Morace's Story

By Kaaron Warren

Botanica is the island, but all of Botanica is taken up by the Tree. When Morace and other students set out to walk around the Tree, a five year journey, he has no idea what lies ahead. Little does he know the risks his teacher, Lillah, will have to take to keep him alive, and the dangers he will face himself to save her life. A young teen companion book to Walking the Tree.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IFWG Publishing International
• Release date: Aug 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922556936

Kaaron Warren

Shirley Jackson Award winner Kaaron Warren has published five novels and seven short story collections. She’s sold two hundred short stories to publications big and small around the world and has appeared in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best anthologies. Her novel The Grief Hole won three major Australian genre awards. She has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Fiji, and Canberra; her most recent works are “The Deathplace Set” in Vandal, and Bitters, a novella. Warren won the inaugural Mayday Hills Ghost Story Competition.  

Book preview

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Chapbooks Published By

IFWG Publishing Australia

Black Moon (mature content, Eugen Bacon)

Tool Tales (mature content, Kaaron Warren & Ellen Datlow)

Stark Naked (mature content, Silvia Cantón Rondoni)

Infectious Hope: Poems of Hope and Resilience From the Pandemic (mature content, ed. Silvia Cantón Rondoni)

Morace’s Story (young teen companion book to Kaaron Warren’s Walking the Tree)

Songs From a White Heart (poetry collection), by Jack Dann

Turning the Seasons - A Dark Almanac (poetry/prose collection), by J.S. Breukelaar and Sebastien Doubinsky

Morace’s Story

by

Kaaron Warren

A Young Teen

Companion Story

to Walking the Tree

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters portrayed herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places, events or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the publisher.

Morace’s Story

All Rights Reserved

ISBN-13: 978-1-922556-93-6

Copyright ©2022 Kaaron Warren

V.1.0

This ebook may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical with­out the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

IFWG Publishing International

Gold Coast

www.ifwgpublishing.com

For Mitch and Nadia

Laburnum—OMBU—Aloes

We call it Our Place.

I am ten years old.

I hope Mother lets me go to school this year. I’m bored being home with her. School may be hard, and it may be scary and tiring, but at least it will be different. I can’t think of what to do to convince her to let me. I don’t want to be too useful or kind in case she can’t bear to part with me. I don’t want to be bad because she might punish me.

I’ll have to talk to Dad. He might be on my side, see that I have to go to school and he might be able to think of what to do.

School takes five years. We leave our village and we walk around Botanica. Around the Tree, the island. We walk quickly, and we stay in other villages and we will walk back into Ombu five years from now.

The other children have no doubt they are going. They don’t have crazy people deciding for them.

Every time a school comes through here, I am jealous. I want to disguise myself and go with them. They are tired, often, but they are so confident, so full of knowledge and information, so easy with each other and with all of us. I want that. I really want that.

Rham came by to ask me to go swimming. She’s younger than me but taller. With her, it doesn’t matter. The others tease me because I’m skinny and short, but she doesn’t care.

Mother won’t let me go. I kicked a rock as I spoke and hurt my toe.

She won’t know if you dry off before you get home. Rham bounced around me. She always had good arguments.

She knows everything, and if she finds out she won’t let me go to school, I said.

Come and watch then. I let her drag me along. I could collect shells along the shore at least, to trade with the older boys for sweet berries or for small carved tools. If I save enough shells, I might get a fish spear. Then I’ll be popular on the school walk. I’ll be useful.

Once I go to school, I’ll swim so far, so hard. The teachers will let me. I will follow my mother’s rules until I am out of her sight, then no longer.

I collected two scoops of shells, piling them onto a smooth, flat piece of drift-in wood. Carrying them back home, I planned what I would say to Dad when I found him alone.

He was readying his things in a basket and I knew what that meant. I tried, anyhow.

Dad? I said.

Morace, I can’t talk. Magnolia’s started to have her baby.

Mother hates it when another woman has a baby. She doesn’t like to share Dad yet she has to. He’s Birthman and the women want him with them.

Mother’s awful when Dad’s away. Shouts at me, as if it’s my fault, until I want to hide under my bed and pretend her voice is the Tree screaming in the wind.

I walked with him to Magnolia’s house, knowing I could get a few points in while he was distracted.

So, Dad, you know Rham is going to school this year? She’s so smart, don’t you think?

Yes, yes she is.

And it would be a shame if I wasn’t around that cleverness for five years, don’t you think?

You’re very clever yourself, Morace. So you don’t need to convince me about school. I know you should go. But it’s hard for your mother to let go.

Every other mother does it.

He stopped walking and put down his basket. You know your mother is not like others. I can’t talk about this now, Morace. Magnolia needs me. Come along and help. We’ll think of a way to convince your mother.

