Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic

Unfinished Business

Tales of the Dark Fantastic

Catherine Lundoff

Contents

Introduction

The Mask and the Amontillado

A Splash of Crimson

Bluebeard’s Wife

Duchess

Medium Méchanique

Miss Lucy’s Glass

Cherubim

Preserves

Haunted

Home Staging, with Phantasm

Firebird

The Temporary

About the Author

Also by Catherine Lundoff:

About Queen of Swords Press

Copyright

Queen of Swords Press LLC, Minneapolis, MN

www.queenofswordpress.com

Published in the United States

Cover Design by Terry Roy

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real people or current events is purely coincidental.

The Mask and the Amontillado reprinted from Tales of the Unanticipated Magazine, 2018. Eric Heidemann, editor.

Medium Méchanique reprinted from Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam. Minor Arcana Press/Gay Cities, 2013. Vincent Kovar and Evan J. Peterson, editors.

A Splash of Crimson reprinted from Respectable Horror. Fox Spirit Books, 2017. K.A. Laity, editor.

Bluebeard’s Wife reprinted from in The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories. Running Press, 2015. Maxim Jakubowski, editor.

Firebird reprinted from Renewal: Queer Sci Fi’s Fourth Annual Fiction Contest Anthology, 2017. Mischief Corner Books.

The Temporary reprinted from Sky Tinted Waters, 2012. Michael Merriam, editor. Sam’s Dot Publishing.

ISBN: 978-1-73258-335-1

Introduction

Ilike to think that it all started with Edward Gorey. I fell in love with his spare black and white drawings, his Edwardian-style poisoners, the grim and whimsical humor of his writing, when I was eleven. It spoke to my baby Goth heart at a time when I needed to find those things very badly.

I saw Dracula on Broadway when I was about fourteen. Frank Langella starred in the title role and Gorey did the sets, all festooned with little bats with glow-in-the-dark red eyes. How I adored that production! I read the book soon thereafter and from there, went on to explore Victorian ghost and horror tales by various authors: Poe, Le Fanu, Wilde and sundry others weaving fun tales of death and betrayal and horror of a certain elegant hopelessness.

For whatever reason, I didn’t discover Angela Carter or Shirley Jackson until I was an adult. I would have loved to have read The Bloody Chamber and We Have Always Lived in the Castle in my twenties when they would have led my reading in an entirely different direction. But at least I have read them now, along with ghost stories by E. Nesbit, Vernon Lee and other ladies who were rockstars of early Gothic-style horror and suspense. And my reading life is the richer for it.

Am I suggesting that this little volume of tales rivals or even mimics those marvelous early works? I would not presume, I can only aspire. Certainly, some of that Victorian style took root, at least in my head. What you are holding is a collection of odd tales of murder, ghosts and other encounters with the supernatural, the bloodthirsty and the weird. Within, you will find retellings of some classic tales alongside some completely new stories. Take a trip into the not so distant future and some grim possibilities or tangle with an unfriendly ghost or two. Phantasms, creatures of the night, governesses, mediums, scholars, realtors, wine merchants, suffragists, Jack the Ripper and perhaps even Dracula himself populate these pages. Enter if you dare.

The Mask and the Amontillado

How does one grow to hate a man? Especially a man as universally beloved and admired as Fortunato? In a phrase, Fortunato knew things. As do we all, you may say. I, for my part, knew the wines in my cellar like old friends, each with their quirks and beauties. Knew them as well as I did myself. I made no claims to know more than that.

But even these small things, Fortunato claimed to know better than I. Had it begun and ended with the wines, that alone might have been enough to sour our friendship, such as it was. But there was more, so much more than that. And for that much more, I vowed my vengeance.

The thousand slights I might endure, but that he knew what I was, that was beyond endurance. That knowledge made him dangerous, for I was born the only child of the House of Montresor and raised as my father’s son on my mother’s death. So it was that the vineyards and our palazzo might remain in Montresor hands. We made plans, he and I. My cousin Isabella was to be my bride, an adopted cousin my heir. Isabella would be the keeper of my secrets as best as a woman’s tongue might keep such weighty matters.

But, then, was not I born a woman too? Could I not keep my own council, aye, and my father’s? She would learn as I had and all would be well, once we were wed. So I thought until Fortunato also began to pay his court to her, showering her with a thousand little attentions, my competitor even here. And she, fickle as I was steadfast, leaned toward him like a flower in a wind. It wounded me to see it, and I was grateful that my father was no longer alive to see me fail.

It was then I began to suspect worse things of Fortunato than that he was merely my rival in love. Isabella began to look at me askance, brown eyes questioning, then looking away before an answer could be sought. She had not looked so before. Then, it had all been shy smiles behind her fan and demure glances that told me nothing more than her pride in my attentions.

But all that was changed now. My mask failed me as she looked at me with suspicion and the sweetness of my words faded. She suspected me, exquisite actor though I had become, and I might have wondered what she suspected me of, did I not already know. But how had she unraveled my carefully guarded secret?

With a mind awhirl in horror, I sought an answer, only to look no further than my rival, Fortunato. He, too, had begun to look upon me strangely as though he were thinking thoughts he was not ready to reveal. The more I met with him, the more certain I became: somehow, he knew what I was. And where Fortunato suspected, Fortunato’s tongue must soon follow.

My fears tortured me through a sleepless fortnight. How could he have begun to suspect that I was not my father’s son? I knew I had made no mistakes.

No, that could not be true. I had stumbled, somehow. Otherwise, Fortunato would not look at me so sly, so knowing, as he did.

I imagined all the ways that he might have discovered me. Had I moved my hand with a delicate flutter, as a woman would a fan? Did my feet not touch the ground firmly, as though it might all be my own? Was it the painted shadow of a beard on my cheeks, a shadow that never grew? I was my father’s son, I knew as much of myself, and yet it was not enough.

But why he suspected was nothing to that he suspected. To be exposed was to court Death: I knew no other way to live. I could not live as a woman, I could not! Not after knowing such freedom as I had as a man. No one would have me as wife, not once my secret was known. I would have to find a convent far from here that might accept me of their mercy and the House of Montresor would fall with me.

And what of Isabella? My father had meant her to be mine, had spoken with her father on my behalf. Already, she held more than half my heart. Would I lose her so easily to the likes of Fortunato? Would I lose the House of Montresor to such a man?

My father’s soul would not accept it.

I would not accept it.

I began to study Fortunato as I would a vine, searching for his weaknesses, his secrets. I forced myself to sit at his side and invited him to dine at my table more than once. My wines touched his lips more than any other and I told him that each was finer than the last.

And there, I found his secret. He knew less of the vines and the different wines they made than he claimed, despite his boasting. Or, at least, he knew no more than any sot who kept a tavern and that was enough for me.

At first, I reveled in his ignorance, his boasting. This was a way in which I might recover what I feared to lose. Now I, too, had a secret, and he might see it in my eyes if he chose to look.

I thought at first to hold his tongue hostage, to threaten his reputation as one cultured and able to taste a sherry from an amontillado. If I spoke of it, he would be a laughing stock to all who knew. He would travel through the city hearing the laughter behind his back, feel the weight of sneering glances when he drank with those he called his friends. Then he might know