(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies, collections, and zines.)
“Women of the Mere” by Jessi Ann York illuminates the quiet (and often hidden) strength of tough women as it seamlessly transforms a familial slice-of-life tale into a beautifully creepy work of magical realism. It’s Bradbury-esque.
I say beautifully creepy because I didn’t feel unsettled by it. For some reason, it left me feeling strangely proud of my own mother after reading the final sentence.
“Women of the Mere” is one of the standout stories in the four-author anthology titled Seasons of Severance: Collected Dark Fiction published by Cemetery Gates Media. Besides York, the collection features Sara Tantlinger, Correy Farrenkopf, and Red Lagoe. To be honest, I wanted to read the anthology because of Tantlinger and Lagoe. I had reviewed Tantlinger’s Bram Stoker Award-nominated book To Be Devoured for my website, and I had read Lagoe’s The Gatherer from the three-author collection The Devil’s Backbone: Appalachian Horror, which I ranked No. 4 on the March Edition of The MalevolentDark.com Horror Fiction Top 25 chart.
“Women of the Mere” is about a typical Southern family of three living in rural Tennessee — a working dad, a stay-at-home mom named Lynn, and their young daughter Eve who’s in fourth grade. The tale opens with the dad telling Eve the spooky account of “a stubborn old woman” who haunts a man-made lake near their home. The old woman is a bogeywoman of sorts, and her story’s purpose is to keep children from straying near the lake without adult supervision.
This year, though, Eve is undaunted by the story of the woman in the lake. During the summer, she decides to run free in the fields beside the lake, letting the tall grass and June bugs spark her imagination until the tractors arrive in the fall to turn the grass into hay bales. Then, Eve sets her sights on a hay bale, anxious to tell her dad how she climbed to the top by herself.
However, her dad — a bit of a prankster — scares her in the midst of trying to reach the top. Eve is still crying when she comes home, and her dad receives an earful from his wife Lynn for letting Eve play in the hay so long “for such a mean prank.”
“Eve’s legs are going to be covered in rashes for a solid week,” Lynn says.
Lynn offers to apply itch cream to Eve’s legs, but dad is dismissive, allowing Eve to escape to bed while her parents argue about the hay incident. At this point, the story is still firmly entrenched in the real world of the male-dominated family dynamic.
However, York skillfully employs subtlety to show that not all is as it appears. Even the title of the story has a double meaning — mere is a lake, yes, but it also means “nothing more than.”
For example, dad’s name is never revealed and there’s no depth to his character. He’s a man who throws the fact that he’s the breadwinner in his wife’s face, rags on her gray hair, and reminds her that she’s a stay-at-home mom “who needs to get a second hobby.”
When Eve tries to tell her dad how she was about to climb to the top of the bale, he doesn’t even let her finish the sentence. Forget the fact that he was the one who stopped her from reaching the top in the first place. The impressionable Eve, though, misinterprets her dad’s slights for toughness and her mom’s concern for weakness, so she wants to be tough like her dad.
By contrast, when Lynn is introduced, the nuance of York’s writing changes to an elemental level of description. “Lynn’s voice is always soft, like the veiny insides of a newborn rabbit’s ears, but tonight it’s more like a growl.” By the way, that’s my favorite line in the story — “like the veiny insides of a newborn rabbit’s ears.” What an absolutely beautiful way to describe the tender side of a strong woman.
“Women of the Mere” takes a surprising turn for Eve during the night that I won’t spoil, except to say it was chilling, tender, and unexpected all at the same time. At the beginning of my review, I know I wrote that this story was “beautifully creepy.” But after reading it a second time, I have to say that it’s way more beautiful than creepy.
MORE SHORT SHOTS
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The Official Website of Horror and Fantasy Writer Lionel Ray Green 