Ellen Datlow: Black Heart, Ivory Bones

“Ha!” said I.

“Oh!” cried Dido.

Dando gave a scream which if I were to try to reproduce it by means of the English alphabet would possess more syllables than any word hitherto seen. Then he caught up Pandemonium’s reins and rode off with that extraordinary speed of which I know him to be capable.

The death of John Hollyshoes had weakened the spell he had cast on the ivy, and Dido and I were able quite easily to tear it away. We rode back to Allhope, where I restored her to joyful parent, loving husband, and hungry child. My parishioners came to the cottage to load me with praises, grateful thanks, promises of future aid, etc., etc. I however was tired to death and, after making a short speech advising them to benefit from the example I had given them of courage and selflessness, I pleaded the excuse of a headache to come home.

One thing, however, has vexed me very much , and that is there was no time to conduct a proper examination of John Hollyshoes’s body. For it occurs to me that just as Reason is seated in the brain of Man, so we Fairies may contain within ourselves some organ of Magic . Certainly the fairy’s bisected corpse had some curious features. I append here a rough sketch and a few notes describing the ways in which Fairy anatomy appears to depart from Human anatomy. I intend to be in the woods at first light to examine the corpse more closely.

The body is gone. Dando, I suppose, has spirited it away. This is most vexatious as I had hoped to have it sent to Mr. Baillie’s anatomy school in Great Windmill-street in London. I suppose that the baby in the bare room at the end of the corridor will inherit End-Of-All-Hope House and all John Hollyshoes’s estates, but perhaps the loss of Dido’s milk at this significant period in its life will prevent its growing up as strong in wickedness as its parent.

I have not abandoned my own hopes of inheriting my father’s estate and may very well pursue my claim when I have the time. I have never heard that the possession of an extensive property in Faerie was incompatible with the duties of a priest of the Church of England — indeed I do not believe that I ever heard the subject mentioned.

I have been most villainously betrayed by the Reverend John McKenzie! I take it particularly hard since he is the person from whom — as a fellow clergyman — I might most reasonably have expected support. It appears that he is to marry the heiress to a castle and several hundred miles of bleak Scottish wilderness in Caithness. I hope there may be bogs and that John McKenzie may drown in them. Disappointed love has, I regret to say, screwed Miss Mary Macdonald up to such a pitch of anger that she has turned upon Henrietta and me. She writes to Henrietta that she is certain I am not be trusted and she threatens to write to Mrs. Gathercole and Mrs. Edmond. Henrietta is not afraid; rather, she exults in the coming storm.

“You will protect me!” she cried, her eyes flashing with strange brilliance and her face flushed with excitement.

“My dear girl,” said I, “I will be dead .”

George Hollinsclough was here a moment ago with a message that I am to wait upon Mrs. Gathercole and Mrs. Edmond immediately . I take one last fond look around this room. …

“Mr. Simonelli or the Fairy Widower” is a rendering of “Midwife to the Fairies,” found in English, Irish, Scots, and Breton variations. Clarke’s story also makes deft use of many other classic folklore themes: the girl who was stolen away to suckle a fairy baby, the seeing eye, the faery house in the woods, etc. Celtic fairy lore of this sort can be found in the collections of Katherine Briggs .

INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY TERRI WINDLING

“RAPUNZEL” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY TANITH LEE

“THE CRONE” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY DELIA SHERMAN

“BIG HAIR” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY ESTHER FRIESNER

“THE KING WITH THREE DAUGHTERS” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY RUSSELL BLACKFORD

“BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY NEIL GAIMAN

“AND STILL SHE SLEEPS” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY GREG COSTIKYAN

“SNOW IN SUMMER” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY JANE YOLEN

“BRIAR ROSE” AND “WITCH” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY DEBRA CASH

“CHANTERELLE” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY BRIAN STABLEFORD

“BEAR IT AWAY” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY MICHAEL CADNUM

“GOLDILOCKS TELLS ALL” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY SCOTT BRADFIELD

“MY LIFE AS A BIRD” WAS FIRST PUBLISHED BY TRISKELL PRESS, 1996. COPYRIGHT © 1996 BY CHARLES DE LINT. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.

“THE RED BOOTS” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY LEAH CUTTER

“ROSIE’S DANCE” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY EMMA HARDESTY

“YOU, LITTLE MATCH-GIRL” BY JOYCE CAROL OATES COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY THE ONTARIO REVIEW, INC.

“DREAMING AMONG MEN” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY BRYN KANAR

“THE CATS OF SAN MARTINO” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY ELLEN STEIBER

“THE GOLEM” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY SEVERNA PARK

“OUR MORTAL SPAN” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY HOWARD WALDROP

“MR. SIMONELLI OR THE FAIRY WIDOWER” COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY SUSANNA CLARKE

Ellen Datlow is an acclaimed, award-winning science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor.

Born and raised in New York, Datlow aspired to be a veterinarian when she was a child, but changed her plans when she realized how much she preferred reading and writing to math and science. Her first publishing job was in the New York office of Little, Brown & Co. in 1973. During the next eight years she worked at a handful of other publishing companies before finally finding her calling in 1981 as an editor of short fiction at OMNI magazine, where she worked until 1998. She has also worked at the online magazine Event Horizon and at scifi.com.

Datlow has edited more than fifty anthologies, including the bestselling collections Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy, Supernatural Noir , and Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror . She has published important science fiction and fantasy writers such as Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula K. Le Guin, Clive Barker, William S. Burroughs, and many more.

She has also edited or co-edited numerous critically acclaimed anthologies of speculative fiction, including the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series. She often collaborates with renowned co-editor Terri Windling, with whom she worked on Snow White, Blood Red , a work of adult fairy tales that has been one of their most successful projects together.

Datlow is the recipient of several awards, including multiple Shirley Jackson awards and Bram Stoker awards, Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor, Hugo Awards for Best Short Form Editor, and Locus Awards for Best Editor, to name just a few. She also received the Karl Edward Wagner Award for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” In 2011, she was the recipient of a Life Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association, and in 2014 she was awarded the Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Association. Datlow also cohosts a popular reading series, Fantastic Fiction, at the KGB Bar in New York City, where she resides.

Baby Datlow in 1950. The so-called Gerber baby portrait was common at the time.