Lorina Stephens's Blog, page 74
January 12, 2011
Bread for the Troops
Recently there was a discussion among
SFCanada
members regarding historical authenticity and credible fantasy in writing fiction. In light of that discussion, I thought I'd revive an essay I wrote back in 1997 for
Serve it Forth
, an historical culinary periodical.
In our pursuit of foods medieval we look to the recipes left by those great cooks of the time, recipes which were designed and prepared for the glittering aristocracy. But what of the peasantry? What of the armies? What did they eat?
These questions are ones which have interested both my husband and me for the past few years. He pursues the persona of a 14th century English archer, and in his quest for historical re-creation he attempts to carry in his lunch sack foodstuffs in keeping with his character.
While I packed a baguette in his lunch one day, he asked if that was the sort of bread of which archers would avail themselves. I couldn't answer definitely. And so our journey into the world of campaign bread began.
There were many questions we needed to answer: Did the troops in fact consume bread, or did they subsist off of gruel and frumenty? If they did consume bread, was it transported with them in the supply train? Was it foraged or stolen as they passed through? Did they bake it along the way? In what was it baked? And what type of bread was it? Flatbread? Leavened? Fine wheaten or rye or oat?
In Robert Hardy's impeccably researched book, Longbow , he quotes an order given by Edward III, king of England: "The county of Lincoln, in Crecy year, sent to William de Kelleseye, the king's receiver of victuals at Boston and Hull, 552 1/2 quarters of flour at 3 shillings or 4 shillings a quarter, packed in 87 tuns, 300 quarters of oats, 135 carcasses of salt pork, 213 carcasses of sheep, 32 sides of beef, 12 weys of cheese (312 stones) and 100 quarters of peas and beans."
Note the inclusion of all that flour and oats. The oats were certainly not for the horses, as provisioning for them would have fallen under another authority. So, then, one must ask: For what were they carrying all that flour? It seems likely they carried it to make bread.
The oats could have been cooked into a frumenty/porridgy sort of stick-to-your-ribs-fill-up-the-belly glop; however, because of the mention of oatcakes being provided as part of the provisioning for the first part of the journey, one might reasonably assume a goodly portion of the oats were for oatcakes. Oatcakes are considered a flatbread. Here, then, is reasonable proof bread, both loaves and flatbreads, were baked and consumed.
That bread was seldom baked by the armies of this time? Perhaps, but Hardy states (page 82) regarding the provisioning of the army for Crecy: "There were huge quantities of beef, pork and mutton, salted and fresh, more often salted because of the difficulties of storage, flitches of bacon, masses of cheese, oat and wheat cakes and loaves, peas and beans, and fish (usually dried 'stockfish' or herrings) which were caught in home waters, or imported, often from Gascony, an English dominion and ally in the French wars."
This supposition is supported by Christopher Rothero in his book The Armies of Crecy and Poitiers , and also by Clive Bartlett in his book English Longbowman .
Bartlett, however, goes on to state that an English soldier was expected to pay for his own food, for which he was provided an allowance in his daily pay. If he took his food himself, or was issued with rations, his wage was lowered accordingly.
The soldier bought his food along the way from victualers who traveled with and supplied the army, and who were strictly regulated by laws enforced by the Clerk of the Market. In fact, the English were apparently very good about their provisioning, in particular, Edward III. There is even an account of a Venetian diplomat commenting on the English army's preoccupation with eating well. Bread, it seems, was an important part of this. There are surviving records of Henry V's orders to have the brewers and bakers of Southampton, Winchester and the surrounding area bake and brew to provide sufficient provision upon embarkation.
As to how the soldiers cooked their meals, there is some speculation by Barlett a unit, or household, would bring their own gear, or that a particularly benevolent lord might have deigned to share his portable oven with his men. Given the attitude of the knighthood to the common foot, and most particularly the archers, it seems unlikely many of the regulars benefited at all.
There were camp followers, and often it seems wives went with their husbands. Still, there are no records of the day to day life of the foot.
Once more I turned to Hardy, as he is internationally renown as a leading expert on the English longbow and the entire social and military history surrounding it.
According to Hardy, foodstuffs were more often paid for than stolen, although I won't be so naive as to state the English army were so virtuous as to refrain from availing themselves of goods which were not for sale, or making offers the townsfolk could not refuse. Certainly Henry, during the Agincourt campaign, became adept at this.
Before one draws the conclusion, however, no bread was baked along the way during the Agincourt campaign, one must first review the inventories of raw goods which were also taken on campaign. Henry V was certainly a brilliant war king, and as such, would have realized he couldn't possibly take all prepared provisions for the war, nor could he necessarily rely upon purchase of goods once in hostile territory. He had only to look at Edward III's difficulties against Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France, who employed a scorched earth policy.
An army moves on its stomach. Any good war general knows that. And Henry V, being a good war general, certainly would have attempted to ensure his men were fed. It was his inability to ensure they were fed which could have easily led to his downfall. Throughout the Agincourt campaign there are references to the shortage of food and supplies. He thought he had brought enough raw materials with him. He hadn't. And because the French were unwilling to sell him either baked bread or the materials with which to bake bread, he was forced to a heavy hand.
Bennett writes of Henry's arrival at Arques: "The castellan refused to allow the English to take sustenance but soon caved in when Henry threatened to burn the town. It is unclear just how much the French had pursued a 'scorched earth' policy, but if they had, Henry must have been aware of the danger the supply situation posed."
Again the problem of food arises, "From Pont to Metz to Boves, where Henry spent the night of the 16th, is only a short march of some nine or ten miles. It is not clear why Henry slowed his march at this point. Lack of supplies could have been the reason, though. The army had by now exhausted the food it had brought from Harfleur." Bennett quotes Chaplain, an eyewitness: "We then expected nothing else, but that after having finished our week's provisions and consumed our food, the enemy by craftily hastening on ahead and laying waste the country before us, would weaken us by famine ... and overthrow us who were so very few, and wearied with much fatigue, and weak from lack of food."
Now, one might argue there was no bread baked during this campaign. Very possibly. But why, when it seems during the Crecy campaign bread was baked along the way? Was it because Henry hoped for a swift, overwhelming campaign? Strike, win and retreat? It would seem so. Right from the time his army left Harfleur they moved at an incredible pace. They had one week's rations. It should have been enough. He would be moving too swiftly for a supply train to follow. And hence the reason his men arrived at that final, stunning battle weakened not only from dysentery they contracted at Harfleur, but from hunger caused by a campaign much longer than had been anticipated.
There are enough references to the raw materials for bread being brought on many different campaigns throughout the 100 Years War to support the likelihood of bread being baked on campaign. There are notable exceptions, yes. But their existence does not exclude the former.
So now the problem of what was that bread like? Because of cost, and because these war kings were dealing with an army consisting primarily of peasant class foot, it seems reasonable to assume the flour which was shipped was not only wheat, for which we have proof, but likely of rye and barley as well.
We already know the troops ate oatcakes. It seems reasonable any simple oatcake recipe existing in our store of medieval and renaissance cookbooks, perhaps even in modern cookbooks, would be similar to the oatcakes of these military campaigns.
As to the bread, well, from what we do know about leavenings, it seems likely sourdough and barm were used as leavenings.
In an attempt to create recipes which were reasonable extrapolations of the campaign breads, I came up with the following variations.
Campaign Flatbread
2 cups dark rye flour
1 cup legume flour (made from 1/4 cup dried soup legumes, 1/2 cup navy beans & 1/2 cup kidney beans, all ground in the food chopper to a fine flour)
1 tsp sea salt (although they would have used rock salt, if they could have afforded it)
1/2 cup natural white vinegar
2 tbs wild flower honey
1 cup tap water
Mix first three ingredients together in a bowl. Combine last three ingredients. Make a well in the flour mixture and add liquid all at once and stir vigorously in one direction to develop the gluten. Turn out dough onto a floured board and knead. Divide into eight sections and flatten each with the heel of your hand and pat out into disks about 1/4" thick. Place in a heated iron skillet and cook about two minutes on each side.
Alternatively, preheat oven to 450F and place unglazed quarry tiles (or baking sheets if you have no quarry tiles) about one inch apart on the middle rack of the oven. This somewhat recreates a stone oven.
Bake flatbreads for about five minutes. Cool on rack.
Variation: substitute nut flour (hazelnut, beech, acorn or even walnut) for the legume flour for a sweeter, less bitter, bread.
Flatbreads can also be successfully baked on a Norse style skillet or on preheated granite baking tiles over an open fire.
Beer Bread
6 to 8 cups hard white flour
2 cups brown ale sediment as leavening agent (barm)
3 cups barley and malt mash from a beer batch
3 cups rolled oats
Combine mash and oats with 5 cups of flour. Add the sediment and combine well, stirring in one direction to develop gluten. Turn out dough onto a heavily floured board and knead, drawing in approximately another 3 cups of flour. It will have the consistency of a heavy biscuit dough.
Shape into a smooth ball and place in a lightly oiled large bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm, humid place until about double in bulk, about two hours.
Punch down and divide into four loaves. Place loaves in lightly oiled bread pans, cover and let rise in a warm, humid place for about one hour.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and bake loaves for approximately one hour.
I have also successfully baked this bread in a cast iron baker over an open fire, and in a wood-fired granite oven.
Barley & Rye Bread
2 cups coarse barley meal
1 cup cracked wheat
4 - 6 cups dark rye flour
1 cup barm
2 cups warm water
Soak barley and cracked wheat in 2 cups of warm water. In a large bowl measure out flour. Drain barley and cracked wheat; add to rye flour. Add barm to mixture and stir until too stiff to work. Turn out onto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Let rise, covered, about two hours until double in size. Punch down and shape into round loaf. Cover and let rise one hour. Bake at 400F in a preheated oven, about one hour.
I have also successfully baked this bread in a cast iron baker over an open fire, and in a wood-fired granite oven.
References:
Clive Bartlett, English Longbowman 1330-1515, Osprey Books, 1995
Christopher Rothero, The Armies of Crecy and Poitiers, Osprey Books, 1981
Matthew Bennett, Agincourt 1415, Osprey Books, 1991
Robert Hardy, Longbow, Bois d'Arc Press, 1992
Rochele Lucky, Cookery in the Middle Ages, Weather Bird Press, 1978
In our pursuit of foods medieval we look to the recipes left by those great cooks of the time, recipes which were designed and prepared for the glittering aristocracy. But what of the peasantry? What of the armies? What did they eat?
These questions are ones which have interested both my husband and me for the past few years. He pursues the persona of a 14th century English archer, and in his quest for historical re-creation he attempts to carry in his lunch sack foodstuffs in keeping with his character.
While I packed a baguette in his lunch one day, he asked if that was the sort of bread of which archers would avail themselves. I couldn't answer definitely. And so our journey into the world of campaign bread began.
There were many questions we needed to answer: Did the troops in fact consume bread, or did they subsist off of gruel and frumenty? If they did consume bread, was it transported with them in the supply train? Was it foraged or stolen as they passed through? Did they bake it along the way? In what was it baked? And what type of bread was it? Flatbread? Leavened? Fine wheaten or rye or oat?
In Robert Hardy's impeccably researched book, Longbow , he quotes an order given by Edward III, king of England: "The county of Lincoln, in Crecy year, sent to William de Kelleseye, the king's receiver of victuals at Boston and Hull, 552 1/2 quarters of flour at 3 shillings or 4 shillings a quarter, packed in 87 tuns, 300 quarters of oats, 135 carcasses of salt pork, 213 carcasses of sheep, 32 sides of beef, 12 weys of cheese (312 stones) and 100 quarters of peas and beans."
