She Walks in Shadows by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
INTRODUCTION
THERE IS A paucity of women in Lovecraft’s tales. Keziah, Lavinia and Asenath are his most notable women, even if they never take center stage. Some fans of Lovecraft’s stories have even questioned whether Asenath should be considered a woman, since it is her father who inhabits her body. In a way, Asenath functions as a literary Schr?dinger’s cat: She can be interpreted as a man and a woman at the same time. Philosopher Judith Butler would have a field day discussing her and issues concerning the materiality of the body.
In a couple of his collaborations/ghost-writing jobs, Lovecraft seemed to give women more prominent roles. Whether it was because ghost-writing client Zealia Brown-Reed Bishop asked for this is unclear. At any rate, collaborations with Brown-Reed Bishop yielded Marceline and Audrey, the latter the only point-of-view woman Lovecraft ever dealt with. However, in general, whatever women appear in Lovecraft’s stories lurk distantly in the shadows.
The present volume assembles stories about women, by women. Why an all-woman volume? The first spark was the notion, among some fans of the Lovecraft Mythos, that women do not like to write in this category, that they can’t write in this category.
Though, for a long time, the Lovecraft Mythos was a male-dominated field and tables of contents by men were commonplace, we have seen in the past decade an increasing number of women creators and fans joining both the Weird fiction and the Lovecraft scene.
Beside long-standing authors such as Caitlín R. Kiernan and Ann K. Schwader, we can find relative newcomers like Molly Tanzer and E. Catherine Tobler. In the arts, Liv Rainey-Smith has distinguished herself with her woodcut creations. Editors such as Paula Guran and Ellen Datlow have assembled more than one volume of Lovecraftian fiction. This year saw the release of the first South Korean film adaptation of a Lovecraft story. “The Music of Jo Hyeja” casts women as the leads, with a woman — Jihyun Park — also directing.
Yet, the perception that women are not inclined towards Weird or Lovecraftian fiction seems to persist. We hope this anthology will help to dispel such notions. We also hope it will provide fresh takes on a number of characters and creatures from Lovecraft’s stories, and add some completely new element to the Mythos. Most of all, we hope it will inspire new creations and inspire more women to write Weird or Lovecraftian tales.
Women have emerged from the shadows to claim the night. We welcome them gladly.
— Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles
AMMUTSEBA RISING
Ann K. Schwader
At first, a spectral haze against the darkness, some apparition less of mist than hunger made visible afflicts our evening. Stars within it flicker, fettered by corruption we sense but dimly. Terrible & ancient, it murmurs in the dreams of chosen daughters.
Not it, but She ... Chaos Incarnate’s daughter, thought-spawned at random from that primal darkness past memory or myth returns. What ancient sorceries survive to wake such hunger
in times like ours? What spirit of corruption endures to threaten these well-charted stars?
Minds blind to science, doubtful of the stars, accustomed to dominion over daughters
& wives alike, defy this world’s corruption with ignorance. No curse, but blessed darkness obscuring every sin — or any hunger
for truth beyond the authorized & ancient.
Above us now, authority more ancient
than mankind manifests. As fading stars surrender up their essence to a hunger
yet unsuspected by our science, daughters of ignorance awake. Unveiled from darkness, they lift their faces. Savor sweet corruption.
Arched like a crime-scene silhouette, corruption assumes the form of female. Feral. Ancient opener of all the ways to darkness,
Her mystery eclipses tarnished stars
we kept for wishing on. Perhaps our daughters will walk in shadow gladly, holding hunger inside them for a weapon. Nameless hunger reshaped their spirits: should we fear corruption in doing likewise? All of us are daughters denied some truth or other; craving ancient wisdom like the bitterness of stars
against Her tongue, expiring into darkness.
No dawn remains. O daughters called by ancient hunger, know the truth of your corruption: Devourer of Stars, perfected darkness.
TURN OUT THE LIGHT
Penelope Love
A re-imagining of the life and death of Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft.
“THE OPERATION WAS a success,” the voice said. “Everything was done to ensure her comfort. Then, during the night, her condition deteriorated. I’m sorry, but early this morning, she died.” The telephone line buzzed and clicked mechanically.
He stood, wrapped in his dressing gown, bare feet on the cold linoleum of the rooming house hall. It was late in the May of 1921.
He had been roused by the ringing of the telephone from lucid and horrible dreams. The dreams were forgotten on waking, but the nightmare aura still clung. He could not take the news in. He became convinced that there was no human on the other end of the line. This was an alien voice, something that only pretended to be human, that stole a human face to speak and human hands to feel. Prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and mechanical skill ….
“Everything that could be done was done. My condolences. You’ll want to see her, of course.”
The voice stopped.