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at The Pandorian

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My short story, Reflection of Beauty is based on film maker Jean Cocteau’s classic film

Le Belle et la Bette, or Beauty and the Beast. Predrag initially commissioned this story to be included in an art exhibition based on this film to be held in New York City opening October 31st 2011. Funding went the way of the failing economy, but the artwork and this story are still alive.

Based in London, artist, curator, and designer, Predrag Pajdic has illustrated this story with magnificent photographs and published it on his blog

The Pandorian. Her’s the link:

http://thepandorian.com/reflection of beauty

It’s a bit film noir, Southern Gothic, and very mysterious… Please stop over at The Pandorian and enjoy the story.

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This image is not one of the illustrations for Reflection of Beauty, but is still  fitting…

Through timeless realms and parallel realities, Ariana journeys to discover her true self. J.S. Chancellor has created realms out of old mythologies: Middengard, the land of mortals whose last city Palingard is slated to fall to the soul-devouring Laionai, of Eidolon. Once human, the Laionai evolved into a hive consciousness, gifted by the shape-shifting Dark Goddess, Ciara, with the ability to steal souls. The only salvation for the remaining mortals is belief in the myth of the lost land of Adoria, itself doomed to fall.

Readers come to fantasy seeking the Otherworld. The unfolding intricacies of strange realms are like the unraveling of a great mystery. Perhaps we all guard a legend deep inside our souls, a sanctuary that we keep safe from the corruption of the world. Chancellor builds on this fine resonance to keep us reading. She is particularly adept at conjuring up strange creatures like the ”not quite horse or dragon” Dragee, and the Laionai, like a cluster of ancient Chinese sages.

The story opens with Garren’s brutal execution of a rival warlord. He is utterly ruthless, seemingly without heart or conscience. At the same time an agile, gritty red-haired girl, Ariana, embarks on a mysterious journey, only to be attacked and wounded by Garren. Something about Ariana stirs feeling in Garren that he isn’t supposed to have and he spares her life. She is rescued by a powerful winged warrior who forces to accept an alternative reality. By doing so, Ariana discovers her true identity and the role she is destined to play.

Son of Ereubus is a fun read, fast paced and exciting. As the plot darkens, more secrets come to light. Ariana grows and Garren finds out he has a heart.

I would love to see deeper development of the Dark Goddess, Ciara and her worship. Chancellor gives us a tantalizing glimpse  that will hopefully by more fully exploited in the next two books of this epic trilogy.

This book made me think of Anne Bishops’ Dark Jewel series in its pacing and atmosphere. If you like those, and the genre of dark heroic fantasy in general, you would no doubt enjoy Son of Ereubus.

View all my reviews

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am currently reading this superb collection of short stories by my favorite, Tanith Lee for the second time. She is the Goddess of short fiction as far as I am concerned. And just like extras you get on DVD, Lee prefaces each story with how she was inspired to write it, giving us emerging writers a valuable peek into the mind of a master.

The first paragraph of the first story, Bloodmantle,encapsulates the evocative power of Tanith Lee’s writing:

“February, the wolf month, is also the color of wolves. And through the pale browns and whites of it, something so very red can be seen from a long way off.”

The next story, The Gorgon won the World Fantasy Award. J’adore the Fin de Siecle Elle est trois (La Morte).
Her twist on Snow White, Red as Blood, was my initiation into the magical Lee-world and, combined with Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, made me want to write fiction. The Hunting of Death: The Unicorn is also rich with poetry. All these stories are wonderful.

This book is rare and out of print. I was willing to pay handsomely for it—that should tell you how much I love Lee’s stories—for what my opinion is worth. If you have a chance to read it, don’t miss out.

View all my reviews

by Rosemary Carroll
BOMB 17/Fall 1986, LITERATURE

Angela Carter’s 1979 collection of original Fairy Tales, The Bloody Chamber was the book that made me want to write. I found it  in the 1980s in the text book section at the University of Washington bookstore as part of an English Lit course I was not taking. It was love at first sight. The tales are Angela Carter’s Freudian adaptations of some of the most famous Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The title story The Bloody Chamber is of course based on Bluebeard told in breathtakingly rich language and evoking a decadent, bohemian atmosphere worthy of the silent films of the 1920s. The Lady in the House of Death is an unforgettable vampire story, there is The Courtship of Mr. Lion, and homage to Beauty and the Beast. The  fairy tale poems of poetry of Anne Sexton that I had been over-exposed to in my youth paled in comparison to Carter’s amazing imagination.

I live almost all of her books and it was very sad to lose her at the age 54 to cancer.

