A Spectral Hue Read online

  Contents

  Praise for Craig Laurance Gidney's A Spectral Hue

  A Spectral Hue

  Frontmatter

  Dedication

  1: Fuchsia

  2: Xavier

  3: Iris

  4: Lincoln

  5: Fuchsia

  6: Xavier

  7: Lincoln

  8: Iris (1979)

  9: Fuchsia (1840)

  10: Xavier

  11: Fuchsia (1843)

  12: Lincoln

  13: Iris (1987)

  14: Xavier

  15: Fuchsia (1863)

  16: Lincoln

  17: Fuchsia (1870)

  18: Iris (2010)

  19: Ensemble

  20: Ensemble

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Praise for Craig Laurance Gidney’s A Spectral Hue

  “A town and an art movement arise from a ghostly source in this arresting, hypnotic debut novel from Craig Laurance Gidney. Upon a grim undercoat drawn from America's shameful histories of slavery and homophobic oppression, Gidney masterfully layers a centuries-spanning tale of survival, triumph, and obsession, with a memorable cast of characters linked by a secret both joyous and frightening. No simple tale of terror, A Spectral Hue enthralls as much as it disturbs.”

  —Mike Allen, author of Unseaming

  and Aftermath of an Industrial Accident

  “A Spectral Hue is a subtly disturbing hymn to the joy and terror of working with a muse, to queer passion and creation, and to the power of art to channel both ancestral voices and personal journeys with equal intensity.”

  —Ruthanna Emrys, author of Winter Tide

  “Craig Laurance Gidney’s A Spectral Hue pulls you inside its spell, haunting you, finding its way deep within the folds of your brain. A Spectral Hue paints dark, hallucinogenic colors deep inside your mind.”

  —John Palisano, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of

  Ghost Heart, President of The Horror Writers Association

  “In A Spectral Hue, Craig Laurence Gidney takes the reader through multiple centuries via a rotating cast of rich characters to weave an eerily colorful ghost story. The artworks, figuratively and literally haunting, evoke the palpable magic one feels in the presence of such work. It’s all held together by the thread of an enigmatic, influential presence in the Mid-Atlantic swamp, resulting in a quietly spooky, sometimes sensual book that is easy to get lost in.”

  —David Busboom, author of Nightbird

  “A Spectral Hue might just be a horror story—though if it is, I’ve never read another so full of beauty, found family, and the rapture of art, rather than terror or gore. This novel undertakes to bring the forgotten back into memory, the marginalized into the very center, and all while originating a new and phantasmagoric mythos that is diversely queer and profoundly African American. What a dark and wonderful undertaking!”

  —Kai Ashante Wilson, author of A Taste of Honey

  “This is the book we have been waiting for. One of our best short fiction writers finally brings his edgy scary sexy gifts to bear on a novel. A brilliant concept, gorgeously executed. Haunting and unforgettable. Go ahead and give it all the awards right now.”

  —Sam J. Miller, Nebula Award-winning author of Blackfish City

  A

  Spectral

  Hue

  Craig Laurance Gidney

  Word Horde

  Petaluma, CA

  A Spectral Hue © 2019 by Craig Laurance Gidney

  This edition of A Spectral Hue

  © 2019 by Word Horde

  Cover art and design by Matthew Revert

  Edited by Ross E. Lockhart

  All rights reserved

  First Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-939905-50-5

  A Word Horde Book

  www.wordhorde.com

  To the memory of Willa B. Gidney

  1: Fuchsia

  She knew the names of everything in the swamp. Every animal and flower. But she did not know her own name. She went through the naming ritual every now and then, hoping that the words would spark some stray memory. Naming things gave them meaning. Surely, she had a name, and there was some meaning as to why she was here, and what she was meant to do.

  She spoke aloud. There wasn’t anyone else in this landscape of serrated grass and shimmering water. “Larkspur. Foxglove. Phlox. Rose mallow.” Speaking the names of things awoke other things. Things that flew, things that swam. “Blue heron. Diamond terrapin. Black duck.” The water rippled, things grew. “Paw Paw. Cordgrass. Pond weed.”

