Fiction River Presents: Mysterious Women: Fiction River Presents, #12

By Fiction River, Kris Nelscott, Julie Hyzy and 5 more

There are many kinds of mysterious women, both in life and in fiction. Fiction River Presents: Mysterious Women plucks some of the most intriguing, compelling, and sometimes dangerous female characters from the pages of Fiction River and collects them in one volume.

These women fight back against oppression and injustice, help each other when no other help can be found, and undergo transformations from hopelessness into beacons of light for others to follow. They also entertain the reader with their own personal mysteries.

What happened to make them break out of the traditional bonds of womanhood? Why do they take such risks? What makes them tick?

These eight superb writers tackle those questions and more in this outstanding volume.

 

Includes:

"Plan B" by Kate Wilhelm

"China Moll" by Cindie Geddes

"On the Edge of the Nations" by Dan C. Duval

"These Boots Were Made for Murder" by Julie Hyzy

"Mercy Find Me" by Diana Deverell

"Mechanical Advantage" by Eric Kent Edstrom

"Wheel of Fortune" by Steve Hockensmith

"The Monster in our Midst" by Kris Nelscott

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: May 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393086031

Book preview

Fiction River Presents

Fiction River Presents

Mysterious Women

Edited by Gwyneth Gibby

Series editor

Allyson Longueira

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

Introduction

Kate Wilhelm

Plan B

Cindie Geddes

China Moll

Dan C. Duval

On the Edge of the Nations

Julie Hyzy

These Boots Were Made for Murder

Diana Deverell

Mercy Find Me

Eric Kent Edstrom

Mechanical Advantage

Steve Hockensmith

Wheel of Fortune

Kris Nelscott

The Monster in Our Midst

About the Editor

Introduction

The Strength of Women

The character who first leaps to my mind when mysterious women are mentioned is Sarah Woodruff, the woman in The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles. Picture Meryl Streep in the movie version, windswept in a dark cloak walking on The Cobb at Lime Regis, looking haunted, and haunting. And it turns out, she is a mystery not only to the characters in the novel, primarily Charles who falls under her spell, but also to Fowles himself. So much so that he had to provide three different versions of the story and leave the reader to choose among them to decide what happens. Who really is Sarah Woodruff?

Despite the post-modern construction, there is still something essentially romantic about the novel. It plays on our notions of womanhood and Victorian romance, the intriguing attraction of the mysterious woman, even when the novel defies our expectations.

Let’s make this clear from the outset: the mysterious women in this volume are a different kettle of fish entirely.

What would the opposite of Sarah Woodruff be? Maybe her polar opposite can be found in someone who was real and who embodies a kind of womanhood that many women are more familiar with in real life, and yet who in her own way remains mysterious.

The woman who comes to my mind is someone like Maria Elena Moyano, the Afro-Peruvian activist, community organizer, and local politician. Mother of two, relentless advocate for the poor neighborhoods of Lima where she grew up and lived her whole life, bright and charismatic by all accounts, and in the end the victim of assassination by the terrorist group the Shining Path. When the assassins came for her, she was with her two young sons and some friends who gathered around to try to protect her. But she firmly put them aside and stepped out to meet the murderers saying, This is for me. Whereupon she was shot and killed.

For me the mystery about her has always been, where did that kind of courage come from? There was no wild Rambo-style shoot-out. She walked calmly forward to meet death. She had known for a long time that the Shining Path was after her. Had she planned for that moment of confrontation? Was it the act of a mother doing what she could to protect her children and her friends? I’ll never know. What I do know with certainty is that I do not have that kind of courage, nor can I imagine where I would get it from should the need arise.

There is no Maria Elena Moyano in this volume, and it’s not all about the heroic, but there are women in these stories who share the mysterious kind of courage that allows them to meet threats to their very existence in selfless ways. Life is hard on these women, hard on them in real ways like life is often hard on real women. The mysteries in this volume are about what makes each woman choose her own path of quiet heroism, or a path of quiet desperation, or in a couple of cases, of quietly exuberant defiance. I find myself at a loss to know where they get the courage, the strength, and in some cases simply the chutzpa to do what they do.

