Tails of Wonder and Imagination - By Ellen Datlow Page 0,296

"I do not propose to put my clinic in the countryside. No, my clinic will be in the heart of England, in London itself."

"But surely the police—"

"There are parts of London where the police never go. Parts where the inhabitants speak a babble of language, and everything you want to purchase is to be had, from a girl fresh from the English countryside to a pipe of opium that will give you distinctly un-English dreams. I have become familiar with them over the last few years. Do not worry about the practicalities. Those I have thought of already."

"And third—I did tell you there are three reasons—you are a follower of Mr. Darwin. Consider, Edward." She turned again to look at the valley below. "The operation of natural selection is necessary for evolution. Without selective pressure, a species stagnates, perhaps even degenerates, reverting to atavistic forms. How long has it been since selective pressure operated on the human species? You have killed all your predators. How many men are killed by wolves or bears, in Europe? You care for your poor, your sick, your idiots, your mad, who give birth to more of their kind, filling your cities. Your intelligent classes, who spend so much of their energy in their work, do not breed. This is not new to you, I know. You have read it in Nordau, Lombroso. Your very strength and compassion as a species will be your undoing. You will grow weaker by the year, the decade, the century. Eventually, like the dodo, you will become extinct. That is the fate of mankind. Unless . . . "

"Unless what?"

"You once again introduce a predator. That is what I'm offering you, Edward. Selective predation. A species that I create, to feed off the weakest among you, to make humanity strong."

She was mad, I thought. And I think so still. But there is a kind of reason in madness. Moreau had it, and as she claimed, she was Moreau's daughter. He too had the directness, the simplicity, of a beast.

I have not seen her since that day on the hillside. The money I send her is deposited into a bank account, and where it goes from there, I do not know. Do I believe that the creatures she creates will strengthen rather than weaken mankind? I do not know, but she has never lied to me. It takes a man to do that.

There was a fourth reason that she did not mention. Perhaps it was kindness on her part not to mention it. But I do not think that, in all her interactions with men, she has learned kindness. Surely she must have known. Sometimes at night I still think of her, her fingers twining in my hair, her legs tangled in mine, her lips close, so close, to my throat. I do not think I loved her. But it was a madness that resembled love, and perhaps I am still mad, because I have not refused her. She must have known, because as she stood in the doorway, ready to depart, as respectable as any English lady, she stepped close to me and licked my neck. I felt the rasp of her tongue.

"Goodbye, Edward," she said. "When I am ready, not before, I will invite you to my clinic, and you can see the first of our children. Yours and mine."

Yesterday, in the post, I received her invitation. Will I go? I have not decided. But I am a scientist, cursed with curiosity. I would like to see what she creates and whether she is, indeed, a worthy successor to Moreau.

Editor's Note:

I hesitate to publish this manuscript, left to me by my late uncle, Edward Prendick, because credulous members of the public may connect it with the series of brutal murders that is currently taxing the ingenuity of Scotland Yard. However, Professor Huxley, my uncle's former teacher, has asked me to publish it as an addendum to my uncle's manuscript of his time on the island. I believe the conversation it records was a hallucination. It must be remembered that my uncle's health was severely affected by the shipwreck that left him the sole inhabitant of an island in the South Seas, and that at the time of his death, he was attended by an alienist. I am satisfied that the cause of his death was natural. Heart failure can strike a comparatively young man, and even if we give no credence to the fantastical occurrences that he claimed to have witnessed, my uncle must have suffered a great deal. It is true that upon the execution of his will, his fortune was found to be significantly diminished. However, there are a number of possible explanations for the state of his affairs, and we should not draw conclusions before the investigation into his death is complete. I hope the public will do justice to the memory of my uncle, who, although disturbed in mind, was a man of intellectual promise before the shipwreck that embittered him toward mankind. And I hope the public will dismiss the ridiculous fancies of Fleet Street, and assist our police in catching the perpetrator of the Limehouse Murders.

—Charles Prendick

About the Editor

Ellen Datlow has been editing short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for almost thirty years. She was co-editor of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror for twenty-one years and currently edits The Best Horror of the Year. She has edited or co-edited many other anthologies, most recently The Coyote Road and Troll's Eye View (with Terri Windling), Inferno, Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft Unbound, Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror.

Forthcoming are Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy, The Best Horror of the Year Volume Two, Haunted Legends (with Nick Mamatas), The Beastly Bride, and Teeth (the latter two with Terri Windling).

She has won multiple awards for her editing, including the World Fantasy, Locus, Hugo, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, and Stoker Awards. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for "outstanding contribution to the genre."

For more information, visit her website at www.datlow.com

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Tails of Wonder and Imagination

Table of Contents

Introduction

Ellen Datlow

Through the Looking Glass (excerpt)

Lewis Carroll

No Heaven Will Not Ever Heaven Be . . .

A. R. Morlan

The Price

Neil Gaiman

Dark Eyes, Faith, and Devotion

Charles de Lint

Not Waving

Michael Marshall Smith

Catch

Ray Vukcevich

The Manticore Spell

Jeffrey Ford

Catskin

Kelly Link

Mieze Corrects an Incomplete Representation of Reality

Michaela Roessner

Guardians

George R. R. Martin

Life Regarded as a Jigsaw Puzzle of Highly Lustrous Cats

Michael Bishop

Gordon, the Self-Made Cat

Peter S. Beagle

The Jaguar Hunter

Lucius Shepard

Arthur's Lion

Tanith Lee

Pride

Mary A. Turzillo

The Burglar Takes a Cat

Lawrence Block

The White Cat

Joyce Carol Oates

Returns

Jack Ketchum

Puss-Cat

Reggie Oliver

Cat in Glass

Nancy Etchemendy

Coyote Peyote

Carole Nelson Douglas

The Poet and the Inkmaker's Daughter

Elizabeth Hand

The Night of the Tiger

Stephen King

Every Angel is Terrifying

John Kessel

Candia

Graham Joyce

Mbo

Nicholas Royle

Bean Bag Cats®

Edward Bryant

Antiquities

John Crowley

The Manticore's Tale

Catherynne M. Valente

In Carnation

Nancy Springer

Old Foss is the Name of His Cat

David Sandner

A Safe Place to Be

Carol Emshwiller

Nine Lives to Live

Sharyn McCrumb

Tiger Kill

Kaaron Warren

Something Better than Death

Lucy Sussex

Dominion

Christine Lucas

Tiger in the Snow

Daniel Wynn Barber

The Dweller in High Places

Susanna Clarke

Healing Benjamin

Dennis Danvers

The Puma

Theodora Goss

About the Editor