Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

Robert Shearman

Karen thought of them as her daughters, and tried to love them with all her heart. Because, really, wasn’t that the point? They came to her, all frilly dresses, and fine hair, and plastic limbs, and eyes so large and blue and innocent. And she would name them, and tell them she was their mother now; she took them to her bed, and would give them tea parties, and spank them when they were naughty; she promised she would never leave them, or, at least, not until the end.

Her father would bring them home. Her father travelled a lot, and she never knew where he’d been, if she asked he’d just laugh and tap his nose and say it was all hush-hush — but she could sometimes guess from how exotic the daughters were, sometimes the faces were strange and foreign, one or two were nearly mulatto. Karen didn’t care, she loved them all anyway, although she wouldn’t let the mulatto ones have quite the same nursery privileges. “Here you are, my sweetheart, my angel cake, my baby doll,” and from somewhere within Father’s great jacket he’d produce a box, and it was usually gift-wrapped, and it usually had a ribbon on it—“This is all for you, my baby doll.” She liked him calling her that, although she suspected she was too old for it now, she was very nearly eight years old.

She knew what the daughters were. They were tributes. That was what Nicholas called them. They were tributes paid to her, to make up for the fact that Father was so often away, just like in the very olden days when the Greek heroes would pay tributes to their gods with sacrifices. Nicholas was very keen on Greek heroes, and would tell his sister stories of great battles and wooden horses and heels. She didn’t need tributes from Father; she would much rather he didn’t have to leave home in the first place. Nicholas would tell her of the tributes Father had once paid Mother — he’d bring her jewellery, and fur coats, and tickets to the opera. Karen couldn’t remember Mother very well, but there was that large portrait of her over the staircase. In a way, Karen saw Mother more often than she did Father. Mother was wearing a black ball gown, and such a lot of jewels, and there was a small studied smile on her face. Sometimes when Father paid tribute to Karen, she would try and give that same studied smile, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever got it right.

Father didn’t call Nicholas “angel cake” or “baby doll,” he called him “Nicholas,” and Nicholas called him “sir.” And Father didn’t bring Nicholas tributes. Karen felt vaguely guilty about that — that she’d get showered with gifts and her brother would get nothing. Nicholas told her not to be so silly. He wasn’t a little girl, he was a man. He was ten years older than Karen, and lean, and strong, and he was attempting to grow a moustache; the hair was a bit too fine for it to be seen in bright light, but it would darken as he got older. Karen knew her brother was a man, and that he wouldn’t want toys. But she’d give him a hug sometimes, almost impulsively, when Father came home and seemed to ignore him — and Nicholas never objected when she did.

Eventually Nicholas would say to Karen, “It’s time,” and she knew what that meant. And she’d feel so sad, but again, wasn’t that the point? She’d go and give her daughter a special tea party then, and she’d play with her all day; she’d brush her hair, and let her see the big wide world from out of the top window; she wouldn’t get cross even if her daughter got naughty. And she wouldn’t try to explain. That would all come after. Karen would go to bed at the usual time, Nanny never suspected a thing. But once Nanny had left the room and turned out the light, Karen would get up and put on her clothes again, nice thick woollen ones, sometimes it was cold out there in the dark. And she’d bundle her daughter up warm as well. And once the house was properly still she’d hear a tap at the door, and there Nicholas would be, looking stern and serious and just a little bit excited. She’d follow him down the stairs and out of the house; they’d usually leave by the tradesmen’s entrance, the door was quieter. They wouldn’t talk until they were far away, and very nearly into the woods themselves.

He’d always give Karen a few days to get to know her daughters before he came for them. He wanted her to love them as hard as she could. He always seemed to know when it was the right time. With one doll, her very favourite, he had given her only until the weekend — it had been love at first sight, the eyelashes were real hair, and she’d blink when picked up, and if she were cuddled tight she’d say “Mama.” Sometimes Nicholas gave them as long as a couple of months; some of the dolls were a fright, and cold to the touch, and it took Karen a while to find any affection for them at all. But Karen was a girl with a big heart. She could love anything, given time and patience. Nicholas must have been carefully watching his sister, just to see when her heart reached its fullest — and she never saw him do it; he usually seemed to ignore her altogether, as if she were still too young and too silly to be worth his attention. But then, “It’s time,” he would say, and sometimes it wasn’t until that very moment that Karen would realise she’d fallen in love at all, and of course he was right, he was always right.

Karen liked playing in the woods by day. By night they seemed strange and unrecognisable, the branches jutted out at peculiar angles as if trying to bar her entrance. But Nicholas wasn’t afraid, and he always knew his way. She kept close to him for fear he would rush on ahead and she would be lost. And she knew somehow that if she got lost, she’d be lost forever — and it may turn daylight eventually, but that wouldn’t matter, she’d have been trapped by the woods of the night, and the woods of the night would get to keep her.

And at length they came to the clearing. Karen always supposed that the clearing was at the very heart of the woods, she didn’t know why. The tight press of trees suddenly lifted, and here there was space — no flowers, nothing, some grass, but even the grass was brown, as if the sunlight couldn’t reach it here. And it was as if everything had been cut away to make a perfect circle that was neat and tidy and so empty, and it was as if it had been done especially for them. Karen could never find the clearing in the daytime. But then, she had never tried very hard.

Nicholas would take her daughter, and set her down upon that browning grass. He would ask Karen for her name, and Karen would tell him. Then Nicholas would tell Karen to explain to the daughter what was going to happen here. “Betsy, you have been sentenced to death.” And Nicholas would ask Karen upon what charge. “Because I love you too much, and I love my brother more.” And Nicholas would ask if the daughter had any final words to offer before sentence was carried out; they never had.

He would salute the condemned then, nice and honourably. And Karen would by now be nearly in tears; she would pull herself together. “You mustn’t cry,” said Nicholas, “you can’t cry, if you cry the death won’t be a clean one.” She would salute her daughter too.

What happened next would always be different.

When he’d been younger, Nicholas had merely hanged them. He’d put rope around their little necks and take them to the closest tree and let them drop down from the branches, and there they’d swing for a while, their faces still frozen with trusting smiles. As he’d become a man he’d found more inventive ways to despatch them. He’d twist off their arms, he’d drown them in buckets of water he’d already prepared, he’d stab them with a fork. He’d say to Karen, “And how much do you love this one?” And if Karen told him she loved her very much, so much the worse for her daughter — he’d torture her a little first, blinding her, cutting off her skin, ripping off her clothes and then toasting with matches the naked stuff beneath. It was always harder to watch these executions because Karen really had loved them, and it was agony to see them suffer so. But she couldn’t lie to her brother. He would have seen through her like glass.