Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Vol 15

A lock fell from the gate, leaving but one now to bar it. Those that walked within shuddered and drew closer. I recoiled from them, and hurried back up that tunnel through the hill, that grave-mound, until at last I was in the open with the light of moon and stars blazing above.

Soon I was home and abed, but again my night was one of fret.

An invisible bed-mate clung leech-close to me, draining my body. My tired eyes conjured shadows into phantasmagorical shapes, all becoming that of Mara, who tantalized me so that I cried out aloud for her. Until, with the dawn, I looked from my window to assure myself that I was still on the Earth and had not yet been taken below.

Later, as I approached the bridge over the creek, I saw that a crowd had gathered there and curiously joined them to look.

On the mud of the bank stood a group of men, who raised a figure covered by a sheet to silently bear it upon their shoulders. They used her more gently, I think, than anyone ever had in her poor life. The cover fell to reveal her face, the shorn red hair, the blank eyes that looked up at me. A woman cried out and another began a prayer; a man said what a shame it was that such a pretty thing had done that to herself.

The sheet was pulled back over her face, dead and white as the moon’s, and I hurried down to the station, reaching it as the rain began to fall as tears of grief.

That evening, on my reluctant return to Mabbs End — I should not have returned at all, perhaps then Mara might have left me alone — the rain had become a downpour. I found my perversity in daring this danger, for that was what I knew it to be, quite frankly, amazing. By the time I reached the bridge I was soaked through, but I ignored this chilly discomfort for I anticipated meeting Mara. That we would encounter each other again I did not doubt.

I stood on the beach watching the torrent of water run down the creek and the reflection of a gas lamp flickering in the flood. Or was it the pale face of a lost girl, a moonchild, a dream child, a love child, my wish-child, seeking for her soul?

Wearily, I climbed Mabbs Hill, looking all around me for Mara. But the murk-black rain fell in sheets, and I could see little. I kept vigil under the shelter of an oak until, when I was on the point of giving up, I felt her presence by me and saw that she stood near, watching me with a raptorial smile. Her uncovered hair gleamed slick with the rain that ran down the valley between her breasts.

“I cannot escape you,” she purred. “We meet together in mist and frost, now rain, you strange man without a soul. I am curious about what you were given for it. Was it a good price?”

“That is no business of yours. It is long gone and there is nothing that you could give me that I would want.”

“I have a web, cunningly fashioned, in which souls are trapped. When I wish to feed, I pluck one out and drink.” She laughed, and her teeth showed sharp. “I like to play with them too, pull their wings off. For they take the form of moths, each with a human face, and yours, I think, is one among them.”

Mara came close to me, and I was like to fall into the trap of her eyes but turned mine away. Her lips touched my ear as she whispered, and I thought of those sharp teeth and my blood in that mouth, and could not help but flinch from them.

“Come with me,” tempted Mara, “and I shall show you such wonders. I know where your soul is. Shall I give it back?”

“It is not yours to give,” I answered, and remembered the red-haired girl, the moonchild, with her pale-dead face, and knew what I must do. “But you may take me there with you, under the hill to see, for I am curious.”

The earth of Mabbs Hill parted before her, it seemed, and we were at the gate of the necropolis, a city for those dead interred deeper than any could imagine, save in nightmare.

The third lock fell from the gate and it drew open, pulled, it seemed, by invisible hands. Through the gate we went and to a great tomb about which, shining silver in the light of that mock-moon, a thick web clung. Pale as bone, the orb shining below ground. I knew it for the face of Mara by the smear of blood, the Grave-Queen’s mask watching over her dominion.

In the web were held poor struggling things, those caught in the moon-spider’s net, trawled by that Mara.

I looked closely, on the web. Seeing her, I plucked the moth-girl carefully from the holding strands and blew my breath on her until a shiver throbbed there. Unsteadily, with beating wings, she rose from my hand and flitted about, unsure of which way to turn.

I watched her unsteady flutter, willing her to fly away. But, after a few moments of confused flitting, the moth-girl fell back, straight as an arrow, to the web, willingly caught again in its toils.

“You should have taken her with you,” said Mara. “Perhaps put her in a bottle to look at when it pleased you to. A curiosity to show your friends — a moth with a girl’s flower-face. No better off than she is in my web. I could have given her to you, your little red witch, bound with thongs made of her own hair. It was very long, and there was more than enough for that.”

Enough, too, to tie a tether about my heart. Though my soul was gone, I still had that to my sorrow. I knew that between myself and Mara there could be but one thing. My hand shook as I unsheathed the swordstick’s blade, and she looked at me with such terrible desire.

“Would you like to cut me with your steel?” she mocked as I hesitated. “See me bleed? I can always obtain a sufficiency of blood, so will take no harm. I will scream most prettily for you too, if that is your need. You may do anything to me, anything you desire, and all I want from you is but a kiss.”

The guise fell from her like a discarded garment, and she snarled like a beast — the fangs that bite, the lips that suck, and the tongue to lap the blood.

I did not hesitate but, with one swift motion, sunk my sword into the creature’s body. Cold iron is a sovereign remedy against the powers of the air, the undead, those too much alive for the good of mankind.

She uttered a groan at my thrust, the sound of one far gone in passion. Then, to my horror, with a mocking and ironic bow, she herself withdrew the blade from her own flesh to hand it back to me. In a moment the deep wound that I had caused her miraculously healed itself before my eyes, leaving not a mark there.

“You have had your will of me,” purred Mara. “Now I will take from you. That is only fair.”

She seized me, and I was held helpless as she bit. I felt a brief instant of vertigo, sickening in its intensity, followed by a burning joy that was too soon over. My head spinning, I fell to the ground and lay there, looking up at her like a drunkard gazing at the moon.

“You are mine for ever, but then you always have been — all men are.”

I saw my blood smearing her grinning lips, and staggered to my feet. Again, in a frenzy, I struck at her with my sword, slashing at the flesh as she mocked. Her blood steamed molten as those fires within the earth. At last my arm grew weary, and the glamour fell from my eyes to reveal what had been destroyed.

Hacked and black with blood, the poor carrion lay before me. I was no longer beneath the mound of Mabbs Hill, as it had seemed, but upon our middle earth where the rain had ceased and the betraying moon burst through cloud to reveal what I had done. A hand, completely severed, pointed up in accusation at me, and I shuddered in horror at my crime.

Then, uttering a laugh such as demons give, Mara rose up before me, bearing no trace of a wound upon her bare body. Again I was in that netherworld where she ruled her get, who gathered about to mock and jeer me.