  These words shaped the world. Blue sky, brown-green water. (She didn’t say these things aloud). There were some things she knew, the dwindling embers of memory in a pit of ash. She knew that her name was also the name of a flower. How she knew this, she couldn’t say. But the knowledge was just there, as was the fact of her sex and the clothes she wore. Sometimes, this frustrated her to no end. She would scream and scream. But no one came. Even the animals didn’t startle at her voice. It was useless. Eventually, she sat down on a log or an islet, became statue still. Maybe she even slept a little.

  Time stood still here, wherever here was. There was a wrongness about the place. It was a beautiful place. It was a dead place. Birds flew but made no sound. It was neither hot nor cold. Water rippled, but it wasn’t wet. And she was never hungry.

  Was this Heaven? If so, where was the Lord and the Redeemer? Where were the angels, with their dove-white wings and sun-like halos? She expected a lush garden, where lions laid down with lambs. Where rivers of milk and honey flowed. Maybe she was the only angel here. She wore a long white robe that never got dirty, no matter how deep she waded into the muck. No grass stained her robe, and she emerged from the water dry, the fabric stiff with starch.

  She continued her cataloging, sitting cross-legged on a sand islet. “Moth. Water moccasin. Osprey. Cattails. Blue crab….”

  ***

  One day, something changed. The air began to fill with scents. Of salt water, and mud and the tang of algae. Clean smells, mostly, but there was some rot and some sweetness there as well. She put her hand in the dark water. It was cold! There was pressure and humidity in the air, and mist rose from the waters. The woman felt life in the wetlands, life and death.

  Was she no longer alone? She couldn’t explain it, but she sensed something coming. Someone. Maybe more people, or other things.

  She found that the landscape had altered. The grass had more color, sheaves of gold and emerald. Flowers starred the various islets and shores, ruffled and tubular, frilled and ruched, in bright colors winking between the tufts of razor grass.

  She herself had altered. She no longer wore the shapeless white robe. She was in a gown as soft and delicate as spider silk spun about her body. It was embroidered like the finest lace.

  Best of all, it was the most amazing color. It was the same glorious color as her favorite flower that grew here and there in the marsh. It was a color you sometimes saw in the sky when the sun was setting, staining the clouds. A color not quite pink, not quite purple. Her favorite flower was called the marsh-bell. It was a slender stalk crowned by a perfect sphere of blossoms that hung down in a bell-like fashion.

  She saw only one marsh-bell in her timeless time here. A solitary bloom of bright color in all of the watery world. Now, she was the second bloom, in a way.

  She wished that more of them grew here, spotting the land from horizon to horizon.

  2: Xavier

  “Where, exactly, is Shimmer?” said Dr. Giordano. “I’ve never heard of it. I like the name, though. It sounds so picturesque. I can see beaches full of dunes and white sand. And old Victorian Painted Houses.”

  Xavier had pr
omised to text his thesis advisor pictures. But the scene outside of his bus window was bleak. The sky was multiple shades of grey, from ash to slate to coal. And for miles, as far as his eyes could see, marsh wetlands. Algae-laced pools of muddy water were interrupted by patches of reeds, like eruptions of green and brown fur. It was a dismal view. Xavier felt like he was in some post-apocalyptic landscape. In the distance, he saw several raft-like boats sluggishly moving through the landscape. He knew that the town of Shimmer, Maryland was located in the middle of a marsh, not quite an island. But it was one thing to read about it and quite another to see it. And to feel and smell it. Even though the bus windows were closed, the damp, briny scent got in. This side of the Eastern Shore was far from the nicer beach towns of Bethany, Ocean City and Rehoboth.

  Shimmer was on the Chesapeake side, where watermen harvested oysters and blue crabs. No one visited this side much. It was bleak and there was a slight chill to the air. It was not worthy of a social media post. Shimmer, Xavier thought. More like Grimmer.

