Author Archives: lydias

 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

From Richard Hammond’s Invisible Worlds via the BBC.

01010100 01111001 01110000 01100101 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100011 01100101 01100101 01100100 00101110 01000101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110010 00101110 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 01110100 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101110 01110101 01100101 00101110 00100000

The strange, flat, glowing rock filled with numbers. As Daphne adjusted her hold on it her left thumb accidentally pressed down on one of the smooth patches.

The surface brightened for a second before shutting off as quickly as it had turned on. In the eerie silence Daphne could hear something whirring inside of it for a few seconds before it, too, grew still.

She shook the rock to see if she could get it to light up again.

Nothing.

Daphne slumped her shoulders and was just about the deposit the stone into her knapsack when the whirring began again.

Slowly the light returned, and then a nonsensical message appeared on the flat side of the rock.

Tap any button to continue. 

She slapped the side of the stone. No response.

Holding it in her left hand, she poked the middle of it with her right index finger. Once again the screen filled with words moving so fast Daphne had no way of absorbing them all. When the display ended a row of two-dimensional boxes lined up on the bottom of the rock. They reminded her a little of the wooden blocks her sons played with as children.

Notes

Raw Data

Anomalies

Messages

She glanced up at dark clouds scratching the horizon and clicked on messages.

24 August

Tim,

I spoke to my CO. There’s no reason for the trackers to be malfunctioning. Are you sure you’re calibrating them properly before they’re inserted?

This study is a bust anyway. We’re no closer to catching the smugglers and R&D hasn’t been able to identify what makes the rednecks’ immune systems so much more resistant to this strain than we’re seeing in our population. My best guess is that their abysmal diets and total lack of medical care kills off anyone who doesn’t have an iron stomach. Survival of the fittest and all.

At the rate this is going I doubt you’ll still be there at Festivus. The governor isn’t going to keep spending money on a project that hasn’t lead to any breakthroughs.

Keep sending in your reports, though. Gotta cover your ass until the big guns officially decide this is a waste of time.

Tara

The group listened quietly as Daphne started reading the next message. She saw her sons trudging back up the riverbank, two animals in tow. For once Flapjack was walking quietly even with a rope tied around his neck.

25 August 

VICTORY IN MINGUS.

We just received word that our troops have subdued a small settlement called Mingus in the territory formerly known as Arizona. 

While the search continues for Dr. Spring and his associates we apprehended several individuals who lead us to his whereabouts. As soon as we’ve finished restoring order to this community we will be returning to the capital with the accused where they will receive a fair trial in exchange for the immunological data we need in order to finish the vaccine.

More information will be forthcoming as it becomes available. In the meantime your commanding officers will be issuing double rations and a half-day holidays. Please stay tuned to your teleprompters for the governor’s speech that will air at 17:00….

In the corner of her eye Daphne spotted a flash of light at the horizon.

“We won’t make it back to my place in time,” Mariposa said. “But we should get away from the water.” The lightning was erratic so far, but Daphne thought she could hear the faint rumble of thunder. If nothing else the storm would make the banks so muddy that climbing up them with two reluctant animals would be extremely difficult. They’d come back for the body later.

Daphne tucked the stone into her knapsack and walked to the top of the hill with her companions. As she began descending on the other side of it Ephraim noticed a small depression in the rock. It wasn’t quite large enough to shelter one person, but at least they could take turns avoiding some of the storm. He’d noticed his mother limping as they cautiously climbed over the steepest part of the hill and insisted that she take the first turn in the makeshift shelter.

“While we’re here you might as well keep reading,” Sean said. Daphne nodded in agreement, and once she found a place to sit she began combing through the rest of the messages. Official documents were unfailingly positive accounts of breakthroughs just around the corner, but casual messages told a different story. More than once she wished she had her dictionary with her. There were so many words Daphne had never heard of before. Wireless. Election. Plastic. Insurgent. Treason. Commercial.

Embryonic governments had formed and dissolved over and over again. For a time New Texas was so stable that its influence had occasionally reached Mingus before it, too, went silent after a few years of drought. As a young woman Daphne had heard rumours of a queen living in South California, but it had been many years since anyone had sent word or supplies from that kingdom.

