Produkt

KlappentextA cynical twenty something must confront her unconventional family's dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the acclaimed author of Cackle and Such Sharp Teeth. Nobody has a 'normal' family; but Vesper Wright's is truly... something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back-mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn't return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper's beloved cousin Rosie. It's to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn't be the first time Vesper's been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn't matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother; Constance; a former horror film star and forever ice queen. When Vesper's homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret; she's forced to reckon with her family's beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

Rachel Harrison is the author of CACKLE; winner of the Ladies of Horror Award for Best Novel and THE RETURN; which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica; Electric Literature's Recommended Reading; and as an Audible Original. She lives in Western New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.

Details

Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781803367439

ProduktartE-Book

EinbandartE-Book

FormatEPUB

Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen

FormatE101

Verlag

Titan Books

Erscheinungsjahr2024

Erscheinungsdatum23.01.2024

Seiten304 Seiten

SpracheEnglisch

Dateigrösse1880 Kbytes

Artikel-Nr.13467776

Rubriken

Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

2

I realized, once again, that I d been wrong about hell. I d come around to the fact that it did actually exist, but it wasn t the birthday song, and it was far away from Shortee s. I d found it, for real this time, beneath the bustling, steaming streets of Manhattan.

Hell was Penn Station.

New Jersey Transit, the shadow realm.

I attempted to take refuge in a grimy nook as I waited for my train, but it was impossible to get out of the way. A man slammed his suitcase into my shin, sending me reeling into a nearby trash can. He gave a frustrated grunt, shook his head at me as if it d been my fault.

So sorry, sir, I called after him. The audacity of me to have mass.

He ignored me and kept walking.

I observed my fellow Jersey-bound travelers, strangers, people I d never know, fiddling with the lids of their coffee cups, dropping their receipts on the floor-brazenly littering. They sat on the stairs beneath signs that said not to sit on the stairs. They conversed loudly, scolded their children too harshly or not at all. I watched a child crawl between the legs of an unsuspecting businessman. I watched a young woman with long blond hair and Louis Vuitton luggage park herself directly in front of a large box fan, hogging perhaps the only source of relief in the entire subterranean sweatbox.

I searched for a pair of eyes to meet mine, some hint of reciprocal existential misery. There were eyes, hundreds, maybe thousands of eyes, but they were all glazed over, eerily still, like zombie eyes, glowing pale, reflecting that iPhone fluorescence. That gentle, stealth-damaging brightness.

I didn t judge them for escaping into their phones; I envied that they could. Mine had died, and I couldn t find anywhere to plug it in. I figured there had to be an outlet near the box fan, but the blonde was sitting right in front of it, her suitcases surrounding her like a fortress. She sprawled out on the floor, watching videos sans headphones, sound all the way up.

In my head I heard Kerri s voice telling me not to think the worst of people. Maybe I d have been inclined to take her advice had she not ditched work to go hook up with a guy who didn t even like her, which had dominoed into my getting fired. And maybe I d have been inclined to take her advice had my instincts not been right 100 percent of the time. And maybe-just maybe-I d have taken her advice had I not been heading to the wedding of my cousin / best friend and my first and only love. Had I not been returning to the home I left with the intention of never, ever, ever going back. And had I not been, quite honestly, just a little unhinged.

Excuse me? I said to the blonde. I could see the outlet just over her shoulder.

She pretended not to hear me.

I considered giving up then, but as I said, I was a little unhinged.

Sorry, there s an outlet behind you and I need to charge my phone. I held up my phone, as if I were presenting evidence in a showy trial.

Again, she ignored me. I watched a vague annoyance pass across her foundation-caked face, her only acknowledgment of my presence.

I m really sorry to bother you, I said, which was true, but I was sorry for me, not to her. I wouldn t ask if I didn t need it.

She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. Go ahead, then. I m not in your way.

But she was very much in my way.

Fine, I said, giving up.

Sometimes I would imagine a ledger inside myself, floating in my skull. An ancient-looking scroll where, with quill and ink, I d tally up the incidents that subsidized my cynicism, my lack of faith in humanity. I had no idea where the visual came from, or what purpose it served. It was goofy. Sometimes it d make me feel better, other times not so much.

This time, on this particular day, I couldn t be passively jaded, because I was actively upset. It was one thing to have no faith in humanity, to be disgusted, disappointed by the general population. But I was carrying around this fresh resentment for the person I d always held up as an exception. As the epitome of good.

I couldn t get over it, get past the question How could Rosie do this to me?

