Caution: Contains Small Parts

By Kirstyn McDermott

Caution: Contains Small Parts is an intimate, unsettling collection from award-winning author Kirstyn McDermott.

A creepy wooden dog that refuses to play dead.

A gifted crisis counsellor and the mysterious, melancholy girl she cannot seem to reach.

A once-successful fantasy author whose life has become a horror story - now with added unicorns.

An isolated woman whose obsession with sex dolls takes a harrowing, unexpected turn.

Four stories that will haunt you long after their final pages are turned.

‘Kirstyn McDermott’s prose is darkly magical, insidious and insistent. Once her words get under your skin, they are there to stay.’ - Angela Slatter, British Fantasy Award-winning author of Sourdough and Other Stories

‘The supernatural lurks in the shadows of Kirstyn McDermott’s first collection, an ambiguous or mundane presence that keeps these four quasi-horror stories feeling palpably real ... McDermott’s poignant stories defy genre labelling, being primarily about damaged people seeking solace, escape, or meaning. The otherworldly merely gives them a chance to find it, and makes these unflinching but touching stories even more evocative and irresistible.’ - Aurealis, Issue 64

Table of Contents
- Introduction
- What Amanda Wants
- Horn
- Caution: Contains Small Parts
- The Home for Broken Dolls

"Kirstyn McDermott gives us another unique new voice in her powerful Caution: Contains Small Parts" - Locus Magazine

"McDermott’s stories are offbeat, spellbinding tales where suspension of disbelief never staggers thanks to her hypnotic narrative style." - British Fantasy Society

"McDermott's first collection explores the unfamiliar among the known, in worlds where nothing works quite right. Her insight into the individual condition draws readers down into dark places." - Honourable mention, 2014 Norma K Hemming Award

"The Home for Broken Dolls" - winner Ditmar for Best Novella/Novelette 2014

Locus Recommended Reading List for 2013 for Best Collection, Best Novella and Best Novelette

ABOUT THE TWELVE PLANETS SERIES
Twelfth Planet Press is an independent publishing house challenging the status quo with books that interrogate, commentate, inspire.

The Twelve Planets are twelve boutique collections by some of Australia’s finest short story writers. Varied across genre and style, each collection offers four short stories and a unique glimpse into worlds fashioned by some of our favourite storytellers. Each author has taken the brief of 4 stories and up to 40 000 words in their own direction. Some are quartet suites of linked stories. Others are tasters of the range and style of the writer. Each release is a standalone and brings something unexpected.

The Twelve Planets
Book 1: Nightsiders by Sue Isle
Book 2: Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts
Book 3: Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex
Book 4: Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti
Book 5: Showtime by Narrelle M Harris
Book 6: Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren
Book 7: Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan
Book 8: Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer
Book 9: Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott
Book 10: Secret Lives of Books by Rosaleen Love
Book 11: The Female Factory by Angela Slatter and Lisa Hannet
Book 12: Cherry Crow Children by Deborah Kalin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twelfth Planet Press
• Release date: Jan 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922101068

Book preview

Introduction

Kirstyn McDermott doesn’t mess around. Her topics are not easy ones, and she doesn’t back away from the implications. She combines classic storytelling skills with difficult themes to create fiction that is strong, smart, and aware.

This collection is small but the themes are huge, and she returns to them across stories, to unwrap further possibilities and meanings. She engages with gender in challenging ways, and her male and female protagonists are equally real and nuanced. The nature and results of violation—sometimes, mutilation—turns up in several of these works, a theme she explores unflinchingly. She also writes about deep loss and the complicated feelings that can attend that. The various intersections of gender, violation, and loss make for powerful, moving stories. ‘Horn’ is a fascinating exploration of all three at once.

But the themes that run through her fiction so strongly do not overwhelm the stories themselves, or the men and women who inhabit them. These are human stories, though not simple ones. Her characters struggle with isolation and with the ambiguity of their own and others’ actions. Helen, in ‘What Amanda Wants’, and Jane, in ‘The Home for Broken Dolls’, have both in essence dedicated their lives to helping others, but their selflessness is not unalloyed. ‘Caution: Contains Small Parts’, in some ways the simplest of the stories emotionally, is nevertheless complex. This all sounds grim; in fact it is not.

I had never read Kirstyn’s stories before this; never even heard her name. This is a regrettable sign of my insularity. It is also, and more positively, a sign that Australian speculative fiction is a vibrant field, too large to be tidily represented by a few big names that cross the ocean. Australian speculative fiction does not need to point to America; its compass points to itself. We all benefit from this. Kirstyn is an exciting writer in an exciting place. It’s a pleasure to discover her.

