Book One of the Shadow Cove Saga
Inspired by Actual Events
Excerpt from the Journal of Clayton Stone – 1692
She was examined today without torture at Shadow Cove township on the charge of witchcraft. She said she was wholly innocent of the crime and has never in life renounced God. I watched as they brought her out. A poor, sickly thing, worn by her time behind the walls of her prison. Her bared feet and hands bound in leather, her clothing tattered to that of ruin. Despite such condition, her head was held high, her eyes meeting those of her accusers. Upon being stripped and examined, on her right side is found a bluish mark, much like a clover leaf; it was thrice pricked therein but she felt no pain and no blood flowed from the wound. She still refuses to provide her name so we remain unable to search baptismal records, nor has her family stepped forward to claim her as their own. We have no reason to believe she is anything but an orphaned child. I find myself unable to look at her directly in the moments preceding her trial. She is watching me though; with eyes of the deepest blue, she is watching me. Thad McAlister, Witch (2014)
When horror author Thad McAlister began his latest novel, a tale rooted in the witch trials of centuries past, the words flowed effortlessly. The story poured forth, filling page after page with the most frightening character ever to crawl from his imagination. It was his greatest work, one that would guarantee him a position among the legends of horror.
But was it really fiction?
Did the Witch of Shadow Cove Township actually exist?
He inadvertently opened a door, one that would soon jeopardize the lives of his family.
While on a business trip to New York, her followers take his family hostage, insisting his book is true – a roadmap to return her to the living. They give him three days to travel to a town he believes only exists in his mind, three days to return with the remains of a witch who couldn’t possibly be real. If the book truly is fiction, his family is as good as dead. If it’s somehow true, if it’s really a plan four hundred years in the making, one set to release this witch upon the world, God help us all.
At home, his wife struggles to keep their family alive. Secretly wondering if she inadvertently caused it all…a deal she made long ago. A deal with the Forsaken.
Genre: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General“DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE, HOW MAY I help you?”
Rachael peered down the hallway from the kitchen. She could see light peeking out from under the door to her husband’s office. He had been locked in there for hours. She cupped her hand over the receiver and spoke in a low voice. “I’m trying to find the number for a store in Maine. It’s…it’s like an antique shop, but different. It’s hard to explain. Imagine a garage sale, but in a store. Like a thrift shop. I think it’s called Needful Things.”
“What city?”
Rachael had tried to remember. For days she had tried to recall the sleepy little town but it was just beyond reach, teasing her mind with slivers of recollection, then drifting back into the abyss. “Castle something,” she said. “Castle Cliff, Castle Point, Castle…something.”
“Castle Rock?”
Rachael frowned. “I don’t know, that might be it.”
She heard the woman typing. Over the years, Rachael had searched the Internet more times than she could count, but she wasn’t able to locate it.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m not finding anything called Needful Things in Castle Rock. Nothing at all in Maine, actually. Maybe you have the wrong name? Or maybe they’ve closed?”
Rachael hung up the phone without bothering to respond.
It wasn’t closed.
She doubted a store like that ever closed; it just learned to hide.
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Ana Teixeira
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Rafael García del Valle
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