Note the inclusion of all that flour and oats. The oats were certainly not for the horses, as provisioning for them would have fallen under another authority. So, then, one must ask: For what were they carrying all that flour? It seems likely they carried it to make bread.
The oats could have been cooked into a frumenty/porridgy sort of stick-to-your-ribs-fill-up-the-belly glop; however, because of the mention of oatcakes being provided as part of the provisioning for the first part of the journey, one might reasonably assume a goodly portion of the oats were for oatcakes. Oatcakes are considered a flatbread. Here, then, is reasonable proof bread, both loaves and flatbreads, were baked and consumed.
That bread was seldom baked by the armies of this time? Perhaps, but Hardy states (page 82) regarding the provisioning of the army for Crecy: "There were huge quantities of beef, pork and mutton, salted and fresh, more often salted because of the difficulties of storage, flitches of bacon, masses of cheese, oat and wheat cakes and loaves, peas and beans, and fish (usually dried 'stockfish' or herrings) which were caught in home waters, or imported, often from Gascony, an English dominion and ally in the French wars."
This supposition is supported by Christopher Rothero in his book The Armies of Crecy and Poitiers , and also by Clive Bartlett in his book English Longbowman .
Bartlett, however, goes on to state that an English soldier was expected to pay for his own food, for which he was provided an allowance in his daily pay. If he took his food himself, or was issued with rations, his wage was lowered accordingly.
The soldier bought his food along the way from victualers who traveled with and supplied the army, and who were strictly regulated by laws enforced by the Clerk of the Market. In fact, the English were apparently very good about their provisioning, in particular, Edward III. There is even an account of a Venetian diplomat commenting on the English army's preoccupation with eating well. Bread, it seems, was an important part of this. There are surviving records of Henry V's orders to have the brewers and bakers of Southampton, Winchester and the surrounding area bake and brew to provide sufficient provision upon embarkation.
As to how the soldiers cooked their meals, there is some speculation by Barlett a unit, or household, would bring their own gear, or that a particularly benevolent lord might have deigned to share his portable oven with his men. Given the attitude of the knighthood to the common foot, and most particularly the archers, it seems unlikely many of the regulars benefited at all.
There were camp followers, and often it seems wives went with their husbands. Still, there are no records of the day to day life of the foot.
Once more I turned to Hardy, as he is internationally renown as a leading expert on the English longbow and the entire social and military history surrounding it.
According to Hardy, foodstuffs were more often paid for than stolen, although I won't be so naive as to state the English army were so virtuous as to refrain from availing themselves of goods which were not for sale, or making offers the townsfolk could not refuse. Certainly Henry, during the Agincourt campaign, became adept at this.
Before one draws the conclusion, however, no bread was baked along the way during the Agincourt campaign, one must first review the inventories of raw goods which were also taken on campaign. Henry V was certainly a brilliant war king, and as such, would have realized he couldn't possibly take all prepared provisions for the war, nor could he necessarily rely upon purchase of goods once in hostile territory. He had only to look at Edward III's difficulties against Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France, who employed a scorched earth policy.
An army moves on its stomach. Any good war general knows that. And Henry V, being a good war general, certainly would have attempted to ensure his men were fed. It was his inability to ensure they were fed which could have easily led to his downfall. Throughout the Agincourt campaign there are references to the shortage of food and supplies. He thought he had brought enough raw materials with him. He hadn't. And because the French were unwilling to sell him either baked bread or the materials with which to bake bread, he was forced to a heavy hand.
Bennett writes of Henry's arrival at Arques: "The castellan refused to allow the English to take sustenance but soon caved in when Henry threatened to burn the town. It is unclear just how much the French had pursued a 'scorched earth' policy, but if they had, Henry must have been aware of the danger the supply situation posed."
Again the problem of food arises, "From Pont to Metz to Boves, where Henry spent the night of the 16th, is only a short march of some nine or ten miles. It is not clear why Henry slowed his march at this point. Lack of supplies could have been the reason, though. The army had by now exhausted the food it had brought from Harfleur." Bennett quotes Chaplain, an eyewitness: "We then expected nothing else, but that after having finished our week's provisions and consumed our food, the enemy by craftily hastening on ahead and laying waste the country before us, would weaken us by famine ... and overthrow us who were so very few, and wearied with much fatigue, and weak from lack of food."
Now, one might argue there was no bread baked during this campaign. Very possibly. But why, when it seems during the Crecy campaign bread was baked along the way? Was it because Henry hoped for a swift, overwhelming campaign? Strike, win and retreat? It would seem so. Right from the time his army left Harfleur they moved at an incredible pace. They had one week's rations. It should have been enough. He would be moving too swiftly for a supply train to follow. And hence the reason his men arrived at that final, stunning battle weakened not only from dysentery they contracted at Harfleur, but from hunger caused by a campaign much longer than had been anticipated.
There are enough references to the raw materials for bread being brought on many different campaigns throughout the 100 Years War to support the likelihood of bread being baked on campaign. There are notable exceptions, yes. But their existence does not exclude the former.
So now the problem of what was that bread like? Because of cost, and because these war kings were dealing with an army consisting primarily of peasant class foot, it seems reasonable to assume the flour which was shipped was not only wheat, for which we have proof, but likely of rye and barley as well.
We already know the troops ate oatcakes. It seems reasonable any simple oatcake recipe existing in our store of medieval and renaissance cookbooks, perhaps even in modern cookbooks, would be similar to the oatcakes of these military campaigns.
As to the bread, well, from what we do know about leavenings, it seems likely sourdough and barm were used as leavenings.
In an attempt to create recipes which were reasonable extrapolations of the campaign breads, I came up with the following variations.
Campaign Flatbread
2 cups dark rye flour
1 cup legume flour (made from 1/4 cup dried soup legumes, 1/2 cup navy beans & 1/2 cup kidney beans, all ground in the food chopper to a fine flour)
1 tsp sea salt (although they would have used rock salt, if they could have afforded it)
1/2 cup natural white vinegar
2 tbs wild flower honey
1 cup tap water
Mix first three ingredients together in a bowl. Combine last three ingredients. Make a well in the flour mixture and add liquid all at once and stir vigorously in one direction to develop the gluten. Turn out dough onto a floured board and knead. Divide into eight sections and flatten each with the heel of your hand and pat out into disks about 1/4" thick. Place in a heated iron skillet and cook about two minutes on each side.
Alternatively, preheat oven to 450F and place unglazed quarry tiles (or baking sheets if you have no quarry tiles) about one inch apart on the middle rack of the oven. This somewhat recreates a stone oven.
Bake flatbreads for about five minutes. Cool on rack.
Variation: substitute nut flour (hazelnut, beech, acorn or even walnut) for the legume flour for a sweeter, less bitter, bread.
Flatbreads can also be successfully baked on a Norse style skillet or on preheated granite baking tiles over an open fire.
Beer Bread
6 to 8 cups hard white flour
2 cups brown ale sediment as leavening agent (barm)
3 cups barley and malt mash from a beer batch
3 cups rolled oats
Combine mash and oats with 5 cups of flour. Add the sediment and combine well, stirring in one direction to develop gluten. Turn out dough onto a heavily floured board and knead, drawing in approximately another 3 cups of flour. It will have the consistency of a heavy biscuit dough.
Shape into a smooth ball and place in a lightly oiled large bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm, humid place until about double in bulk, about two hours.
Punch down and divide into four loaves. Place loaves in lightly oiled bread pans, cover and let rise in a warm, humid place for about one hour.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and bake loaves for approximately one hour.
I have also successfully baked this bread in a cast iron baker over an open fire, and in a wood-fired granite oven.
Barley & Rye Bread
2 cups coarse barley meal
1 cup cracked wheat
4 - 6 cups dark rye flour
1 cup barm
2 cups warm water
Soak barley and cracked wheat in 2 cups of warm water. In a large bowl measure out flour. Drain barley and cracked wheat; add to rye flour. Add barm to mixture and stir until too stiff to work. Turn out onto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Let rise, covered, about two hours until double in size. Punch down and shape into round loaf. Cover and let rise one hour. Bake at 400F in a preheated oven, about one hour.
I have also successfully baked this bread in a cast iron baker over an open fire, and in a wood-fired granite oven.
References:
Clive Bartlett, English Longbowman 1330-1515, Osprey Books, 1995
Christopher Rothero, The Armies of Crecy and Poitiers, Osprey Books, 1981
Matthew Bennett, Agincourt 1415, Osprey Books, 1991
Robert Hardy, Longbow, Bois d'Arc Press, 1992
Rochele Lucky, Cookery in the Middle Ages, Weather Bird Press, 1978
January 10, 2011
Little Red Reviewer on From Mountains of Ice
From Mountains of Ice, by Lorina Stephens has received another glowing review, this time from the Little Red Reviewer. An excerpt from that review is reposted here.
Along with natural sounding and witty dialogue, Stephens presents a renaissance Italianesque world populated by a unique ancestor worshipping population. You can't help but love Sylvio and Aletta, this is a mature and intelligent couple who has been together for decades. They trust each other implicity, and know when they can be selfish and when they can't. These are the people I want to grow up to be, and other than Prince Carmelo, this is a world I want to live in.
I have a few words of advice regarding the reading of From Mountains of Ice – pay attention to everything, and read slowly. Once the action gets going, and it gets going pretty quickly, this is a nonstop ride filled with surprises at every turn. At times I complain that books are too long, that the author took too many pages to get the plot going, From Mountains of Ice was the opposite. Not a slow moment, not a wasted scene, I didn't want it to end.
If you are a fan of historical fiction or historical fantasy, From Mountains of Ice is an enjoyable and satisfying read, filled with political intrigue, passionate characters living in a beautiful and alluring world.
My first review of 2011 is from 5Rivers, an indie publisher in Canada. These are some cool folks: operating out of a historical home, they embrace traditional handcrafts and high tech publishing options. Check our their website, and their blog, which has among other things some great articles on the new universe of publishing and e-books, from the publishers point of view.
Along with natural sounding and witty dialogue, Stephens presents a renaissance Italianesque world populated by a unique ancestor worshipping population. You can't help but love Sylvio and Aletta, this is a mature and intelligent couple who has been together for decades. They trust each other implicity, and know when they can be selfish and when they can't. These are the people I want to grow up to be, and other than Prince Carmelo, this is a world I want to live in.
I have a few words of advice regarding the reading of From Mountains of Ice – pay attention to everything, and read slowly. Once the action gets going, and it gets going pretty quickly, this is a nonstop ride filled with surprises at every turn. At times I complain that books are too long, that the author took too many pages to get the plot going, From Mountains of Ice was the opposite. Not a slow moment, not a wasted scene, I didn't want it to end.
If you are a fan of historical fiction or historical fantasy, From Mountains of Ice is an enjoyable and satisfying read, filled with political intrigue, passionate characters living in a beautiful and alluring world.
My first review of 2011 is from 5Rivers, an indie publisher in Canada. These are some cool folks: operating out of a historical home, they embrace traditional handcrafts and high tech publishing options. Check our their website, and their blog, which has among other things some great articles on the new universe of publishing and e-books, from the publishers point of view.
January 8, 2011
Key Porter Loss, Five Rivers Gain
Patrick Lima & John Scanlan
The publishing world heard of the demise of one more icon of Canadian publishing this week, Key Porter. The report wasn't exactly surprising, given Key Porter had closed its Toronto offices in the fall of 2010 and moved to owner Fenn's offices in Bolton. Even previous to that Key Porter was shedding its midlist authors in an attempt to restructure.