And yet they are not only heroic. They are eminently human and fallible. Some of them will make you chuckle and others will break your heart, and some might even scare you. They are all powerful in their own ways, often in situations that seem designed to rob them of all power.

Which brings me to another point. A pet peeve almost. Even if Moyano had not been assassinated, she was already a peculiarly female kind of hero. Her life was dedicated to providing for people who had little or nothing during an excruciating civil war. Hers was the story of how women organize to get people fed, raise children, educate and inspire them, in even the worst of circumstances. For me, it is the true history of humankind. Not how many people fought and died in battles and wars, but how did families persist? How did we help each other survive, heal, and eventually thrive against all odds? And that history is largely a story of women.

Women like the ones you will find in these stories.

Why do they make the choices they do? Sometimes we learn the answers and sometimes we don’t. Either way, with one notable exception, I’d be delighted to meet every one of them and shake their hands. I’d be honored.

As for that one odd woman out, let’s just say I sympathize with her in some ways, I get where she’s coming from, but if offered the chance to meet her, I’d have to politely declare that I have a pressing engagement elsewhere.

—Gwyneth Gibby

Lincoln City, Oregon

April 3, 2020

Plan B

Kate Wilhelm

Where better to start than with a Kate Wilhelm mystery. Her fiction has a way of satisfying the reader’s expectations and turning them on their heads at the same time. That perfectly describes this story, originally published in Fiction River Special Edition: Crime, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who invited Wilhelm, an award-winning writer of science fiction as well as mysteries, to contribute a story to the volume.

Elderly women have often been characterized as prime victim material, particularly in mysteries. Think of The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax in which Sherlock Holmes must rescue the unmarried lady from a notorious conman and his companion who are after her jewels. Rescuing damsels in distress of whatever age can be seen as romantic, or repressive, depending on your point of view.

Wilhelm has a typically original take on the elderly spinster, as well as a different angle on the family-waiting-for-an-aged-relative-to-die mystery. Being an old lady myself, technically, it’s something I take personally.

In this story, despite appearances, old ladies have come a long way, baby.

Jackson met Ruth Leary late one Saturday afternoon at the Garden Lane Manor, where he was delivering a box of sweaters, a donation from his aunt for the patients housed there. The foyer was as dismal and institutional as he remembered. It smelled medicinal, of harsh chemical cleaners, Lysol. Elephants’ graveyard, he thought with disgust. At the sound of a musical voice, he paused at the doorway to a large common room. There were seven or eight residents in sight, several in wheelchairs, others in rocking chairs, grouped before a gray-haired woman who was reading. He couldn’t see her face, just the back of her head, the rest of her hidden by the chair she sat in.

She had a good voice with clear enunciation, some drama, a touch of a lilt. Her audience was unmoving, listening with rapt attention. He moved on toward the office, where the manager, Dottie Mason, met him.

You have a new patient? he asked, motioning toward the common room.

Oh dear, no. That’s Ruth Leary, a volunteer. She comes in every week and reads to our guests. Poor dear, she’s lonesome, and I guess this gives her something to do. And we certainly do appreciate her. Those who listen to her for an hour or so are relaxed, as good as a tranquilizer for some of them.

Jackson’s interest spiked and he lingered longer than he had planned, asking questions. Ruth was a widow who had lost her husband nine months earlier. He had suffered from cancer when he was sixty-four, too young for Medicare. Nine years later the cancer had returned. This time he lost the battle.

Oh, they had such medical bills, you wouldn’t believe, Dottie said. Had to sell their ranch out by Pendleton. She was a librarian, retired now, of course, and when she brought him over here for treatment, she decided to stay. The ranch gone, no job for her, nothing much to do, I guess, Portland must have seemed a pretty good choice. But she hasn’t had time to make many friends. Like I said, she’s lonesome.

She had been removing sweaters from the box as she spoke and now said, I’ll just get a receipt for your aunt.

After accepting it, he hesitated, then said, Have you done any kind of background check on her, on Ruth Leary? Do you do that for volunteers?

