C.S.E. Cooney - Bone Swans - Stories

Beatrice tossed her slingshot to Tex. “Yours, my man.”

“Thanks, Beatrice,” he mumbled. His tears fell into the gray dust, hot and living. The water welled up, sparkled, began to form a stream.

The first of seven rivers , Beatrice thought.

She unwound a blue ribbon from her hair and dropped it into Diodiance’s outstretched palm. Diodiance wrapped it twice around her arm and tied it off with her teeth. Her lips trembled.

Drip. Drip. Splash.

Another river.

“Quickly now, children,” said the Flabberghast. “Not through the arch, but through the elephant’s legs. The left elephant, mind. The one on the right takes you to a far different place.” He winked a long black eye and lifted his slender wrist. “Ah, speaking of which, before you go…Might you spare me those last precious dewdrops of your wet blood? That I may myself get back through, you understand. The doors to the deadlands are tricky and likely to lock behind one.”

Tex hesitated, but Diodiance whacked him on the arm. Granny Two-Shoes acquiesced before either of them, anointing him with the sticky remnant of her wound. Tex and Diodiance followed suit, then slung their arms around each other and disappeared between the stone legs. Sheepdog Sal licked Beatrice’s hand and bounded away with Granny Two-Shoes clinging tightly to her fur. Lastly, the Flabberghast shouldered what was left of the Gray Harlequin like a sack of presents. He turned his stagger into a bow for Beatrice.

“I apologize,” he said, “for flensing your skin before you were quite dead all the way through, then stretching it upon my wall. But I needed a doorway. And your skin was so very, very clear.”

Bent low like that, he came face-to-face with her. In the blackness of his eyes, stars.

Beatrice asked softly, “We’ll never know, will we? Whatever it is you are.”

“I,” he answered, laughing, “am the Flabberghast!”

Then off he danced with that weight on his back, awkward as tumbleweed. Only Beatrice noticed he did not leave through the left set of stone legs. He’d taken the ones on the right. Went elsewhere. Where the Tall Ones go.

Resolutely, Beatrice turned her back again on the Elephant Gate. A golden wind warmed her neck. A rent in the gray sky showed a gleam of blue.

Eleven Lovely Emilies smiled down at her.

I should begin, as this book begins, with Gene Wolfe. As he mentioned, my father introduced us when I was eighteen. Quite unrelated to this life-changing event, I had just read my first Gene Wolfe novel, The Shadow of the Torturer . Kismet? You bet. In Gene I found a mentor and correspondent, a kindred spirit who brought me to my first convention (it was actually World Horror in Chicago, where he and Neil Gaiman were the Guests of Honor; Readercon and the ostensible witch coven came a bit later), gave me my first graphic novel ( Sandman: Fables and Reflections ), and critiqued my first short stories. He’s the one who told me to write short stories in the first place. He said that’s how writers begin. Then they work their way up to novels after they had some credits to their byline. He taught me how to write a cover letter, and the proper format for a manuscript. He taught me everything I know. One of the brightest moments of our friendship for me came when he introduced me to the waitress at his favorite restaurant as “my honorary granddaughter.” If ever an apprentice earned her journeyman papers through the kindness and acuity of a true master, I am that apprentice, and my undisputed master is Gene Wolfe.

I have dedicated this collection to John O’Neill and Tina Jens. From the earliest years of my would-be career, these two have been my champions and friends. They are tireless advocates for any new writers they meet, canny editors, and brilliant writers in their own right. Some of my first publication-worthy short stories wouldn’t have been without them. Through Tina Jens and Twilight Tales , I met a bevy of Chicago horror writers. Through John O’Neill and Black Gate , the rich world of sword and sorcery, along with its finest swashbuckling scriveners, like James Enge, Martha Wells, and Howard Andrew Jones, opened its ruby-crusted dungeon doors to me. It was John O’Neill who published “Life on the Sun” in Black Gate , as a sequel to my novella “Godmother Lizard,” also set in the Bellisaar Wasteland, and my first Black Gate sale.

For “The Bone Swans of Amandale,” I must thank (or perhaps blame) the erstwhile Injustice League: Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, Cat Valente, Lev Grossman, Kat Howard, and particularly Doctor Theodora Goss. It is to them I owe my brief taste of a for-real-and-true New York City writing group. In Ellen’s and Delia’s living room, between clothing swaps and writing critiques, I happened to be flipping through Mercer Mayer’s The Pied Piper and grew particularly enamored of his little illustrated rats. Sometime in an idle moment, Theodora Goss mentioned that she’d love to have a rose named after her. The name “Dora Rose” sprang to mind, along with the image of a swan princess. I defy you to spend any amount of time around Theodora Goss and not start hallucinating about swan princesses. That, and my innate obsession with the Grimms’ tale of “The Juniper Tree” was what got me to my own Pied Piper retelling.

The genesis of “Martyr’s Gem” came from a dream, but the daytime writing was aided by so many: Ann Leckie, who first published it in GigaNotoSaurus , and whose keen editorial eye only improved it. My beautiful mother Sita, who has listened to every draft. Amal El-Mohtar and her parents Leila and Oussama, at whose house I took up the story thread after neglecting it for many months. With Amal, I must also mention our Caitlyn Paxson; as the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours, we three have performed the storytelling scene from “Martyr’s Gem” at several conventions and concert venues, which is always thrilling. Janelle McHugh, who strung me a necklace like the one Shursta made for Hyrryai. Erik Amundsen, Magill Foote, and Grant Jeffery, together with drummer Will Sergiy IV and several actors of Flock Theatre, who helped me put together an animated short of that same scene. Rich Horton for selecting it for his Year’s Best anthology. Geoff Leatham, Ben Leatham, and my friend Eric Michaelian, who gave me a rare and beautiful few minutes of hearing three readers discuss my story unabashedly right in front of me, as I grinned and glowed at them and occasionally spun pirouettes for pure joy.

Many a discussion I’ve had with my friend and fellow writer “Dread” Patty Templeton about the ubiquitous presence of beautiful people in all our storytelling media. The heroes and heroines of “Martyr’s Gem” and “Milkmaid” came out of our ardent assertion that those of us who are plain or just plain ugly are as capable of passionate, witty, romantic, terrifying adventures as pretty people. As Leonard Cohen wrote, “Well, never mind it / We are ugly, but we have the music.” I think of Patty Templeton when I think of my Milkmaid and her Gentry Prince. I also think of my best friend Kiri-Marie O’Mahony, who once sat there and described the entire story of “Milkmaid” to me and then asked, “So, have you ever read it?” And looked so very astonished when I reminded her, amid whoops of laughter, that I had written it.

For “The Big Bah-Ha,” I thank JoSelle Vanderhooft, who originally acquired it for Drollerie Press. I thank Jeremy Cooney for creating two marvelous trailers for it. I thank Rebecca Huston (always and forever), whose collaboration and artwork awake fires in me. I thank Gillian Hastings again for being my roommate at the time it was written, and a luminous one at that.