The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

Everything Beautiful is Terrifying ^{M. Rickert}

The Strangos come all year, identifiable by the clothes they wear, the giggling behind open hands, the wide-eyed pretense of innocence; like belled cats they give their trespass away. I ignore them—for the most part—though recently the baristas have begun giving directions to Laurels tree. They think this is funny, apparently, even if they never witness the punch line. Strangos standing in the middle of Wenkel’s cornfield clutching their little purses. Strangos in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot next to the dumpsters, noses squinched against the stench. Strangos in front of my house—not funny at all—so close to each other the heels of their black shoes touch. I found them early on Christmas morning, standing beneath the streetlamp, upturned faces dotted with flakes of snow, matching pea coats frosted with ice, knees trembling above soggy ankle socks and black shoes.

They arrive all year, undeterred by the season. July and August bring a few carrying guidebooks and taking selfies (which no legitimate Strango would ever do) things get more serious in September, but October is Strango high season. In October the scent of wood smoke mingles with the beeswax candles perfuming my home with honey. Give me that and a blood moon casting everything in a mortal glow. Give me that and the ghost the Strangos seek, though I am not one of them, but an original.

She was buried, they say, in an unmarked grave at her mother’s request. It was generally understood this was done in the usual manner, but after that movie came out with its silly premise that Laurel’s weary ghost haunts the mysterious location of her body’s interment, the Strangos arrived with their earnest obsession. I, myself, seeking answers, once stood on Laurels porch until her mother threatened me with a kettle of boiled water.

“Forgive me?” the Strangos murmur as they pass. It’s just coincidence. The Strangos murmur their forgiveness request because in the movie that’s how it’s done. I stand in white ankle socks and black shoes, clutching the little purse with the clasp that clicks open and shut. Laurel stands beside me, dressed to match; though it’s not really us, of course, but actresses portraying me and her ghost. When I whisper, “forgive me?” she doesn’t say anything. The camera pulls back until we are in a circle of light surrounded by black; then a dot, then nothing at all.

I resisted watching for quite some time until one dreary night, while clicking mindlessly through cooking shows, women-buying-wedding-dresses shows, and fertile-family shows I stopped, stunned, as though experiencing a sudden change in altitude. There she was—Laurel—in her black shoes and white socks, wearing a dress I’d never seen; spinning beneath a bright arc of autumn leaves.

That particular scene comes quite close to the end—as you may know—but it was one of those stations that plays the same movie repeatedly. I can truthfully say that by the third viewing I was eating popcorn again; less enchanted by the Laurel look-alike and more annoyed by what they got wrong, which was almost everything.

Though accused and found not guilty, my innocence was never restored. The Strangos (and the screenplay writer) are convinced I am a murderer but the truth is so much more benign. Ask the Strangos and they will whisper, in sibilant tones, “forgive me?” over and over again until the reporter, either irritated by their petulance, or thrilled to have gotten a good clip for the weird news story gives up trying for more while the photographer waits for that moment when the Strangos open and close their purses making a sound like click beetles.

I am disinclined towards empathy with Strangos, but must confess I understand. Reporters are so annoyingly persistent in asking the wrong questions (as are parents, detectives, attorneys, and everyone) that sometimes a person can find no response more perfect than the defiant sound of purse latch. I did not do it to be annoying or frightening though the movie portrays me as both. I was a child then, accused of murder. I was terrified, not terrifying.

The tree isn’t hard to find, if one knows where to look as, of course, I do. And, while I hate to attribute anything of value to that movie, I must admit after watching it several times I, too, became obsessed with the old oak as a potential location for Laurels ghost. I did not, to be clear, think her mother would have her buried there. I believe she was cremated; her ashes now in Florida.

But her ghost? It seemed possible the tree would make a perfect host. (Like the Caribbean Lagarou tree where people have reported seeing, from a distance, flickering orbs of lights in its branches which, I know, is meant to sound ominous but I find reassuring.) Thus began my October quest through the backyards of my youth to that small hidden field we discovered all those years ago.

When the seasons turned to Halloween we, best friends forever, chose to be twins. The movie would have you believe we dressed alike for years, but in truth it was only a single month, and not even all of that.

