“The Poacher” (1992)

This interesting story by Ursula K. Le Guin rolls through fantasy all the way back to fairy tales, according to coeditor Terry Windling in her introduction in a Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthology. “The Poacher” is fantastic and vaguely allegorical, with a mysterious forest, a castle, a sleeping princess (actually a sleeping everyone), and much more. The main character, out foraging for mushrooms and berries, discovers a hedge in the forest so dense and tall it’s impossible to see beyond it. Then he discovers it is encircling a space and he sets out to hack his way through it with tools he steals, or poaches—he is a poacher in many different ways. Even reaching this interior space takes him something close to two years. “The hedge grew unnaturally fast, in season and out, even in midwinter thick, pale shoots would grow across my passageway, and in summer I had to spend some time every day clearing out new growth, thorny green sprays full of stinging sap.” The story takes its time getting to its points—if it takes years to enter the space, what he finds inside is fully and amply described: a castle, a full household of masters and servants busy at their tasks, except—they are all sleeping and remain asleep for as long as the main character is there, which at story’s end is decades. He discovers a princess sleeping in her chambers, and somehow knows that all this is her dream, that even touching her will awaken her with wholly unknown results, potentially including the end of everything. He’s taking no chances. The food replenishes every day, the weather is beautiful, the place is wonderful. He stays. Le Guin’s writing is patient and lovely, in no hurry at all, and thus her revelations are unforced and somehow believable. It reminds me of a story by Robert Aickman called “The School Friend,” "The Same Dog," which also concerns a mysterious space in the deep woods with fairy tale appointments. Aickman’s story at least leaves something of a line tracing back to reality but that’s much less the case in “The Poacher,” which seems to exist unconnected from anything we would call reality. We are verging on pure magic here, which Le Guin somehow keeps within range of suspended disbelief as we read, as if casting spells herself.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Unlocking the Air and Other Stories
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Seventh Annual Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
Story not available online.

"Ile Forest" (1976)

Story by Ursula K. Le Guin not available online.

This story feels more like a fairy tale than a short story, let alone science fiction. The only thing "speculative" about it is the setting, an imaginary land in Central Europe. It's told essentially first-person, although there is a frame that introduces us to the narrator. He is a doctor, and he comes to a remote village with his sister to set himself up in practice. He notices a strange and beautiful mansion in a section of forest on his arrival, one of the features that makes him want to settle there. After the doctor and his sister have been there awhile, he is called to treat the master of the mansion. The master is close to death but, with the doctor's help, survives, and they become friends. The master lives by himself. He was married once but his wife ran away with another man, and now he prefers to live by himself. But—can you guess?—in short order the master and the doctor's sister have fallen in love and are thinking of marriage. But something about the master's story of simply accepting that his wife ran away doesn't sit right with either the doctor or his sister. Getting to the bottom of the man's mysterious past is the main thrust of this story, which proceeds serenely. It feels like a fairy tale, as I say, or at least much older than the 20th century. Part of that is the imaginary setting and the way the story moves. For example, a doctor traveling and living with his sister this way seems quaint, even eccentric, but also likely more normal in times past. Then there is all the careful narrative nesting. The master's story is recounted by the doctor many years after the events described. It's not the doctor's story at all nor even his sister's, but the master's. Multiple layers have to be pulled away to get at it. Yet it doesn't feel cute or overdone for effect in any way. At points it reminded me of Bram Stoker's Dracula, at points it reminded me of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Yet there is little if anything that is supernatural or fantastic going on here. The master is left somewhat murky—I had the impression, when he was battling his illness, that he had to be an old man. Yet he is young enough or vigorous enough to attract a woman who is no older than her 30s at most. It feels in many ways like a straightforward romantic tale, yet there is something deeply disturbingly wrong about it too and I can't put my finger on exactly what that could be. A good one.

American Short Story Masterpieces, ed. Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks