The Dark Issue 96: The Dark, #96

By Celia Rostow, Alison Littlewood, Fernanda Castro and Michael Harris Cohen

Each month The Dark brings you the best in dark fantasy and horror! Selected by Clara Madrigano and Sean Wallace and published by Prime Books, this issue includes two all-new stories and two reprints:

 

"A Toitele" by Celia Rostow
"Jenny Greenteeth" by Alison Littlewood (reprint)
"The Inside is Always Entrails" by Fernanda Castro (translated by H. Pueyo)
"The Words Beneath" by Michael Harris Cohen (reprint)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prime Books
• Release date: Apr 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223833000

Book preview

THE DARK

Issue 96 • May 2023

A Toitele by Celia Rostow

Jenny Greenteeth by Alison Littlewood

The Inside is Always Entrails by Fernanda Castro (translated by H. Pueyo)

The Words Beneath by Michael Harris Cohen

Cover Art: Tree by Bogdan Rezunenko

ISSN 2332-4392.

Edited by Clara Madrigano and Sean Wallace.

Cover design by Garry Nurrish.

Copyright © 2023 by Prime Books.

www.thedarkmagazine.com

A Toitele

by Celia Rostow

All that remained of Chana came back from Kraków in a little wooden box: a golden chain with a pendant, a palm facing out with a carved unblinking eye to protect from evil.

Chana’s death lived on the mantle in the main room of the house, where it would gather dust if Rochel didn’t clean it once a week before shabbos, along with everything else in their little home. There had been no note, but even if there had, Rochel knew that Dovid wouldn’t have read it. The only reason she knew the box contained a chain was because he had opened it for half a heartbeat before snapping it shut again.

What did they even have to send back, Dovid? she’d heard a friend ask him more than once, but Dovid never said. Dovid had banished memories of his sister to a part of his heart no key could unlock. Rochel wondered if he would have told her if he hadn’t caught her looking. If she didn’t already know.

It had been six empty years since Rochel had last seen Chana, since Chana had tied tight the laces of her worn leather shoes, belted her jacket closed around a narrow waist that dipped in from wide hips and shoulders, and whispered, Come with me, Rocheleh, before disappearing into the rain, leaving nothing but the scent of lilies in her wake.

Those six years had been childless—something Dovid never beat her for, though she knew he was disappointed. There was no childish laughter in their house, no scattered toys. Their children were only dreams and ghosts, but the dullness left in Chana’s wake was what made the place feel so empty, for Chana had taken her vibrance with her and Dovid never even mentioned her name.

A sister who left the derech, who turned her back on the path of righteousness, she was as good as dead to Dovid. He mourned her in his own way—being quiet on Chana’s birthday, or sometimes staring a little too long at the rocking chair that had been her favorite. Rochel had once wondered if leaving the derech was worse than dying, because if you died, you weren’t choosing to leave those you loved behind.

The box meant there was no hope anymore, which meant that Rochel did her best to ignore it, even as it sat above her fireplace.

She didn’t want to believe that Chana would never be back. It was just a necklace, not a body. Maybe there’d been some kind of mistake, and Chana was still in Kraków. Chana had chosen to leave them behind, that didn’t mean she was gone forever.

That she was never coming back.

When they’d been girls, she’d sat next to Chana every shabbos they’d shared a meal, whispering behind their hands like a pair of young rabbits—soft and plump and all too aware of a harsh world. When your parents were friends, you ended up spending a lot of time together, especially when your mother was sickly and your father’s work took him in and out of town. When they were very little, they whispered about how Chana would marry Rochel’s brother, and Rochel would marry Chana’s and they would be sisters for real. They even practiced kissing together with whispered, breathless, heart-racing promises never to tell, just to see what it would be like one day.

But Rochel’s brother died young, and as they got older, Chana would grimace whenever Rochel mentioned marrying Dovid so she stopped bringing it up because she would do anything to keep a glowing smile on Chana’s face. When Chana left, Rochel couldn’t tell if she was relieved she wouldn’t have to see her grimace when she married Dovid. She never dared ask what had made her grimace like that.

She thought about Chana every shabbos when they murmured blessings over candles. She shared looks with Dovid sometimes, but no one had ever replaced Chana’s capacity to take one look at Rochel’s expression and know exactly what she was thinking. Together she and her husband welcomed in the sabbath bride, and whenever they sang, she remembered her own wedding day, wrapped in a white lace shroud, surrounded by women and yet feeling so alone. No amount of shabbos guests, no amount of women singing at her wedding could replace Chana and their silent conversations while their fathers droned on and on.

These days, Rochel only had silent conversations