When we got to Magnolia’s, Dad was greeted with great wel­come. I waited for a while, but it took too long for the baby to come and I felt useless. I went to the Trunk and explored the caves there. Some people are scared of ghosts inside the Tree but I know what to say if I ever meet one. I’ll say, Can you show me what’s inside? I went back to Magnolia’s a

Reviews for Morace's Story

[tsana_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Slights by Kaaron Warren is a disturbing book. This should not come as a surprise to people familiar with the author’s other work (or anyone who read the quote from Russell Kirkpatrick on the cover).Stevie (short for Stephanie because her parents were expecting a boy) is a psychopath in the literal sense of the word: she lacks empathy, consideration, is obsessive and fairly self-centred. She is not a sympathetic character, but she is fascinating.After a car accident which kills her mother and puts her in hospital, she has a near-death experience. Instead of seeing a white light or a tunnel or something like that, she finds herself in a room filled with all the people who she’s slighted at some point in the past. Hence the title and hence the cover. (Speaking of the cover, how creepy do the rightmost dude’s eyes look?) And her slighted people do unpleasant things do her.Beyond that, it’s a difficult book to explain. It doesn’t exactly have a plot, it’s more an examination of Steve’s life, told in first person, including her learning new things about her past as she gets older. Her life isn’t particularly pleasant. I found the first third or so of the book quite confronting and it squicked me out a bit. I had to take breaks from reading it, although that became less necessary as it progressed (or I became desensitised). I wouldn’t suggest this book to anyone with any sort of conventional triggers (particularly sexual ones). Fair warning.As the book progressed, I felt it became less about horrible things happening to people (sometimes Steve, sometimes others around her) and more about the things happening in Steve’s head. And towards the very end, aspects of her family history that she wasn’t necessarily aware of when they were happening in her youth. I knew why the people were in the room and who they were; each and every one had been slighted by me, and each slight, by me or anybody else, snapped up a bit of their soul and sent it to the dark room of some unknowing person. Or to my dark room.The progression of her understanding of the room she goes to when she has near-death experiences (yes, they’re plural, the story would have much less impact if they weren’t) is interesting. I felt it was the kind of book that might be studied in a high school English class, if it was a bit more age-appropriate. I certainly found it more meaningful than some of the novels by Tim Winton I was forced to read.In case you didn’t pick it up, Slights is definitely a horror novel. Don’t read it if you don’t like icky things or being inside the minds of disturbing people. On the other hand, if you like being disturbed and enjoy a dark psychological read, then this is a good book to pick up.4 / 5 stars

[fothpaul · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Very strange. Not sure why I chose this one in the book shop. Was quite dissapointed in general. Left feeling a bit puzzled as to what the point of the book was. Not sure either how this was classed as a horror. Had tiny elements that hinted at something sinister but not even frightening in the same league as other non-horror books I've read. Really wasn't compelled to finish it and not particuarly glad that I did either, other than relief that it's finally over. WIll not be looking at any more books by this author.

[strider66_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pros: creepy premise, strong writing, good pacing, interesting family mysteryCons: unlikable protagonist, didn't feel like a horror novelStevie is an unreliable narrator. She remembers her father, a cop, as a good, quiet man. Others remember him differently. He was the kind of cop who didn't like to see the guilty get away with their crimes, even when there wasn't enough evidence to convict them.Stevie was 18 when her mother died, passenger in the car Stevie was driving. The accident gave Stevie her third near death experience. Before, she'd been too young to understand what happened. This time she realized that when you die you enter a room. A dark room. A dark room where those you've slighter want to hurt you.The book is presented as a horror novel and the premise is quite terrifying. But in execution, it's less about horror than it is about the mystery of who Stevie's father was and what death actually holds for her. And while she runs from the first mystery, wanting to believe her father was a great man, she runs towards the second, trying to get back to her room to see if it changes.As a protagonist she's a thoroughly unlikable character. She's rude, disrespectful and goes out of her way to anger the people in her life. And yet, her story is fascinating and she somehow remains sympathetic.The writing is strong and the pacing good, doling out enough clues to keep you interested.One word of caution, try not to read the synopsis on the back of the book. It contains a spoiler that makes part of the mystery a lot easier to figure out. If you want to get a sense of the book, read the first few pages.

[irunsjh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was not a bad book, but it was not great either. I think it all has to do with the main character Stevie, I just did not like her. I had to find out what happened to her at the end of the book, but overall I was not impressed with her. I do believe that this was the aim of the author, so I think I got it from that perspective. For me a decent read, just not something calling me back to read again. The cover and publisher is what attracted me to this book. I am glad I decided to read it and would like to see what else this author has to offer, so I am intrigued for sure.

[avhacker · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

um it was good towards the middle but i'm really confused about the plot. It was really quick at some parts than slow. I wasn't sure what was going on and random people just popped out of no where that i was apparently supposed to know.i won this book free and thought the idea was good but the plot was non exsistent.