Elizabeth Pepper and John Wilcock wrote the following about
Granada, Spain, in their nonfiction tour de force titled MAGICAL & MYSTICAL SITES: EUROPE and the BRITISH ISLES
(published in 1977 by Harper & Row): “The
area of Sacro Monte. . . . It was in a cavern here, carefully sealed with great
blocks of stone and guarded by a solitary pillar, that a bizarre discovery was
made. A dozen skeletons, dating back to Neolithic times, were found sitting in
a circle around the skeleton of a woman wearing the remains of a leather tunic
on which were incised complex geometric patterns. Also in the cave
archeologists discovered such signs of ritual magic as amulets and inscribed
clay discs of the types usually identified with sun worship. The floor was
covered with beads and seeds of the opium poppy, which was known in earliest
times as nepenthe, a narcotic.
Anthony Roberts in his GIANTS
in the EARTH theorizes that the woman must have been an adept and spiritual
guide who led the initiates into an astral state of contemplation. ‘The people
who made this magic trip,’ he says, ‘had never returned from its magical
revelations, and this was quite possibly by choice.’”
Take heart, readers of dark fiction, for someone has
returned (bringing with him the Children of Old Leech), and he has written a
novel about such mysteries -- written fiction, mind you, because to do
otherwise, to speak the truth, might invoke a horror upon us mortals more
terrible than that which befalls our hapless protagonist, Donald Miller, in
Laird Barron’s stunning debut novel THE CRONING.
Donald Miller, a geologist and academic, worships his beautiful
and enigmatic wife, Michelle, an anthropologist with strong ties to mysterious
moguls around the globe. But not all is well with the world for Donald, as he
would have it, as his wife has a habit of suddenly taking off unannounced to
explore this-or-that anthropological dig while in the company of one or more of
her male colleagues -- often staying gone for weeks at a time. But Donald is a
good husband and does not complain overmuch or ask too many questions, until
one morning in Mexico City, while both are enjoying a spring vacation together,
Michelle receives a phone call in their hotel room from a colleague who informs
her of a dig nearby and would she care to join him for a few days. Michelle
tells Don she’ll only be gone for a short while, then plants a kiss on him and
takes off.
Don has misgivings, however, and sets out in search of
Michelle, whom he has begun to suspect of doing more than digging in dirt with
her colleagues. When Michelle stays gone without a word for more than two days
Don begins to worry that something terrible has happened to her, and searches
for her in dead earnest.
Something terrible is indeed happening, but Don is wrong
about to whom it is happening.
THE CRONING is highly recommended reading for anyone who
enjoys conjugated light and dark, and all those squirming little crevices in
between.
JLR