What was Key Porter's loss, however, has become Five Rivers' gain; last year we signed a publishing deal with former Key Porter gardening gurus, Patrick Lima and John Scanlan. The green-thumbed duo proposed a revised, updated and expanded version of their orphaned book, The Organic Home Gardener.
That book is now in editing with our own Robert Runte and scheduled for release late summer or early fall this year.
For more information about The Organic Home Gardener, go to our blog post of October 7, 2010.
January 7, 2011
A Subtle Thing Reviewed at The Sunday Book Review
Another great review for Alicia Hendley's novel, A Subtle Thing, this time from The Sunday Review.
I was blown away by this debut novel. We follow a young woman prone to deep depression as she is suddenly forced to change her ways once getting major news. Alicia has managed to connect us with the main character within the first couple of pages (if that) and we end up caring about her and her actions.
This book has a clear and exact path on showing readers what people with depression go through. One point that stood out is how everyone around the depressed seems to think that it's easy to just snap out of it. Here, we see someone that tries desperately to "snap out of it", but reality doesn't let her make that step.
We follow this young lady around, each time catching a glimpse as to the horror that is her life, and the beauty that is her trying to climb out of it. It's not an easy topic, but somehow Alicia has made it easier to understand and accept. If this is her talent on her first novel, I think the world should watch out for her next book.
I was blown away by this debut novel. We follow a young woman prone to deep depression as she is suddenly forced to change her ways once getting major news. Alicia has managed to connect us with the main character within the first couple of pages (if that) and we end up caring about her and her actions.
This book has a clear and exact path on showing readers what people with depression go through. One point that stood out is how everyone around the depressed seems to think that it's easy to just snap out of it. Here, we see someone that tries desperately to "snap out of it", but reality doesn't let her make that step.
We follow this young lady around, each time catching a glimpse as to the horror that is her life, and the beauty that is her trying to climb out of it. It's not an easy topic, but somehow Alicia has made it easier to understand and accept. If this is her talent on her first novel, I think the world should watch out for her next book.
January 5, 2011
Alicia Hendley Appears in Waterloo
Debut novelist, Alicia Hendley, appears at Chapters, on January 29, 2011, 428 King Street North, Waterloo, ON, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. She will be signing copies of her novel, A Subtle Thing. A Subtle Thing is receiving five star reviews from readers on Chapters/Indigo, and is available in both print and digital formats.
Don't miss out on this opportunity to meet Alicia Hendley and acquire your own signed copy of A Subtle Thing.
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January 2, 2011
And so 2011
Have to say 2010 was likely the best year to date. There were no serious problems. Our wee enterprise (both divisions) realized significant, positive growth. Our publishing arm expanded distribution into Kindle, Kobo and Apple, with sales now appearing not only in Canada, the US and UK, but Australia. I think that's something to crow about, especially for a microscopic, indie press. Some of our titles continue to receive four and five star ratings from readers, and now are beginning to attract positive attention from a few critical reviewers.
All of that's a very good foundation on which to build in 2011. This year we'll be releasing three new titles:
Crystal Death: Methamphetamine, North America's #1 Killer Drug, by Nate Hendley. Originally published by now defunct Altitude Publishing under the title of Crystal Meth, we decided to pick up the book when Nate offered it to us in 2009. Nate went back to the computer and completely revised, updated and reworked the book to reflect Canadian as well as American statistics, adding new interviews with addicts, case workers and health and law enforcement officials. The result of that is a book we feel very strongly about, one we'd suggest is required reading for parents, educators, adolescents and anyone dealing with the problems of substance abuse and its prevention.
The Organic Home Gardener, by Patrick Lima and John Scanlan. We're positive this book, won't get lost in that wall of glossy, expensive gardening books. It's going to stand out. And once you have it in your dirt-stained hands, as either print or digital book, we're sure you're going to find this the one gardening book that's referenced again and again.
The Insistence of Memory, by Simon Rose. A young adult novel targeted for the 14 to 16 age group, Simon Rose's new offering is an action-packed speculative fiction starting in present day Canada and ending up in the dark machinations of the Cold War Era between the US and Soviet Union.
Depending how the year goes, we may have another two debut novels released, but that may be a bit ambitious.
As always we're looking to expand our distribution reach, although with our titles available online in both print and digital formats through all the major global book retailers, that expansion will likely have to focus on print books in bricks and mortar stores. I'm still not convinced that's the most effective means for an indie press to pursue, given shrinking square footage allocated to print, and especially to print from indie presses. There does remain the avenue of indie booksellers, but, again, with the exception of a very few, stalwart and visionary booksellers, indie booksellers are not keen to support indie presses.
That leaves the Espresso Channel, which, again, seems to have stalled. (See the blog post from October 2010.)
In my opinion, and the avenue Five Rivers will pursue in 2011, is to concentrate further on effective promotion. That is, create a buzz, as my guru PR son is won't to say. And so we'll seek out more reviews, as well as appearances both virtual and actual. It's a long view we're taking, rather than the six week smash hit and then anonymity.
All things considered, I'm looking forward to this next year, to the challenges, the gains we'll make, the roads we'll travel. Hope you'll come along with us on this amazing journey.
All of that's a very good foundation on which to build in 2011. This year we'll be releasing three new titles:
Crystal Death: Methamphetamine, North America's #1 Killer Drug, by Nate Hendley. Originally published by now defunct Altitude Publishing under the title of Crystal Meth, we decided to pick up the book when Nate offered it to us in 2009. Nate went back to the computer and completely revised, updated and reworked the book to reflect Canadian as well as American statistics, adding new interviews with addicts, case workers and health and law enforcement officials. The result of that is a book we feel very strongly about, one we'd suggest is required reading for parents, educators, adolescents and anyone dealing with the problems of substance abuse and its prevention.
The Organic Home Gardener, by Patrick Lima and John Scanlan. We're positive this book, won't get lost in that wall of glossy, expensive gardening books. It's going to stand out. And once you have it in your dirt-stained hands, as either print or digital book, we're sure you're going to find this the one gardening book that's referenced again and again.
The Insistence of Memory, by Simon Rose. A young adult novel targeted for the 14 to 16 age group, Simon Rose's new offering is an action-packed speculative fiction starting in present day Canada and ending up in the dark machinations of the Cold War Era between the US and Soviet Union.
Depending how the year goes, we may have another two debut novels released, but that may be a bit ambitious.
As always we're looking to expand our distribution reach, although with our titles available online in both print and digital formats through all the major global book retailers, that expansion will likely have to focus on print books in bricks and mortar stores. I'm still not convinced that's the most effective means for an indie press to pursue, given shrinking square footage allocated to print, and especially to print from indie presses. There does remain the avenue of indie booksellers, but, again, with the exception of a very few, stalwart and visionary booksellers, indie booksellers are not keen to support indie presses.
That leaves the Espresso Channel, which, again, seems to have stalled. (See the blog post from October 2010.)
In my opinion, and the avenue Five Rivers will pursue in 2011, is to concentrate further on effective promotion. That is, create a buzz, as my guru PR son is won't to say. And so we'll seek out more reviews, as well as appearances both virtual and actual. It's a long view we're taking, rather than the six week smash hit and then anonymity.
All things considered, I'm looking forward to this next year, to the challenges, the gains we'll make, the roads we'll travel. Hope you'll come along with us on this amazing journey.
December 28, 2010
In the heart of digital books
I received a wireless Kobo reader for Christmas. Have to say, quite emphatically, I'm ecstatic about this gift from my husband. I can't think of a single piece of new technology I've been this excited about, and impressed by, in a very, very long time. The hardware itself is quite small and thin, smaller and thinner than I'd originally thought, although it should be noted I do have problems with spacial relationships. Still, it sits in the hand easily, especially my arthritic hands. The screen, although small, is a perfect pocketbook size, and easy on the tired, middle-aged eyes that are much abused by too much computer time.
As with any new technology there is a learning curve, but I'm delighted to say the curve is more of a small bump than a steep incline, and is quite intuitive so that simulating the printed book reading experience is quite accurate. I spent a delightful afternoon yesterday lying on the sofa, reading, and a wonderful bedtime experience reading. No aching hands. No figuring out how to prop a heavy, pointy book on pillow, duvet or body part.
I love the fact the Kobo comes with a pre-loaded classical library of 100 books. It is an impressive array, and although I've read the great majority of that list, I will very much relish re-reading in this new format, and discovering those few texts I haven't ventured into previously.
Purchasing eBooks and loading them on the Kobo proved very simple, far moreso than I'd suspected. And loading eBooks onto the reader from Adobe Digital Editions, already existing on my computer, proved so simple it was laughable. In fact, as I recall, I did laugh with delight.
So far, the experience is all positive. And because of that I can see how it is digital readers will slowly, but surely, overtake the purchase of print books as more and more people acquire the technology. I can even see our own library transforming, which is quite a statement to make, given we have built an entire room around the hundreds of books we own. But, just as our entire music collection now exists in a stainless steel contraption just a little larger than a credit card, I can see our future library existing on a few, pocketable sim cards capable of holding thousands of books. To my mind, that's something akin to a fantasy tale, like the bag of holding out of Dungeons and Dragons. It sparks my imagination and interest.
So, is the print book dead? No. But I can foresee a day when the print book again becomes an art-form, just as it was in the age of the scriptorium, while the majority of the text we read exists only as a form of digital information.
December 10, 2010
Navigating the mystery of submissions
Recently a rejected author commented, "I don't understand what you're looking for." Subsequent to that, I learned this particular author wasn't in the minority.
Allow me to elucidate from our submission guidelines:
Non-fiction:
All work must be solidly researched using primary references as a foundation.
Canadian history: this covers a broad spectrum, from stories of national significance to regional, from community to individual. For example,
biographies of notable Canadians
the quirky and esoteric field of experimental archaeology: e.g., recreating a 17th century Quebecois bake oven.
Canadian Issues:
First Nation, Métis or Inuit issues
immigrant issues
other current issues of likely interest to Canadians
Self-Help Books:
we have published books on writing, editing, creativity, gardening
Fiction:
We seek books that are solidly plotted and character driven, with an emphasis on Canadian culture and settings, in the following categories:
Mainstream
Fantasy: We tend to favour cultural and historical fantasies that reflect Canadian mores, although borrowing from other cultures is part of our multicultural nature. Examples would include Shadow Song and From Mountains of Ice.
Science fiction: We're looking for original concepts from a Canadian perspective.
Speculative: We are absolutely keen about authors who push the borders of fiction and concepts, though again we are looking for a Canadian perspective, insight or flavour.
Historical: We are very keen to encourage writers to delve into the rich historical foundation we have and create solidly plotted, character-driven stories illuminating our diverse history. Shadow Song would be an example of the sort of well-researched historical novel for which we are looking.
Young Adult: Any stories in the above categories with a target audience in the nine to 18 range.
We will not consider vampires or horror, crime, women's fiction or erotica; and unfortunately do not publish poetry or essay collections; nor can we publish picture books for either children or adults.
To expand on some of the fiction requirements: we're not interested in following trends. So if you have a novel that rides on the wave of girls swooning to die for love, or CIA plots in Muslim countries, or the Big Evil threatening the balance of the world/universe/reality you might want to bypass Five Rivers.