  The fellow passengers on the bus had weathered, ruddy faces and the rough hands of people who worked manual labor jobs. He was the only black person on the bus, with the exception of the bus driver. He also might have been the youngest. Most of the passengers were at least in their late fifties. Furthermore, he was overdressed, in khakis, a waistcoat with a gold fleur-de-lys pattern and a black long-sleeve shirt. He was suspiciously out of place, a hipster in a bus full of tracksuits and hoodies.

  He hadn’t known what to expect. There was precious little written about the outsider artists from the small town. Hazel Whitby was the most well-known of the artists. Her quilts were frenzied assemblages of stray fabric, stitched together with her trademark pink thread. Most people thought that they were abstract shapes, and she was heralded as a modernist nearly 150 years before that movement was even born. There was also Shadrach Grayson, with his wild seascape paintings that featured, in the distance, hazily painted blobs of color. There were at least ten to fifteen artists throughout the years. All of them were African-American.

  He’d been entranced with the loose movement ever since his undergraduate days, when he came upon a book about African-American quilters. The work of the women of Gee’s Bend had so touched him, that he’d began incorporating textiles in his own abstract painting. But a brief mention of Whitby’s work had led him down a rabbit hole.

  Whitby’s genius was that she was a master of trompe l’oeil. Every viewing revealed something else—a hidden figure, a flower, an eye. Whitby worked primarily with one color palette, the spectrum between purple and pink. Other colors were present in her tapestries, but those shades were centered. Supposedly, she had made hundreds of the tapestries. Only thirty of them survived, the rest lost to flood, fire and time.

  The bus turned a corner. More salt marsh and waving grasses. Then there was a break in the grey cloud cover. A golden fan of light escaped from the rent, illuminating the landscape. What the light touched was instantly transformed, so that there was a slice of brilliant color in the wan surroundings. The water sparkled, blue and brown, and the grass was a lemony green. Xavier fumbled with his smartphone, and took a couple of pictures before the moment passed. The tear stitched itself together, and the world was plunged once again into misty grey. But for one moment, Xavier could swear he saw, rushing by in a blur, a single flower blooming in the wetlands.

  ***

  62 Crepe Myrtle Terrace was made of dark blue clapboard shingles. The front of the house faced the street, and the backyard ended in a pebbly beach that smelled of algae and old fish. All of the houses on the street were shingled wood, each stained in the camouflage colors of green, brown, and rust. Each of the houses had flat bitumen roofs. Xavier saw flocks of plastic pink flamingos, hordes of garden gnomes, and, in one case, what was clearly a lawn jockey. 62’s front yard was mercifully clear of bric-a-brac. There was a neat row of now-dead bushes that were probably forsythias or rhododendrons, and a bird-bath fountain filled with green water.

  The door opened, and the woman who stood in front of him was a tiny, African-American woman, and conservatively dressed in dark colors. Black slacks, caramel sweater. She had small hoop earrings, and wore a plum-colored lipstick. Her hair was a close-cropped natural.

  “You must be Xavier,” she said with a wide smile. Her voice was raspy and warm. She extended a small, delicate hand. “Come in, come in,” she said, leading him into her house.

  The floors were hardwood, dappled with whorls. They passed through a living room with a large, over-stuffed navy-blue couch and matching love-seats. The furniture sat upon the island of a teal looped rug. The dining room was dominated by a large table, surrounded by sentinel china cabinets. One of them held a service of blue Willowware dishes and wine glasses, and the other was a curio cabinet filled with wood African sculptures, most likely reproductions. Ironwood heads gazed at him. The tablecloth was an indigo and white Ukara textile, patterned with Igbo symbols. The centerpiece was a vase with an arrangement of cloth flowers.

  “That’s a salt-marsh orchid,” Xavier blurted out. When he was excited, he had a hard time keeping his thoughts inside his head.

  “Good eye,” Iris replied. “In my former life, I used to make and sell cloth flowers. That marsh-bell is a bitch and half to make. But it was my bestseller.”

