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“Elwanda La Vonne Stasey, born January 10, 1922, in Desdemona, Texas, died in a place where time does not exist. It wasn’t even a place…”
On the winter solstice of 1940, in Chalk Mountain, Texas, eighteen-year-old Elwanda Stasey sets out on a Year Walk, a ritual that promises to offer a glimpse into the future. She believes she has been well prepared for her journey by her grandmother’s fantastical tales from the old country. Stories of bewitching and deadly creatures that dwell in the forest—Huldra, the beautiful forest spirit, who claims her companions for eternity; Nøkken, a shapeshifter who charms those who stray too close to the water’s edge to their doom; and the bäckahäst, a horse that drowns its innocent riders.
But what Elwanda sees on this fateful night will reveal far more than anyone in the little town of Chalk Mountain could have imagined and will set the stage for what could be the destruction of everything, and everyone, Elwanda knows and loves.
Sin casts a long shadow in Chalk Mountain. To save her family from its darkness, Elwanda may find that those who walk between the worlds—those she has been taught to fear—are her only hope.
A Southern Gothic mixture of folktales, voodoo, and stark terror. Chalk Mountain is a potent blend of Norwegian myth and monsters with a dash of voodoo, small-town Texas sensibilities, and old-time, Old Testament vengeance. Nobles weaves a thicket of a tale that is a frightful pleasure to get lost in.
“Elwanda La Vonne Stasey, born January 10, 1922, in Desdemona, Texas, died in a place where time does not exist. It wasn’t even a place…”
On the winter solstice of 1940, in Chalk Mountain, Texas, eighteen-year-old Elwanda Stasey sets out on a Year Walk, a ritual that promises to offer a glimpse into the future. She believes she has been well prepared for her journey by her grandmother’s fantastical tales from the old country. Stories of bewitching and deadly creatures that dwell in the forest—Huldra, the beautiful forest spirit, who claims her companions for eternity; Nøkken, a shapeshifter who charms those who stray too close to the water’s edge to their doom; and the bäckahäst, a horse that drowns its innocent riders.
But what Elwanda sees on this fateful night will reveal far more than anyone in the little town of Chalk Mountain could have imagined and will set the stage for what could be the destruction of everything, and everyone, Elwanda knows and loves.
Sin casts a long shadow in Chalk Mountain. To save her family from its darkness, Elwanda may find that those who walk between the worlds—those she has been taught to fear—are her only hope.
A Southern Gothic mixture of folktales, voodoo, and stark terror. Chalk Mountain is a potent blend of Norwegian myth and monsters with a dash of voodoo, small-town Texas sensibilities, and old-time, Old Testament vengeance. Nobles weaves a thicket of a tale that is a frightful pleasure to get lost in.