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Daddy's Caliban
As previously mentioned, I'm am now posting occasional reprints of my fiction here on this blog. Watch for the tag "fiction," as in http://jaylake.livejournal.com/tag/fiction. The current installment in this series is a novelette entitled "Daddy's Caliban."
This originally appeared in issue 39 of The Third Alternative [ SF Site Review | TTA Press ]. It was reprinted in my 2004 collection from Wheatland Press, American Sorrows [ Tangent Online Review | Wheatland Press ]. This story is 10,400 words long. I consider this post-Industrial fantasy. The reader is as always encouraged to draw their own conclusions. If you like this story, please consider supporting Wheatland Press with a purchase of the collection.
Daddy's Caliban
by Jay Lake
Mommy always told me and Cameron not to go looking for ways to reach the Old Tower. "There's ghosts and worse over there, Henry," she'd say. "You boys got to go wandering, fine, you're boys. But our people stay on this side of the river. Better yet, stick to the park."
The park was safe but dorky. When we were seven, that was okay.
This side of the river was home, Mabton and everything that was ordinary. When we were ten, that was okay.
Summer we both turned thirteen, well, there was nowhere else to go but across the water and up the hill. Mama must have known that -- all us Puca boys got the wander in us, as Daddy says, but she just wagged her finger and warned us off, then packed sandwiches and said to stay out until dark.
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Daddy worked in one of the mills north of town, where the river drops through a series of falls and they could put in big wa