If, however, you have an Alberta boy who decides he needs to be the protector of his town, and does so with cow paddies, stop signs, and microwaved bugs (as did Michell Plested), then you have a winner in our eyes. Or if you decide to write about a smuggling operation involving the Stoney Nakoda in order to retrieve appropriated artifacts, then you'd receive a favourable reading, depending how well you told your story.
In short, think of the wealth of stories we have to tell here in Canada, and then set about telling them in an honest voice. Don't try to write like someone else. Write as you would tell these stories. Become your characters. Let us see their world through their eyes. Keep your point of view tight and focused. And allow your characters to be human. Just ordinary humans who are placed in extraordinary circumstances.
At all costs avoid cliches. Allow your villains to do genuinely good deeds, because except for a very few extraordinary psychological cases, there is rarely a truly evil person, and how fascinating to have a villain who is worthy of our pity, than one who is easy to detest. This makes for interesting reading, because it raises characters off the page, allows for the complexities and vagaries of life to imbue a story.
As to the actual writing, two of the common problems we see here are:
Extraneous exposition: put another way, too much telling and not enough showing. Time and again I come across passages wherein the author explains background, or some other detail, instead of allowing this information to flow through dialogue or action. It could be something as simple as washing dishes. Instead of telling us John is washing dishes, have conversation flow around the actions of washing dishes.
Cliche phrases and situations: in everything you write try to find a fresh way to phrase your work, allowing the words to emulate the mood and tension, rather than relying upon easy and familiar terms.
If we send comments with your returned manuscript...
... it doesn't mean we're being brutal, harsh, eviscerating, or think you're a hack, washed-up, no good. It actually means we think there is a writer worthy of time and development, who just needs a bit of polishing. It's rare an author, whether submitting to a small press or a large house, won't have to undertake revisions and editorial direction. Rather you should dread the standard, non-committal rejection notice than a rejection accompanied by detailed, thoughtful constructive criticism.
In the end it comes down to personal taste
That's a truth. The person sitting at the publisher's desk, the person making the decisions at Five Rivers, doesn't believe in art by committee. I believe in publishing work which, in my view, brings something new to this corner of the world. Ultimately it's me you have to impress. Not a sales team. Not a marketing and promotion team. Just me. And the easiest way to impress me is to follow the guidelines, write from your heart, write your best, polish and hone, and then, when you think you've caught every loose end, every cliche, send it along. I'll give it my complete attention.
Allow me to elucidate from our submission guidelines:
Non-fiction:
All work must be solidly researched using primary references as a foundation.
Canadian history: this covers a broad spectrum, from stories of national significance to regional, from community to individual. For example,
biographies of notable Canadians
the quirky and esoteric field of experimental archaeology: e.g., recreating a 17th century Quebecois bake oven.
Canadian Issues:
First Nation, Métis or Inuit issues
immigrant issues
other current issues of likely interest to Canadians
Self-Help Books:
we have published books on writing, editing, creativity, gardening
Fiction:
We seek books that are solidly plotted and character driven, with an emphasis on Canadian culture and settings, in the following categories:
Mainstream
Fantasy: We tend to favour cultural and historical fantasies that reflect Canadian mores, although borrowing from other cultures is part of our multicultural nature. Examples would include Shadow Song and From Mountains of Ice.
Science fiction: We're looking for original concepts from a Canadian perspective.
Speculative: We are absolutely keen about authors who push the borders of fiction and concepts, though again we are looking for a Canadian perspective, insight or flavour.
Historical: We are very keen to encourage writers to delve into the rich historical foundation we have and create solidly plotted, character-driven stories illuminating our diverse history. Shadow Song would be an example of the sort of well-researched historical novel for which we are looking.
Young Adult: Any stories in the above categories with a target audience in the nine to 18 range.
We will not consider vampires or horror, crime, women's fiction or erotica; and unfortunately do not publish poetry or essay collections; nor can we publish picture books for either children or adults.
To expand on some of the fiction requirements: we're not interested in following trends. So if you have a novel that rides on the wave of girls swooning to die for love, or CIA plots in Muslim countries, or the Big Evil threatening the balance of the world/universe/reality you might want to bypass Five Rivers.
If, however, you have an Alberta boy who decides he needs to be the protector of his town, and does so with cow paddies, stop signs, and microwaved bugs (as did Michell Plested), then you have a winner in our eyes. Or if you decide to write about a smuggling operation involving the Stoney Nakoda in order to retrieve appropriated artifacts, then you'd receive a favourable reading, depending how well you told your story.
In short, think of the wealth of stories we have to tell here in Canada, and then set about telling them in an honest voice. Don't try to write like someone else. Write as you would tell these stories. Become your characters. Let us see their world through their eyes. Keep your point of view tight and focused. And allow your characters to be human. Just ordinary humans who are placed in extraordinary circumstances.
At all costs avoid cliches. Allow your villains to do genuinely good deeds, because except for a very few extraordinary psychological cases, there is rarely a truly evil person, and how fascinating to have a villain who is worthy of our pity, than one who is easy to detest. This makes for interesting reading, because it raises characters off the page, allows for the complexities and vagaries of life to imbue a story.
As to the actual writing, two of the common problems we see here are:
Extraneous exposition: put another way, too much telling and not enough showing. Time and again I come across passages wherein the author explains background, or some other detail, instead of allowing this information to flow through dialogue or action. It could be something as simple as washing dishes. Instead of telling us John is washing dishes, have conversation flow around the actions of washing dishes.
Cliche phrases and situations: in everything you write try to find a fresh way to phrase your work, allowing the words to emulate the mood and tension, rather than relying upon easy and familiar terms.
If we send comments with your returned manuscript...
... it doesn't mean we're being brutal, harsh, eviscerating, or think you're a hack, washed-up, no good. It actually means we think there is a writer worthy of time and development, who just needs a bit of polishing. It's rare an author, whether submitting to a small press or a large house, won't have to undertake revisions and editorial direction. Rather you should dread the standard, non-committal rejection notice than a rejection accompanied by detailed, thoughtful constructive criticism.
In the end it comes down to personal taste
That's a truth. The person sitting at the publisher's desk, the person making the decisions at Five Rivers, doesn't believe in art by committee. I believe in publishing work which, in my view, brings something new to this corner of the world. Ultimately it's me you have to impress. Not a sales team. Not a marketing and promotion team. Just me. And the easiest way to impress me is to follow the guidelines, write from your heart, write your best, polish and hone, and then, when you think you've caught every loose end, every cliche, send it along. I'll give it my complete attention.
December 8, 2010
The Gift
By way of a gift to Five Rivers supporters, readers, fans, we're offering you this excerpt from Lorina Stephens' collection of short stories, And the Angels Sang. The work is held under copyright by Lorina Stephens, and may not be reproduced in any form without direct permission of the author.
The Gift
Without Laura's environmental data the geological report meant little. Again Brian glanced at the calendar on the computer. A dark square outlined today. To the right of that dark square was another day, this one outlined in red, red for urgency, and red because tomorrow was Christmas.
He shifted his attention back to the notes in front of him on the battered desk. All the words blurred. He felt the silence crush him. Laura should have been standing behind him, fresh from another analysis of Ela that garnered nothing. His wife would have praised his findings as if he had placed this wealth of minerals here in the MacKenzie Basin himself Her hands would have been on his shoulders, her warmth palpable on his back. She would have said something like: "Brenley, come see how clever your father is," and Brenley would have careened over, excitement vibrating through her small body. Such a harsh place to raise such a delicate child.
He turned to where Laura should have been, reaching out for her, her dark hair, her slender body, ready to hold her and let her ease the rawness.
Brian found only Ela.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice rough from non-use. It seemed bizarre to him that he spoke to a figment of Laura's insanity.
Ela frowned, that pale, elongated face expressing confusion. Everything about this woman wounded him: the way she watched, the way she spoke. She opened her mouth, but he pre-empted her.
"I know, I know. You don't understand what I'm talking about."
"I do not understand," she said. That voice so fluid, so aloof, as if he were a specimen she studied. He wondered if the Aleuts weren't right, that there were forces here in the MacKenzie Basin with which no one should tamper. Certainly Laura had said as much.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"You were thinking of me."
"Bullshit." Her statement unnerved him. Around the image of Laura had been this mystery phantom she'd discovered and could never prove. When he asked Laura for data she'd shrug in a helpless gesture and mumble something about being unable to remember her data when with Ela. It had been like watching her drift away, marooned on a floe in the pack-ice. When she'd found Ela, the woman was just there, kneeling where Laura knelt examining purple saxifrage. Laura said Ela hadn't been dressed for the weather, but when queried as to how Ela had been dressed Laura had been vague; when pressed, answered, "I don't know."
How could she not have known? Laura was an environmental scientist! It was part of her training to observe.
And yet all the details about Ela were the same – vague. No data where the woman came from. No data as to her background. Ela always just seemed to show up.
Now he shared Laura's insanity. He could find no psychological, chemical or biological reason why he did. Anyway, it mattered little he was going insane. There was no one to stay together for.
Don't go there. Don't think about that. To think about that was to let that howling thing in him climb up his throat, out his mouth and shatter everything he clung to.
"Why is it so frightening to you that you've accepted my existence?"
He wanted to shout: Because you're not real! Instead, he turned to his notes and the reality of one of the world's largest oil deposits. This was his chance to retire. No more scrabbling under adverse conditions. There would be a warm clime for him, a warm house. There would be people to grow old with. People to die with.
The thing in him gibbered up his throat, filled his mouth. He clenched his teeth, blinking the blur from his eyes. No. You can't do this. You can't let go.
"I am part of your reality," Ela said.
You are part of my insanity. How could he tell his insanity to go away?
"You are very special, Brian. Like Laura and Brenley."
"Don't talk about them!" He cradled his head in his hands, leaning against the desk. "Go away." I have to finish this report. I have to get out of here. Even if the supply plane wasn't due until a month after Christmas. "I have work to do." Please, let me work. Let me forget for one moment that Laura and Brenley aren't going to walk through the cabin door.
"What is this work?"
What was the point? He couldn't evade her. This was probably his way of linking to Laura and Brenley. "I have to find oil."
"Why?"
"Because we need to have it."
"How can you accept the existence of something you can't see when you can't accept me?"
"You're my madness. You won't be a problem for others."
"I could be."
He whirled on her, gripping the violence in his hands until his knuckles ached. "All I know is that my reality's twisted. You're not real, Ela. Nothing about you is real."
She smiled, all softness and compassion, so at odds with the aloofness she usually exhibited. As he watched her she seemed to glow. An aberration of Arctic light, he assumed, part of his growing madness or part of his grief. They were one and the same.
She spoke, softly, weaving the beginnings of a story, pulling at everything he locked into a safe place. The grief in him threatened freedom. Ela spoke of a woman, her hair dark, her body slender, a woman he had known, and loved, and been loved by, and as she spoke out of her aura stepped that woman, smiling, reaching out to him. Laura. So like Laura. Even her fragrance was there, clean, soapy, filling his senses when she wrapped her arms around him. Her lips parted as she leaned into him. He stood abruptly and threw himself onto the bed on the other side of the cabin, burying his head under the pillows.
How could she do that? How could she make the characters she spoke real? But then Ela wasn't real, was she? Why shouldn't a thing from his insanity create people who weren't supposed to be alive?
He unburied himself and glared at her.
"I don't understand why you are angry," she said. He ignored her comment, refusing to accept anything his mind created. She knelt before him, almost catlike. "I want to understand. If I can understand you then maybe I can help you understand me."
"Why should I even speak to you?"
"Because it would help both of us."
"You're not even real."
"What is real?" She reached up and touched the photo of Laura and Brenley that hung on the wall over the desk, cautiously, her long fingers testing the surface as if measuring just how far she could go.
"I miss them," he said, giving up, giving in, giving her the key to undo him.
She only stared at him.
But, then, he was only admitting his loss to himself, wasn't he?
* * *To sleep would have been wise. To sleep would have let him sink into a place where memory and reality merged, where he was happy and Christmas wouldn't be a bleak promise. He'd been chasing sleep for hours now. To no avail. It was one of those nights Laura stood behind his eyes, Brenley in her arms, both of them lying like broken dolls dressed in clownish parkas, smashed in the rubble of a shale slide. He could still hear her telling him about her last encounter with Ela, of her frustration. His last thought before that roar had been one of despair, of Laura lost in a world of insanity. Then the earth had taken everything. His despair. Laura. Brenley.
He should have known. The shale scree was unstable. It was no place for his wife and daughter to be hiking. A geologist. fine. But not Laura and Brenley. He should have known.
He turned in the darkness and clutched Laura's pillow. The bed stretched around him, vast, empty, too much for one man to fill. He spread himself across its surface, trying to find Laura there, Laura's warmth, Laura's smell.
A movement on the bed stopped him. Alarm chattered down his limbs. Had someone sat down? He tried to hold his breath, to silence the rush of his blood in his ears.
Light filled the cabin, radiant like candlelight. All he could think to do was clutch the pillow, his heart thudding painfully. It was a woman on his bed, slender, her hair dark, that small mouth that could utter such brilliance in her field and such tenderness when it came to him. Her skin glowed softly. Lamplight, he told himself, knowing in that other part of him skin didn't emanate light like that. What was more, Laura was dead.
She smiled. "What would you like for Christmas?"
He tried to speak, failed, cleared his throat and managed, "You," convinced he had completely fallen over the edge. When the supply plane arrived the crew would find a drooling lunatic.
But it was Christmas Eve. Miracles could happen. That cold part of him laughed. Miracles didn't happen in the real world. Get a grip. You're a scientist. You're suffering from grief and isolation.
Laura laughed, like a caress. He shuddered. It was pleasant, insane though it was, to hear her laugh.
Oh god she seemed so real! And he wanted to hold her. Just for a little while. If this was insanity he would accept it. The bed was too large. His life was too empty. This place he called home was too sterile. He closed his arms around Laura, his mouth on hers. It didn't matter that he made love to a memory. It didn't matter that the woman he touched was no more substantial than the creature who visited him day after day since Laura and Brenley died. None of it mattered. Laura felt real.
This was Christmas Eve and he was making love to his wife, tasting her skin, touching her curves, whispering desperately indecent things as they moved in a way that was both selfish and selfless.
She shuddered against him, a cry in the room. He sank into euphoria that seemed timeless and then ended too quickly. Sweaty, satiated, he rolled over and held her in his arms, stroking her hair, an emotion in his chest he couldn't name and was afraid to confront. It took two to fill this bed. That was as far as he would allow his thoughts to go. It didn't do to question miracles. Or the gifts of insanity. He didn't want to remember her broken under the weight of the slide.
"I love you, Brian," she whispered. And then his arms were empty, the light snuffed. That raw thing in him escaped. He sobbed into the pillow still damp from Laura's head.
* * *In the end he must have slept, he realized, because he woke to that dim light called day in the Arctic winter. It was something he sensed rather than visualized because his eyes were sealed shut with crust. He rubbed at them painfully. Finally he looked around the cabin, to the dresser and small mirror on the wall at the foot of the bed, to the bedstand to his right. It didn't feel safe to look any farther.
He swung his legs over the bed. There was a chill to the floor. He wiggled his toes against that, careful not to let his thoughts begin, not to question, not to do anything to stir the dream and the nightmare of last night.
Somewhere in the back of his mind memory of the smell of roasting turkey came to the fore, filling the cabin. His pulse lurched. He closed his eyes, willing this not to be. He could smell that turkey. It was stuffed with a sage dressing. His mouth watered. And now he could smell cider rich with cinnamon, cloves and orange peel simmering over a burner.
His hands trembled between his knees. He clasped them over his face. It was then he was aware of the rise of humidity and the thick, sweet smell of plum pudding on the steam.
"Please," he whispered, unsure from whom he begged mercy, unsure even if he wanted to be delivered of his insanity.
There was laughter then, high and clear, that unmistakable giggle of a little girl. As if in a dream he hauled on his trousers, stood and paced into the centre of the cabin, sure of what he was about to confront, unsure of what to do about it. Against all odds there was a luxuriant balsam against the sitting area wall, its primitive, pristine scent impossible and marvelous. Trees like that didn't grow here. Brenley stood beneath its six feet, wrapped in a pink robe, her dark hair gleaming. She was so much like a miniature of her mother. She tossed silver icicles onto the branches, giggling when they caught, giggling when they fell. At her fuzzy slippered feet was an array of packages.
"Well hello, sleepy," Laura said.
Bewildered, he turned to the kitchen area where Laura stood fussing with crepes and applesauce and sausages – a traditional Christmas morning breakfast she dubbed French Piggies. That the ingredients for this dish were impossible to have at the moment didn't occur to him. It was the impossibility of Laura and Brenley that baffled him.
"Your dad's awake, Brenley."
Brenley turned from the tree, her dark eyes wide, her mouth an O of astonishment. She dumped the icicles and rushed into his arms. He opened them, mechanically, lifted her up and up, etching every line of this child he'd made onto his memory, relishing the feel of her small body against his skin. It occurred to him that it was these small things that made memories. A touch. A smell. A taste.
Had he remade her last night? Was that what he'd done when he'd made love to a ghost?
Laura was no ghost this morning. She set breakfast on the table and walked over to him, pecked him on the cheek, wrapped her arms around both him and Brenley.
"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," she whispered in his ear.
He could only nod, warmth rippling down his neck.
"Ela's going to have Christmas with us. Do you mind?"
He shook his head and let her lead him to the table where Ela now sat, another aberration of his mind suddenly there and real. They ate. He handled utensils without notice, lifting food that tasted wonderful to his mouth. He chewed. He watched these three females. They laughed. Brenley twitched with the prospect of presents. Ela said little. She just sat there glowing in that way she had.
Laura leaned toward him and wrapped her hand around his. "I think we better leave breakfast for now. Brenley's bursting."
His gaze shifted to his daughter, over to Ela and then back to Laura. "You're not real."
Laura smiled, squeezed his hand, looking at him the way she did when he needed her, when he was unsure. "Life isn't about happy endings, Brian. Happiness is what you experience along the way to death."
He yanked his hand away from her. "But you are death!"
She looked over to Ela. He stood abruptly. He was distantly aware of the chair overturning and clattering behind him. "I have to finish my report."
"It's done," Ela said. "There is no oil. Your resignation is tendered. You never have to leave."
He backed away, tripped over the chair, swearing when pain shot up his leg.
"Reality is what you want it to be," Ela said in that infuriatingly cool way she had. "You want your wife and daughter to be real." She shrugged. "They are."
"I don't want you to be real!"
"That's a reality I can't alter because I know myself to be real." Her look softened. "Brian, I need you to accept my reality."
"What are you really?"
"I'm what you want me to be."
What did he want her to be? A ghost? An alien? One of the spirits from Inuit legend? Or do I want her to be my insanity? "And them?" he asked, nodding to Laura and Brenley.
"As I said before, reality depends on perspective."
A life for a life.
He crossed to a chair and sank into it, watching his wife and daughter, the way they laughed, inhaling the smell of them, luxuriating in the reality of them. It was Christmas. Who was he to question the existence of miracles? Or to shatter them.
With a sob he slid off the chair and sat cross-legged beside his wife and daughter, ripping a bow off the present in Brenley's small hands.
The Gift
Without Laura's environmental data the geological report meant little. Again Brian glanced at the calendar on the computer. A dark square outlined today. To the right of that dark square was another day, this one outlined in red, red for urgency, and red because tomorrow was Christmas.He shifted his attention back to the notes in front of him on the battered desk. All the words blurred. He felt the silence crush him. Laura should have been standing behind him, fresh from another analysis of Ela that garnered nothing. His wife would have praised his findings as if he had placed this wealth of minerals here in the MacKenzie Basin himself Her hands would have been on his shoulders, her warmth palpable on his back. She would have said something like: "Brenley, come see how clever your father is," and Brenley would have careened over, excitement vibrating through her small body. Such a harsh place to raise such a delicate child.
He turned to where Laura should have been, reaching out for her, her dark hair, her slender body, ready to hold her and let her ease the rawness.
Brian found only Ela.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice rough from non-use. It seemed bizarre to him that he spoke to a figment of Laura's insanity.
Ela frowned, that pale, elongated face expressing confusion. Everything about this woman wounded him: the way she watched, the way she spoke. She opened her mouth, but he pre-empted her.
"I know, I know. You don't understand what I'm talking about."
"I do not understand," she said. That voice so fluid, so aloof, as if he were a specimen she studied. He wondered if the Aleuts weren't right, that there were forces here in the MacKenzie Basin with which no one should tamper. Certainly Laura had said as much.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"You were thinking of me."
"Bullshit." Her statement unnerved him. Around the image of Laura had been this mystery phantom she'd discovered and could never prove. When he asked Laura for data she'd shrug in a helpless gesture and mumble something about being unable to remember her data when with Ela. It had been like watching her drift away, marooned on a floe in the pack-ice. When she'd found Ela, the woman was just there, kneeling where Laura knelt examining purple saxifrage. Laura said Ela hadn't been dressed for the weather, but when queried as to how Ela had been dressed Laura had been vague; when pressed, answered, "I don't know."
How could she not have known? Laura was an environmental scientist! It was part of her training to observe.
And yet all the details about Ela were the same – vague. No data where the woman came from. No data as to her background. Ela always just seemed to show up.
Now he shared Laura's insanity. He could find no psychological, chemical or biological reason why he did. Anyway, it mattered little he was going insane. There was no one to stay together for.
Don't go there. Don't think about that. To think about that was to let that howling thing in him climb up his throat, out his mouth and shatter everything he clung to.
"Why is it so frightening to you that you've accepted my existence?"
He wanted to shout: Because you're not real! Instead, he turned to his notes and the reality of one of the world's largest oil deposits. This was his chance to retire. No more scrabbling under adverse conditions. There would be a warm clime for him, a warm house. There would be people to grow old with. People to die with.
The thing in him gibbered up his throat, filled his mouth. He clenched his teeth, blinking the blur from his eyes. No. You can't do this. You can't let go.
"I am part of your reality," Ela said.
You are part of my insanity. How could he tell his insanity to go away?
"You are very special, Brian. Like Laura and Brenley."
"Don't talk about them!" He cradled his head in his hands, leaning against the desk. "Go away." I have to finish this report. I have to get out of here. Even if the supply plane wasn't due until a month after Christmas. "I have work to do." Please, let me work. Let me forget for one moment that Laura and Brenley aren't going to walk through the cabin door.
"What is this work?"
What was the point? He couldn't evade her. This was probably his way of linking to Laura and Brenley. "I have to find oil."
"Why?"
"Because we need to have it."
"How can you accept the existence of something you can't see when you can't accept me?"
"You're my madness. You won't be a problem for others."
"I could be."
He whirled on her, gripping the violence in his hands until his knuckles ached. "All I know is that my reality's twisted. You're not real, Ela. Nothing about you is real."