It is impossible to interview Angela Carter now, so I was thrilled to find this form the arts blog BOMB. I could not resist reprinting it–so tipping my hat to the lucky interviewer Rosemary Carroll, here is one our greatest Gothic writers in her own words.

I was unable to match exactly the images used in the original interview, so replaced them close approximations mostly from the Neil Jordan film based on Angels Carter’s In the Company of Wolves.

Angela Carter

Angela Carter is a British novelist and short story writer whose works include: The Bloody Chamber, Nights at the Circus and The Magic Toyshop. She also co-wrote the screenplay with Neil Jordan for The Company of Wolves based on her short story of the same title. Ms. Carter’s most recent collection of short fiction, Saints and Strangers was published in September by Viking Penguin. The following interview took place over the phone, late one night in September, between New York and Iowa, where Ms. Carter is teaching at the Iowa Writers Program.

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Rosemary Carroll How do you like Iowa?

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Angela Carter Actually, we like it a lot. This area is uncrowded, with many trees and not much else for miles. This is where the great glacier was held up, right around here, and the land formations are unusual. You can watch a pickup truck drive along an unmade road and see the dust rise from the tires and settle back down. You can’t often do that elsewhere because too many other things happen.

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RC I know that you lived in New England for a while, but I presume this is the first time you’ve really spent in the Midwest. Do you find it very different?

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AC Yes, it’s quite a surprise. There is so much open space. I hadn’t expected to see so many small rural farms—there’s not much of that left in the United States, is there? It is very low and quiet. We—I and my young man—have a yard here and our son loves it. We watch him turn brown playing in the sun. Lie has taken to catching crickets and keeping them in a cage. I wonder if there is some rule that people who eat whole foods shouldn’t allow their children to imprison crickets.

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RC A vegetarian corollary.

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AC Yes, that sort of thing.

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RC From reading your books, I had the sense that you have an impression of America as a land that is ultimately somewhat disorienting—a place where the light and the heal are so intense that they are almost crippling or mutating. America comes across as a place where things happen to people and people are not in control, or aware, of their own lives. Is that accurate?

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AC I’m not sure. I know what you mean though. I think maybe you’re referring to the short story, The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe, the bit about the “laser light of the republic.”

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RC Yes, that and The Fall River Axe Murders.

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AC Well, they were both written while I was living in Providence, Rhode Island and the area fascinated me. I just walked and watched and listened. (Europeans are often like that around Americans though—like dogs watching their masters.) The atmosphere was so permeated with the Republican virtues. It admitted very little. The feeling was of a place having been chosen and of there being no possibility that the choice was not absolutely correct.

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RC And yet in Passion of the New Eve there is this wonderful depiction of the American desert as a place where transformation is easy, almost infinitely possible, even if it’s not a desirable transformation.

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AC I think the transformation in the novel was certainly desirable. I have actually seen the desert here, though. I made the great cross-country trip Americans always say they want to make. In 1969 my husband, my first husband, and I drove across the United States in a Greyhound bus. We went from New York to San Francisco, by way of New Orleans because we were both fond of the jazz music from there. We went south to El Paso and then through the desert to California. The whole trip only lasted six days but it was quite an experience.

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Stills from The Company of Wolves, courtesy of The Cannon Group.

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RC I have been wanting to ask you whether you liked Neil Jordan’s film version of your story The Company of Wolves?

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AC Well, I wrote the script, you know.
RC You and he collaborated on the script, didn’t you? I imagine the collaborative process would be very difficult. It reminds me of something William Burroughs once said to the effect that to collaborate is to lie.

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AC Oh no, we got along very well. We are good friends and I enjoyed doing it. I’m just sorry for Neil’s sake that the movie didn’t do better commercially. I was afraid that would really hurt his chance to make future films. But his new movie, Mona Lisa, is doing very well, so he’s hitting the high spots.

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RC But the end of the film Company of Wolves is so different from the story.

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AC I was furious about the ending. It wasn’t scripted that way at all. I was out of the country—in Australia when he shot the ending and he told me that it varied somewhat from the script. When I went to the screening I sat with Neil and I was enjoying the film very much and thinking that it had turned out so well—just as I had hoped. Until the ending which I couldn’t believe—I was so upset, I said, “You’ve ruined it.” He was apologetic.

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RC How had the ending originally been scripted?

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AC After she encounters the wolf at her grandmother’s house and what has happened becomes apparent she wakes up. Her body elongates beautifully and she does a perfect swan dive into the floorboards which turn into the surface of a body of water that swallows her. But that proved impossible to film. They tried covering the floor with water, but that didn’t work and she couldn’t just dive into the floor.
But even if it wasn’t possible to end the film as planned, I wish he had ended it right after the part where the white rose turns red.