A cold raindrop bounced off the end of her nose and onto the stone as she read.  She brushed it off with the cleanest fold in her tunic she could find and scrolled to the next page. A list of names and numbers caught her attention as she browsed.

Aberdeen, Mimi 3139 4002 6566 1091

Acero, Robert 1291 3026 9799 8564

Aden, Anna 9538 5028 3374 0123 DEACTIVATED.

Another word she’d never heard of before.

“Does anyone know what this means?” Daphne read the name aloud as the clouds squeezed out every last drop of moisture from their perch.

The next instalment of After the Storm will be published tomorrow. I apologize for the delay.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

From The Logic of Stupid Poor People:

It took half a day but something about my mother’s performance of respectable black person — her Queen’s English, her Mahogany outfit, her straight bob and pearl earrings — got done what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done in over a year.

Alone in a Crowd and Other Hackneyed Phrases via flirtybloomers. I suspect all creative people feel this way about their work sometimes.

Not the Bad Guys. Rhetoric matters. This is why.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire? Take Care via carolynmandache. The less you know about this anecdote going into it the better. Don’t worry, it’s nothing violent or disturbing!

Surreal Photography. There are limitless stories embedded in this photographs. The last one is my favourite because it’s something I always wanted to do as a kid. While this link is work-safe, the rest of the site may not be.

From You Are Not Alone via PetraKidd:

The old lady lay crumpled in her hospital bed.  Her neck bent forward, the tip of her nose almost resting on the swing-across table.  All she’d had was a bite of her sandwich before nodding off.

Someone came and took the sandwich away.  The old lady didn’t notice, she continued to sleep.

Visitors came, gathered around beds, laughed and joked, ate chocolates, fetched and carried for their loved ones.

The old lady roused herself, fluffy white hair dishevelled on her shrunken skull, her eyes made a weary survey of the ward, barely able to keep them open her head slumped forward again.

Daily Mail Ipsum. So you know how the Daily Mail write inflammatory articles in order to rile up their prejudiced readers? Now you can make up your own Daily Mail articles and find brand new issues to form half-baked opinions about. 😛 Just let the magical calculator know how many paragraphs you want to read and release the hounds. Here’s an example:

Lorem ipsum guitarist Brian May launches attack on immigration. Immigration timebomb: Lies that they started a sunlounger. Growing brood… growing curves! Danielle O’Hara shows off her skinny jeans and rapists we can’t afford to evict them.

To be joking! As watchdogs say Tories. Force them to avoid being crowned Miss Wales. Woman, 23, who sneer at all costs. Deport foreign criminals break community service over vile show dies a pet hamster. British institutions at the silent majority.

What do you think of when you hear the word nature? The One and Future World is about how our cultural presuppositions about what the natural world “should” be like have radically altered what it actually looks like. It’s also about how we could go about restoring nature to the way it used to be if we come to the conclusion that this is the best decision.

It’s extremely easy to put nature on a pedestal, especially for people who haven’t grown up around it. Sometimes I thought this book worshipped the idea of nature and natural living a little too much. Natural is not a synonym for safe, helpful, or effective. Some natural things are good for us…others most definitely are not.

With that being said, this is a great story. The author simplifies some concepts in order to appeal to readers who aren’t familiar with certain scientific terms without dumbing down his message.

What have you been reading?

John McCrae, “In Flanders Field.”

Photograph © Andrew Dunn. http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/

I know this post is a few days premature, but I’ve always found the Canadian response to Remembrance Day to be quite interesting. We’re not a particularly patriotic culture during the rest of the year, but at the beginning of each November Canadians soften a little.

About this time of year you start seeing people walking around with artificial poppies pinned to their coats. The money from the sales of these flowers goes to various projects that support former and current soldiers, police officers, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, as well as Royal Canadian Air, Army, and Sea cadets. The programs sometime support families members of people working in these positions, too.

It’s amazing to me to see how many people wear those poppies every year. They’re found in every walk of life, from brand new immigrants to people whose ancestors have lived here for many generations. In the midst of an otherwise cheerful holiday season, government buildings and offices shut down on Nov. 11 for a sombre reminder of the cost of war.

The local news channel covers the ceremonies that take place that day, and it always amazes me to see how seriously they take it. World War I happened almost a century ago, yet it feels like something that happened within the lifetimes of the oldest attendees. There is a heaviness in the air through the speeches, anthems, and gun salutes that is hard to describe without falling into tired cliches about the horrors of war.

Do I not remember a similar feeling about Veteran’s Day in the U.S. because of cultural differences between the two countries or because it’s more difficult for children, teens, and young adults to pick up on the gritty community sorrow that clings to even the oldest wars?

I do not know.

What have you noticed?

Photo by Keagiles.

Just tuning in? Start here.

Daphne was half awake before she felt the stare boring into the back of her skull. It was a vaguely prickly feeling except that all of the pointy places had been worn down to mostly harmless nubs. Still, it was odd to wake up to the intense scrutiny of a being whose criteria for acceptance was unknown.

Unlike his reticent companion, Apple’s curiosity about the strange humans was stronger than his fear of them. After a long night of silently padding past them as he patrolled his tiny house the younger of Mariposa’s two cats had decided the intruders were worthy of further inspection.

Her companions were still sleeping. Daphne smiled at the cat and was just reaching out to stroke his soft head when she heard a brusque whisper from behind her.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He doesn’t like to be petted.” Mariposa stirred the embers and added some kindling to the fire.

“Thanks for the warning,” Daphne said as she gingerly stood up.  The younger woman began cracking open the shutters and heating up some water for herbal tea or steeped Nosi for those who enjoyed the energy rush from the tiny, red berries. A beam of morning light hit a small, silver object on the kitchen counter. Daphne picked it up for a closer look. It wasn’t much bigger than a fingernail clipping, but it was so shiny against the dark tabletop that Daphne couldn’t miss it.

“Oh, my vaccine fell out almost immediately,” Mariposa said. “I know I should have had it replaced, but it hurt so much having it put it that I never bothered reporting it.”

“Do you know how they work?” Daphne asked. She’d never seen one up close like this before. When she held it up a few inches away from her face she noticed a series of small indentions on the outer side of it. Suddenly one of the indentions sputtered out a pinprick of sickly green light.  Daphne dropped it in surprise and lifted her head to hear Mariposa’s answer.

“No, there wasn’t time to explain. Our epidemic was even worse than yours, they said, and they wanted to make sure it didn’t spread any further. And I was still pretty sick when they gave it to me. If you want to take it with you, be my guest. Maybe it only works on some houses.”

Daphne shrugged and slid the strange object into her pocket just as Sean and her sons grumbled awake. The smell of brewing tea and boiled Nosi was beginning to fill the apartment.

The patrols – if they still existed – happened roughly at dawn and dusk. Mariposa thought that mid-morning was the safest time to cross back over, so for the next few hours the visitors toured her small farm and discussed ways in which their communities could work together.

“What do you think about gathering together all of the ombudsmen once we have more information about the intruders?” Mariposa asked. Sean immediately agreed just as Daphne knew he would. It was ok, though. She thought it was a good idea as well.

After a light lunch Daphne climbed back onto Flapjack and the group headed to Salt River. Their host agreed to walk them to the river’s edge to ensure they’d have safe passage out of Peoria. It was a quiet, leisurely journey even if Daphne wasn’t always able to redirect Flapjack when he found the occasional mouthful of food on the way. The obstinate burrow was slowly warming up to the woman on his back, but he still wasn’t convinced that the group needed to move quite so fast as they wanted to on such a nice day.

Conversation petered off just as they reached the water, but no sooner did Mariposa open her mouth to say goodbye than Ephraim noticed a still, dark figure lying facedown in the mud on the other side of the bank. His mule stood thirty feet away calmly munching on the few leaves that were still available from last spring.

Calling out elicited no response. Daphne’s eyes weren’t as strong as they used to be, but she couldn’t see any signs of other people on the bank. Was it a trap or did a stranger need their help?”

“Stay here,” Isaac said as he took out his hunting knife. Mariposa and his brother soon followed. For a few moments time stopped as Daphne and Sean watched them approach the body, weapons ready to be thrown at a moment’s notice. Mariposa touched the stranger’s neck, shook her head, and slowly turned over the body as Ephraim and Isaac looked on.

Daphne clicked her tongue and gently encouraged Flapjack to cross the river as soon as Mariposa motioned them over.

