Release date: August 14, 2018
Subgenre: Ghost story
About The Apple-Tree Throne:
It is the turn of the century in an England that never was. Bright new
aqua-plants are generating electricity for the streetlights; news can be
easily had on the radio-viz; and in Gundisalvus' Land, the war is over
and the soldiers are beginning to trickle home. Amongst these is Lt.
Benjamin Braddock, survivor of the massacre that ended the war, and
begrudgingly ready to return to a world that, well, doesn't seem to need
him any more than it did in peacetime. His friends have homes and
families to return to, while he's got nothing but his discharge papers
and a couple of unwanted medals. Oh, and one new thing: the furious
ghost of his commanding officer.
Fortunately, since the officer's family is so vehemently adamant that Braddock join their rich and carefree fold, he doesn't have much time to fret about being haunted. But the secrets of the war are about to catch up to them all.
Fortunately, since the officer's family is so vehemently adamant that Braddock join their rich and carefree fold, he doesn't have much time to fret about being haunted. But the secrets of the war are about to catch up to them all.
Excerpt:
It's autumn, the time for ghost stories. Not the innocent skies and
washed-out roads of spring; not the stifling heat of summer, nor
less the dead of winter when sounds carry for miles. Autumn is when
adventures begin, when the air is crisp and the paths are dry and
the leaves whisper and the scent of smoke on the downs travels like
a secret. It must be autumn, when everyone is held in abeyance
between their home and their destination, when every trip is a
journey.
I wake to tapping at the glass and spend a moment reckoning it:
dash, dash, dash, dot. Dash, dash, dash, dot.
Two nines. Get out.
Shan't. I roll out of bed and see the Major-General, still quite
dead, as dead as the last time I saw him, hovering above the sill.
The new electric street-lights, soft and golden in the fog,
illuminate the gaping wound in his throat. Meeting my gaze with a
look of hatred, he reaches out once more and strikes the glass of
the window. Nine, nine.
I pull the curtains shut, muffling his outrage till I can drop off
again. Perhaps he is still angry about the funeral.
***
"Major-General Theodore Wickersley was a good man," I begin, but
this statement is so contradictory to what is actually transpiring
at his funeral that I trail off in embarrassment. In the silence,
Wickersley's mother emits one loud sob, sending crows yelping from
the fawn sea of oaks behind us. Surely for her sake, if nothing
else, I must continue.
Before I lose my nerve I describe his rapid rise through the ranks,
his fairness as a leader, his loyalty as a soldier. I praise his
brilliant military mind — stuttering into silence as another of
Wickersley's Irregulars gestures frantically at me to cut it out. I
express my deep condolences to the Greater Republic of Britannia as
well as his family, friends, and fellow soldiers. As I do so,
several of my fellow soldiers simply leave, slipping past the rows
of family with murmured excuses, as if a quiet slap to the face
might be any less painful than a loud one.
I am the only one who has agreed to speak. It is over swiftly, and
the spade-man walks bold as brass through the assembled mourners,
who part Red Sea-fashion to avoid his dirty shovel. He nods briskly
at me, as one professional to another, and begins to fill in the
grave. Wickersley's mother handed me a pink rose when I met them at
the gates, which I had meant to toss upon the coffin, but the work
is proceeding so swiftly that I feel it would be an intrusion.
In minutes it is done, and he switches to another tool with a flat,
oblong head to tamp down the fluffed-up black dirt. Finally, the
sliced squares of sod are replaced. They will catch again, put down
roots long before winter comes. Funny that cemeteries always end up
on the best farmland. Or is it the other way around? All those
bodies turning the thin soil rich and black over hundreds of years.
That old story they tell to scare children, about what happens to
those who eat hazelnuts from a cemetery.Amazon | Kobo
About Premee Mohamed:
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and
spec fic writer based in Canada. Her short fiction has been
published by Automata Review, Mythic Delirium, Pseudopod, Nightmare
Magazine, and many others. Her debut novel, 'Beneath the Rising,'
is slated for publication by Solaris Books in 2020.
Does anyone know the "old story they tell to scare children, about what happens to those who eat hazelnuts from a cemetery"?
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