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RC I prefer the way your story ends—with her lying in grandmother’s bed between the wolf’s paws.

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AC I do, too. Neil kept trying to convince me that his ending was potentially more ambiguous than it seemed. He maintains that her screams when the camera is panning the outside of the house are screams of pleasure, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way to me.

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RC I think men frequently have the mistaken belief that women are screaming in pleasure rather than in terror.

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AC True. Perhaps the problem is that Sarah Peterson is not a very explicit screamer. In any case, I really did like the movie as a whole. I try to think that the falsity of the ending won’t even be noticed—everybody in the audience will be looking for their shoes and it will go right by.

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RC I read an interview with Neil Jordan recently in which he asked what prompted his transition from writing fiction to making films. He said it was related to an increasing awareness on his part of the extent to which his prose had always been affected by cinema. He became more and more obsessed with the look and shape of things and began to feel that prose was an inadequate method of conveying these concerns. Is that a feeling you share? Do you have any desire to do more writing for film?

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AC I enjoyed working on Company of Wolves with Neil. And I have done some other work on scripts. When I do it I like it but I have no great desire to seek it out. Right now, Granada Television is making a film based on another work of mine, my second novel, The Magic Toyshop. I’m quite pleased with it actually. It will be a television movie, at least initially, and so, of course, the budget is much lower than it was for Company of Wolves. The cast includes this wonderful English actor, Tom Bell, have you ever heard of him?

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RC No, is he going to play Finn?

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AC No. He is cast as the uncle. He specializes in heavies—gangsters, Nazis and so on. He has a fantastic knack for portraying motiveless malignity, he will be just right. The director, David Wheatley, has worked mostly for British television—what drew us together was a film he made ages ago about the Brothers Grimm, that was full of terrific imagery and invention. David started out as a sculptor, oddly enough. We had a lovely time inventing imagery for ‘The Magic Toyshop’. He has a real feel for the book.

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RC I love that book—it is such a stunning evocation of adolescence. The scene in which Melanie is trapped while climbing the tree in her mother’s wedding gown is perfect—it completely captures that feeling of uncertain anticipation. This is an underconnectedness of events and you don’t know which one is dependent on the other but you know that there is an incredibly important relation between them and it is all very wonderful and frightening at the same time.

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AC You liked that? I’m glad. I am hopeful about the movie. I don’t think it will suffer from the small budget, because that story shouldn’t really require so much money to realize on film.

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RC I think that is true. Besides, a lower budget doesn’t always translate into a good movie; in fact, the inverse is sometimes true. Do you feel that your prose is affected by cinema?

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AC Since I’ve become a mother, I don’t go to the movies much. But certainly the way I view the world has been influenced by them. I think that must be true for most writers. The early Godard films had a very strong effect on the way I observe and see the world. They are extraordinary. And not just Godard. For example, I think of Barbara Stanwyck’s descent down the stairs in Double Indemnity. First, you see the stiletto-heeled shoe then the ankle with the chain around it, then the legs and the full, rich shine of her stockings. You know she is going to be a femme fatale long before you even see her face.

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RC Have you seen Hail Mary?
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AC No, I refuse to. I could hardly believe Godard would do such a thing. I’ve read about it and I saw clips from it on television and all I could think of was “Jean Luc, you have crapped upon an entire generation.”

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RC What is your favorite movie?

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AC You mean my favorite movie ever, of all time.

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RC Yes.

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AC I would have to say that it is Marcel Carne’s Les Enfants du Paradis, with a script by Jacques Prévert and extraordinary performances by just about everyone who was anybody in the French cinema: Jean-Louis Barrault, Arletty, Maria Cesarés… It is the definitive film about romanticism; and about the impossibility of happy endings; and also about the nature of monochrome photography, and the character of Pierrot in the Comedia del Arte and lots of things. It is an enormous, cumbersome, comprehensive world of a movie, and one in which it always seems possible to me, I might be able to jump through the screen into, and live there, in a state of luminous anguish, just like everybody else in the movie.

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RC Much of your work seems to exist in the borderline area between consciousness and dreams. The stories are dreamlike in structure and share other qualities with dreams—symbolic transformations, ritualistic, referent use of name and language, and the fulfillment of unexpressed, or even denied, desire. Do you keep a journal of your dreams?