“He’s gone,” Isaac said in a quiet voice as his brother kept a look out. Daphne climbed off the burro and walked closer to the corpse for a closer look. He was a young man. Brown hair, bearded, the remnants of a bad sunburn still dancing across his forehead. A bulge in his neck and the unnatural position in which his head rested in death gave probable cause to what killed him. Daphne had seen soldiers wear dusty brown, slightly too large outfits before, but she’d also seen similar clothing on people who moved in from other areas. He could have been from almost anywhere.

If not for an accident no one would have ever learned the stranger’s secrets.

With one awkward, adolescent step backwards Ephraim’s heel brushed against a plain, grey rock that suddenly lit up with a cacophony of bright lights and loud sounds. Sean cursed and jumped back, nearly falling into a cactus. Flapjack took this as an opportunity to run away from the terrifying noise, the mule quickly following him. They probably wouldn’t be able to run very far in such a sticky, muddy environment, but Isaac and Ephraim exchanged an irritated glance and followed them anyways. A mule was a precious commodity these days.

Daphne still felt her heart slamming against her chest when the noise suddenly ended and writing filled the face of the rock. She looked around in suspicion but still couldn’t see anyone else around them.

“I can only read and write my name,” Mariposa said. It was not for lack of trying, but as a girl she had never learned how to make the letters stop swirling around. After many aborted attempts her parents allowed her to practice other life skills instead.

“You used to be a teacher,” Sean said as he handed the stone to the oldest member of their group.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comics, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Estrangement and Such. I like this author’s attitude when it comes to making tough decisions.

Unshelved via vlb. I read so many books out of my age range and reading level when I was a kid. Honestly I think it’s good for kids to stretch themselves and try something a tad too complex for their current stage in life.  It’s like exercising or learning a new language. Sometimes you have to push yourself a little bit in order to reach the next level.

Inside America’s Great Romance with Norman Rockwell. To be honest, I find Normal Rockwell’s style and choice of subject matter  far too cloying and schmaltzy. Every time I see one of his paintings I assume there is a ravenous pack of vampires, werewolves, or zombies just out of the frame that will leap into the picturesque village and begin wreaking havoc on it at any moment. 😛 With that being said, this is an excellent article about Mr. Rockwell’s life. I may not be a fan of his work, but I think I would have really liked meeting the man who created it.

Those People.  When I donate to food banks I always include a treat or two. Instant hot chocolate mix is one of my favourite things to buy because it was such a huge treat growing up in a family that had a very tight grocery budget and occasionally relied on the generosity of others. Of course healthy food is vital, but I think it’s just as important to make someone’s eyes light up when they’re in a position to receive so-called “charity.” Life is difficult enough when you live in poverty. If I needed to visit a food bank I’d be absolutely thrilled to pick out a treat alongside healthier fare. Sometimes a sip or nibble of something sugary is better medicine than an entire pot of beans, rice, or oatmeal.

Footprints in ’57: Coop, Wendy, Carol and Bea. What life might have been like in 1957. It’s funny to think that my grandmother was a teenager once. She’s always seemed like a fountain of wisdom to me. Someday I’ll have to ask it what it was like to grow up in that era.

Helping People Through Trauma When You Don’t Know What to Say. A fantastic article about how to be a good friend. This link is work-safe, but other posts on the site may not be.

From The Celebrity in Africa:

Celebrity, you care very much about Africa. Is this correct? 

Oh, yes, I Africa all of the time. Like my father before me, I care deeply about having my picture taken while walking purposefully next to someone African in Africa. It means a great deal to me, particularly if we are both wearing sunglasses and gesturing significantly toward the horizon, which is where the future of Africa is. Would you like sunglasses? Have some of mine.

The Other Wes Moore is the true story of two men with the same name who grew up in the same neighbourhood under similarly difficult circumstances. One is now a Rhodes Scholar, author, and decorated veteran. The other is serving a life sentence for murder.

This is a story about understanding why someone might make horribly destructive choices without absolving them from the consequences of their decisions. It’s also a story about luck, compassion, and seeing how easily you or I might have ended up in very different circumstances had a few things in our lives played out differently.

