The Wicked Deep

The Wicked Deep

YA chiller
"But the townspeople of Sparrow found the sisters to be much
more: They believed them to be witches, casting spells on the men to
make them unfaithful.
And so at the end of June, when the moon was nothing but a thin
shard in the overcast sky, stones were tied to the sisters' ankles,
and they were dropped into the ocean just beyond the cape, where they
sank to the bottom and drowned. Just like the ship they arrived on."
Fortuitously central Maine entered a grey sky, soggy, drizzly
weather stretch just as I picked up Amber's third scary book choice:
Shea Ernshaw's The Wicked Deep. The ambiance added to the spell cast
by the author's well chosen words. But even on the sunniest of days I
would have found myself captivated and chilled.
Penny, Ernshaw's narrator, describes her seaside town of
Sparrow, Oregon as "sheltered from the outside world, trapped in
time." They lack chain restaurants (Imagine a place without even a
Dunkin Donuts!), movie theaters and malls.
Sparrow is known for one thing. For two centuries the drowned
sisters have come back to wreak vengeance. Each year at the beginning
of June they take over the bodies of three living teenage girls. For
the next three weeks the possessed girls lure boys into the ocean and
drown them as the townspeople frantically seek them to preemptively
kill the allegedly chosen ones. They accept the idea that even if
they do so the sisters will be back the next year.
The town has a bizarre relationship with its long standing
curse. They celebrate it. The three weeks called the Swan season are
book ended with massive night parties
featuring bonfires. The time between has a carnival aura. It's
their biggest tourist season. In fact all the town's three bed and
breakfasts get booked well in advance.
Penny lives on an island with a lighthouse off the coast,
navigating her skiff around the sunken skeletons of drowned ships on
her commute to and from school. Her father left the island three
years earlier, never to be heard from again. Since then her mother
has dwindled to a shadow of her former self. Unlike her classmates,
she has no plans to escape Sparrow after high school graduation. How
would her mom cope without her?
Penny has just completed her junior year. She has no plans to
attend the opening of the season Swan party.
"...It's a booze-fueled celebration that is mix of excitement to
be free of classes and teachers and pop quizes, blended with the
approaching dread of the Swan season. Typically, people get way too
smashed and no one remembers any of it."
This year for the first time ever Penny's best friend, Rose, is
able to talk her into going. There something happens that she never
could have predicted. When a local bully tries to push her into the
ocean she's rescued by a newcomer, Bo, a boy about her age who is
planning on sleeping on the beach. On an impulse she invites him to
stay on a cottage on the island and help tend the lighthouse.
For the first time in her life Penny begins to fall in love.
She becomes desperate to protect Bo from the sisters the weeks he is
in danger.
But is this even possible since he seems to have caught the
alluring eye of one of the sisters?
And is Penny keeping some pretty major secrets from Rose and Bo?
If you're a true chiller fan you won't want to miss out on The
Wicked Deep. Save it for a grey and at least drizzly day. You'll be
glad you did.
I love a short paragraph that comes near the end of the book.
"They have eternity. Or even if it's just one life, one long,
singular life--that's enough."
It makes me realize how rich and wonderful the life Eugene and I
share (thirty-two years of marriage and two of courtship) is and how
blessed we were to have found each other.
On a purrrsonal note: Monday I came in to find the blow up Halloween
creatures had arrived at the UMaine union. I always so look forward
to their arrival. (Jules)
They include a cat. I approve. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the people who set up the Halloween
critters.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway




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