2022 horror novella. Alex Easton has returned to what's left of the
ancestral home, a hunting lodge in Gallacia. The caretaker has died,
but nobody quite wants to say how…
"Tell me the truth, Angus. Is this a romantic getaway I sense?"
Angus's mustache gave me a quelling glare. "I have nothing but the
highest respect for Miss Potter," said the rest of Angus stiffly.
"As do we all. The one doesn't preclude the other, you know."
My oldest and dearest friend muttered something that I didn't quite
catch, and let his horse drop back so that I couldn't needle him any
longer.
And as always I happily fall into Kingfisher's writing. This time
we're back in Alex's native Gallacia, when Alex would rather be in the
apartment in Paris, so it gets particularly scathing.
(The greatest city in Gallacia is fine, I suppose, but I didn't feel
the need to linger. Imagine if an architect wanted to re-create
Budapest, but on a shoestring budget and without any of the
convenient flat bits. While fighting wolves.)
But even with a language in common there's not much communiciation
with the very rural villagers; the twentieth century may be
approaching fast, but it's not approaching evenly. By the rules of
propriety, they need a woman on the premises before they can welcome a
female guest, and it would help if she could cook too.
I am skilled at preparing exactly two meals: handful of dry stuff
pulled from saddlebags, and burnt thing on a stick.
Which brings in the Widow Botezatu, the only villager who'll take the
job, because she needs it; and she takes out her resentment on her
employer. But when strangenesses start to happen, she's ready with all
the folk remedies, from red thread to knives under the pillows. It
would help if anyone remembered exactly how this particular sort of
horror is supposed to work…
This is more explicitly supernatural than What Moves the Dead and I
can see how one might be disappointed by that, but I greatly enjoyed
it; I'm still a great fan of Kingfisher's style of horror, which is
much more about working out what's going on and, if possible, keeping
people alive than it is about screaming and running.