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AC I don’t dream. Rather, I never remember my dreams and on the rare occasions when I do, they are completely banal. Last night, for example, I dreamed that I woke up and went to the bathroom. But this resemblance to dreams is deliberate, conscious as it were. I have studied dreams extensively and I know about their structure and symbolism. I think dreams are a way of the mind telling itself stories. I use free association and dream imagery when I write. I like to think I have a hot line to my subconscious.

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RC One of the themes that recurs is concerned with a sort of cataclysmic upheaval in childhood. Were you uprooted when you were a child?

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AC All English children in my generation were, at least all those living in London. I was born in 1940. My mother left London carrying me in her arms with my twelve year old brother. Almost no one remained actually living in London at that time. We went south to Sussex and stayed there for a while. Then we went to live with my grandmother in the country in the North. My mother would stay with my grandmother and I for a few weeks and then commute to London to be with my father and then return to us. But I remember this as a happy time somehow.

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RC That is interesting to me—that you grew up essentially as an only child in a house full of women. The aspect of your work that I most appreciate is this unique sense of real love for, and protectiveness towards, other women. It is something that I look for in women writers and almost never find.

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AC What you say about the feeling toward women makes me happy—because it is very important to me. But I don’t understand your comparison to other women writers. What do you mean?

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RC Women writers frequently adopt a tone or an attitude toward their female characters which is somewhat negative and ungenerous. It comes across as either whining self-indulgence or congratulatory, stolid self-reliance. There is so little compassion.

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AC To whom do you refer?

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RC Let’s say, Joan Didion, for example.

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AC Yah, boo, sucks. Although I am a card-carrying and committed feminist, what I would like to see happen to Joan Didion’s female characters is that a particularly hairy and repulsive chapter of Hells Angels descend upon their therapy group with a squeal of brakes and sweep these anorexic nutters behind them despite their squeaks of protest. Like aversion, dare I say it, of the rape of the Sabine women. And bear them off to hard labour in the grease pits. Or else ten years compulsory re-education in the coffee plantations of Nicaragua might do the trick, make those girls feel there are worse things in life than running out of valium. Except what lousy fun it would be for the Angels. And the Nicaraguans might feel with justice it was a particularly foul C.I.A. plot.
Actually, I think Joan Didion is an alien from another planet. Can we talk about a real novelist?

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RC To take a somewhat less obviously despicable example, then—Doris Lessing.

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AC She is quite an odd one, too. But as far as her feelings toward women or women characters go, they don’t seem objectionable.

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RC She seems incapable of finding sustenance or delight in the company of women. There is such an absence of joy.

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AC I wouldn’t limit it to her women characters, though. Some people think life is worth living and others really don’t see the point of the whole thing. She is one of the latter—it is her entire view of the world,

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RC The only woman I can think of, off hand, who is different in this respect is Jane Bowles.

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AC Now you’re talking. She is wonderful, extraordinary. But what a tragically sad end she met—it is, I suppose, a particularly poignant example of the terrifying fatality of being a woman.

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RC In the Sadeian Woman you stated that in Sade’s work women do not exist as a class and are subsumed into the general class of the weak, the tyrannized and the exploited. There is a suggestion that this denigration is connected with the fact that the reproductive aspect of female sexuality was completely devalued in Sade’s culture. Assuming that is valid, its antithesis leaves us with the earth-mother-goddess as the essence of the “valued” woman. And that is a somewhat problematic role model for women in the 20th Century.

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AC Or any century for that matter. Societies have never placed a very high value on the reproductive capacity of their women. The productivity of land, the availability of natural resources, the fecundity of thought, these are the things that must be valued. What concerns me is the fact that the actual physical aspect of this has been ignored for so long. Statistics are compiled about infant mortality. What about maternal mortality? I have three close friends who have had children within the past several years for whom successful childbirth would have been impossible five years ago. All of them would surely have died. I have been reading a collection of Chinese short stories written in China in the 1920s. The only woman writer in the collection died in childbirth at the age of 34. And in so many parts of the world this situation is still unchanged. The reality of it is ignored, or not focused on. Women have not had a voice until so recently and even now this issue is not one with which the women’s movement seems concerned.

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RC Had you always wanted to have a child?

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AC No, never. They had to drag me, kicking and screaming, into the labor ward. I kept insisting that it was too late, that I was too old for such things.

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RC Has being a mother changed your perceptives?

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AC No, not really. Well, it has changed my life. We have so much less time than we did. His father’s life is just as changed as mine.
But Alexander, my son, is a wonderful little person. He is going on three. I am getting used to having these great numbers of people in the car that are all his friends, his made-up friends. He is amazingly busy all the time, and that is hard work.
But we both feel the impact and the joy and the strain. I don’t think that Alexander has a greater effect on me necessarily. That is part of the myth of sexual difference.

