#natcon2016

This story was recently given runner up at Contact 2016, which is part of Australia’s National Speculative Fiction Convention. I’m proud to say this is my first paid and published piece. When I found out, I tweeted Neil Gaiman, asking him if getting runner up in an amateur writing contest can be considered the start of one’s writing career. He replied with a “Yup”. I’ll take it for it’s exact meaning.

The Sad Tale of Wooden Annie

I reflect now on my fleeting encounter with Wooden Annie not with distrust, but guarded curiosity. At the time I could do nought but stare when I saw her shambling frame. After all, those of us left to wander this threadbare world of ours are ultimately separated into two: the magic abusers who aptly filled the technological void in daring and dangers ways, and those left to ponder the reasons why the world's subconscious exploded the way it did.

The morning was a bastard of bitterness, so much so I had awoken early to get the fire started for our daughter Triss who had inherited my poor circulation. With a tender touch, my wife Kara protested - whether it was because she yearned for my comfort in those wee hours, or because she scarcely needed the warmth of the fire, I wasn't sure.

While waiting for the sun to tiptoe its way over our plot of land I started to whittle. The windowsill harboured a collection of small dolls who sat obediently. Technology may be long dead, but the ways of man are stubborn, as is our yearning to craft with our hands - this much I can admit as irony in this tale. I picked up a doll to continue carving its delicate features, only to send it clattering to the floor. Outside in the frost was a maze of footprints which wormed their way to a creature that left me stuck in place like prehistoric bone.

Her hair was matted and separated from one side of her head, with grimy peat growing underneath that spread down her face. She wore clothes so tattered and bleached that a ghost could cover her with more dignity. Not that she had many features to abash her esteem given her appearance was cast in the shadow of an eight-year old girl. My fears accelerated when a breeze pulled her clothes taught, revealing a hollow impression where a beating heart should have been.

I backed away from the creature only to stand on Triss' foot. She must've awoken when I dropped the doll and came to see what had set my skin white. Triss' eyes were brimming with tears, but before she could scream or wail or cry I cupped my hand over her mouth. My other hand gestured her to shush, then pointed outside.

Triss' eyes furrowed. A tear escaped to perch on my pinky but that was all she conjured. She hopped over to the sink and hoisted herself up for a better look, since the carved family of the windowsill obscured her view. She could see the tracks, winding their way too and fro, but that was it. I was relieved to think that the creature had run off when I had turned to tend to my daughter. Maybe it would be okay. The magical omen would stay away from my family - the madness of our forbearers would not touch me and my own this time. She was simply a passer-by and not our prophecy to encounter. After all, magic still had to find a way to get from A to B.

Knock knock

My eyes were wide - my daughter's a reflection of my own both in paternity and effect. I held my breath like a covered pot on the brink of boiling, only to overflow when my wife, wearing nothing but shorts for she never felt the cold, approached the door and turned the knob.

"Don'topenit," was all I could manage, but the door's click silenced everything. A silhouette crawled across the floor as the door swung wide. Had Triss not been standing by my side, I would have thought Kara had opened the door for our daughter who had returned from scrumping, or picking 'poles or fish from the creek that crawled a mile to the south.

There was a clack of wood on wood, then a voice more delicate than a crumpled leaf spoke. Kara folded her arms over her chest as though subjected to the harshest of stares from the outside world. She then hurried the creature inside, closed the door, leaned against it, looked around, and settled her gaze on what stood in our living room.

A curious noise escaped Kara's parted lips before she asked, "What is your name, little thing?"

With a sound like moss underfoot, the creature told us her name was Wooden Annie.

Naturalists like ourselves believe that there are two types of magic that exist. There's the kind that superseded the technology we long for in this cancerous day. Wooden Annie was an example of this. It's the kind that we don't understand, and never could, and when we try we find ourselves further in debt with the world that nothing good could ever come form it.

The second comes naturally - hindsight is one magic that we feed with memories, repetitive learning, and seasoned with brittle bones and withered muscles. It takes years of study to master, by which time we are too old to act on it, a paradox humans will never understand. I feel this whenever I'm in the company of reminds me so much of Wooden Annie. It's the eyes - so hungry they could engulf the world and never be full.

I was young when the creature came into our life for that butterfly's moment. With the knowledge I have now, my actions would have been different, yet there I stood watching as my wife repeated the creature's name, "Wooden Annie." Then, after a few deliberate moments, she asked, "Where have you come from, Wooden Annie?" Each time she said the creature's name it were as though she savoured a warm meal on a winter's day.

She told us the sad tale of how her creator, old and ailing, worked on his final masterpiece. It was to be his gift to a dying world, except he collapsed before he had time to finish. Even with arms and legs, Wooden Annie lacked one vital piece and was left to watch as her creator's own magic was snuffed out. His lips had turned blue, and a terrible red liquid escaped a mouth that sputtered and hitched and then became still and cold.

