Fiction: Plainsong

by J. D. Popham

They kept Sister Clarine in the convent’s basement.  The door that led to the stairs from the kitchen was thick oak; a relic from a different age.  But the sisters were glad for it, and its old fashioned lock.  Sometimes Clarine spoke to them through the keyhole.  That was bearable.  However, mostly she sang, and that was not.

The sisters had abandoned the kitchen two days earlier as no one could listen to Clarine’s singing long enough to prepare a meal.  Beautiful singing in words they didn’t understand, but something in the words, coupled with the unearthly quality of Clarine’s newfound voice was deeply distressing to the nuns.  It seemed to resonate within their heads and within the heart and soul.  And for all its beauty, there was no pleasure or comfort to be found in it, but rather something cold, relentless and unforgiving.  It filled them with deep anxiety, made their heads ache and their noses bleed.

Mother Superior Mariella called the Chancery the day they locked Clarine in the basement.   A bemused Father Keener visited the next day, prepared for yet another convent’s claim of miracles and heavenly intervention on the part of their patron saint.  He was appalled to find the sisters had locked one of their own away in the dark without food or water.  He railed at them for “utterly medieval behavior” and demanded Clarine be brought up at once.  The sisters shrank back from him, fear in their eyes.  

Keener looked at the Mother Superior, who made no move to order them, but handed him the key instead.  Keener huffed in anger and stormed into the kitchen.  He made it as far as the second basement step before he turned and fled, dropping the heavy barrel key on the stones of the kitchen floor.  The sisters rushed to throw their weight against the door, in case Sister Clarine should try to escape.  They locked the door again and retreated to the chapel.

It was the Mother Superior herself who finally took matters in hand.  The Chancery was waiting for direction from Rome.  Sister Clarine had been four days locked in the basement without food or water.  When one of the novices said outright that she wished Clarine’s suffering would shut her up, Mariella scowled at her.

“That’s enough,” she said.  “Something has to be done.”

Some sisters followed her as far as the common room, but dared go no further.  As she approached the kitchen Mariella could hear Clarine singing.  Sweat began to bead on the Mother Superior’s forehead and trickle down the center of her back.  She took the key from her pocket and slid it into the lock as her nose and ears began to bleed.  She hauled back the heavy door, and the sound of Clarine’s voice struck Mariella like a hammer.  Her knees buckled and she clutched at the railing to keep herself from pitching down the steps. 

“Clarine,” she called into the dark. “Clarine, stop it!”

The voice fell silent.

Mariella stood, panting for a moment, wiped blood and sweat from her face.  She pulled the door closed behind her, locked it, and dropped the key back in her pocket.

“Clarine?” She spoke into the silence as she stepped quietly down the stairs. “Clarine?”

“Yes. Mariella,” The voice that came from the darkness was Clarine’s, but thin and raspy.  Exhausted.

Mariella fumbled for the light switch at the base of the stairs.  She found it, pushed it up, and the basement was flooded with light.

Sister Clarine lay back against the boiler on the basement’s dirt floor.  Her veil was pulled off revealing short red hair, shot with gray.  She was filthy, her cheeks hollow, her lips cracked and split.  In a circle around her were dozens of dead rats.  She gestured at them.

“They came to hear,” she said.

Mariella stepped off the stairs and moved closer.

“To hear what, Clarine?” she asked.

“The truth,” Clarine answered.  Her smile was beatific.

“Your singing?” Mariella asked.

Clarine nodded, weakly.  She opened her mouth and the singing began again.

Mariella felt herself beginning to black out.  “No, Clarine! You’re hurting me!”  She lurched forward, grabbed the nun by the shoulders and shook her.

Clarine stopped singing and peered at Mariella, trying to focus.

“Of course it hurts,” she said.  “We were never meant to hear it. But isn’t it beautiful?”

“What is it?” asked Mariella.  “We don’t understand.”

“No,” said Clarine, with a sigh.  “I told you.  You were never supposed to hear it.  It wasn’t made for us.”

“What wasn’t?”

“The divine,” she said.  “The infinite.  We were meant to search for God.  Not to find God.”  She began to whimper and put her hands over her face.

“Hush now. Hush,” Sister Mariella took a handkerchief from her sleeve and, pulling Clarine’s hands down, began to wipe the face of the younger nun.

“Something is wrong, Sister, and I don’t know what it is.  But I don’t think it’s to do with God.  Men find God every day without....”

“No!” Clarine barked.  She grabbed onto Mariella’s wrists with surprising strength.

“No, they don’t. They see shadows,” she said.  “Shadows of God.  A Reflection,”  She let go of Mariella’s wrists and slumped back against the water heater.

“But I did it,” she said.  “I searched and searched all these years. I prayed so hard Mariella, so hard.  And I finally did it.  Seen God, heard the songs of angels.  Seen how small and insignificant the human soul is.”

Her head lolled over and she looked Mariella in the eyes.

“It’s a terrible thing.  I never knew.”

Above, the nuns listened hopefully to the long silence.  Then the singing began again.  This time, a duet.

Urban Sprawl

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." 
      - Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

How do you define Urban Fantasy? 