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RC What is the myth of sexual difference?

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AC The idea that maleness is normative and that women’s difference from men is somehow pathological. This mythology lends itself, for example, to the idea that there is some mysterious connection between women and madness when in fact women are no more specifically connected with madness than are men.

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RC I wanted to ask you about mythology in general and its place in your work. Reviewers and critics frequently stress the presence of mythological and fabulist elements in your fiction. Yet, you have said, “Myths deal in false universals to dull the pain of particular circumstances.” Do you think this critical emphasis is misplaced?

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AC Yes, but I understand how it’s happened—there is something classy about invoking myth, it implies you’ve got a college education, people like to spot myths, it makes them feel good. That’s fine. I am interested in the way people make sense, or try to make sense, of their experience and mythology is part of that, after all. I’m a Freudian, in that sense, and some others, too. But I see my business, the nature of my work, as taking apart mythologies, in order to find out what basic, human stuff they are made of in the first place.

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by Aline deWinter

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“Oh, gatekeeper, open the gate! Open the gate so I may enter!” Salome cried.
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“Oh, no, Mistress!” cried Aaliyah. “Let us go back!”
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The Third gate opened, and the Gatekeeper, clad in robes of copper flame, reached forth and pulled off the Princess’s sparkling necklace.
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Salome cried out, for the necklace was fine and precious to her.
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“Oh Gatekeeper, why do you take my necklace?”
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“ Thus are the rules of the Mistress of the Abyss. Now you may enter.”
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Salome reeled. All the garden spun around her as she heard the voice of Aaliyah whisper, “…where they see no light…residing only in darkness…is it so?”
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“Shhh! Aaliyha! You tempt fate,” Etana whispered sharply.

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Darkness reached out and pulled them through the gate like a hand, bringing them onto a thread of white road. It wound through deep twilight over a low hill and then down to an oasis with a lake that opened up like a dull, watching eye. And on that lake, black swans floated, their sooty reflections like shadows cast upon the smooth surface of the water.
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The trees took notice of Salome and shivered, releasing flocks of black birds. Excited by the sight of so much water, for her desert home held nothing like this — not even the great gardens of the Herodium with all its wealth could supply such a wonder, Salome knelt down to plunge her hands into the lake.  It was as if she touched glass! The surface was solid, yet it was not ice, but rather a clear, hard, glass-like surface beneath which she saw large shapes moving slowly through the gloom.
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Salome turned to her serving maids who stood limp and apprehensive on the slope of the hill. The musicians watched her expectantly, waiting for her to direct them, as if they had lost all delight in playing on their own.
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“I shall dance upon this lake,” said the Princess, extending her delicate foot out to touch the water. “Yes, it will support me. I shall dance upon this lake,” she sighed.
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“Oh, no, Princess!” cried Aaliyah in alarm. “Surly you do not want to risk that! This is but an illusion. Surly you shall drown. No one can walk upon water, Princess, though she be the greatest dancer in the world.”
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“Yes, you must stop, Mistress Salome!  Perhaps we should turn back. Your wits are becoming confused,” cried Etana, “Stop!”
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“Do you doubt me?” said Salome. “I shall dance upon this lake. See how it bears me up so that I may walk over to those swans and dance among them. Music please! This will be a dance to defy the Gods of Death. Give me the head of Jokannaan. I want him to see how I dance upon the lake.”
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The music shrieked and wailed as if the whole of the world cried out in anguish while Salome took the glistening head from Aaliyah and turned with it toward the lake. She stepped upon it and it bore her up while , spinning, she gazed into the eyes of her beloved.
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“Dance with me Jokannaan. Dance with me on this lake of glass. See how our twin selves move below us; our reflected selves, our doubles are below us dancing in the mirror world of death, Jokannaan.  When the dance is over, you shall soon come back to life, and so shall I who have been as dead these many days.”
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Salome moved further onto the lake, sliding as she would across a shining floor. It was so smooth, her steps flew as if her heels bore wings. She watched her reflected shadow below, saw the vision of her self holding the severed head close to her heart, and in her delirium did not shrink away. Rather she grew ferocious in her dance so that the black swans scattered and dove at her before falling into a wide circle around her as if to hem her in.
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Slowly, as she danced, lost in the mirror world of her dark passion, Salome heard soft and distant voices rise up from under the lake, chanting in a slanting minor key.
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“Oh, they will drag me under; those voices overwhelm me like the sea, Jokannaan. Perhaps we shall fall into this mirror world forever, to dance with our feet upon the sky and our heads below the water….like these reflections here….unless I tear myself away and end this frenzy of love that holds me to you, for the blood that fell from you has entered into my heart, making us one, of one blood, cloven together like the sides of a healing wound. The sky grows deep and purple, Jokannaan, like the bruise that spread over my soul when I murdered you!”
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As if overcome by the song that grew louder and deeper with each passing moment, the musicians dropped their instruments and stood as stones on the silent hill. Aaliyah and Etana fell helpless on the ground. Soon, the only sound accompanying the Princess in her dancing was a terrible, echoing cry.

