Release date: October 1, 2019
Subgenre: Short fiction collection
About Unfinished Business:
Unfinished Business:
Tales of the Dark Fantastic
features
a mix of twelve short stories about ghosts, monsters, revenge, new spins on old
tales, wronged women and really bad jobs by award-winning author Catherine
Lundoff. (Mixed LGBTQ/other content).
The Mask and the Amontillado
A Splash of Crimson
Bluebeard’s Wife
Duchess
Medium Méchanique
Miss Lucy’s Glass
Cherubim
Preserves
Haunted
Home Staging, with Phantasm
Firebird
The Temporary
Unfinished
Business marks the launch of Queen of Swords Press “Mini” series. These
books will be shorter books that feature single author short story
collections or novella length works, each grouped around a single theme
or shared set of characters. Essentially, they will function like a
tasting menu to introduce authors to new audiences. This particular
volume represents a sample of award-winning author Catherine Lundoff’s
short horror, dark fantasy and weird stories in a mix of reprint and new
work.
Excerpt:
from "A Splash of Crimson"
Blood-red in the gaslight, a butchered beast,
her dress catches my eye before she fades back into shadow, like smoke from an
ill-stoked hearth. When I force myself to look at the spot where she stood a
heartbeat before, there is nothing, nothing but smoke and shadow and the sense
that I am being watched. I close my eyes and turn away, resisting. I will
myself to see nothing, to feel nothing.
No one will give a mad governess a post. No one
will give a mad governess a post. No one...
The thought trails round and round in my head
until I clap my hands over my ears to try and shut it out. I can almost hear
her laughing at me from the shadows and I run back down the stairs to Miss
Violet’s room, seeking refuge.
But I catch myself at the door, my hand poised
to knock. Miss Violet is a young lady now, ready to be launched into society.
She has no real need of a governess and I am now assuming the less visible,
less authoritative role of chaperon and lady’s companion with each fortnight
that passes. My dismissal cannot be far behind. I must not hasten that day,
must not let doubts arise as to my fitness for duty.
Sir Charles says that he has already given my
references to several good families of his acquaintance. He must not doubt me.
She must not question me.
No one will give a mad governess a post.
I flee for the stairs and the scant safety of
my small room. A poker in the barely smoldering fire, the gas turned up, and
the shadows are banished. She cannot come to me now and my heart stills,
comforted by that hope. It was not always so with us. When she was alive, she
was my mistress, almost, but never quite, my friend. Now, she is...she was...I
close my eyes.
I drink my cold tea. I shall forget her. I
shall look away when I see that flash of crimson that tells me that she is
near, that she is watching. I shall use my Sunday leave to go to church. And
there will be never again be any séance that includes me as an attendee.
Perhaps I will ask the vicar what he thinks of spirits that linger on after
death. Perhaps he has a way to banish them.
Or else, he will think me mad, overexcited,
prone to hysteria. So there must be no vicar, not here. Not one who knew her
when this house was hers. No one must ever know that I have seen her. No one
else sees her. Only me.
I will insist that she stop appearing to me. I
was nothing to her in life. She was...nothing to me. Nothing that I can speak
of, now. I will banish her with the force of my will, once I summon it to do
so.
If I were a Papist, I might confess, might find
absolution in their rites. One of their priests might be persuaded to come to
the house while the family is out and put her spirit to rest. But what, then,
of the servants? One can never forget the servants. Those watching eyes and
listening ears, such tales they would bear to Sir Charles! And what, then, of
my references?
I fall asleep in my chair as I watch the fire
die and the room grow dim. She walks through my dreams but I remember nothing
but a flash of red and her face when I start awake at the distant sound of a jangling
bell. Yawning maids are tumbling from their rooms to roam the house with the
dawn and scrape the grates, start the fires and fetch the tea.
And today, I resolve that I will join them. I will
be done with the past. I will gather myself together, determined to be as I was
before, to deny her that last bit of myself that she seems to want to possess.
My dress is changed and my face is washed, all
trace of night terrors wiped away when I present myself at the schoolroom for
Miss Violet’s final series of lessons in deportment. By then, I have drunk my
tea and eaten my crust and my hair is in place. I catch a glimpse of myself in
the hall mirror as I enter the room, noting with approval the simple tidiness
of my dress. I carefully avoid meeting my own eyes, knowing that they must be
wild and red from broken sleep.
Miss Violet is a younger version of her mother,
beautiful but light and mockingly cruel one moment, deceptively sweet and
manipulative the next. I wonder if I might not be in a better light if I asked
Sir Charles to dismiss me now, to set me free from this house of dust and
shadows and half-glimpsed crimson gowns. But I know that he would never agree,
not until her daughter is safely affianced. There are so many dangers that can
beset a young lady’s reputation; I must endure and linger, abiding by my fate.
The
realization that I will see my former mistress again makes me tremble, makes my
heart race. But I conceal my agitation from Miss Violet. She might use it
against me, coaxing favors and sweets as she did when she was younger and saw
my weaknesses. Looking at her now, I can see only that she will become her
mother one day, perhaps destined to haunt her children’s governess in a crimson
gown.
But I must not say “haunt.” It is not a proper
word for children, especially well-bred children. What if Miss Violet were to
hear me say it and were to repeat it when in company? She might be mocked. My
former mistress merely lingers in my imagination. She does not haunt me. I do
not see her on the stairs, I do not see her in my room at night, I do not...
Miss Violet’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
She wants to take the carriage and go visiting. I plead the headache, but am
obliged to attend her when she disregards my feeble words. I yield to her
wishes as always and change my dress. Then I fade into the wallpaper of each
drawing room we visit, becoming more like a shadow myself with each passing
hour. Miss Violet ignores me, all smiles and extravagant gestures while I perch
on uncomfortable side chairs and listen to an endless flood of chatter about
balls and dances and picnics.
Miss Violet is at the end of her mourning for
her mother and all these delights are now once more open to her. I wonder if I
shall ever be permitted to end my mourning for her ladyship or if she will come
with me wherever I go, dogging my steps in her crimson gown. Resentment boils
through me that her daughter can leave her behind so easily, but I am seemingly
doomed to keep her by me forever.
About Catherine Lundoff:
Catherine Lundoff is an award-winning writer,
editor and publisher from Minneapolis. Her books include Night’s Kiss, Crave, Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian
Ghost Stories, Hellebore and Rue:
Tales of Queer Women and Magic, Silver Moon, Out of This World: Queer Speculative
Fiction Stories and the forthcoming Scourge
of the Seas of Time (and Space). She is the publisher at Queen of Swords
Press, a genre fiction publisher specializing in fiction from out of this
world.