Now before you answer, a couple of ground rules: We are talking Urban Fantasy as a literary sub-genre, not Urban Fantasy as a marketing niche.  Also, be mindful that I do not regard Wikipedia as an authoritative source. 

At first glance it seems very straight-forward.  Urban.  Fantasy.  A work of Fantasy that takes place in an urban setting. We're done here. Right?

Alas, it appears not. 

At risk of being called an East coast snob, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Bon Temps, Louisiana is not an urban center.  In fact, I think it's fair to say the regulars down at Merlotte's Bar and Grill would take umbrage if I were to question their 'just folks' bayou bone-fides. What with Bon Temp being the setting for Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries, said umbrage would be exceedingly hazardous to my health.  So, with all due deference to the fans of Charlaine Harris, one could say that Southern Vampire Mysteries fails the most basic test of Urban Fantasy.

By the same token, Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer resides in Sunnydale, a small town on the California coast. While Sunnydale does sit atop a supernatural nexus that gives it a surprisingly high creature to human ratio, it's decidedly non-urban. Now, it would be fair to point out that the movie of the same name was set in Los Angeles. However, true Buffyphiles hold that the movie is non canonical and not part of the Buffyverse, having been disavowed by Joss Wheadon for the many departures it took from his original story and the framing of his characters.  While I am as brave as any man, I don't mess with the Buffyphiles, and must disallow Buffy the movie as an argument for Buffy's urban fantasy credentials.

However, despite their lack of what would seem to be a requisite urban setting, both Southern Vampire Mysteries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are cited as examples of Urban Fantasy.

Buffy and Sookey are only the more prominent examples of what I regard as an unfortunate bloat in the sub-genre's definition.  Largely for marketing reasons, Urban Fantasy has become a catch-all category. Almost anything that is not categorized as 'High' or 'Epic' fantasy appears to have been stuffed into the Urban Fantasy box.

As a result, 'What is Urban Fantasy?' is becoming a question with no wrong answer.

Over at The Creative Penn, British author Joanna Penn defends this excessively broad definition:

"Urban fantasy has been defined by the places in which the fantasy (magic and or strange creatures, usually) is set – i.e. the urban environment. It gives flexibility in terms of the time period; the city could be in the Victorian, Tudor, post-American civil war – whenever.  As long as the fantasy is rooted in the city, it’s urban fantasy.

Whilst I can see the sense of this, I don’t like to chain what I consider to be urban fantasy to being set in densely populated cities."

Now, while I respect Ms. Penn's desire for creative latitude, this is little more than Humpty Dumpty reasoning.  It's rather like saying one doesn't like to chain what one considers to be vegetarian cook-books to collections of recipes that don't include meats.  

Ms. Penn goes on to provide her more inclusive definition of Urban Fantasy as:

 [M]agic and weird stuff creeping in at the edges of a world in which magic is not the norm.

I like this definition. It has elegance. It is spare, clear and concise. Unfortunately, it is the precise definition of Low Fantasy ('Low' not denoting of quality, but of the sub-genre's contrasting relationship with 'High' Fantasy which occurs in worlds such as Earthsea or Middle Earth where magic and 'weird stuff' are the norm) and not that of Urban Fantasy.

While Urban Fantasy fits within the broader definition of Low Fantasy, the relationship does not flow both ways. Much of Low Fantasy is not urban. The same is true of Contemporary Fantasy if we restrict our definition to Fantasy works set in the here and now.  While the majority of Urban Fantasy works are contemporary in their setting, a work of Contemporary Fantasy in which the urban environs play no part cannot reasonably be called Urban Fantasy.

Why then such unreason?  Why have seemingly rational people like Ms. Penn, who no doubt expect their ham and cheese omelets to contain both ham and cheese, their Bordeaux wine to come from Bordeaux, and their romantic comedies to at least take a stab at both romance and comedy suddenly gone fifty shades of Humpty Dumpty on us when it comes to Urban Fantasy?

I suspect it comes down to money and street cred.

Urban Fantasy has the benefit of sounding kind of cool. When asked what one writes, answering 'Urban Fantasy' has a sort of gritty elan to it.  It's as though you get to snap up the collar of your trench coat and draw down the brim of your fedora as you say in a low and mysterious voice, "Me? I write Urban Fantasy,".  Contemporary Fantasy, on the other hand, sounds somewhat less dramatic; more like a line of sofas at Crate and Barrel than a happening literary niche. 

And of course, that whole 'cool' vibe is just cat-nip for marketing weasels, which is why you see publishing houses pushing as Urban Fantasy scores of titles that aren't vaguely urban, and are all too often Paranormal Romances attempting to cash in on Urban Fantasy's cache'.  If that means the Urban Fantasy moniker is diluted to the point of meaninglessness, it's no never-mind to the hucksters as long as the cash registers keep ringing.  When they stop ringing, after all, the hucksters can simply move on and never mind the mess they've left behind.

If there is no wrong answer when someone asks what Urban Fantasy is, then there is no right answer either.  However convenient and inclusive it may be in the short term, a sub-genre without boundaries has no future.

At the end of the day, words that mean whatever we choose them to mean have no meaning at all.  

- J. D. Popham