"'Even these woods.' Mariella gestured around them. 'People were slaughtered here, again and again, going all the way back to the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. Probably before then too.'
...Mariella pulled her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around them, hugging herself. She couldn't put it off much longer. The whispers, the eyes, they were needy. Hungry. 'The Bridgewater Triangle's not just ghost stories. The history's real. It's like a dark energy hovers over this place. This town.'"
When I was a child this morbid jump rope song was playground popular, at least in Massachusetts.
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her mother forty-one.
To be fair Lizzie was acquitted of the gruesome 1892 murder of her father, a prominent businessman, and her stepmother. The case (which is still unsolved) gained national interest and drew much attention to the town of Fall River, Massachusetts. Even in those pre internet, pre social media days it went viral.
In Diana Rodriguez Wallach's Hatchet Girls it looks like history is repeating itself. At the mansion of one of Fall River's most prominent businessman police find the man and his wife hacked up. Their daughter's boyfriend, Vik, is found on the premises covered in blood and holding a gore coated axe. Pretty open and shut case...
...or maybe not. Tessa, Vik's sister, is sure he did not do the crime. She knows that he doesn't have it in him. And when she visits him in jail he isn't acting like himself. Not to mention: "But there was another fouler stench, one that had entered with Vik. It wasn't his sweat, his feet, or even his breath; those were a familiar fog in Tessa's life. No, Vik currently reeked of mulch freshly dumped in the garden, heavily enough to trigger a gag reflex."
There are things the police have no way of knowing. Mariella, the victims' daughter, had all too often witnessed her father beating her mother. But there was no way financially that they could leave--he'd made sure of that.
But since she'd drunk a foul tasting tea with unknown ingredients (never advisable) she'd been experiencing vile smells and tastes, been assaulted by grotesque beings, and been reassured by disembodied voices that daddy dearest would taken care of...
...if she just did everything they tell her to.
The spine-tingling suspense of Hatchet Girls comes from a superb blend of dark history and legend, human nature, and the supernatural, making it a perfect Halloween season read for chiller affecianados.
On a purrrsonal note, this is pretty idyllic for me as far as days go. Perfect Fall weather. I could hang my laundry outside and bring it in smelling of fresh air and sunshine. I've been out since early morning. My gorgeous flowers 💐 are hosting pollinator happy hour. I had a really awesome book to review and another to start reading. Tobago is being her sweet self.
A great big shout out goes out to the precious pollinators and the best little cat in the world.
Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
No comments:
Post a Comment