Eric Maas’s Reviews > The Empusium > Status Update

[…every culture] has its beginning, mature, reached its zenit, then withered and never returned again. And, at its close, ghosts were bound to appear, because the fight shifted to the borders between worlds as well. “Something new will soon come along and give a voice to the ghosts,” [Frommer] added with a quaver voice.

Wojnicz was quite incapable of crying — his father had knocked that out of his head early on. It was one of the basic lessons: don’t snivel, don’t be a sissy. So his body had found other ways to endure sorrow.

12. Mister Jig

11. White ribbons, dark night
Despite Frommer’s warning, I don’t believe for a moment that Wojnicz needs to fear the Empusae.

10. The Culmination of Geometry

9. The Tuntschi

8. A Symphony of Coughing

He is breathing calmly as waves of fragrance meet in his nose — an herb to deter clothed moths, some very cheap perfume, dust, starch, and the indeterminate odor that human beings leave behind after they die.

Just in case you had forgotten the non-human narrator(s) are still very much around, observing minutely…

Don’t get attached to him, my boy. He hasn’t much time left.

Given Wojnicz got the same advice about the ducks that Jóseph brought home in his youth and ended up hanging upside down bleeding out from their necks, this sounds even more ominous than it would normally. After all it’s getting near to November and someone is bound to perish in a Health Resort Horror Story…

Even the toughest men melt like jelly when they’re subjected to women’s tricks. And that includes women acting from beyond the grave.

7. Woe, woe is me!