Kyla Lee Ward: Exploring Childhood Fears and Delightful Witches
“Some fears belong to childhood,
“Phantasms we forget…”
Let me say at the start, that most of the things meant to scare children did not scare me. On the contrary, I found them delightful.
I was very fond of witches. I read as much as I could find about witches, real and fictional, drew witches, wrote poems and a fine little story about attending a witch’s party on Halloween. Ghosts fascinated me, I drew and wrote about them likewise and had a great desire to find a haunted house somewhere in my neighbourhood. I was more wary of vampires, because there was always the chance of ending up as dinner, but they were frankly more the exciting for that. And from Iva Ibbotson’s The Great Ghost Rescue (Puffin 1975), I derived the fantasy of having a Black Shuk as a pet.
But there were still things I feared, things that, true to the quote above, I recall lividly to this very night.
The Monsteria Delicosa
Have you ever seen a monsteria delicosa plant that has been permitted to grow and grow? If so, you are probably nodding right now. And this specific monsteria delicosa, although planted initially beside the back deck, spread quickly along the wall to reach my bedroom window. That plant could not be trusted. There were hollows and darkness beneath it, capable of hiding anything but certainly spiders. It sent out pale, fibrous roots that grasped at everything, even the wall itself. Its stems looked uncannily like human spines. Then there was the sound those great, dark leaves made rasping across each other when the wind blew. On moonlit nights, the calyxes cast shadows into my room. I understood that plants had many ways of defending themselves against insects and animals, and that some were outright carnivorous. It seemed to me entirely feasible that here was a plant capable of similar feats but on a larger scale. It was all too easy to imagine it reaching in the window while an unwary child was sleeping, wrapping her quickly in those gigantic leaves and pulling her down into the depths (and spiders). Her parents would never hear her – they would think the faint sounds were just the usual rasping. In all likelihood, they would never find her, because webs and roots would cover her body as she was slowly digested. There were probably skulls in there already, at least of animals.
The Gully Behind the Scout Hall
Across the road from our house was a small street that ran up to the local oval. The scout hall was built on one side, opposite the park. The park was sunny and green, there were benches and weeping willows. But the scout hall was a long, cinder-grey block with a different sort of tree behind it – strange, skinny trees, with pale bark and shiny dark leaves. If you went round the end of the block, you would find yourself amongst these trees, gazing down into a small gully with a curiously round and flattened floor. The ground was dark and damp, and always covered in leaves. Now, without doubt I was taken to the park as a wee thing and told in the sternest terms to never cross the road and go behind the scout hall. It is equally clear that I did. I remember, for instance, going there with a friend when we were both slightly older. We spoke in hushed whispers, gazing at the gully, and got so worked up that we came running back out and didn’t stop till we were back at my place. What, exactly, were we afraid of? Well, I doubt my parental escort ever told me why the gully was forbidden, but that afternoon, I think we convinced ourselves that something was buried there – rather, that someone was using the gully to bury things. Just as you will obviously find a haunted house in your neighbourhood if you look hard enough, it can seem all too plausible to a young writer just starting to absorb the content of newspapers and become curious about the television shows Dad watches, that this quiet outer suburb could also contain a murderer, at least of animals.
I remember a smell, sharp and unpleasant. It seems to me now to have been the scent of the trees themselves – I have encountered similar – but enlivened with the tang of spilled beer and urine. That afternoon, it was the stench of something rotting under the leaves. No twitching, treacherous plant, but a person who stole animals from outside of houses, killed and buried them where they would never be found. Were never meant to be found, only we had. What pursued us down the street that day was the fear that just maybe, that person knew we knew. And would see where we went and then follow us, under cover of darkness, back to our houses, endangering our beloved pets and maybe, possibly, capable of something even worse.
Skulls under the leaves, webs in their eye sockets. A death that can be inhaled.
The Nightmare
I had a nightmare about a house in the neighbourhood. It was a real house. I know exactly where it was – as it happens, about midway on the route between my house and that of my friend. I never entered that house, although I saw it almost daily. I did not know the people who lived there, had never done anything more than hop across its driveway, where this intersected the path. There is nothing, in my memory, in the screen door and federation-style eaves, to cause terror. I recall no frightening incident, nor even a parental warning. And yet I dreamt of that house and no other. In this dream, anyone who wandered down the driveway would always be trapped. Captured and incarcerated in a set of bare, wooden rooms that lay (I dreamt all this in enormous detail), behind the regular kitchen and living room. This underworld was accessed through a secret door in the back of the pantry. The victims were kept in human-sized cages, otherwise identical to a parrot’s, for some purpose I could not quite grasp but was horrible beyond anything. Nor could I envisage the people who would do this. I only knew that having seen, I had to run, run as fast as I could. I only escaped by throwing myself into a round pool of water that led to waking.
Having woken, I would not cross that driveway. Even years later, I would avoid that path, the fear was so intense and so specific. No serial killer has ever been discovered nesting in West Pennant Hills, but nor have I ever walked down to that door and knocked.
I inscribed protective sigils at the entrance points to our property. I studied techniques of paranormal investigation. I longed to become a vampire.
Death you can inhale, exhale. I drew pictures. I wrote poems and stories.
“…But nothing can be stronger than,
Those that pursue us yet.”
I still do. I still dream.
Kyla Lee Ward
Kyla Lee Ward is a Sydney-based author, actor and artist. Reviewers have accused her of being “gothic and esoteric”, “weird and exhilarating” and of “giving me a nightmare.” Her writing has garnered her Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards, she has placed in the Rhyslings and received multiple Stoker and Ditmar nominations. By day, she helps bring the Medieval Show to local schools and leads true crime tours. By night, she is a Ghost Host and member of the Deadhouse immersive theatre company. She enjoys fencing, travel, and scaring innocent bystanders.
https://www.instagram.com/kylaleeward/
Those That Pursue Us Yet by Kyla Lee Ward
Kyla Lee Ward’s new novella is a dream come true. Her second release from Independent Legions Publishing (after 2022’s This Attraction Now Open Till Late) is the culmination of ideas she has been exploring for a very long time. Touching on Roman mythology, theories of dream and BDSM, the book is described as “A glorious gothic maelstrom” (Joseph Ashley-Smith) and “as action-packed and exciting as it is beautifully written.” (Anna Taborska).