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To be continued…
photo: Mysterious Lake by Sara.K

Painting: Salome by Bussiere

This time, I will make it to the very surprising end. I hope you like twist endings, and especially enjoy, as I do, a few flights of thoroughly decadent purple prose.

It begins with the question: What if Herod had allowed Salome to live, and she decided her love was powerful enough to bring Jokanaan back to life?

Salome: Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery of Love is greater than the mystery of Death.

-Oscar Wilde

Salome: The Seventh Queen: Part One: Delerium

by Aline deWinter

Only seeds of darkness could have borne such a hybrid daughter with her golden skin and golden hair and golden eyes, her brows and lashes dusky as the sun at midnight, and her lips like a slash of blood. So like her mother, Herodias, the Black Narcissus, with skin of serpent belly white, and coils of hair so black it shone purple in the lamplight, whose eyes were like the abyss where hungry demons dwell. More like her father, Herod, whom her uncle, also called Herod, the Tetrarch of Judea, had murdered to steal Herodias to his wife. Somewhat, yet, like her father, Herod, who so loved gold and jewels that his crown and breastplate had melted into his body, burnishing his cinnamon skin to bronze and gilding his eyes and plating his black hair with veins of gold. Both mother and uncle had lips of carmine that constantly spilled over with the blood they had supped from their enemies.

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Despite her parents influence, Salome, being young, was as sweet and fresh as a bright waterfall in the desert, and as frightened as a gazelle surrounded by hyenas. When Herod had begged her to dance, and her mother, Herodias, had insinuated that, having roused the Tetrarch to boiling lust she should ask for the Prophet’s head in return for her dancing, Salome gave in. But the beauty of the Prophet disturbed her deeply, inciting within her strange feelings and longings that  wracked her supple, virgin body with exquisite tortures, so that she danced as one possessed by something far older than his God.

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Herod was entranced. His ardor spilled over in frenzied applause.

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Bowing deeply before her Uncle’s baffling leer, Salome demanded her Mother’s boon: the death of the Prophet, Jokannaan.

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The bribery and pleading of lustful Herod, frightened of his sins, could not dissuade her. The swirling vortexes of Herodias’s eyes  could bear no resistance in their hunger for revenge. Lust and Pride clashing in her soul like rocks against a battering sea, unable to command her own desires, Salome demanded the head of Jokannaan. Axe held high, the executioner went down into the well where Jokannaan lay prisoned. Suddenly screams rose into the air with a fountain of blood.

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Sobbing, Salome carried the severed head, its eyes closed as if in deep contemplation, on a silver charger to lay it at feet of her mother. She cried, not only because the object of her first love, so beautiful, so pure, had been torn from her so suddenly, but because his head was shining, and there was a subtle silvery vibration as of far away bells ringing, and the voices of angels singing.

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“You have done well, my daughter.” Herodias leaned towards her, breathing out the smell of tuberose as she sighed with satisfaction. “You shall have whatever you want of me. Only ask, and I will give it to you.”

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Her father, Herod stood up and glared down at his two women with a face crossed by lightning and blood colored clouds.

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“She shall have nothing,” he said. “She is lucky I do not have her thrown into the pit, and order her head brought to me on a charger. Or perhaps…I shall send poison to her room so that, after she dies, her body may still be pleasing to me…”

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Salome started to her feet and looked at her mother with pleading eyes. “But it was she who ordered me to do it!” she cried. She held the charger up before her mother until, trembling, she could hold it no more, and laid it down gently. She covered her face with her jeweled hands. “Oh, Jokannaan…what have I done to you?”

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“Enough!” Herodias cried. “You have done well, exceedingly well, my daughter. Let us leave here. I will have a servant girl taste your food for you. You will not suffer poison even if every serving girl in the kingdom has to die.”

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Salome said nothing. She just gazed at the Prophet’s head and her heart ached with sorrow and sudden love.

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Herodias leaned down and whispered in Salome’s ear. “Tell me what you want, my daughter. Tell it to me and I shall grant it you.”

