if I chose.

I would laugh, if I could.

I gather another strand, feel only a twinge, and add it to the loom. It grows and grows, never ending, winding round the room. A silken nest, a frightful rug. A tangle, a knot. Do you wish to stroke it? Better not.

Weaving, weaving, weaving...

A fanfare, a shout. Another knight rides by, a drunken lout. His pinnacles waver and salute, brightly colored, gaily waving. Jugglers, jesters, pages, grooms, a cavalcade ensues. Will he try climbing the tower, rescue the maiden fair? Oh, I do so hope so.

But no, alas, he rides by, on his way to a tournament, a joust, some other type of rout. No matter, there will be others. There are always others. They cannot resist. The golden gleam of the silken strands shines like a beacon all around. See her hair, like flax? She must have eyes of blue. Such a pretty thing, and a heart so true. She is beauty and virtue and faithfulness, waiting just for you.

And they ride to this tower, these four gray walls and four gray spires, and they call for me to let down my gilded tresses. And I weave and I weave while I wait for them to make the climb. I entreat them, soft and dulcet, calm and quiet: Here, my love, my soldier bright. Climb up, climb up—hurry now, it’s not much farther. A little closer...a little closer...

Ah, here comes one now.

How fat and delicious he looks.

My Lover Like Night is a quirky little piece that came to me in one big rush. I sat down to write, and the story just poured out of my fingers. The result was this Rapunzel and The Lady of Shalott mash-up. This story also has the most controversial ending of all of my short stories. The original last line was I shall dine well tonight. The original publisher felt the narrator’s evil intent wasn’t clear enough, so I changed the line to How fat and delicious he looks. Subsequent publishers who wanted to reprint the story have felt the last line is too abrupt a transition and have wanted me to change the ending even more. However, I never change a short story reprint, feeling that the story needs to appear as it was originally published, so this is how the ending has remained.

Before the Evolution Comes the Smoke

Written in 2017, this is a new/previously unpublished story, though it was presented to readers who attended my solo reading at Arisia in 2018.

Magda clutched the red satchel to her chest, trying not to breathe in too deeply the stench of tightly-packed bodies and vomit. If only she’d had the money to book a private transport to Orbital Station Six instead of using the public courtesy shuttle.

She breathed as shallowly as she could through her mouth as she looked around at the dozen or so other pinched and nervous faces, all apparently as overawed as she to be on their way to meet the witch face to face. From somewhere toward the back of the transport, the sound of retching continued.

When she’d booked the ticket from Iada and indicated she needed to rendezvous with the Orbital Station Six shuttle, the chat bot had typed back, Pardon? She’d never seen a technical script express surprise before. It transferred her to a video chat with a human agent, who raised an eyebrow, speculation reflected in his dark eyes, as the last of the credits in her account counted down, one by one.

When they’d checked her in at the transfer station and when she’d boarded the transport, the attendants had all looked at her the same way. Surprise. Speculation. Doubt. They’d all had the same question in their eyes: Why her? Why her wish? Of all the millions of petitions directed at Piscinarius, why had the great wizard of the deep chosen to grant her an audience?

To board the shuttle, she’d waded through a crowd twenty deep, all of them wailing and beseeching. They grabbed at her arms, tried to latch onto her legs, thrust valuables and tins of food into her face.

Please, I just need...

Please, I’ll be ruined...

Please, my son is dying...

That last one hurt, because it was so close to her own situation. She jerked away and stumbled through the gauntlet, head down to avoid eye contact. She wasn’t any more worthy than them; she’d just gotten lucky. No one knew how the witches decided which petitions to grant. Locked away in their orbiting stations, they toiled away, sifting through the requests, using unknown algorithms to accept or deny.

Those able to touch her as she passed through the jostling crowd had thrust Ofuda-type charms into her pockets, the sleeves of her coat, into her shoes—any crevice they could find to lodge a scrap inscribed with their name. It was said that if the Ofuda made it into the audience chamber, then the petitioner’s wish would be granted—a shortcut or loophole to the entire, wretched crapshoot of requesting an audience with a witch.

She had wanted to remove the Ofuda—it hardly seemed fair for others to get free wishes after all she’d gone through—but to throw them away seemed cruel or unsporting or some intangible that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She needn’t have worried—all the little scraps had jostled loose and fallen by the wayside as she boarded the flight and buckled herself in. They drifted about the cabin now, looking strangely sad and powerless.

The communication system crackled to life overhead, the pilot’s voice overloud in the confines of the tiny passenger cabin.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are preparing our final approach to Orbital Station Six. We should be docked within thirty minutes. Attendants, please complete final docking checks and secure the clamps. A bustle of activity followed this announcement as two attendants clad in yellow flight suits unhitched themselves from the wall and moved about, checking harness fasteners, stowing free-floating items, and