Kij Johnson

What Amanda Wants

It was a Thursday afternoon at the tail end of summer when I first met the girl calling herself Amanda Fisher. An empty afternoon, rare and not to be squandered, a block of time returned to me by two last-minute cancellations and a daybook holding no further appointments. There were any number of things which I should have been doing: typing up case notes from yesterday, preparing for tomorrow’s group session, finishing my monthly reports while they were just the single week overdue and I could still meet Katie’s eye without flinching.

Instead, I was standing by my office window with a mug of peppermint tea, enjoying the filtered warmth of sunlight through glass and trying to think of absolutely nothing at all. Trying especially not to think of the dozen or so tissues it had taken to staunch that morning’s nosebleed, or the fact that I’d eaten nothing solid all day for fear of bringing it straight back up again.

Things were getting worse, and I was finding it harder and harder to convince myself that a couple of days rest would do the trick. Perhaps I should make another appointment with Dr Wirasinga after all, or perhaps it was time to admit—

‘Excuse me, Miss Atkins?’

Stella’s voice buzzed through the intercom on my desk, and I sighed. She hadn’t called me Helen, which meant there was someone new waiting in reception. I picked up the handset. ‘Yes, Stella?’ 

‘I have Amanda Fisher here, would like to speak to someone. You free or should I see if she can wait till Katie comes back from lunch?’

‘It’s fine, send her through.’

I leaned across the desk to retrieve one of my notepads from the second drawer, then turned to a fresh page and wrote AMANDA FISHER in neat capitals at the top. Whoever she was, she wouldn’t rate her own manila folder until the second visit; an actual file would come after the third. The problem with drop-ins was that they dropped-out just as easily. It was a bugbear of Katie’s, who was constantly pushing for the Centre to go By Appointment Only, or at least to ensure we took proper and verified details before anyone so much as got within spitting distance of a counsellor. How can we help these women, she would ask, throwing up her hands, when we don’t have a clue who they are?

Sometimes, I would remind her, that is just the help they need.

No names, no records. No strings attached.

The knock at my door was so timid, it might have gone unnoticed had I not been expecting it, and the girl who poked her head into the room seemed equally hesitant. ‘Um.’ She gnawed on her lower lip. ‘Are you Miss Atkins?’

‘Please, call me Helen.’ I waved her inside and gestured towards the pair of blue tub chairs arranged beneath the window. ‘Have a seat.’

She stood and stared at them for a few uncertain seconds before choosing the one backed into the corner, falling into it with all the gracelessness of someone so very glad to be off her feet at last. She dumped her green tote bag unceremoniously between her ankles, although the shoulder strap remained across her knees, within easy reach. She couldn’t have been much older than sixteen or seventeen, a late-blooming twenty at most, her sable hair cut in a China-doll bob with a fringe too severe for her pale, rounded face.

‘Amanda, is it?’ I sat down in the chair opposite, the chair with its back open and vulnerable to the room. 

The girl nodded. ‘Amanda Fisher.’

‘Right, Amanda Fisher, how can I help?’

She bit her lip again, turned her head and gazed out of the window. 

That was fine; words were only ever part of the story. That cardigan, for instance. The dull grey knit dampened the bright colours of her floral-print sundress and was really too heavy for such a warm day. Even though the Centre couldn’t afford air conditioned offices, and even though a sweaty sheen was already misting the girl’s brow and upper lip, she made no move to slip out of the garment. Instead, she sat with its overly-long sleeves pulled down past her palms, one hand resting neatly upon the other. What was it she didn’t want the world to see?

With some women, I might have jumped right in and suggested—as gently as needed—that they might prefer to remove the cardigan. But I sensed this approach wouldn’t work with Amanda Fisher. One wrong breath and she would be up and out of my office before I had time to take another. She was too skittish, this one; I’d have to tread carefully.

‘I had this dog,’ the girl said at last, still looking out of the window. ‘Years ago, when I was a kid. A Weimaraner—you know what they are?’ 

I nodded and jotted the word down on my notepad.

‘Well, a Weimaraner, yeah. Bashful—but the name was ironic, you know? That dog had her nose in anything and anyone. I called her Bash and she used to sleep on the end of my bed except in winter when it got really cold and she’d sneak in under the blankets. I used to wake up with her head right beside me on the pillow.’ The girl clapped her palms together as if in prayer and held them a scarce inch or two from the side of her face. ‘Like this, this close.’