He listened attentively as Dottie talked. She knew people in Pendleton who knew Ruth Leary and had only good things to say about her. In the end he met Ruth. They sat in the manager’s office and talked for half an hour.

She was seventy-one years old, with gray hair, milk-chocolate-brown eyes, hardly a wrinkle except for smile lines at her eyes, and a melodious, lilting voice.

What we need is someone to be companionable, maybe read to her, he said. No medical care, nursing, no cooking or cleaning, nothing like that. A couple of afternoons a week if it works out.

Ruth smiled and murmured, From what you say, it may not work out. Have you tried others who failed to meet your needs?

Jackson felt uncomfortable under her gaze and he shifted in his chair. Aunt Margaret can be difficult, he said after a moment. She’s impatient, not used to being an invalid, and she resents it. Yes, we’ve had a few other people in, but they were nurses or professional care givers, and that didn’t work. I think you’d be different. I heard you reading, heard that group laughing.

Ruth’s smile broadened. Mark Twain. He can be very funny. Gently she added, Mr. Loomis, I’m really not looking for a job.

Jackson leaned forward. Please, Ms. Leary. Give it a try. It may be for a few weeks, or if it goes well maybe for an indefinite time. Five hundred a week. From about noon until about six, two days a week to start. Will you do it?

Ruth drew in a sharp breath. That’s a lot of money, Mr. Loomis.

If you can alleviate her discontent, make her happier, just help her find laughter once in a while, it will be worth every cent. He wanted to take her hands, even shake her, make her understand how desperate he was. I love my aunt, he said. She has an inoperable heart condition. She’s weak and she couldn’t stand a shock, or great stress. Her heart condition isn’t curable or even very treatable. A heart transplant is what she needs, but she’s too weak to undergo such surgery. She isn’t suffering physically, but emotionally, psychologically, she’s in pain and anything I can do to make her life easier would be worth any price.

Driving home, he kept hearing the phrase in his head: Elephants’ graveyard, and along with it something the manager had said, something about his aunt clearing things out. As if getting ready to die? Was that what she had meant? He bit his lip and drove faster. His aunt had a bad heart, but people lived a long time with heart problems. She was getting excellent care. She wasn’t any worse now than she had been the past few months. He found himself reciting the silent, reassuring litany and bit his lip again. But she is worse, he muttered, stopping the flow.

The house where his father and his Aunt Margaret had grown up, where he had grown up, was several miles out of Portland in a wooded, hilly section where the lots were an acre or more, and the houses, built a century ago, were large and comfortable, lavish by many standards, and for the most part well hidden by old-growth shrubs and trees. By the time he turned in at the long, rhododendron-lined driveway, he felt almost frantic because the elephants’ graveyard phrase, the dismal nursing home ambience, and the worry that Aunt Margaret was getting ready to die all continued to darken his thoughts.

He put the car in the garage and entered the house through the back door, deposited a bag of groceries on the kitchen table and went looking for his wife and his aunt. He found them in the library, Aunt Margaret in her wheelchair, and Sheila on a ladder at the book shelves.

I’m home, he said. What are you doing up there?

Sheila Loomis looked like a model, slender to near emaciation, with long blonde hair, and the face of an ideal beauty who posed for turn-of-the-century cameos. The last few months had taken a toll on her with weight loss, dark hollows under her eyes, restless sleep that left her tired. They were both tired. This situation was wearing them down.

Sheila’s smile was wan as she motioned toward Aunt Margaret. We’re looking for a box of photographs. She thinks it was up here.

I know it was up there. That’s where I kept it, Aunt Margaret snapped. Down farther, closer to the chimney. She was almost concealed by a shawl around her upper body, a throw over her lap down to her feet. Her hands were bony, her face bony, and that day her gray hair was frowsy as if she had not brushed or combed it. As sharp as her bones were beneath colorless skin, her voice was sharper.

Come on down, Jackson said to Sheila. I’ll look for it.

Did you get that flaxseed bread I asked for? Aunt Margaret asked. She turned her wheelchair around and started to move toward the doorway.

"Yes, I