Welcome to Nightmare Magazine! We’re so happy to be able to bring your story “My Containment” to our readers. A shapeshifting character has so much potential for a story. What made you consider this power while writing this story? Were you inspired by any famous or unknown shapeshifters (pun intended)? What do you think is at the core of this story?
I’m usually drawn to more terrestrial shapeshifters, namely werewolves. But I was researching changelings for a conference paper and kept running into information about water spirits. The idea snagged in my head. I had to write about a water spirit, but not academically. Instead, I made the antagonist the academic.
This is such an amazing story. It starts with the world of a shapeshifting aquatic creature but then becomes about a complicated and unhealthy romantic relationship. Is this a retelling of the horrors and complications of modern love owing to loneliness?
Yes, the loneliness you mention makes me think of Creature from the Black Lagoon or The Shape of Water. Both of those films did a wonderful job with loneliness, one ending being happy, the other not so much. Maybe the difference is the ability to shapeshift. I feel like the loneliness in this story is compounded by grief. And grief causes us to make questionable decisions or judgements. When we’re grieving we do risky things and often trust the wrong people because nothing seems to matter, or maybe anything is better than what we’re currently feeling or experiencing. Romance and sex can be a wonderful distraction. In this story, it bites the main character in the ass, and not in a fun way, because her grief leads to her captivity.
The relationship with the sister is very complex and therefore exciting because at first, we understand that she adores her sister to the point where she becomes her for the American. What made you pick the sister narrative as a way to talk about the selfhood of the protagonist?
The sister seems like the protagonist’s best friend but also an extension of herself. The scene where she shifts into her sister’s form was kind of strange to write because I was imagining what it would feel like to shift into the form of someone you love who had passed away. What would it feel like to see them in the mirror and know it was you? A truth that is also a new level of grief, because the reflection would at once reveal the part of you that is dead and the part of them that is still alive in you.
Just out of curiosity, was the sister the ex-wife?
No, but I wish I had thought of it!
The ending blew me away. But since I have the opportunity, let me ask: is the child also a shapeshifter? Does the child live?
Yes, the child lives. My mother is my first reader, and she would have it no other way. She is emphatic on that point: no dead children. It worked for me, too, because it became more important for the protagonist to have a companion again, to not be alone, than to have a horrible revenge against her captor.
What are you working on now, and are there any other projects we can look forward to seeing from you in the future? I am so excited about all of your upcoming work.
I’m working on nonfiction essays for two collections. One essay is on neo-Victorian representations of nineteenth century female killers and the other essay focuses on Christmas eco-horror. I have a short story in the works, but it’s very strange. Even for me.
