Cursed Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  MARIE O’REGAN AND PAUL KANE

  Castle Cursed

  JANE YOLEN

  As Red as Blood, as White as Snow

  CHRISTINA HENRY

  Troll Bridge

  NEIL GAIMAN

  At That Age

  CATRIONA WARD

  Listen

  JEN WILLIAMS

  Henry and the Snakewood Box

  M.R. CAREY

  Skin

  JAMES BROGDEN

  Faith & Fred

  MAURA MCHUGH

  The Black Fairy’s Curse

  KAREN JOY FOWLER

  Wendy, Darling

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

  Fairy Werewolf vs. Vampire Zombie

  CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

  Look Inside

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

  Little Red

  JANE YOLEN AND ADAM STEMPLE

  New Wine

  ANGELA SLATTER

  Haza and Ghani

  LILITH SAINTCROW

  Hated

  CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

  The Merrie Dancers

  ALISON LITTLEWOOD

  Again

  TIM LEBBON

  The Girl from the Hell

  MARGO LANAGAN

  Castle Waking

  JANE YOLEN

  About the Authors

  About the Editors

  Acknowledgements

  CURSED

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

  Dark Cities: All-New Masterpieces of Urban Terror

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  Exit Wounds

  Hex Life

  Infinite Stars

  Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers

  Invisible Blood

  New Fears: New Horror Stories by Masters of the Genre

  New Fears 2: Brand New Horror Stories by Masters of the Macabre

  Phantoms: Haunting Tales from the Masters of the Genre

  Rogues

  Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

  Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse

  Wastelands: The New Apocalypse

  Wonderland

  CURSED

  EDITED BY

  MARIE O’REGAN

  AND PAUL KANE

  TITAN BOOKS

  Cursed

  Paperback edition ISBN: 9781789091502

  Electronic edition ISBN: 9781789091519

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: March 2020

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  Introduction © Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane 2020

  Castle Cursed © Jane Yolen 2020

  As Red As Blood, As White As Snow © Christina Henry 2020

  Troll Bridge © Neil Gaiman 1993. Originally published in Snow White, Blood Red, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  At That Age © Catriona Ward 2020

  Listen © Jen Williams 2020

  Henry and the Snakewood Box © M.R. Carey 2020

  Skin © James Brogden 2020

  Faith & Fred © Maura McHugh 2020

  The Black Fairy’s Curse © Karen Joy Fowler 1997. Originally published in Black Swan, White Raven edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

  Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Wendy, Darling © Christopher Golden 2014. Originally published in Out of Tune, edited by Jonathan Maberry. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Fairy Werewolf vs. Vampire Zombie © Charlie Jane Anders 2011. Originally published in Flurb: A Webzine of Astonishing Tales #11, edited by Eileen Gunn.

  Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Look Inside © Michael Marshall Smith 2013. Originally published in Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome, edited by Stephen Jones. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Little Red © Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple 2009. Originally published in Firebirds Soaring: An Anthology of Original Speculative Fiction, edited by Sharyn November.

  Reprinted by permission of the authors.

  New Wine © Angela Slatter 2020

  Haza and Ghani © Lilith Saintcrow 2020

  Hated © Christopher Fowler 1995. Originally published in Flesh Wounds.

  Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Merrie Dancers © Alison Littlewood 2020

  Again © Tim Lebbon 2020

  The Girl From The Hell © Margo Lanagan 2020

  Castle Waking © Jane Yolen 2020

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  CURSED

  INTRODUCTION

  BY MARIE O’REGAN AND PAUL KANE

  Curses.

  You’ve gotta love ’em.

  That staple of any fairy tale, the core of the morality stories we’ve all grown up with – stories that teach us lessons, feed our belief that guilt should be punished, keep us on the straight and narrow path, hopefully… The classic examples draw from folklore across the world, and in this anthology you’ll find stories drawing inspiration from the tales of Norway, Denmark, France and more. They include tales by the likes of Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen and the brothers Grimm (the originals written by the latter being much, much darker than a lot of people realise). Sleeping Beauty, for instance, pricking her finger and dropping to sleep for all that time. And look at Little Red Riding Hood, whose family was certainly cursed by that wolf – a curse in itself, if you believe some of the takes on it. Snow White as well, cursed by that witch of a queen and her poison apple. But, without the bad, how would we recognise the good?

  Our aim in this book was simple. To use the idea of being cursed as a jumping-off point, offering writers the chance to rework some of the classics – as Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple do in “Little Red”, Neil Gaiman does in “Troll Bridge”, Lilith Saintcrow in “Haza and Ghani”, and Christina Henry in “As Red As Blood, As White As Snow” – making them their own and presenting very different spins on the familiar. At the same time we wanted to include new, modern “cursed” stories – morality tales from the likes of Christopher Fowler (“Hated”), James Brogden (“Skin”), Catriona Ward (“At That Age”), and Margo Lanagan (“The Girl From The Hell”). Not all of these stories fit the traditional fairy tale style, but all of them share the dark heart at such stories’ core.