It overshadowed all other questions, including the question I should have been more concerned with, which was Why was I invited? Or really How was I invited?

I d left the church, and once you left, you were out; you were done. There was no going back, no coming and going for visits, holidays, anniversaries, birthdays. Weddings. And no one had reached out to me in the six years I d been gone, so why now? Why this?

I needed to know, and I d be damned if I let Rosie and Brody get married without having to look me in the eye first.

I d been stewing in my mess of emotion for weeks, and now that I was at the train station, that I d purchased my ticket home, that I held it in my hands, all I wanted was to disengage. To fuck around on my phone, get lost in an article about the ethics of cryptocurrency or the legit existence of UFOs or an acrimonious celebrity divorce, or read about fall fashion trends, lament the resurgence of low-rise jeans, or stare at a picture of a disheveled Ben Affleck buying deodorant at a West Hollywood CVS.

But I couldn t do any of that, and I couldn t do it because the inconsiderate blonde and her expensive designer luggage were in the way and she refused to move two inches to help a stranger asking politely for a simple favor. She laughed at something-a loud, trilling giggle-and as she did, she let her head fall back, getting dangerously close to the fan.

What if the blades got hungry? What if they ripped her pretty blond hair from her stupid thick head? Would she be laughing then? Would she regret not moving?

I wondered if it was spending my youth reading religious texts that detailed brutal punishments, savage justices, that had conditioned me to violent revenge fantasies, or if I was just fucked-up. It was impossible to know.

I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and headed toward the bathroom. There was a long, long line.

When I finally got to the sink, I splashed some water on my face and wiped up with a paper towel.

I briefly glanced at my reflection. I d never liked to linger in front of the mirror, since my face was so similar to the face of someone I couldn t stand, who couldn t stand me. For as long as I could remember, whenever I looked at myself I saw her. I used to wonder if she experienced a similar phenomenon, but after years of contemplation I d concluded that Constance Wright was too self-centered to see anyone but herself.

When I emerged from the bathroom, the blonde was gone, the outlet was free to use, and I wondered if I had just been impatient. If I was the asshole stranger. If I was perhaps too eager to condemn mankind over a small inconvenience.

Now boarding on track twelve . . .

A human wave crashed through the station, sweeping past me.

Making station stops in Secaucus . . .

I didn t know if the train being called was my train; it was too difficult to determine from the muffled announcement, and I had no direct view of any of the monitors, thanks to the stampede. I had no choice but to surrender to the masses, or else suffer a Mufasa fate.

I was bullied all the way to track twelve. Everyone was too close, the concept of personal space incinerated in the desperate rush to the train. There were shoulders, knees, elbows, fists, all these confusing extremities that didn t belong to me but seemed attached somehow, tangled, inextricable from me. All these hot mouths, breath scorching the back of my neck. Someone smelled, and I was afraid it was me. I was damp, but unable to determine whether it was my damp or if it was transferred to me. Was it my sweat, or a stranger s?

I looked around and saw mangled expressions, experienced a palpable foulness. A rottenness. I wondered, Why do we all absolutely lose our shit when traveling? Is there an evil entity that roams around train stations and bus stations and airports, feeding on our rationality, leaving us rude and stupid and impatient and incapable of following simple rules? What other explanation could there be?

There was a bottleneck at the top of a narrow escalator, the only means to get down to the platform. There was also a bottleneck at the bottom of the escalator, on the platform, where the crowd was stagnant, seemingly ignorant of the throng streaming in behind them. They roamed slowly toward the train, stopping to check and double-check the track number, to look around, admire the scenery. There was a woman at the bottom of the escalator who couldn t step off because the man in front of her blocked the way. She tried to step backward, but there was no doing that either, because there were people behind her, bearing down, propelled by the escalator. She let out an uncanny wail. Its pitch was disturbing.

Fear manifests differently in everyone. It thrives in certain throats.

Move! Move! somebody yelled. Then everyone yelled.

It was so zany, so terribly ridiculous, that I started to laugh, only I couldn t really laugh, because I couldn t breathe. There was no inhaling; there was nothing to inhale except the neck of the person in front of me, so close, we might as well have been conjoined. And whoever was behind me, the pressure of their body-bones, muscle, skin,...
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Autor

Harrison, Rachel

Rachel Harrison is the author of CACKLE; winner of the Ladies of Horror Award for Best Novel and THE RETURN; which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica; Electric Literature's Recommended Reading; and as an Audible Original. She lives in Western New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.

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