2 AM, OCTOBER 14 – DEEP WITHIN THE HOUSE
Massive oak timbers loom in the shadows above like clean and varnished bones. Persian rugs lie all around untouched in their dust. Scattered upon these faded pelts are tea tables and stacks of swollen books unopened for decades. There is a tangible odor of decay coming from the dumbwaiter. One last tea service, never sent up? Something darker?
I should not be here, this room knows. I am indecent, an intruder, a raider of the tomb.
Good, I think, getting out my chalk. Good.
I do not think it matters what figures I draw, only that I draw them. I roll up one end of a long rug and practice my geometry on the relatively clean floorboards beneath. Isosceles triangles, rhombuses, dodecahedrons. I am careful to avoid the hem of my dress, a gorgeous vintage piece I will have to return tomorrow.
The Bloody Mary approach seems as likely as any to call up a reclusive female spirit. I blow back my sweaty bangs (the air here is stifling) and begin to chant into the face of my cosmetic mirror.
Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again
Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again
Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley—
- Hello strange girl. -
Ms. Du Maurier?
- Who else were you expecting? -
Of course, my fault, dumb question. Your voice is muffled and all I can see in this mirror is a smudge. May I call you Daphne?
- This place . . . -
Do you like it? It took some doing to find an old mansion undisturbed like this. It’s not quite Cornwall, but I tried.
- I sense water and wild currants nearby. It will do. -
Thank you. Before we go any further, I just want you to know that you’re one of my favorite writers. I love your gothic flavor and how you take traditional narratives and turn them into spooky, dream-like apparitions. I wish I was half as good at it.
- That’s nice to hear. Are people still reading me, then? -
Rebecca is canon. And everyone has seen The Birds, even if they haven’t read it. My old high school English teacher called you a “romantic novelist,” however, which seemed a bit inexact to be honest.
- Where is this teacher living, because I promise you I will haunt the living hell out of him or her. I ask you, would they have shackled me with that ridiculous label if I had been Derek Du Maurier? -
You have a point.
- Everyone dies in my books. Or attempts to flee trauma forever. Nothing is romantic about that. Tell me where this teacher lives. -
Daphne, I think maybe we’re getting off topic—
- I will wear an unsettling hat I will wait always around the next corner I will be a shadow in the stairwell at the right moment I will flit between the newel posts there will be a single scream -
Let’s try to forget the teacher. What I’ve always wanted to know is how you managed to use such restrained language and yet produce such a wonderful effect of fear. You are the queen of sinister tension. Do you have any advice for a writer trying to create the same effect?
- Make sure the reader never knows more than half of what you know, and make them doubt everything. Your characters should reveal parts of themselves that throw into question information they have revealed before. -
A shifting horizon of mystery and unreliability?
- Something like that. But keep your setting visceral and grounded so your phantasms have something to act upon. -
Thank you, I’ll remember that.
- It’s time for me to withdraw. You’re sure you won’t give me the address of that teacher? -
Pretty sure, actually.
- I can’t guarantee I won’t discover it on my own. The afterlife is full of unexpected . . . abilities. -
Daphne, I’m going to put the powder puff back in the case and scrub away the symbols now.
- Suit yourself. And pathetic young writer? -
Yes?
- Look out for seagulls. -
Rebecca Adams Wright is a graduate of the Clarion Workshop and has an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her work has appeared in Day One, The Account, Daily Science Fiction, SF Signal, and Children’s Literature in Education. Her fiction has appeared on NPR and been adapted for Snap Judgement. Her story collection, The Thing About Great White Sharks and Other Stories, received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly and was longlisted for the 2015 Frank O’Connor Award.