Hex

by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

At age nine, I went door to door selling stamps for charity. A woman in a Carrie-style blood-covered nightgown appeared on one of the doorsteps. Probably expecting a doctor or an ambulance, instead, there was young me, stamps in hand, paralyzed and jaw dropping. My mom raised me properly, so I overcame my first inclination to run. Regaining my voice after several staggering moments, I said: “You must not be feeling very well, I’ll come back another day,” and then ran. Rattled to the bone, I never spoke about the encounter until years later, and to this day, I never found out what happened to the woman. But the following nights, of course, she appeared at my bedside, blood-covered gown and staring eyes—the stuff of nightmares. This—a door suddenly opening, beyond which something hideous awaits us—I later realized is a perfect metaphor for horror fiction. And sometimes, if we’re unfortunate enough, life. This image must still have been on my mind when I set out to write HEX. The journey the book has taken is beyond my wildest imagination. It has now been released in over twenty-five countries and I’ve met readers on tour on four continents. But wherever I go, or whatever corner of the world readers send me messages from, what they are scared of is universally the same. It’s that dark shape, standing at your bedside for nights on end, staring at you, not moving. Even behind her stitched eyes, you know she’s watching you.