“Don’t burn the witch – the ways of Hell aren’t wrong”

63. Maggie’s Grave – David Sodergren

Sodergren makes it clear at the end, with photo, that there is an actual Maggie Wall whose grave says she was “burned as a witch” instead of buried as in this novel in 1657. That’s just a bit after the “Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1649-50,” which was way after North Berwick and apparently the worst of the major Scottish witch hunts according to my minimal research. So Maggie Wall is kind of on her own, in a field. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

Sodergren moved her to the top of a hill, stole her baby, and started the legend that she made a nice herby soup when she was alive. However, in death, she’s a twiggy unstoppable nightmare force who is quite tall and spends a lot of time pushing herself upwards through other people in quite the mockery of birth. It’s pretty cool, honestly, and also super disgusting.

The small Highland town of Auchenmullan is dying and it’s totally bumming out the few teenagers left. So when they run into a hitchhiking American in the bowling alley who seems to slag it off because what else was she going to do in the dark unfortunate bowling alley, Maggie Wall’s grave and cabin come up and then teens do what teens do – ruin the peace and wake up the sleeping witch for her revenge. It’s a classic idea and it works really well here, I didn’t necessarily find terminator Maggie as scary as the betrayals that happened throughout the end (geez), but it’s a solid horror story with a lot of gore, decent characters, and a very quick read too.

 

Pammy posing for her monument, a giant pumpkin with a guinea pig on it would look great in any field.