C.L. Halvorson

When Mouse, a thirty-something editor with a dog named Bongo, gets a call from her father asking if she’s willing to clean out her recently deceased grandmother’s house, she doesn’t hesitate. Her father never asks her for anything, so the moment he does, she’s ready to answer. That’s just what family does.

He warns her that it’s bad. She isn’t prepared for what she finds. Her grandmother was a hoarder, and the house is full of junk. But among that junk she finds her step-grandfather’s diary. In it is repeated an odd litany, taken from a manuscript called the Green Book, which the grandmother supposedly hid somewhere in the house. Mouse might disregard the old journal as the sad ramblings of an old man in an unhappy marriage, except that some of the stranger things he writes about, she experiences herself, in the woods surrounding the house. She’s drawn into a search for the Green Book, hoping for a way to protect herself from the beings her step-grandfather spoke of. Because another world – a world of twisting rocks and jumbled effigies – is knocking at her door, and whether she will escape its summons remains to be seen.

I was already a fan of T. Kingfisher from her Sworn Soldier series, so I had high expectations for The Twisted Ones. It did not disappoint. Mouse, as a narrator, is funny and relatable. She does not shy away from sharing with the reader her confusion, her mistakes, or her terror. Yet her devotion to her father, her empathy as she reads her step-grandfather’s journal, and her protectiveness of Bongo, reveal her strength of character. She is just a regular person, who has landed in an extraordinary situation, and it’s easy to root for her as she struggles against incomprehensible horrors.

These horrors are chilling to read about. Kingfisher has a way of capturing the uncanny, layering small, out-of-place details into an otherwise normal narrative that you just know will come back to haunt you later. The setting itself – the junk-cluttered house of a spiteful, hateful woman – is oppressive, and Mouse’s struggle against it is painstakingly described. Mouse’s grandmother was the kind of woman who would only call up a relative to gloat when their dog died, and her husband (Mouse’s step-grandfather) chronicled some of her abuses in his journal. Her spiteful attitude seems to permeate the house, even as Mouse works to clear it. Yet the woods around the house offer no refuge, as Mouse soon learns. The same house that oppresses, with its stacks of bundled newspaper and crates of baby dolls, becomes all that stands between Mouse and the very things her step-grandfather described. How long will it protect her from what waits outside?

The Twisted Ones offers a folkloric horror experience that is genuinely creepy in its slow build towards otherworldly terrors. The straightforward, personable narration offers humor and dread in equal turn, and it’ll have you hesitating to follow your dog up any inexplicable dry creek beds the next time you go for a walk in the woods. Considering what resides there, this is for the best.