Status Updates From The Damned

The story was creepy but man it seemed an eon to finish. Not my favorite but I’m still going to read one more. The Willows, to me, was much better.

“The garden was creepy.” There I said it for you. Holy hell! Just like in “The Turn of the Screw” it took 3 pages to say “He looked at her weird” which, as it happens, also takes place in a garden. Sheesh you’re making Victor Hugo look good 😒

Chapter 6 - This story reminds me heavily of “The Haunting of Hill House”. (Which is wildly different than the show). The book did (as does this one) a very good job of inferring a feeling of wrongness the characters feel, just beyond the conscious understanding. Instinct or perhaps, intuition. That 6th sense that we feel in the turn of our gut or the hair lifting on our arms.

“We understand in others only what we have in our ourselves.” ❤️
I have often understood this notion without the clear succinctness of this sentence.

My first Blackwood was “The Willows”—I really enjoyed it. I am excited to return to another of this author’s stories. Onward!