I have to admit that I grew quite angry with the Wes Moore who is incarcerated at various points in this book. But I was also angry with our society for being structured in such a way that so many men (and women) end up in similar situations. Everyone is responsible for his or her own choices, of course, but as a society we are also responsible for all of the damage done by racism, classism, poverty, and hopelessness. Imagine what all of the Wes Moores of the world could accomplish if they had easier access to education, counselling, and good role models.

What have you been reading?

Just tuning in? Start here.

Enough fish were caught to feed everyone who met up at Salt River , but there were no leftovers to take home. Daphne was honestly surprised that they’d snapped up even that many fish, though. Maybe the mountain streams that fed into the river had had an unusually wet, mild winter last year. It had been so long since any news trickled down from them.

With Mariposa’s input a plan was slowly beginning to form.

“They might have better machines and more advanced medicine, ” she said as the group huddled around the campfire and ate their supper with a side of bean soup that one of Mariposa’s fellow ombudsmen had brought with him in case no one caught anything. “But they also need outside supplies to keep themselves going. We’ve grown or traded for everything we needed here for generations. We know which plants and animals are safe to eat, where to find water, and how to survive in the desert when both of those things are hard to find. If we work together we can figure out the rest of their weak spots, especially now that they seem to be more vulnerable than usual.”

Nearly everyone would eat meagre portions until the next harvest came in, but any day now life would get marginally better with the first autumn monsoon thunderstorm. The much-needed rain would bring life to the desert, and many of the plants that bloomed were edible in a pinch. It wouldn’t be easy, especially for children and the elderly, but surviving until the end of the summer was always a good sign.

“How do you feel about climbing back onto Flapjack?” Mariposa asked as she bundled her long, black hair into a messy bun. The burro lifted his ears in curiosity at the mention of his name. After a quick roll in the dirt he’d been content to trot up and down the banks of the river as the humans talked, and when they sat down to eat what they caught he stood patiently at the edge of the group. It made him feel better to be surrounded by friendly humans now that evening was approaching.

“I’m up for it if he is,” Daphne replied. She still would have preferred to walk alongside the rest of her companions, but riding was better than being left behind or being hobbled by an excruciatingly stiff, swollen knee in a few hours.

“I think you’d be less likely to be caught under surveillance if you spent the night in Peoria. The soldiers aren’t patrolling the river as much as they used to, but some of them still show up a few days a week. And I know my house is a shorter distance from the river than yours is, Daphne.”

Daphne had only met Mariposa once before and knew very little about the young woman. She wondered what else Sean had told his cousin about the council members of Mingus Valley. He wasn’t known as a gossip, but his tendency to agree with whomever he spoke with made Daphne a little nervous. She nodded and hoped she wouldn’t regret saying yes to this invitation.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Sean said. “If we’re going to work together we should show both communities that there’s nothing to fear from visiting one another.”

Gerald regretfully declined the invitation and collected his fishing poles.  His family had been hard hit by the sickness earlier on in the summer, and he didn’t feel comfortable leaving a house full of half-grown children and young grandchildren alone overnight. It felt better for him to risk being caught than to take the chance something would go wrong at home. The rest of the Mingus group soldiered on to Mariposa’s house, Peoria residents slowly trickling back to their own homes as they moved more deeply into the community on the other side of Salt River.

What surprised Daphne the most about Mariposa’s dwelling – other than how small and tidy it was –  was its age. Virtually no houses had survived from the time before they began keeping track of the years again. Most of them had been so poorly designed that they were dismantled for their materials, and others were so far away from reliable water supplies that they were unusable as well.

The homes that remained tended to be so old they didn’t resemble anything from the world that was. No one knew who once lived in them or how many times they’d been abandoned and reclaimed, only that these homes were still good places to live if their water supplies hadn’t dried out.

Curiously enough the roads survived, even the ones that buckled under the hot sun and stretched so far through the middle of nowhere that no one knew where they ended or why they were built.  Daphne had always wondered where the road-makers intended them to go, and why they spent so much more energy on paving over the land than making homes that would last. None of the handful of books she studied as a girl had ever explained why that was so or what happened to the people who must have somehow disappeared long before the road-makers met their fate. A few legends had survived from that time, but oddly enough no one knew exactly what happened to make the world the way it was today.

“I have an extra bedroom upstairs, but I only have a few blankets to share with you,” Mariposa said as Daphne, Sean, Ephraim, and Isaac dumped their robes and water bottles in the corner of the main room.