She smiled, all softness and compassion, so at odds with the aloofness she usually exhibited. As he watched her she seemed to glow. An aberration of Arctic light, he assumed, part of his growing madness or part of his grief. They were one and the same.
She spoke, softly, weaving the beginnings of a story, pulling at everything he locked into a safe place. The grief in him threatened freedom. Ela spoke of a woman, her hair dark, her body slender, a woman he had known, and loved, and been loved by, and as she spoke out of her aura stepped that woman, smiling, reaching out to him. Laura. So like Laura. Even her fragrance was there, clean, soapy, filling his senses when she wrapped her arms around him. Her lips parted as she leaned into him. He stood abruptly and threw himself onto the bed on the other side of the cabin, burying his head under the pillows.
How could she do that? How could she make the characters she spoke real? But then Ela wasn't real, was she? Why shouldn't a thing from his insanity create people who weren't supposed to be alive?
He unburied himself and glared at her.
"I don't understand why you are angry," she said. He ignored her comment, refusing to accept anything his mind created. She knelt before him, almost catlike. "I want to understand. If I can understand you then maybe I can help you understand me."
"Why should I even speak to you?"
"Because it would help both of us."
"You're not even real."
"What is real?" She reached up and touched the photo of Laura and Brenley that hung on the wall over the desk, cautiously, her long fingers testing the surface as if measuring just how far she could go.
"I miss them," he said, giving up, giving in, giving her the key to undo him.
She only stared at him.
But, then, he was only admitting his loss to himself, wasn't he?
* * *To sleep would have been wise. To sleep would have let him sink into a place where memory and reality merged, where he was happy and Christmas wouldn't be a bleak promise. He'd been chasing sleep for hours now. To no avail. It was one of those nights Laura stood behind his eyes, Brenley in her arms, both of them lying like broken dolls dressed in clownish parkas, smashed in the rubble of a shale slide. He could still hear her telling him about her last encounter with Ela, of her frustration. His last thought before that roar had been one of despair, of Laura lost in a world of insanity. Then the earth had taken everything. His despair. Laura. Brenley.
He should have known. The shale scree was unstable. It was no place for his wife and daughter to be hiking. A geologist. fine. But not Laura and Brenley. He should have known.
He turned in the darkness and clutched Laura's pillow. The bed stretched around him, vast, empty, too much for one man to fill. He spread himself across its surface, trying to find Laura there, Laura's warmth, Laura's smell.
A movement on the bed stopped him. Alarm chattered down his limbs. Had someone sat down? He tried to hold his breath, to silence the rush of his blood in his ears.
Light filled the cabin, radiant like candlelight. All he could think to do was clutch the pillow, his heart thudding painfully. It was a woman on his bed, slender, her hair dark, that small mouth that could utter such brilliance in her field and such tenderness when it came to him. Her skin glowed softly. Lamplight, he told himself, knowing in that other part of him skin didn't emanate light like that. What was more, Laura was dead.
She smiled. "What would you like for Christmas?"
He tried to speak, failed, cleared his throat and managed, "You," convinced he had completely fallen over the edge. When the supply plane arrived the crew would find a drooling lunatic.
But it was Christmas Eve. Miracles could happen. That cold part of him laughed. Miracles didn't happen in the real world. Get a grip. You're a scientist. You're suffering from grief and isolation.
Laura laughed, like a caress. He shuddered. It was pleasant, insane though it was, to hear her laugh.
Oh god she seemed so real! And he wanted to hold her. Just for a little while. If this was insanity he would accept it. The bed was too large. His life was too empty. This place he called home was too sterile. He closed his arms around Laura, his mouth on hers. It didn't matter that he made love to a memory. It didn't matter that the woman he touched was no more substantial than the creature who visited him day after day since Laura and Brenley died. None of it mattered. Laura felt real.
This was Christmas Eve and he was making love to his wife, tasting her skin, touching her curves, whispering desperately indecent things as they moved in a way that was both selfish and selfless.
She shuddered against him, a cry in the room. He sank into euphoria that seemed timeless and then ended too quickly. Sweaty, satiated, he rolled over and held her in his arms, stroking her hair, an emotion in his chest he couldn't name and was afraid to confront. It took two to fill this bed. That was as far as he would allow his thoughts to go. It didn't do to question miracles. Or the gifts of insanity. He didn't want to remember her broken under the weight of the slide.
"I love you, Brian," she whispered. And then his arms were empty, the light snuffed. That raw thing in him escaped. He sobbed into the pillow still damp from Laura's head.
* * *In the end he must have slept, he realized, because he woke to that dim light called day in the Arctic winter. It was something he sensed rather than visualized because his eyes were sealed shut with crust. He rubbed at them painfully. Finally he looked around the cabin, to the dresser and small mirror on the wall at the foot of the bed, to the bedstand to his right. It didn't feel safe to look any farther.
He swung his legs over the bed. There was a chill to the floor. He wiggled his toes against that, careful not to let his thoughts begin, not to question, not to do anything to stir the dream and the nightmare of last night.
Somewhere in the back of his mind memory of the smell of roasting turkey came to the fore, filling the cabin. His pulse lurched. He closed his eyes, willing this not to be. He could smell that turkey. It was stuffed with a sage dressing. His mouth watered. And now he could smell cider rich with cinnamon, cloves and orange peel simmering over a burner.
His hands trembled between his knees. He clasped them over his face. It was then he was aware of the rise of humidity and the thick, sweet smell of plum pudding on the steam.
"Please," he whispered, unsure from whom he begged mercy, unsure even if he wanted to be delivered of his insanity.
There was laughter then, high and clear, that unmistakable giggle of a little girl. As if in a dream he hauled on his trousers, stood and paced into the centre of the cabin, sure of what he was about to confront, unsure of what to do about it. Against all odds there was a luxuriant balsam against the sitting area wall, its primitive, pristine scent impossible and marvelous. Trees like that didn't grow here. Brenley stood beneath its six feet, wrapped in a pink robe, her dark hair gleaming. She was so much like a miniature of her mother. She tossed silver icicles onto the branches, giggling when they caught, giggling when they fell. At her fuzzy slippered feet was an array of packages.
"Well hello, sleepy," Laura said.
Bewildered, he turned to the kitchen area where Laura stood fussing with crepes and applesauce and sausages – a traditional Christmas morning breakfast she dubbed French Piggies. That the ingredients for this dish were impossible to have at the moment didn't occur to him. It was the impossibility of Laura and Brenley that baffled him.
"Your dad's awake, Brenley."
Brenley turned from the tree, her dark eyes wide, her mouth an O of astonishment. She dumped the icicles and rushed into his arms. He opened them, mechanically, lifted her up and up, etching every line of this child he'd made onto his memory, relishing the feel of her small body against his skin. It occurred to him that it was these small things that made memories. A touch. A smell. A taste.
Had he remade her last night? Was that what he'd done when he'd made love to a ghost?
Laura was no ghost this morning. She set breakfast on the table and walked over to him, pecked him on the cheek, wrapped her arms around both him and Brenley.
"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," she whispered in his ear.
He could only nod, warmth rippling down his neck.
"Ela's going to have Christmas with us. Do you mind?"
He shook his head and let her lead him to the table where Ela now sat, another aberration of his mind suddenly there and real. They ate. He handled utensils without notice, lifting food that tasted wonderful to his mouth. He chewed. He watched these three females. They laughed. Brenley twitched with the prospect of presents. Ela said little. She just sat there glowing in that way she had.
Laura leaned toward him and wrapped her hand around his. "I think we better leave breakfast for now. Brenley's bursting."
His gaze shifted to his daughter, over to Ela and then back to Laura. "You're not real."
Laura smiled, squeezed his hand, looking at him the way she did when he needed her, when he was unsure. "Life isn't about happy endings, Brian. Happiness is what you experience along the way to death."
He yanked his hand away from her. "But you are death!"
She looked over to Ela. He stood abruptly. He was distantly aware of the chair overturning and clattering behind him. "I have to finish my report."
"It's done," Ela said. "There is no oil. Your resignation is tendered. You never have to leave."
He backed away, tripped over the chair, swearing when pain shot up his leg.
"Reality is what you want it to be," Ela said in that infuriatingly cool way she had. "You want your wife and daughter to be real." She shrugged. "They are."
"I don't want you to be real!"
"That's a reality I can't alter because I know myself to be real." Her look softened. "Brian, I need you to accept my reality."
"What are you really?"
"I'm what you want me to be."
What did he want her to be? A ghost? An alien? One of the spirits from Inuit legend? Or do I want her to be my insanity? "And them?" he asked, nodding to Laura and Brenley.
"As I said before, reality depends on perspective."
A life for a life.
He crossed to a chair and sank into it, watching his wife and daughter, the way they laughed, inhaling the smell of them, luxuriating in the reality of them. It was Christmas. Who was he to question the existence of miracles? Or to shatter them.
With a sob he slid off the chair and sat cross-legged beside his wife and daughter, ripping a bow off the present in Brenley's small hands.
By way of a gift to Five Rivers supporters, readers, fans...
By way of a gift to Five Rivers supporters, readers, fans, we're offering you this excerpt from Lorina Stephens' collection of short stories, And the Angels Sang. The work is held under copyright by Lorina Stephens, and may not be reproduced in any form without direct permission of the author.
The Gift
Without Laura's environmental data the geological report meant little. Again Brian glanced at the calendar on the computer. A dark square outlined today. To the right of that dark square was another day, this one outlined in red, red for urgency, and red because tomorrow was Christmas.
He shifted his attention back to the notes in front of him on the battered desk. All the words blurred. He felt the silence crush him. Laura should have been standing behind him, fresh from another analysis of Ela that garnered nothing. His wife would have praised his findings as if he had placed this wealth of minerals here in the MacKenzie Basin himself Her hands would have been on his shoulders, her warmth palpable on his back. She would have said something like: "Brenley, come see how clever your father is," and Brenley would have careened over, excitement vibrating through her small body. Such a harsh place to raise such a delicate child.
He turned to where Laura should have been, reaching out for her, her dark hair, her slender body, ready to hold her and let her ease the rawness.
Brian found only Ela.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice rough from non-use. It seemed bizarre to him that he spoke to a figment of Laura's insanity.
Ela frowned, that pale, elongated face expressing confusion. Everything about this woman wounded him: the way she watched, the way she spoke. She opened her mouth, but he pre-empted her.
"I know, I know. You don't understand what I'm talking about."
"I do not understand," she said. That voice so fluid, so aloof, as if he were a specimen she studied. He wondered if the Aleuts weren't right, that there were forces here in the MacKenzie Basin with which no one should tamper. Certainly Laura had said as much.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"You were thinking of me."
"Bullshit." Her statement unnerved him. Around the image of Laura had been this mystery phantom she'd discovered and could never prove. When he asked Laura for data she'd shrug in a helpless gesture and mumble something about being unable to remember her data when with Ela. It had been like watching her drift away, marooned on a floe in the pack-ice. When she'd found Ela, the woman was just there, kneeling where Laura knelt examining purple saxifrage. Laura said Ela hadn't been dressed for the weather, but when queried as to how Ela had been dressed Laura had been vague; when pressed, answered, "I don't know."
How could she not have known? Laura was an environmental scientist! It was part of her training to observe.
And yet all the details about Ela were the same – vague. No data where the woman came from. No data as to her background. Ela always just seemed to show up.
Now he shared Laura's insanity. He could find no psychological, chemical or biological reason why he did. Anyway, it mattered little he was going insane. There was no one to stay together for.
Don't go there. Don't think about that. To think about that was to let that howling thing in him climb up his throat, out his mouth and shatter everything he clung to.
"Why is it so frightening to you that you've accepted my existence?"
He wanted to shout: Because you're not real! Instead, he turned to his notes and the reality of one of the world's largest oil deposits. This was his chance to retire. No more scrabbling under adverse conditions. There would be a warm clime for him, a warm house. There would be people to grow old with. People to die with.
The thing in him gibbered up his throat, filled his mouth. He clenched his teeth, blinking the blur from his eyes. No. You can't do this. You can't let go.
"I am part of your reality," Ela said.
You are part of my insanity. How could he tell his insanity to go away?
"You are very special, Brian. Like Laura and Brenley."
"Don't talk about them!" He cradled his head in his hands, leaning against the desk. "Go away." I have to finish this report. I have to get out of here. Even if the supply plane wasn't due until a month after Christmas. "I have work to do." Please, let me work. Let me forget for one moment that Laura and Brenley aren't going to walk through the cabin door.
"What is this work?"
What was the point? He couldn't evade her. This was probably his way of linking to Laura and Brenley. "I have to find oil."
"Why?"
"Because we need to have it."
"How can you accept the existence of something you can't see when you can't accept me?"
"You're my madness. You won't be a problem for others."
"I could be."
He whirled on her, gripping the violence in his hands until his knuckles ached. "All I know is that my reality's twisted. You're not real, Ela. Nothing about you is real."
She smiled, all softness and compassion, so at odds with the aloofness she usually exhibited. As he watched her she seemed to glow. An aberration of Arctic light, he assumed, part of his growing madness or part of his grief. They were one and the same.
She spoke, softly, weaving the beginnings of a story, pulling at everything he locked into a safe place. The grief in him threatened freedom. Ela spoke of a woman, her hair dark, her body slender, a woman he had known, and loved, and been loved by, and as she spoke out of her aura stepped that woman, smiling, reaching out to him. Laura. So like Laura. Even her fragrance was there, clean, soapy, filling his senses when she wrapped her arms around him. Her lips parted as she leaned into him. He stood abruptly and threw himself onto the bed on the other side of the cabin, burying his head under the pillows.
How could she do that? How could she make the characters she spoke real? But then Ela wasn't real, was she? Why shouldn't a thing from his insanity create people who weren't supposed to be alive?
He unburied himself and glared at her.
"I don't understand why you are angry," she said. He ignored her comment, refusing to accept anything his mind created. She knelt before him, almost catlike. "I want to understand. If I can understand you then maybe I can help you understand me."
"Why should I even speak to you?"
"Because it would help both of us."
"You're not even real."
"What is real?" She reached up and touched the photo of Laura and Brenley that hung on the wall over the desk, cautiously, her long fingers testing the surface as if measuring just how far she could go.
"I miss them," he said, giving up, giving in, giving her the key to undo him.
She only stared at him.
But, then, he was only admitting his loss to himself, wasn't he?
* * *To sleep would have been wise. To sleep would have let him sink into a place where memory and reality merged, where he was happy and Christmas wouldn't be a bleak promise. He'd been chasing sleep for hours now. To no avail. It was one of those nights Laura stood behind his eyes, Brenley in her arms, both of them lying like broken dolls dressed in clownish parkas, smashed in the rubble of a shale slide. He could still hear her telling him about her last encounter with Ela, of her frustration. His last thought before that roar had been one of despair, of Laura lost in a world of insanity. Then the earth had taken everything. His despair. Laura. Brenley.
He should have known. The shale scree was unstable. It was no place for his wife and daughter to be hiking. A geologist. fine. But not Laura and Brenley. He should have known.
He turned in the darkness and clutched Laura's pillow. The bed stretched around him, vast, empty, too much for one man to fill. He spread himself across its surface, trying to find Laura there, Laura's warmth, Laura's smell.
A movement on the bed stopped him. Alarm chattered down his limbs. Had someone sat down? He tried to hold his breath, to silence the rush of his blood in his ears.
Light filled the cabin, radiant like candlelight. All he could think to do was clutch the pillow, his heart thudding painfully. It was a woman on his bed, slender, her hair dark, that small mouth that could utter such brilliance in her field and such tenderness when it came to him. Her skin glowed softly. Lamplight, he told himself, knowing in that other part of him skin didn't emanate light like that. What was more, Laura was dead.
She smiled. "What would you like for Christmas?"
He tried to speak, failed, cleared his throat and managed, "You," convinced he had completely fallen over the edge. When the supply plane arrived the crew would find a drooling lunatic.
But it was Christmas Eve. Miracles could happen. That cold part of him laughed. Miracles didn't happen in the real world. Get a grip. You're a scientist. You're suffering from grief and isolation.
Laura laughed, like a caress. He shuddered. It was pleasant, insane though it was, to hear her laugh.
Oh god she seemed so real! And he wanted to hold her. Just for a little while. If this was insanity he would accept it. The bed was too large. His life was too empty. This place he called home was too sterile. He closed his arms around Laura, his mouth on hers. It didn't matter that he made love to a memory. It didn't matter that the woman he touched was no more substantial than the creature who visited him day after day since Laura and Brenley died. None of it mattered. Laura felt real.
This was Christmas Eve and he was making love to his wife, tasting her skin, touching her curves, whispering desperately indecent things as they moved in a way that was both selfish and selfless.
She shuddered against him, a cry in the room. He sank into euphoria that seemed timeless and then ended too quickly. Sweaty, satiated, he rolled over and held her in his arms, stroking her hair, an emotion in his chest he couldn't name and was afraid to confront. It took two to fill this bed. That was as far as he would allow his thoughts to go. It didn't do to question miracles. Or the gifts of insanity. He didn't want to remember her broken under the weight of the slide.
"I love you, Brian," she whispered. And then his arms were empty, the light snuffed. That raw thing in him escaped. He sobbed into the pillow still damp from Laura's head.
* * *In the end he must have slept, he realized, because he woke to that dim light called day in the Arctic winter. It was something he sensed rather than visualized because his eyes were sealed shut with crust. He rubbed at them painfully. Finally he looked around the cabin, to the dresser and small mirror on the wall at the foot of the bed, to the bedstand to his right. It didn't feel safe to look any farther.
He swung his legs over the bed. There was a chill to the floor. He wiggled his toes against that, careful not to let his thoughts begin, not to question, not to do anything to stir the dream and the nightmare of last night.
Somewhere in the back of his mind memory of the smell of roasting turkey came to the fore, filling the cabin. His pulse lurched. He closed his eyes, willing this not to be. He could smell that turkey. It was stuffed with a sage dressing. His mouth watered. And now he could smell cider rich with cinnamon, cloves and orange peel simmering over a burner.
His hands trembled between his knees. He clasped them over his face. It was then he was aware of the rise of humidity and the thick, sweet smell of plum pudding on the steam.
"Please," he whispered, unsure from whom he begged mercy, unsure even if he wanted to be delivered of his insanity.
There was laughter then, high and clear, that unmistakable giggle of a little girl. As if in a dream he hauled on his trousers, stood and paced into the centre of the cabin, sure of what he was about to confront, unsure of what to do about it. Against all odds there was a luxuriant balsam against the sitting area wall, its primitive, pristine scent impossible and marvelous. Trees like that didn't grow here. Brenley stood beneath its six feet, wrapped in a pink robe, her dark hair gleaming. She was so much like a miniature of her mother. She tossed silver icicles onto the branches, giggling when they caught, giggling when they fell. At her fuzzy slippered feet was an array of packages.
"Well hello, sleepy," Laura said.
Bewildered, he turned to the kitchen area where Laura stood fussing with crepes and applesauce and sausages – a traditional Christmas morning breakfast she dubbed French Piggies. That the ingredients for this dish were impossible to have at the moment didn't occur to him. It was the impossibility of Laura and Brenley that baffled him.
"Your dad's awake, Brenley."
Brenley turned from the tree, her dark eyes wide, her mouth an O of astonishment. She dumped the icicles and rushed into his arms. He opened them, mechanically, lifted her up and up, etching every line of this child he'd made onto his memory, relishing the feel of her small body against his skin. It occurred to him that it was these small things that made memories. A touch. A smell. A taste.
Had he remade her last night? Was that what he'd done when he'd made love to a ghost?
Laura was no ghost this morning. She set breakfast on the table and walked over to him, pecked him on the cheek, wrapped her arms around both him and Brenley.
"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," she whispered in his ear.
He could only nod, warmth rippling down his neck.
"Ela's going to have Christmas with us. Do you mind?"
He shook his head and let her lead him to the table where Ela now sat, another aberration of his mind suddenly there and real. They ate. He handled utensils without notice, lifting food that tasted wonderful to his mouth. He chewed. He watched these three females. They laughed. Brenley twitched with the prospect of presents. Ela said little. She just sat there glowing in that way she had.
Laura leaned toward him and wrapped her hand around his. "I think we better leave breakfast for now. Brenley's bursting."
His gaze shifted to his daughter, over to Ela and then back to Laura. "You're not real."
Laura smiled, squeezed his hand, looking at him the way she did when he needed her, when he was unsure. "Life isn't about happy endings, Brian. Happiness is what you experience along the way to death."
He yanked his hand away from her. "But you are death!"
She looked over to Ela. He stood abruptly. He was distantly aware of the chair overturning and clattering behind him. "I have to finish my report."
"It's done," Ela said. "There is no oil. Your resignation is tendered. You never have to leave."
He backed away, tripped over the chair, swearing when pain shot up his leg.
"Reality is what you want it to be," Ela said in that infuriatingly cool way she had. "You want your wife and daughter to be real." She shrugged. "They are."
"I don't want you to be real!"
"That's a reality I can't alter because I know myself to be real." Her look softened. "Brian, I need you to accept my reality."
"What are you really?"
"I'm what you want me to be."
What did he want her to be? A ghost? An alien? One of the spirits from Inuit legend? Or do I want her to be my insanity? "And them?" he asked, nodding to Laura and Brenley.
"As I said before, reality depends on perspective."
A life for a life.
He crossed to a chair and sank into it, watching his wife and daughter, the way they laughed, inhaling the smell of them, luxuriating in the reality of them. It was Christmas. Who was he to question the existence of miracles? Or to shatter them.
With a sob he slid off the chair and sat cross-legged beside his wife and daughter, ripping a bow off the present in Brenley's small hands.
The Gift
Without Laura's environmental data the geological report meant little. Again Brian glanced at the calendar on the computer. A dark square outlined today. To the right of that dark square was another day, this one outlined in red, red for urgency, and red because tomorrow was Christmas.He shifted his attention back to the notes in front of him on the battered desk. All the words blurred. He felt the silence crush him. Laura should have been standing behind him, fresh from another analysis of Ela that garnered nothing. His wife would have praised his findings as if he had placed this wealth of minerals here in the MacKenzie Basin himself Her hands would have been on his shoulders, her warmth palpable on his back. She would have said something like: "Brenley, come see how clever your father is," and Brenley would have careened over, excitement vibrating through her small body. Such a harsh place to raise such a delicate child.
He turned to where Laura should have been, reaching out for her, her dark hair, her slender body, ready to hold her and let her ease the rawness.
Brian found only Ela.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice rough from non-use. It seemed bizarre to him that he spoke to a figment of Laura's insanity.
Ela frowned, that pale, elongated face expressing confusion. Everything about this woman wounded him: the way she watched, the way she spoke. She opened her mouth, but he pre-empted her.
"I know, I know. You don't understand what I'm talking about."