When October comes I close the windows, happy to sever any tie with murmuring Strangos. I take out the old photographs: Laurel and me in our bathing suits (not matching) eating popsicles (and in the left corner, beneath the azalea bush the toes of my father’s shoes. He used to like to play that game of spying on us.) Laurel and me on her swing set (there was a time when I was a welcomed guest). Laurel and me in sleeping bags, wide awake, Laurel giving the finger, and me frozen in shock by her bold gesture. I remember how my brother ran to report what she had done and how my mother (still innocent in her own way then) laughed. The last photograph has been widely duplicated—I’m sure you’ve seen it in some fashion or other—Laurel and me in the matching cotton dresses that Mrs. Sheer made in a single weekend. She had extra time on her hands, my mother said, since Laurel was an only child. We are standing in front of my house in those dresses, ankle socks, and white Keds spray-painted black. I can’t remember why we did that. Sometimes too much is made of the casual choices of the young.

My mother found the purses at the dime store and splurged, buying both. I think she felt a little competitive with Mrs. Sheer, though this is pure speculation on my part and, as one who has suffered by what people assume, I try not to guess the motivation of others. My mother bought the purses. They were red. Matching white hairbands completed the look.

I suspect that arranging photographs of Laurel on the mantel might seem macabre to others. I can’t be sure about what “normal” people think; they got everything so wrong with me that I have never adjusted to their ways. Halloween has, by necessity, evolved over the years into my own manner of celebration. Not for me the freedom of cheap costumes and pillowcases full of candy. That was lost with Laurel’s death; first to my grief, then to my shame, and finally to my compromised life. While others were content with false ghosts, I hoped for the real thing. To be forgiven. Not for a murder I never committed, but for leaving her where she was later found with dirt and skin beneath her fingernails.

It is true that, as they said, the skin was mine. So much was made of this! We had a fight. About what, I can’t remember. There was dirt on my dress and shoes and socks. We ran through backyards and fields to get to our tree. Dirt is not blood, or criminal in any way, but try telling that to folks set on vengeance, or any of the Strangos who think they know so much.

When October comes I decorate with photographs of the dead: Laurel and me as already mentioned, my parents, and my bother whose suicide is not a part of this story. Also my cats, Batman and Robin, each found with strings around their necks and, I believe, victims of my notoriety. I arrange the photographs in a display of fake autumn leaves ever since trying to use real ones which brought bugs into the house, an infestation I do not want to repeat, appropriate as it may be to the occasion.

Sadly, no one begs treats from me; a pattern I ignored for years, stocking up on candy bars, popcorn balls, and fairly expensive caramel apples which I ate throughout winter, solidifying the caramel flavor of loneliness, the apple bite of regret. While others dress as someone else, I dress as myself (or the girl I once was) in yellow gingham, white socks, black shoes, headband; waiting until dark before I sneak through the backyards, everyone so distracted I make an easy passage to the tree where I wait. The first time I did this I panicked when I realized how, without awareness, I had so thoroughly become Laurels last moments, or what we know of them, before she was murdered, but no one came to reenact the crime. I just sat shivering, in the dark.

We had gone trick or treating with strict instructions to return home by ten but, if you haven’t picked up on this by now, Laurel was cheeky and I, her happy co-conspirator.

“Heyo,” she said, (using our twin language) “Let’s go-o to our-o tree-o.”

Why? Oh, I don’t remember though I suspect it seemed just enough of a transgression to deliver a delicious thrill, running through moonlight on that night inhabited by the occult. It was meant to be fun! We giggled and whispered, lugging pillowcases heavy with loot.

The paper reported candy wrappers littered amongst the leaves. I suppose this is right. We probably delighted in our feast, drunk on sugar. We fought. About what, I don’t remember. She scratched me and I ran home, though to this day I can hear her cries. “Come-o back-o,” she called. “Im-o afraid-o of the Strangos.” A false laugh, and then, “Don’t go-o-o.”

Later, the policeman handed me a cider doughnut and said, “I often think what I would say if I had one more day with my friend who died. Heck, I bet you know what that’s like, don’t you?”

Click-click.

“Go ahead. Close your eyes. Picture Laurel.”

Click.

“Say it.”

“Forgive me.”