Mariposa was one of those rare women who lived alone in these troubled times. Daphne winced when she first heard her new neighbour admit this. There were so many ways in which someone could get hurt or sick, and if you lived alone in such a remote area there was no guarantee that anyone would find you in time. Even though Daphne had spent most of her adult life relishing the freedom she found in it, somehow the act seemed dangerous when someone else bucked social norms.

“It’s really not dangerous at all,” the younger woman said as she pushed an orange tabby out of her chair and sat down. “Apple and Ambrosia are up half the night chasing mice, and anyone who steps into my yard will scare them into my bed. I wake up before any stranger reaches my front door. Even when I had that awful sickness a few months ago no one who came to check up on me was able to surprise my guard-cats.” The displaced cat glared at her before finding a new spot in front of the fireplace and resuming his grooming.

“But how would you protect yourself?” Daphne asked. True, Lemon was a gentle soul, but most folks interpreted his desire to jump up on them and give them a courtesy sniff as aggressive. She at least had the illusion of an aggressive pet to protect her as she lived alone.

“I keep a knife under my pillow,” Mariposa said with a wry grin. “And in the morning I strap it to my leg. I’ve only had to use it once so far. Most folks know better these days.”

As evening fell the little group huddled around the fire and drew their cloaks around them for warmth.

“Did your parents ever tell you the story of Johnny Appleseed?” Mariposa asked when the silence grew thicker than the starless sky pressing down on the tiny home. The others shook their heads. In all honesty Daphne had never heard of the term before.

“Well, apples used to be a kind of fruit that people grew…”

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

From The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary:

But most clowns aren’t trying to be odd. They’re trying to be silly and sweet, fun personified. So the question is, when did the clown, supposedly a jolly figure of innocuous, kid-friendly entertainment, become so weighed down by fear and sadness? When did clowns become so dark?

Maybe they always have been.

Highly Sensitive People and Depression: Overstimulation May Lead to Depression. This is a fascinating article about how an overwhelming environment can trigger depression for some people. One of the things I really appreciated as a child was how responsive my parents were to my tendency to get overwhelmed by spending a lot of time in big crowds. As the preacher’s family we were expected to attend certain events (and I definitely agree that there’s value in stretching yourself in new experiences sometimes), but we also had time to decompress afterwards.

Love Heals Everything via CarolineSkanne. The difference between hearing and listening.

Fruit of Labor. This piece is about a family farm in Georgia. The owners hire Mexican immigrants to pick peaches every year, and most of their temporary employees have worked with them for a long time. A recent influx of harsh immigration laws is threatening the balance of their arrangement. I’ve picked strawberries for personal use, and even that small amount of stooping is really hard on your knees and back. I can’t imagine doing it full time for 6+ months.

Dear Cryptically Sad Friend on Facebook via PatheosAtheist. I couldn’t agree with this more.

Zombies vs. Animals? The Living Dead Wouldn’t Stand a Chance. Zombies are scarier than werewolves, vampires, and ghosts combined. Luckily humans would only be in danger from them for a short period of time if they actually existed. This link includes a very long list of animals that can be very dangerous to humans, living or undead.

Ordeal of the Bitter Waters via Virtuseveritas. A six-part series about how this blogger changed her mind about abortion. Most adults don’t change their minds about hot-button issues like these, so it was really interesting to see what lead Samantha to her new opinion on the topic.

Imagine being to married to man so desperate for a son that he’s willing to let you die in the process. Imagine being summoned to consult with a family who coats every word that comes out of their mouths with a thick layer of metaphor and superstition.

Angelica is about a Spiritualist trying to help a family that is being haunted by a malevolent presence. Or maybe it’s a metaphor for the heavy shroud of silence that accompanies certain secrets. Or perhaps there’s a different explanation for what happened entirely.

Sometimes the scariest things in life are the most ordinary ones: the fear of death, how certain social conventions smother the truth, and what happens when a parent feels his or her child is in terrible danger but can’t convince anyone else of their suspicions.

Horror isn’t always about blood and gore. I hesitate to even use that label for this book because I know it will scare some of my readers away, but if you’re in the mood for something that transcends the typical plot for a ghost story this is an excellent place to start.

What have you been reading?