Part 5: Gardens at Impossible Distances (SPOILER ALERT)

[Debra]

Put your comments about Part 5 here.

[Ann]

I am going to make a comment in general here since I want to be sure to not spoil an earlier part.
In Part three, A Rip in the Fabric, I commented that I wondered what the catalyst for the rip in the fabric and the Kalendar house "awakening" was. In retrospect I guess it might have been the new serial killer taking over the house for his abductions, and awakening whatever remained of the lives lost in the house, awakening Lily and or Kalendar first. Nancy Underhill's guilt was a real visceral and agonizing feeling, and probably deserved; though I wonder that Lily would have been aware that she ignored her plight when she was a child being tortured.

[Ann]

Again because I listened on audio, and now that the library loan on the book is over, I am a bit confused over Tim's reaction to and certainty of the visual sighting of Mark and Lily/Lucy. Was he in denial about Mark's true fate when he disappeared? Was it a fantasy to think that Mark chose to leave the world he had inhabited and go to a shadow world where he could be happy with the love he found, a way to deny the torture or pain Mark would have endured at the hands of a captor?
The ending when the wall was coming down with chunks of concrete revealing .... - was in a way more ominous than spelling out what was buried in that backyard.
Why did the police leave the evidence and the remains in the house alone for so many years?

[Debra]

I had thought about the catalyst being the new serial killer's use of that house. Don't know why I didn't mention that! That definitely would have woken the spirits up.

As far as Mark goes, I think he escaped and wasn't killed. I believe he just joined his love... she saved him from the serial killer, in her way.

And yep, the police were pretty negligent.

[Ann]

I want to think that too, Debra!
Debra wrote: "As far as Mark goes, I think he escaped and wasn't killed. I believe he just joined his love... she saved him from the serial killer, in her way"

[Debra]

A happy ending of a weird nature, huh?

[Ann]

If horror can have a happy ending (and I don't read enough of it to know really) then this was one, weird, but happy!