  Xavier gently stroked the fake orchid. The flower was a single stalk of dark green from which a sphere full of tubular blossoms drooped down in a conical shape. Most of the tiny blossoms were vivid red violet, but some of them were a gentle mauve color.

  “You have to find the right thread color and most of the stores around here lacking.”

  “You could say, they were ‘threadbare.’”

  Xavier saw her face move through the various stages of joke revelation. First, the confused wrinkle of the forehead, then the spark of enlightenment, followed by spreading mirth on the features. The laugh, when it erupted, was unlike any laugh he’d heard come out of a real flesh-and-blood human being. It was a cackle. And not just any cackle. It was a cartoon witch’s cackle, one that captured Iris’s warm rasp. It was so infectious that Xavier felt like laughing, too. He could feel the strain of his face muscles as they gathered up into an involuntary grin.

  When Iris stopped laughing, she said, “I just know we’ll get along. You have such a corny sense of humor.”

  “Most of my friends can’t stand it.”

  The tour continued past some shutter doors and into a homey kitchen that could have come out of a 1960s catalog. The refrigerator was harvest gold, which probably once matched the walls, which were now faded to a butter yellow. There were framed posters on the wall: one displayed an imaginary spice rack with illustrations of paprika, cinnamon, oregano and other common seasonings, (it was entitled “Seasonings Greetings”) while another had photograph of eggs in a bowl (“Have an Eggs-ellent Day!”). The stainless-steel oven was the only concession to modernity.

  “You like coffee? Tea?” Iris said. She hovered near the kitchen counter.

  “A cup of coffee would be nice. The bus trip kind of knocked me out.”

  “Where do you come from?” she said. She rifled through a drawer, and pulled out a bunch of coffee pods with names like Hazelnut Surprise and Donut Shoppe.

  “Born and raised in Washington, DC. Um, do you have any unflavored coffee? As strong as you can make it.”

  She pulled out a pod labeled French Roast and popped it into the machine. She opted for a vanilla latte; the smell was reminiscent of school cafeteria pudding.

  “I used to live in Petworth, back in the day. Briefly.”

  “I live there now,” Xavier said. The coffee wasn’t bad. It just didn’t taste real. It lacked richness. But it was better than nothing.

  “Small world,” Iris said. She sat across from him. “I hear that DC has changed. It’s no longer ‘Chocolate City.’”

  “That’s an understatement. It’s more like Artisanal Vanilla City. My neighborhood is overrun wi
th hipsters and the rents are through the roof.”

  Iris leaned forward, grinning. “Ain’t you hipster? I know that you are—what do they call you—a millennium?”

  Xavier laughed. “The term is Millennial. And I’m more of a blipster, thank you very much.”

  Iris let loose one of her witchy cackles.

  “So, what brings you to this marsh-side hamlet in the middle of nowhere?” She stroked her coffee mug, which was glazed teal and had the image of a sleeping cat on it. The ceramic cat’s tail was so long that it wrapped around the mug like a snake.

  “Shimmer is charming,” he began carefully. It was one thing to disrespect your hometown (he did it all the time to DC), but it was another thing for an outsider to do it. “But I didn’t come here for a vacation.”

  Iris raised her eyebrow. Tell me more, her face said.

  “I’m working on my master’s thesis,” he said, somewhat reluctantly. He hated how pretentious it sounded. As if he were a colonialist anthropologist, studying the natives. “You see, Shimmer was the home of Hazel Whitby and Shadrach Grayson, two African-American artists who—”

  “I know about Hazel. She the one that made all of those crazy ass quilts?”

  “Yes! Though, I call them tapestries. They weren’t really functional, per se.”

  “Tapestries, quilts. Whatever,” said Iris, “those things make me sick, just looking at them. They just seem to move around.”

  “That’s why Hazel’s and Shadrach’s work is so interesting. Shadrach’s paintings also have a decentering effect.”

  “‘Decentering effect.’ You talk like a professor. Where you go to school—Howard?”