"You poor thing," said Kara with an everyday tone. I tried to keep Triss behind me and away from this heartless thing. I thought that Wooden Annie may be here to steal my daughter's heart. Or replace her completely; I would eventually sit there at night, whittling while the wooden frame of my new daughter sat on my knee, staring with those forever eyes.

Triss didn't make a move, but I could feel her curiosity through playful fingers. My thoughts not only raced, but had continued after the finish line and kept going. Where did Wooden Annie come from? Wizards weren't welcome in this part of the kingdom. There was the Glass Sea which could carry all kinds of flotsam hither and fro, but the closest port was so far away...

"Can I give her my dress?" Triss asked, shattering the silence. She was already peeling off her tunic.

"Don't be daft, she doesn't need it," Kara said, looking at Wooden Annie like she was a piece of occasional furniture that had turned up at the wrong time. There was a truth to this that even I can muse over now in my advanced years.

"She's shaking," Triss said.

"Kara, can I speak with you?" I asked, crossing the threshold that separated us, and grabbing hold of her arm. When we got to the kitchen, I forced my wife's head toward me. Her eyes fell on mine - dazed opals that were vicious with intent.

"She's made from nogomain wood - you know what means, Devin? We could sell her at the market. Sell her and make a fortune," said Kara.

"And bring a curse upon this house? The Gods be mad," I spat back. It worried me that my wife didn't react to my tone. Instead, her eyes harboured nothing but a strange sense that was neither maternal nor artificial.

With a voice that was carried by ancient winds, blown through her mouth with all the vehemence of a prophecy itself, she said, "Man is mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making Gods by the dozens." Her manner was as though she were hungry, in a lustful way. She licked her lips.

I trusted none of it. Wooden Annie watched our daughter who circled her once, then twice, then returned her attention to my wife with the expression any river would give to a fisherman.

Triss asked, "Where is your heart?" Wooden Annie gave a shrug that could have suggested anything from one was never provided, to one was never needed. The emotion conveyed was of ignorance that sent shivers down my spine. How could a creature walk and talk yet not have a heart?

Triss had smiled, then looked up at us - me with a shocked look of distrust smeared across my prickly face, and my wife whom had god-knew what kind of expression.

"Can I keep her?" "No," I said. I fingered the whittling knife that I kept in my pocket. "Yes" Kara said. The S hanging in the air like flies.

"We can't. We don't have the ... uh... food," I said. Triss asked, "Wooden Annie, what do you eat?" Wooden Annie said she didn't eat. She was bound by her creator and therefore

could never be released, never be fully alive and thus forever stuck to wander in this half-state. I believe if the creature could have she would have cried, for her voice sounded as though rain were dripping from autumn leaves.

"See! Why can't I keep her?" Triss pleaded. I would have almost rather the hungry look from my wife than deny my daughter. What image poor Wooden Annie must have seen looking at the three of us. Although I cared not, especially at the time wanting no part in this strange creature and her sad story. I had to remove this heartless omen. I could feel Kara wanting to do something that may be regrettable, then wondered briefly whether I would end up with a knife in my back for my troubles.

"No. In fact, shoo, Wooden Annie. Leave this place at once. Return to the world from where you came, because you don't belong here," I shouted. By the time I had finished, I had reluctantly grabbed the wooden figure and was pushing her out the door.

Wooden Annie didn't protest. I was already out the door before Kara could grab me, or Triss' shouts could pull me back. I could still hear their protests half an hour later, rolling down the mountain range from where our small home was planted. When I'd reached a decent distance, I stopped. So did Wooden Annie, who in the crunch of the morning's cold caress turned and stared up at me with those distinct eyes.

"Go on, get," I said.

She lowered her head, then made to move away, only to trip over a rock that she hadn't seen. She fell with a clatter, then looked at her dented knee much like Triss would, only the mark did not bleed. I turned to walk back home. Then stopped. Wooden Annie was sitting on the ground, resolved to plucking at a weed that grew between two rocks with her left hand. The weed constantly slipped through those grubby timber fingers. The creature seemed resolved to return to the earth from whence she came.

"Why don't you have a heart?" I asked. She looked up at me, while still playing with the weed. She shrugged. With reluctance I pulled the whittling knife from my pocket and tossed it to her. As she curled her fingers around it, I had started to run, though after mere minutes I stopped. The energy within me had run dry.

The magic of hindsight, or old age, or wisdom, or whatever spell you wish to call it does no good to me now that I'm old and ailing, with my granddaughter on my lap, Triss visiting from the south. Kara was right, we are quick to create Gods, especially in our own image. Our curse is the madness we were originally born with - known as sin to those who follow the Church of Light.