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“I want Jokannaan to be brought back to life.”

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Herodias leaned back in her throne with disgust. “Impossible,” she snapped.

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“Impossible!” thundered Herod from on high.

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“Ask for something else,” Herodias said.

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Salome looked up at her mother and then at her father, who was not really her father and so looked at her as at any woman he might bed.

<

“I wish to keep this head. To have him embalmed with the spices of Egypt and encased in a casket of gold. I wish to keep the head of Jokannaan as a sacred relic,” Salome said, avoiding Herod’s hungry stare.

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Herodias leaned closer and breathed over Salome’s face with her tuberose breath. “I am not as pleased as once I was, but you shall have this boon. Just keep it out of my sight. I will not have it in my house.”

<
Herod smiled a slow rattling smile at Salome. “You have chosen well, Salome. I shall build a temple on the highest hill of Judea to house it in, and you shall have priestesses to tend it, and a fire burning always before it. Perhaps it shall undo the evil that your mother’s wrath has brought upon us.”

<
Salome stood up with bowed head, for she could not remove her eyes from the Prophet’s dreaming face, nor keep her lips from blooming scarlet.
“Thank you Tetrarch.”

<

Standing Salome caught her mother’s eye briefly, and looked away. The tuberose tinted air went around her like a noose, knotted with the Queen’s displeasure.

To be continued…

The nice lady over at Patsy’s Words of Wisdom, http://patsyblacksawyer.blogspot.com/

gave little old Gothic Faery Tales a prize!

This means a lot to me. Writing these strange stories is one of my profound passions, but online, you don’t always know if people even like them. But you continue to share hoping that, somewhere out there are some fans! That maybe your bit of entertainment made their day more interesting, mysterious, or enthralling.

Politicus.US gave this award to Patsy. Patsy writes a personal blog with down to earth humor and great quotes. She reads a lot and shares her insights. It’s a very fun and interesting blog.

This award originated at Will Oaks Studio a, wonderful blog that I visit regularly.

The rules of the award state that you must post it on your blog together with the name of the person who granted you this award and a link to his/her blog. Pass the award on to 15 other blogs you have recently discovered and think are great! Remember to contact the bloggers you’ve awarded to let them know they have been chosen. The following are my choices for blogs that I have been following for quite a while. Please visit them too. I have good taste.

I am breaking them into three posts of five blogs each because I tend to go over the top

Here are the next five blogs to get the Best Blog award:

History Undressed

If you love history, fashion, the history of fashion, Historical Romance in full fancy dress then you will LOVE this blog.

As a novelist, I am often immersed in period research. Blogs about architecture and clothing from past times can really absorb my attention especially if they are as well done as this is. I hope you stop by History Undressed. There are a few different writers on this  blog, and it has won prizes before.

Http://www.historyundressed.blogspot.com

Sexy Witch

Red Witch is the prolific author of Sexy Witch blog. This blog not only rescues witches from the hag-like reputation put on them from the Middle Ages onwards, but shows so many images of beautiful, cute, interesting, young, sexy witches that we are redeemed. It is an homage to woman’s power. She finds so many cool retro things, postcards, party favors, paintings, etchings…this is a really fun blog to visit.

Sexy Witch is the poster child for censorship. In looking for an image for this post, I found many empty boxes with red spots in them and her blogspot blog was thought naughty enough to need a warning. I won’t go into it… Sexy Witch thrives non the less.

Go to http://www/sexywitch.worpress.com

The Pandorian

If you love fine art, my friend Predrag Pajdic has  a magnificent blog called The Pandorian. An artist and curator of distinction, as well Milan trained high fashion designer and film costumier, Predrag displays his impeccable good taste and knowledge of, not just visual art, but of music , films, and literature  to give you a feast for your eyes and mind. The Pandorian is an art gallery by and for artists. and lovers of all things beautiful and rare.

Go take a look and leave him a comment or two. Tell him Arlene sent you.

http://www.thepandorian.com

A Gothic Cabinet of Curiosities & Mysteries

Another amazing artist, Todd Attenberry, creates wonderfully haunting landscapes of America and Europe for his Gothic Ghost Stories blog. As you can see, we share a similar passion: Gothicism, hauntings, nature, twilight, and eerie gloom.

He has posts on true hauntings, folklore,  ghost stories, etc all accompanied by his many beautiful photos that are processed to look like Old Masters paintings. You have to see the site to really appreciate the richness of what he has on offer. Cabinetmaster, Todd is a real Goth — just check out his Gothic Manifesto and its lucid history of the Gothic movement.

http://www.gothicghoststories.com

Gothic Charm School

Of course, this blog is quite famous, but what a fun way to end part 2 of this little pageant!

