“Mother Hag” (1987)

This story by Steve Rasnic Tem is not my usual cup of tea, but there’s little denying how effective it is. It basically works like a fairy tale, with orphans and a stepmother and various magical effects. What I like is that it feels like a pretty good approximation of a fairy tale, with modern sensibilities kept at bay—not entirely, but to a respectable degree. I also like the vision of the witch. Interestingly, I haven’t really found that many witches in this horror short story project of mine. But this story is very witchy: “Mother Hag was described, depending on who you talked to, so tall she rose to the ceiling, so small she was quite invisible and treacherous; black, pale, or quite blue; covered with warts or scabs; wide as a barnyard, narrow as a crack; naked as the winter fields, cloaked in midnight; fingers of clay or fingers of red-iron; drinks blood, tar, or wine; has pointed or blunt teeth, clean-shaven or whiskers, sunken or bulging eyes, wrinkled or gigantic breasts, cracked or a haunting, deep voice.” Now that’s a witch! It reminds me of the way the movie The Blair Witch Project makes its witch compellingly terrifying. Yet the story also undercuts itself a little with the fairy tale tone and events, such as a peddler’s bag as vast as a cave. On the other hand, witches are practically fairy tale stuff by definition. I’m willing to give Tem the benefit of the doubt to some degree. And things get extreme in various ways toward the end. Mother Hag starts to look like she might be all persons and all things. Vast and deep levels of incest are casually introduced. Things happen that are not pleasant. There’s a kind of Hansel and Gretel brother and sister who are strong supporting characters, if not main players. The boy comes to an end he doesn’t deserve and, if I’m reading this right, the sister’s fate is even more weird. It feels to me like the story goes further than it should have, but that’s OK too. It is richly dark like I always hope fairy tales will be but rarely are. “Mother Hag” is more like an ironic “fairy tale” than the real thing—you know it’s modern, you pretty much always do—but nevertheless it works very well.

Tales by Moonlight II, ed. Jessica Amanda Salmonson (out of print)
Story not available online.