When the Reckoning Comes

When the Reckoning Comes

Adult chiller
"After, people has asked Mira what she saw...what happened out in
those woods? At the house? Were there others like they say? Ghosts,
we've heard. Spirits. Demons. We've heard the rumors and want to
know..."
In slavery times Woodsman Plantation, the setting for LaTonya
McQueen's When the Reckoning Comes, was a place of misery and terror
for its enslaved people. Shortly before the Civil War an attempted
revolt had been brutally crushed. But even in more typical years
there were rumors of torture rooms and parties where female slaves
were raped for entertainment.
Decades later it was empty and decrepit, seemingly on the verge
of being reclaimed by the surrounding forest. It was the kind of
place parents warn their kids to stay away from. The kind of place
kids double dog dared each other to visit. The kind of place where
dangers were not seen as limited to wild animals and venemous snakes.
It was believed that although the living no longer dwelt there, the
place was far from abandoned.
Mira, Celine, and Jesse were high school best friends. One
languid, hot, dragging summer Sunday afternoon they were bored. A
discussion of the alleged hauntings led Jesse to invite his chums to
let him show them the falsity of the rumors. But when she accompanied
him there Mira saw a mysterious figure covered in blood.
A decade later Mira, long flown from her childhood small town,
gets an unexpected phone call. The plantation has been renovated into
a posh resort where guests can get the full white washed antebellum
experience. Celine, the only white member of the trio, is about to
marry a wealthy man. Guess where the rehearsels and ceremony are
going to take place.
Against her better judgement, Mira decides to go. From almost
the minute she sets foot on the grounds she has disquieting visions.
A woman in shimmering white beckons to her. A group of Black men digs
what looks like a mass grave.
The morning of the wedding the bride disappears without a
trace. The presence of non living beings intensifies. And it's the
anniversary of the thwarted revolt.
Within the context of impossible to put down chiller McQueen
serves up important and disquieting truths. When the Reckoning Comes
reminds me a lot of Octavia Butler's Kindred.
On a purrrsonal note, this weekend I was happy to stay in with Tobago
and leave the going out (and especially the ice fishing) to Eugene. I
had plenty of homework and dishes and laundry and other house stuff to
catch up with. And of course blogging, writing, and reading. Eugene
came back today when I was making supper. It isn't his fault. He
can't call from camp. But after he's been gone long enough I get
anxious. So much can go deadly wrong in the forest. Like if you go
out on a lake to go ice fishing and the ice isn't solid enough. (Jules)
My dad is home! YASSS!!! (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to Eugene.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway



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