One day a Goth, Jillian Venters, decided to address the rude, defensive attitudes of many in the Goth Culture by explaining to them that there was no need to get in anyone’s face to prove how dark and menacing they were. The result was a charming and witty little website called Gothic Charm School. As Lady of the Manners, Miss Venters offers video instruction in etiquette and how to deal with difficult non-Goths.  She is am amazing business woman as well with a book flying off the shelves of Barnes & Noble,  Borders Books and more. I am sure the Manor is well supplied this Christmas so why not pay a visit?

Http://www/gothic-charm-school.com

Enjoy the video and learn some manners!

The nice lady over at Patsy’s Words of Wisdom, http://patsyblacksawyer.blogspot.com/

gave little old Gothic Faery Tales a prize!

This means a lot to me. Writing these strange stories is one of my profound passions, but online, you don’t always know if people even like them. But you continue to share hoping that, somewhere out there are some fans! That maybe your bit of entertainment made their day more interesting, mysterious, or enthralling.

Politicus.US gave this award to Patsy. Patsy writes a personal blog with down to earth humor and great quotes. She reads a lot and shares her insights. It’s a very fun and interesting blog.

This award originated at Will Oaks Studio a, wonderful blog that I visit regularly.

The rules of the award state that you must post it on your blog together with the name of the person who granted you this award and a link to his/her blog. Pass the award on to 15 other blogs you have recently discovered and think are great! Remember to contact the bloggers you’ve awarded to let them know they have been chosen. The following are my choices for blogs that I have been following for quite a while. Please visit them too. I have good taste.

I am breaking them into three posts of five blogs each because I tend to go over the top.

Five of My Fifteen Favorite Blogs:

Occult View

David Dolgacius writes wonderful posts about paranormal events, ghosts, cemeteries, alien abductions — the supernatural laced with science.

He also writes the odd Tarot blog, and may discuss Out of Body Experiences and Astrology. He is a truly wonderful person and I consider him a friend. Go there now!

http://occultview.com/

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Terri Windling’s Endicott Studio

This lady is one of most amazing artists! With Ellen Datlow, she has edited many anthologies of stories based on fairy tales by some very famous authors. I’ve bought most of them. (See  sidebar)

Best Horror is one her annual anthologies along with smaller collections of stories based on themes such Fairies, Green Man, witches, etc.

Terri is also a visual artist, producing delicate, airy, original  illustrations. She seems to live a beautiful life , moving between Arizona and England.

If you want to see some gorgeous art, go to:

http://www.endicott-studio.com/

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http://www.terriwindling.com

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Supernatural Fairy Tales

Dorlana Vann does on her fabulous blog what I do on this one, but in her very different, contemporary style.

She also does film  reviews, and each month, Chrissa Sandin, offers her reviews of current fantasy fiction.

Dorlana’s supernatural novels are on sale from her blog as well. Death is based on the Tarot card, and Jacklyn’s Ghost is a paranormal romance. Both have been very well received by her many fans.

http://dorlana.blogspot.com/

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The Ink Gypsy

I found Australian writer, Gypsy Thornton on Dorlanas’ blog. She had serialized a Steampunk version of Grimm’s Jorinda and Joringel, titled Cages,  at Supernatural Fairy Tales. It included podcasts by Gypsy herself,  and was extremely enjoyable. Her work is very professional and well produced, Once an animator, she is also and excellent visual designer. Her PDF of  Cages is a work of art.

She has a few writing blogs. Here are two.:

http://www.inkgypsy.com

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http://www.inkgypsy.blogspot.com

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Monster Brains

This is one the most amazing blogs on the internet.

I found it while looking for pictures of Hell Mouths — true lover of the Gothic that I am.

On this blog an endless sea of the misshapen, enchanted, alien, and bewitched creatures are drawn up from the bottom of the sea…or so it seems.

Aeron Alfrey combines horrifying images from the depths of the subconscious mind with a wide knowledge of art history, religious beliefs, folk lore, and philosophy. It’s the thinking person’s Chamber of Horrors!

http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/

The photography in the books are the best quality. Hie book on Venice has those wonderful maskers, Haunted France is fabulously eerie. The book include text by Simon Marsden chronicling the history of the places, and his own haunted perceptions. Great inspiration for Dark fantasy writing!

Of course is website is http://www.simonmarsden.co.uk

He also has a video of his explorations of a magnificent  Irish castle that I can’t wait to get. You can buy it from his website.