I smiled and continued to make notes, though we seemed far from breaking ground on whatever problem it was that had led Amanda Fisher here. Instead, I learnt that Bash the Weimaraner had been the girl’s adored and adoring companion throughout her childhood, always waiting at the front door when she arrived home from school, her fiercely protective second shadow with a lip to curl at strangers who came too close or friends who played too rough. Bash the Weimaraner, a dog whose coat felt like warm velvet when you ran a hand over her flanks, whose big amber eyes made you want to hug her tight and never let go. Bash the Weimaraner, who had been taught to sit and speak and shake and fetch-the-squeaky-ball, but had never learnt to stay—unless that meant staying with Amanda.

‘What happened to Bash?’ I asked once her words trailed to a close.

The girl shrugged. ‘Dogs don’t live forever.’

‘She died of old age?’

‘I guess. She was nearly twelve, Mum says that’s old for a Weimaraner.’ 

Frowning, I squiggled a couple of question marks after the word died, certain there was more to be mined here. But before I could frame my next question, Amanda Fisher abruptly stood up and slung her tote bag over her shoulder. ‘I have to—I should go,’ she said, briefly pushing up a cardigan sleeve to glance at her watch. It was worn around the wrong way, the small silver face on the underside of her wrist. Her skin was pale and, as far as I had glimpsed, unmarked.

 ‘Are you sure?’ I rose and followed her to the door. ‘There isn’t any rush, you know. I’ve got the rest of the afternoon open.’

‘I don’t.’ Her eyes were a dull shade of grey, unfathomable even though she held my gaze for several long seconds before looking away. ‘Thanks for seeing me, but I do need to be somewhere. I just saw this place when I was going past and thought that … I don’t know what I thought really, it was just a spur of the moment thing.’

‘You can come back,’ I told her. ‘Anytime the moment takes you.’

She almost smiled at that. ‘Maybe I will.’

‘Well, it was very nice to meet you.’ I extended my hand. Just a little, enough for it to be shaken should she want, or else to be seen as a simple courtesy, a gesture of farewell. Barely skipping a beat, Amanda Fisher chose the latter. 

‘Nice to meet you too, Helen.’ The door closed softly behind her.

I sat down in the swivel chair behind my desk and stared at the notepad in front of me. Only half of one page filled and how much of that would even be helpful, I had no idea—a fact which was troubling in itself. I was usually much better at reading my clients than this, much quicker to locate their personal, poisonous little wells and begin drawing from them. Katie said it was downright spooky the way I could home in on a person so precisely, and that maybe I should consider auditioning as a psychic for one of those reality shows.

What’s your secret, Helen? she’d ask me over hastily-drunk tea in the kitchenette. Whatever it is, I wish to God we could patent it.

And I would smile and cut her a slice of textbook babble about body language and intonation, about listening not only to the words but to the silences in between. Such talk was mostly smoke and mirrors, as much a part of my disguise as the fraudulent diploma hanging on my office wall. The latter the result of a favour called in too many years ago to count, its authenticity never once called into question. References were what really mattered in this kind of work, and mine were numerous and genuine and glowing.

Even so, I could never tell Katie the truth. 

That I’d abandoned university after only one semester of a psych degree, the theory too ponderous, too serpentine to hold in my head along with everything else, and four years too long to be away from the world. The books, manuals and dog-eared journals crowding my office shelves were there largely for show, their pages skimmed for the latest jargon and key concepts with which to season my reports and shore up my professional fluency in discussions with colleagues. 

Camouflage. Camouflage and misdirection.

Because, truthfully, I wasn’t really a counsellor, not by the strictest definition of the term. I didn’t just listen to people, or talk them through their problems—although I certainly did both those things, and after so many years in the field, did them passably well. But I also went one better: I unburdened people, quite literally. I carved away a sliver of their pain, sometimes more than a sliver, and took it into myself. It was not a skill I’d been taught or one I remembered learning any more than I remembered taking my first infant steps. It’s simply what I’d always been able to do. 

I unburdened people.

And it wasn’t a process I could explain, certainly not to the Katies of the world who lived with their foreheads firmly pressed against the cool, calculating altars of science and reason.

At best, I would be sacked. At worst—

witch witch go away, don’t come back another day

Shaking my head, I retrieved a fresh manila folder from the file drawer in my desk and printed Fisher, Amanda across the tab, then slipped the sheet of notepaper inside. I don’t know whether I truly believed she’d make a return visit, or whether I simply hoped that she would. Those unreadable grey eyes had me worried.

The girl was a wall: flat and featureless, with not the slightest fissure by which to gain a handhold. What awful kind of trauma