“Who but the guilty ask forgiveness?” The prosecutor intoned over and over again. In my youth I thought this was compelling, but as a grownup I am shocked that adults fell for this false equivalency. Though I was guilty to be sure, it was not of the crime I was charged with. In the end, I was just a bad friend. No danger of repeating that mortal error again. Who would want to be friends with me? I can tell you the answer is no one. Not even a ghost.

Yet, I persist. In spite of the solemnity of the season I have come to enjoy my celebration which begins, as I have said, with the altar of dead and so forth until the great night arrives when I turn off all my lights and—dressed as myself all those years ago—sneak away from streets teeming with Strangos of all shapes and sizes; generations of Strangos with no connection to Laurel or her life to stand beneath our tree where I beg her to forgive me, jump when a leaf falls (briefly seeing too much meaning in it) and look at my hands. So large, though once they were so small. I shiver in the cold. Walk home alone, shoes and socks dampened by frost.

The next morning I pack photographs, dress, headband, purse and the rest. I toss out the caramel apple sticks and pumpkin tea wrappers. I stand at the closed window noting how the tree limbs scratch the gray sky, the fallen leaves decomposed of color. November is the worst month, that brutal time after they found her body and my own mother began the wandering which defined her final years. She paced at all hours; locking doors, sprinkling sugar on the floor (“It will mark his footprints,” she said) and cut up tablecloths which she insisted made perfect fabric for new dresses, though I never saw any sewn. Perhaps I outgrew them in that time between the charge and my acquittal. My father found solace in fantasies of revenge, which he described in our new ritual of bedtime stories. “First, I’ll tear off his fingernails,” he said and so forth, seeding my sleep with nightmares from which I often woke to find my brother weeping in a dark corner.

I was arrested in December so it would not be unreasonable to assume the month ruined for me but I have recovered the season; enlivened by the tradition of Christmas ghosts. Laurel loved the holiday; it made sense she would use the occasion to make a grand entrance. In spite of what that movie inferred she never would have become zombified with an appetite for blood; even dead she would remain a life force. I know she wasn’t always sweet, or even good but she could make me laugh when no one else did. She told Petal Mearlot and Tina Schubert to stop throwing stones at me, and the day after Christmas—that last year—she pretended to be impressed by my meager haul then brought me to her house (it smelled of peppermint and evergreen) where she dumped the contents of a giant stocking on her bed, dividing it between us because, she said, Santa meant for me to have an equal share. “Were just so alike. Sometimes he gets us confused.”

So it came to be that I made the error of inviting the Strangos I found standing beneath the streetlamp into my house. They looked cold and forlorn and, I admit, I was curious. Why would they choose to be Strangos when they could be daughters; loved and loving on early Christmas morn?

“Why are you here?” I asked, as I hung their wet coats in the downstairs shower where they dropped chips of ice on the linoleum.

“We came to see Laurel’s tree. Did you cut it down?” they asked. “Did you save the wood? ’Cause it’s haunted.”

“Here.” I offered the blue willow cup and saucer my mother once loved, trembling with excitement at my first Christmas guests, ever. “Do you take lemon, cream, or sugar?”

“Oh, I don’t drink tea,” said the first Strango, frowning into the cup.

“Me neither,” said the other. “What else you got?”

They reminded me of Laurel. She would have sounded bossy, just like them. It put a smile on my face, it really did.

“I have Coke and milk. There might be juice.”

“What about eggnog?”

I shook my head, no. “My mother said it is dangerous because of the eggs.”

“There are no eggs in eggnog,” said Strango One, frowning into her cup.

“What about cocoa?” asked Strango Two. “But it must have whipped cream. I hate marshmallows.”

“Laurel hates marshmallows too,” I blurted.

“We know,” the Strangos said in unison.

An uncomfortable silence settled over us. I wondered how they knew this about her. Was it buried somewhere in the movie; in the early scene when we met in kindergarten, perhaps? Or maybe noted in the companion volume, which I never purchased though I did page through it once, in the library, hunkered between shelves like a voyeur, my worn copy of Rilke temporarily abandoned?

“What’s it like?” Strango One asked. “To live in her house?”

“Whose house?”

“The murderer.”

I knew how Christmas was supposed to be and, while I had never entertained visitors, I had an idea how they were supposed to behave. I decided to rise above my guest’s poor manners. “Would you like toast? I can cut it in the shape of a star, or a boot.

