The Correspondence Between the Governess and the Attic

The number #43 (December 2013) of the S/F & Fantasy Lightspeed Magazine contains a Fantasy story inspired by Jane Eyre. It will be available from today, December 17:

The Correspondence Between the Governess and the Attic
by Siobhan Carroll (available on 12/17)

Tangent reviews the story:

“The Correspondence Between the Governess and the Attic,” by Siobhan Carroll, is Jane Eyre told in short, succinct scenes with a fey twist. Jane, as she has taken to calling herself, is a changeling, a fey in human form, orphaned young, raised hard but eventually becoming governess at Thornfield to a wild child, Adèle. Jane senses the darkness in the attic at Thornfield and even exchanges a few notes with it trying to discover its purpose, but to no avail. Over time, she learns to love Adèle’s father, for, in his rough way, he has treated her kindly. Then he reveals his great secret—his fey wife, mad now, is imprisoned and raging in the attic. Jane flees to find refuge among three other changelings, who don’t know what they are—an impoverished brother, chained by his drive to seek God, and his two cowed sisters. But the attic calls her back to Thornfield, and Jane returns to find the estate burned to the ground. She also learns that she’s become “Jane, Heir” due to a sudden windfall from a relative in the West Indies. At this point she decides “it is time for a new kind of story” and finally realizes her own fey powers, choosing a life of her own making as an independent woman.
A unique telling of an old classic. Recommended. (Louis West)

Locutus Magazine publishes another review.