  Authors were encouraged to think outside of the box – or even inside it, literally, as you’ll see in M.R. Carey’s darkly comic “Henry and the Snakewood Box” and Michael Marshall Smith’s “Look Inside” – whilst drawing inspiration from sources such as Peter Pan (Christopher Golden’s “Wendy, Darling”) or the Bluebeard legend (Angela Slatter’s “New Wine”). Not to mention creating their own mythologies (Jen Williams’ “Listen”), drawing inspiration from or blending others (Alison Littlewood’s “The Merrie Dancers”), creating curses complete with their own rules (Tim Lebbon’s “Again” and Maura McHugh’s “Faith & Fred”), or even bringing i
n horror staples (Charlie Jane Anders’ riotous “Fairy Werewolf vs. Vampire Zombie”).

  By the time you’ve finished reading all the amazing stories from these outstanding authors, all at the top of their game, you’ll realise that curses come in all shapes and sizes and are hidden in the most unlikely of places – as if you needed any more incentive to beware.

  Why, they might even come in the form of words in an anthology… You just never know.

  Curses.

  You’ve gotta love ’em.

  MARIE O’REGAN AND PAUL KANE

  Derbyshire, July 2019.

  CASTLE CURSED

  Jane Yolen

  The curse crawled silent as a serpent

  Through the roots of the hedge.

  Wallflowers wilted, though the garden

  Remained as if painted onto the ground.

  A hawk in a deep stoop falls

  Bill-first onto the loam,

  The moat serpent floats.

  Horses stop between one whinny and the next.

  Three guards, still on duty, draw no pay

  For a hundred years, but still keep

  Most of the castle safe,

  Though not the tower room where the princess sleeps.

  She is caught between one sigh and the next,

  Lips pursed as if inviting a kiss,

  Or tasting the sourness of age,

  Or regretting everything except the needle in her palm.

  AS RED AS BLOOD, AS WHITE AS SNOW

  CHRISTINA HENRY

  “It would please me more than anything in the wide world to see this ring upon your finger, for it would mean your consent to be my wife,” he said, and knelt before her.

  A murmur went around the room – a rush of approval from the courtiers – for what more could their princess want than this prince? He was wealthy and handsome and came from a fair land, or so it was said, for his land was so distant that none among them had ever seen it.

  His manners were so delightful that he had immediately been dubbed “Prince Charming”, though of course no one would show such disrespect by calling him this within his earshot.

  Snow did not find him charming. When she looked into his dark, dark eyes she saw not the fizzy delight of charm but the flicker of a tongue through sharp teeth.

  He held the ring before her, his smile white and easy and expectant. Charming had chosen his moment well. She could hardly refuse him before the whole court, however much she wished to throw the ring in his face and flee.

  Snow’s eyes flickered to the King and Queen. Her stepmother’s mouth was flat, the corners of her eyes tight with fear. Snow’s father nodded and smiled like an old dotard, like he was enchanted – which he was.

  The Prince waited, for he had all the time in the world to wait, and he knew what her answer must be. She saw all of this in his face, in the unworried curve of lips, in his eyes where the snake coiled.

  “Of course I will,” she said, and she was proud that her voice was clear and ringing and that no one in the court would hear the terror boiling inside her.

  She wished she had the courage to run, but a princess is raised to be polite above all else, and if she refused him there would be Consequences – and Consequences always meant war, particularly when a man’s pricked honor was involved. Snow loved her country and her people. She did not wish for them to suffer. So she had to take the ring, even though she knew it was a trap.

  Snow saw, as if from a distance, her hand moving slowly toward Charming’s, saw the fine trembling of her blood underneath her white skin, saw the triumph slither across his fair face as he took her fingers.

  Her body quailed as he touched her. The shudder seemed to please him all the more. His grip tightened until it was hard enough to bruise, and she thought he might be testing her, to see how much she would take before she cried out.

  I will not, she thought, and her teeth ground together. I will not give him the pleasure.

  The moment the ring slid over her knuckle and into place, it clamped down cruelly and bound to her skin with small sharp teeth. The ruby shifted in its setting, seeming to watch her like a bloodied eye.

  His arm wound through hers, looking for all the world like a lover’s clasp, as they turned to face the court. Only Snow knew he held her in place, her butterfly wings flapping uselessly under his pin.

  He kept her close for many hours, and she felt her smile straining but it did not falter. Snow would not show him weakness, though she knew he felt her revulsion and seemed to secretly delight in it.

  As soon as she was able she slipped out of his arm.

  “It is very close in here, my prince,” she said. “I must go and take some air.”

  “Of course, my princess,” he said. “But hurry back to me, for I find I cannot abide a single moment without you.”

  Several of the young ladies (and even some of the older ones, who ought to have known better) clucked happily at this, murmuring about how fortunate their princess was to have received the love of such a devoted prince.

  Devoted, Snow thought bitterly as she slipped into the garden and tried not to think of it as running away. She only needed a moment to breathe, a moment apart from the miasma surrounding him.

  Snow went deep into the foliage, where none might stumble upon her by accident. She paused near her favorite pond, all covered in thick green lily pads with fat frogs perched upon them. Iridescent dragonflies soared back and forth, alighting here and there, and weeping willows hunched over the water, trailing their leaves.

  Snow huddled into the secret shadows under the trees, twisting at the ring on her finger though she knew it was fruitless. The metal looked like silver, though it didn’t behave like any ordinary silver she had ever known.

  As she twisted it the ring bit harder, its teeth pushing under her skin until blood welled up and Snow cried out.

  “It won’t come off that way, though I expect you already know that.”

  “Mother!” Snow said.

  She ran to her stepmother, who stood still and weeping at the edge of the pond, her hands twisted together in grief.

  The Queen folded Snow in her arms and they cried together, for she loved Snow as if the girl were her own daughter, and she had been the only mother Snow had ever known.

  After the storm of weeping passed, they went under the tree again and sat together in silence. The Queen put a finger over her lips to show that Snow should ask no questions. With her other hand she pantomimed Snow dipping the hand bound by the terrible ring into the water.

  Snow wondered at it but she obeyed, because her stepmother knew many things that Snow did not. The Queen had been born in an enchanted land – some of the enchantment clung to her still – and she could sometimes make little miracles happen.

  The moment Snow put her hand into the pond she felt something shift and quiet. She had a strange sense that the eye inside the ruby had been blinded.

  The Queen read the expression on Snow’s face, for they were close in heart if not in blood, and nodded.

  “Sometimes water can subdue magic, though it is only a temporary reprieve. As soon as you take it from the pond the ruby’s eye will open again.”

  “So it is spying on me,” Snow said. “I thought it was, though I nearly forgot after it bit me.”

  The Queen nodded. “This Prince has powers even I have never seen. He cast his spell on your father so quickly and completely that I never had the chance to stop it, or even soften it. But I know that if your father were awake, and himself, he would never consent to this marriage.”

  “But he is not awake, and not himself. And my three brothers are all away on affairs of the kingdom. There is no one to defend me from this wolf in our midst.”

  “We shall have to do what we can, for all that we cannot wield a sword against him,” the Queen said grimly. “I would not have you harmed. And he does mean you harm. There can be no mistake about that.”

  Snow nodded. “I can feel it. Though I don’t understand why
, or why he came here for me in the first place. Or even why his charms don’t seem to affect you or me.”

  “He came for you because of the same reason he cannot affect you,” the Queen said, and stroked Snow’s hair. “Your mother had a little enchantment in her, too, just a drop, and that drop was passed on to you, her lastborn child. It is not enough for you to weave spells, but enough to defend against them. Enough to keep the net that he casts on all others away from your eyes.”

  Snow was surprised to hear of the enchantment in her mother, though not as surprised as she ought to be. I must have known, somewhere deep down. I must have felt it. Besides, it doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters is that the prince wants me for it.

  “If my power is so little then why would it interest him? Surely a man with magic like his would want a true enchantress as his wife, one who could pass the gift into his bloodline.”

  The Queen tapped her fingers against her knee, as if contemplating if she should tell Snow what was in her mind.

  “Whatever it is that troubles you, you should tell me,” Snow said. “I may not be married to him yet, but I am well and truly bound to him now.”

  The Queen sighed. “It is only a rumor, nothing more. When I lived in my own land I heard stories of this prince’s father. They said that he had many wives and each one disappeared, never to be seen again. But it cannot be true, for if the princesses of many lands vanished then there would be outcry. Their fathers would march upon the kingdom, demanding to know the fate of their daughters. So this part cannot be true, not really.”

  “Not really” means it might be true. It really might.

  “And what is the other part of the story?” Snow asked.

  “When this Charming arrived I sent out a messenger in secret to the prince’s land. Since he was so unknown to us, I thought it the best thing. The messenger only returned last night, though he rode there and back with all the haste he could manage. He told me that Charming has been married before, and that his first wife died. The prince, of course, has neglected to mention this.”

  “Did the messenger say of what the wife died?”

  “Childbirth,” the Queen said.