"I do not understand," she said. That voice so fluid, so aloof, as if he were a specimen she studied. He wondered if the Aleuts weren't right, that there were forces here in the MacKenzie Basin with which no one should tamper. Certainly Laura had said as much.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"You were thinking of me."
"Bullshit." Her statement unnerved him. Around the image of Laura had been this mystery phantom she'd discovered and could never prove. When he asked Laura for data she'd shrug in a helpless gesture and mumble something about being unable to remember her data when with Ela. It had been like watching her drift away, marooned on a floe in the pack-ice. When she'd found Ela, the woman was just there, kneeling where Laura knelt examining purple saxifrage. Laura said Ela hadn't been dressed for the weather, but when queried as to how Ela had been dressed Laura had been vague; when pressed, answered, "I don't know."
How could she not have known? Laura was an environmental scientist! It was part of her training to observe.
And yet all the details about Ela were the same – vague. No data where the woman came from. No data as to her background. Ela always just seemed to show up.
Now he shared Laura's insanity. He could find no psychological, chemical or biological reason why he did. Anyway, it mattered little he was going insane. There was no one to stay together for.
Don't go there. Don't think about that. To think about that was to let that howling thing in him climb up his throat, out his mouth and shatter everything he clung to.
"Why is it so frightening to you that you've accepted my existence?"
He wanted to shout: Because you're not real! Instead, he turned to his notes and the reality of one of the world's largest oil deposits. This was his chance to retire. No more scrabbling under adverse conditions. There would be a warm clime for him, a warm house. There would be people to grow old with. People to die with.
The thing in him gibbered up his throat, filled his mouth. He clenched his teeth, blinking the blur from his eyes. No. You can't do this. You can't let go.
"I am part of your reality," Ela said.
You are part of my insanity. How could he tell his insanity to go away?
"You are very special, Brian. Like Laura and Brenley."
"Don't talk about them!" He cradled his head in his hands, leaning against the desk. "Go away." I have to finish this report. I have to get out of here. Even if the supply plane wasn't due until a month after Christmas. "I have work to do." Please, let me work. Let me forget for one moment that Laura and Brenley aren't going to walk through the cabin door.
"What is this work?"
What was the point? He couldn't evade her. This was probably his way of linking to Laura and Brenley. "I have to find oil."
"Why?"
"Because we need to have it."
"How can you accept the existence of something you can't see when you can't accept me?"
"You're my madness. You won't be a problem for others."
"I could be."
He whirled on her, gripping the violence in his hands until his knuckles ached. "All I know is that my reality's twisted. You're not real, Ela. Nothing about you is real."
She smiled, all softness and compassion, so at odds with the aloofness she usually exhibited. As he watched her she seemed to glow. An aberration of Arctic light, he assumed, part of his growing madness or part of his grief. They were one and the same.
She spoke, softly, weaving the beginnings of a story, pulling at everything he locked into a safe place. The grief in him threatened freedom. Ela spoke of a woman, her hair dark, her body slender, a woman he had known, and loved, and been loved by, and as she spoke out of her aura stepped that woman, smiling, reaching out to him. Laura. So like Laura. Even her fragrance was there, clean, soapy, filling his senses when she wrapped her arms around him. Her lips parted as she leaned into him. He stood abruptly and threw himself onto the bed on the other side of the cabin, burying his head under the pillows.
How could she do that? How could she make the characters she spoke real? But then Ela wasn't real, was she? Why shouldn't a thing from his insanity create people who weren't supposed to be alive?
He unburied himself and glared at her.
"I don't understand why you are angry," she said. He ignored her comment, refusing to accept anything his mind created. She knelt before him, almost catlike. "I want to understand. If I can understand you then maybe I can help you understand me."
"Why should I even speak to you?"
"Because it would help both of us."
"You're not even real."
"What is real?" She reached up and touched the photo of Laura and Brenley that hung on the wall over the desk, cautiously, her long fingers testing the surface as if measuring just how far she could go.
"I miss them," he said, giving up, giving in, giving her the key to undo him.
She only stared at him.
But, then, he was only admitting his loss to himself, wasn't he?
* * *To sleep would have been wise. To sleep would have let him sink into a place where memory and reality merged, where he was happy and Christmas wouldn't be a bleak promise. He'd been chasing sleep for hours now. To no avail. It was one of those nights Laura stood behind his eyes, Brenley in her arms, both of them lying like broken dolls dressed in clownish parkas, smashed in the rubble of a shale slide. He could still hear her telling him about her last encounter with Ela, of her frustration. His last thought before that roar had been one of despair, of Laura lost in a world of insanity. Then the earth had taken everything. His despair. Laura. Brenley.
He should have known. The shale scree was unstable. It was no place for his wife and daughter to be hiking. A geologist. fine. But not Laura and Brenley. He should have known.
He turned in the darkness and clutched Laura's pillow. The bed stretched around him, vast, empty, too much for one man to fill. He spread himself across its surface, trying to find Laura there, Laura's warmth, Laura's smell.
A movement on the bed stopped him. Alarm chattered down his limbs. Had someone sat down? He tried to hold his breath, to silence the rush of his blood in his ears.
Light filled the cabin, radiant like candlelight. All he could think to do was clutch the pillow, his heart thudding painfully. It was a woman on his bed, slender, her hair dark, that small mouth that could utter such brilliance in her field and such tenderness when it came to him. Her skin glowed softly. Lamplight, he told himself, knowing in that other part of him skin didn't emanate light like that. What was more, Laura was dead.
She smiled. "What would you like for Christmas?"
He tried to speak, failed, cleared his throat and managed, "You," convinced he had completely fallen over the edge. When the supply plane arrived the crew would find a drooling lunatic.
But it was Christmas Eve. Miracles could happen. That cold part of him laughed. Miracles didn't happen in the real world. Get a grip. You're a scientist. You're suffering from grief and isolation.
Laura laughed, like a caress. He shuddered. It was pleasant, insane though it was, to hear her laugh.
Oh god she seemed so real! And he wanted to hold her. Just for a little while. If this was insanity he would accept it. The bed was too large. His life was too empty. This place he called home was too sterile. He closed his arms around Laura, his mouth on hers. It didn't matter that he made love to a memory. It didn't matter that the woman he touched was no more substantial than the creature who visited him day after day since Laura and Brenley died. None of it mattered. Laura felt real.
This was Christmas Eve and he was making love to his wife, tasting her skin, touching her curves, whispering desperately indecent things as they moved in a way that was both selfish and selfless.
She shuddered against him, a cry in the room. He sank into euphoria that seemed timeless and then ended too quickly. Sweaty, satiated, he rolled over and held her in his arms, stroking her hair, an emotion in his chest he couldn't name and was afraid to confront. It took two to fill this bed. That was as far as he would allow his thoughts to go. It didn't do to question miracles. Or the gifts of insanity. He didn't want to remember her broken under the weight of the slide.
"I love you, Brian," she whispered. And then his arms were empty, the light snuffed. That raw thing in him escaped. He sobbed into the pillow still damp from Laura's head.
* * *In the end he must have slept, he realized, because he woke to that dim light called day in the Arctic winter. It was something he sensed rather than visualized because his eyes were sealed shut with crust. He rubbed at them painfully. Finally he looked around the cabin, to the dresser and small mirror on the wall at the foot of the bed, to the bedstand to his right. It didn't feel safe to look any farther.
He swung his legs over the bed. There was a chill to the floor. He wiggled his toes against that, careful not to let his thoughts begin, not to question, not to do anything to stir the dream and the nightmare of last night.
Somewhere in the back of his mind memory of the smell of roasting turkey came to the fore, filling the cabin. His pulse lurched. He closed his eyes, willing this not to be. He could smell that turkey. It was stuffed with a sage dressing. His mouth watered. And now he could smell cider rich with cinnamon, cloves and orange peel simmering over a burner.
His hands trembled between his knees. He clasped them over his face. It was then he was aware of the rise of humidity and the thick, sweet smell of plum pudding on the steam.
"Please," he whispered, unsure from whom he begged mercy, unsure even if he wanted to be delivered of his insanity.
There was laughter then, high and clear, that unmistakable giggle of a little girl. As if in a dream he hauled on his trousers, stood and paced into the centre of the cabin, sure of what he was about to confront, unsure of what to do about it. Against all odds there was a luxuriant balsam against the sitting area wall, its primitive, pristine scent impossible and marvelous. Trees like that didn't grow here. Brenley stood beneath its six feet, wrapped in a pink robe, her dark hair gleaming. She was so much like a miniature of her mother. She tossed silver icicles onto the branches, giggling when they caught, giggling when they fell. At her fuzzy slippered feet was an array of packages.
"Well hello, sleepy," Laura said.
Bewildered, he turned to the kitchen area where Laura stood fussing with crepes and applesauce and sausages – a traditional Christmas morning breakfast she dubbed French Piggies. That the ingredients for this dish were impossible to have at the moment didn't occur to him. It was the impossibility of Laura and Brenley that baffled him.
"Your dad's awake, Brenley."
Brenley turned from the tree, her dark eyes wide, her mouth an O of astonishment. She dumped the icicles and rushed into his arms. He opened them, mechanically, lifted her up and up, etching every line of this child he'd made onto his memory, relishing the feel of her small body against his skin. It occurred to him that it was these small things that made memories. A touch. A smell. A taste.
Had he remade her last night? Was that what he'd done when he'd made love to a ghost?
Laura was no ghost this morning. She set breakfast on the table and walked over to him, pecked him on the cheek, wrapped her arms around both him and Brenley.
"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," she whispered in his ear.
He could only nod, warmth rippling down his neck.
"Ela's going to have Christmas with us. Do you mind?"
He shook his head and let her lead him to the table where Ela now sat, another aberration of his mind suddenly there and real. They ate. He handled utensils without notice, lifting food that tasted wonderful to his mouth. He chewed. He watched these three females. They laughed. Brenley twitched with the prospect of presents. Ela said little. She just sat there glowing in that way she had.
Laura leaned toward him and wrapped her hand around his. "I think we better leave breakfast for now. Brenley's bursting."
His gaze shifted to his daughter, over to Ela and then back to Laura. "You're not real."
Laura smiled, squeezed his hand, looking at him the way she did when he needed her, when he was unsure. "Life isn't about happy endings, Brian. Happiness is what you experience along the way to death."
He yanked his hand away from her. "But you are death!"
She looked over to Ela. He stood abruptly. He was distantly aware of the chair overturning and clattering behind him. "I have to finish my report."
"It's done," Ela said. "There is no oil. Your resignation is tendered. You never have to leave."
He backed away, tripped over the chair, swearing when pain shot up his leg.
"Reality is what you want it to be," Ela said in that infuriatingly cool way she had. "You want your wife and daughter to be real." She shrugged. "They are."
"I don't want you to be real!"
"That's a reality I can't alter because I know myself to be real." Her look softened. "Brian, I need you to accept my reality."
"What are you really?"
"I'm what you want me to be."
What did he want her to be? A ghost? An alien? One of the spirits from Inuit legend? Or do I want her to be my insanity? "And them?" he asked, nodding to Laura and Brenley.
"As I said before, reality depends on perspective."
A life for a life.
He crossed to a chair and sank into it, watching his wife and daughter, the way they laughed, inhaling the smell of them, luxuriating in the reality of them. It was Christmas. Who was he to question the existence of miracles? Or to shatter them.
With a sob he slid off the chair and sat cross-legged beside his wife and daughter, ripping a bow off the present in Brenley's small hands.