The Strangos, sitting side-by-side on the couch in their matching dresses with knocked knees and wet socks, looked at each other, wide-eyed then clapped their hands; three quick claps.

“Goody,” said one.

“Yes, please,” said the other. “With cinnamon.”

Laurel liked cinnamon too. It made me sad to remember, though it did make the toast glitter pleasantly. I wished I had cocoa, but the Strangos didn’t seem to mind the Coke and one of them even commented favorably on the combination, saying she planned to make it a tradition. I’m not sure if she was serious. It is very difficult for me to differentiate between mockery and affection.

After the Strangos finished their snack we sat and stared at each other. I studied them closely for clues on how to proceed but when Strango One began picking her dress with long fingernails as though harvesting fleas, I began to fear my little party was in trouble. “Would you like to play charades?”

“How about hide-and-seek?” Strango One replied.

Personally, I never liked the game and didn’t see what it had to do with the holiday but in the spirit of being a good hostess, I agreed.

“You hide,” Strango One said.

I thought it unkind, to send me off alone while they counted to a thousand and five, yet they were guests and, as such, should be graciously accommodated. How strange it was, then, to be alone again in this new fashion; knowing there were those nearby who shared companionship while I had none. Even though they were Strangos, it made me lonely in a way I hadn’t been for a long time. Hearing their voices count together brought to mind the sound of Laurel and me reciting “The Night Before Christmas,” which we learned in its entirety in second grade. The memory only made me want to create more distance between me and the Strangos. I crept up the stairs; careful to skip the third from the top. The sound of their counting became a murmur that reminded me of waking in my bedroom when I was young, listening to the sounds my parents made.

What had I been thinking? Why had I invited Strangos into my house?

Before then it had never occurred to me to enter the forbidden attic, but it offered a perfect hiding place; its narrow door blended neatly with the paneled wood and the small hole that once housed a doorknob appeared to be a whorl. It was off limits when I was a child, the occasional source of strange noises my father attributed to ghosts, though I had seen him take my brother up there and knew the moans belonged to him. I stood at the bottom of the jagged staircase, looking up the dark portal with the odd feeling of assessing a giant jigsaw piece, memorizing it before pulling the door shut and slowly walking up the stairs, imagining all sorts of frightening things like mice and bats, spiders, and the like.

The attic was surprisingly small and, once I adjusted, cozy in a way. As a child I often “played mole,” rolling up in a blanket and hiding in my bedroom closet; it made sense that I enjoyed the confined space with its low slanted ceiling jutted at odd angles over inviting corners. There wasn’t much up there—an old bed, broken lamps, boxes filled with tools—but it was surprisingly warm. I sat, leaning against the wall and felt something like happiness, or what I remembered of it. “See Dad,” I whispered. “I always knew it was you,” which led to tears that surprised me with their sudden, inexplicable arrival.

The single, old window offered a patch of bruised sky I stared at; finally hypnotized into a slumber until revived by a luminescence that filled the room with a holy glow. “Laurel?” I whispered, but did not wait for a flicker of acknowledgment; instead, I turned away, curled into the reassuring crook of my elbow. For some, hope is an annihilation; a greater loss than the loss from which it is born.

I don’t know how long I slept, but when I awoke the attic was consumed by darkness, there was an uncomfortable crick in my neck and my knees ached as I carefully unwound myself. I bumped my shin on my way across the room, maneuvered carefully down the stairs, suspecting the Strangos were long gone; if I fell and hit my head I would likely die and be decomposed before anyone even noticed I was missing.

What a mess the Strangos made! The house was in chaos; furniture moved, lamps unplugged, cupboards left open. What, I wondered, did the Strangos think I had shrunk myself small as a pin—the refrigerator drawers drawn full to reveal a pale head of lettuce, carrots and eggs thrown to the floor—before I accepted they had not been guests, but invaders. I closed the drawers, tidied up as one does, returned each thing that could be returned to its rightful place and tossed what was ruined; when my eyes fell to an errant orange, an orb of brilliance I plucked from its shadowed corner and peeled, getting skin beneath my nails as the bright spiral fell against the white porcelain. I wiped my tears with orange scented fingertips, finally understanding the answer I had been given: the sweet taste, the holy glow, the great loss and widening absence; to be robbed day-after-day, month-after- month, year-after-year; left to fall deeper into the void, find an orange there, and destroy it.