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    Beside the River Styx
    Beside the River Styx
    Beside the River Styx
    Ebook80 pages1 hour

    Beside the River Styx

    By Helen Vivienne Fletcher

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    About this ebook

    A woman finds a body in a park. A girl watches for witches next door. A cruel town turns against a young mother, while a man kills with humour. A teenager tries to keep a library alive in a world where paper crumbles; a cursed piece of jewellery changes necks. 

     

    Beside the River Styx brings together nine dark, twisty and comically criminal tales. If you like creepy magic, heart-breakingly human moments, and a touch of black humour, then you'll love Helen Vivienne Fletcher's new short story collection.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHelen Vivienne Fletcher
    Release dateJan 22, 2024
    ISBN9781991198044
    Beside the River Styx
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    Author

    Helen Vivienne Fletcher

    Helen Vivienne Fletcher is a children’s and young adult author, spoken word poet and award-winning playwright. She has won and been shortlisted for numerous writing competitions including winning the Outstanding New Playwright Award at the Wellington Theatre Awards, making the shortlist for the Storylines Joy Cowley Award, and the finalist list for the Ngaio Marsh Best First Book Award. Helen has worked in many jobs, doing everything from theatre stage management to phone counselling. She discovered her passion for writing for young people while working as a youth support worker, and now helps children find their own passion for storytelling through her work as a creative writing tutor. She lives in Wellington with her disability assistance dog, Bindi – a five-year-old, playful Labrador who loves soft toys, cuddles, and can fit three tennis balls in her mouth at once. Overall, Helen just loves telling stories and is always excited when people want to read or hear them.

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      Book preview

      Beside the River Styx - Helen Vivienne Fletcher

      First published in this format by HVF Publishing in 2024

      Copyright © Helen Vivienne Fletcher, 2024

      Edited by Sue Copsey

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher.

      It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

      ISBN:

      978-1-9911980-3-7 (Paperback)

      978-1-9911980-4-4 (Epub)

      978-1-9911980-5-1 (Large Print)

      Previous Publication Acknowledgements

      There Had Always Been Bones in The Park first appeared in Noir Worries by Milan

      The Library was first published in The Art of Being Human edited by Tehani Croft and Stephanie Lai, Fablecroft Publishing 2022

      He Who Laughs Last was first published in Dark Deeds Down Under edited by Craig Sisterson, Clan Destine Press 2022

      Beside the River Sticks was first published in Sproutlings: A Compendium of Little Fictions, edited by Morgan Bell, Invisible Elephant Press 2017

      The Night Village was first broadcast on RadioActive in association with Crip the Lit and VERB Festival 2023

      Goblin Mother

      We learned the words as children, chanting them as we skipped – Call on blessed Mary ; Spit once for luck ; Don’t forget to sneeze, ah-tissue, ah-tissue; Bless you to keep the devil out.

      Our mothers tutted and boxed our ears. Evil girls, they’d say. You’ll have cursed babies, the lot of you!

      The other girls gasped and crossed themselves, but I poked out my tongue. I’ll have the evilest baby of them all. He’ll be king of the goblins!

      Then it was the mothers’ turn to gasp and cross themselves.

      You see, I had a secret. I didn’t believe in goblins. They were an excuse, a reason to shame women whose babies withered inside them. Someone to blame when a child took only a hundred breaths.

      She made a wish... the women would whisper. I learned to whisper too, lest their side-eye be turned on me.

      I wish... I wish...

      I wished malicious tongues and eyes were the only evils I would face.

      As we grew, the other girls stopped skipping. Proper little wives, they folded their hands, dropped their gaze, and said their prayers. No more calling on goblins, they tutted and blessed, and crossed themselves, all without raising their eyes from the ground at their feet.

      But me... I never lowered mine.

      The other girls, they became the ones who whispered. Bethel cursed her own unborn baby, don’t you know – called him king of the goblins! I ignored their muttered words. Their stomachs swelled with babes, but mine stayed flat. My ring finger remained unchained.

      The girls... the women... they weren’t the ones I should have been watching.

      The men circled me. Called me ungodly while leering in ungodly ways. They loved me in private and hated themselves for it in the light of day.

      When my stomach began to swell, they all denied it.

      Unnatural... they all said. Made a wish and brought a goblin to her bed.

      The whispers turned to mutters. Perhaps goblin was just a name for the things they wanted to forget.

      My son was born in the witching hour, and that sealed our fate. They no longer lowered their voices or their eyes. It was no longer luck that made them spit.

      Wicked girl, she’s brought evil to us all.

      They said I cursed my baby, but I loved more than their godly hearts ever could. I ran with the babe, taking him far into the forest. They followed, fervour driving them after us. I didn’t believe in goblins, but I believed in man even less.

      When I could run no further, and the babe weighed heavy in my arms, I spoke the words we had learned as children.

      I wish... I wish...

      The goblins came from the underground, twisted figures snatching my baby into the night. The men watched him go in silence, no blessing loud enough to keep the devil out.

      I’ll have the evilest baby of them all, I once told them. He’ll be king of the goblins!

      They pretend they don’t remember, but I know they’ll never forget.

      There Had Always Been Bones In The Park

      There had always been bones in the park.

      Chicken, of course, but it wasn’t hard to imagine them as fingers, freed from their flesh encasement long ago and now crunched between her dog’s jaws. She didn’t know who was consuming these large quantities of drumsticks, or why they felt the need to discard the waste in the grass. But the bones were always there, nonetheless.

      Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t such a surprise when she found the body.

      It was an icy morning. That wasn’t important, but as her breath turned to smoke around her, a small part of her recognised, and was thankful for, the small mercy of the chill keeping flesh cold.

      It took her a while to understand what she was seeing. There was a shoe – presumably a foot inside – and close to that, the cuff of a pair of jeans. Both lay on the green, spongy safety mat, as the gentle to and fro of the swing squeaked above them.

      Her dog didn’t bark. She had imagined that in situations like these, a dog would bark, frantically pawing and growling at the ground, morphing instantly into a cadaver dog, sensing and locating death.

      Instead, he sniffed at the bushes as she stood and stared at the shoe.

      Eventually, she forced her eye to travel up and

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