Some say there are no secrets in a small town, that they just stay dormant, lying in wait for the right messenger. When journalist Cassandra Bell moved to the town of Brookville in upstate New York, she thought she was leaving the madness of the big city behind, but what she found instead was madness of a different kind. The people of Brookville, once ordinary and predictable seem to change personalities overnight. Their behavior is accompanied by a series of strange events – lost time, hallucinations, and memories of a past with which they are unfamiliar. Cassandra had heard of haunted houses, but could it happen to an entire town? She will need to use her wits and her training to uncover the long-buried secret behind the mystery.
Some say there are no secrets in a small town, that they just stay dormant, lying in wait for the right messenger. When journalist Cassandra Bell moved to the town of Brookville in upstate New York, she thought she was leaving the madness of the big city behind, but what she found instead was madness of a different kind. The people of Brookville, once ordinary and predictable seem to change personalities overnight. Their behavior is accompanied by a series of strange events – lost time, hallucinations, and memories of a past with which they are unfamiliar. Cassandra had heard of haunted houses, but could it happen to an entire town? She will need to use her wits and her training to uncover the long-buried secret behind the mystery.
We were still alive when they dug our grave. At least in the minds of those who knew us.
It wasn’t until weeks after calls went unreturned and lights stopped turning on that our loved ones even knew we were gone.
We are still, but we don’t rest. Not with the cacophony of those who still draw breath so callously living out their days above us. We hear their joys and their sorrows, their whispers and their secrets, the lies that they live with and the ones that kill them, yet we are unmoved.
Unmoved but still slightly … sentient. We remember what blood was and how it felt in our now broken veins. We remember the feel of our flesh in each other’s hands, and the curve of our spines when we cradled each other. We remember happiness, just as we remember the sun that will never grace our skin again. A watercolor image, all overlapping hues and illusions of warmth.
What did we do wrong? We ask ourselves again and again. We worked hard, we showed reverence to God and all her children, respecting even those who had not earned it. And for this, our bones were swallowed by the earth before they were spent, making us a bitter crop that would never bear fruit. All that grew from our lonely plot was anger. We spat out cold air and sucked the nutrients from seeds. Over time all sounds of life, whether joyous, grievous, or in between, diminished. A darkness persisted between winters and loneliness set in.
We don’t know how long we were dormant, feeding on the darkness when the noise began. There was a violent clanging of metal and the powerful reverberations of something tearing apart the earth. Our dark prison was shattering, bringing with it a succession of memories of our last days, and bitterness once again gathered inside us like a storm, waiting to make landfall.
A small town in Upstate New York, nestled in the Hudson Basin. It's a beautiful place, full of green fields and farm houses and suburban dreams. There's the crazy lady with dark, cautionary tales that the youths just won't listen to.
When the decision is made to build a new library, in honour of the old mayor, the town is excited. There's to be a 'ground breaking' ceremony, and Cassandra is sent to report on it. It's as dull as she expects, except when the spades hit the earth, a strange weather phenomenon takes place. It's blink and you miss it, and at first, Cassandra isn't entirely sure she imagined it. But, over the next few days, events in the town just get more and more bizarre. When it begins to appear as though the whole town is reliving events from 60 years before, Cassandra is determined to get to the bottom of it - no matter how chilling and frightening it may become.
Hallowed Ground is only a short story, easy to read in one sitting. Not least because of it's short length - but because of how thoroughly compelling it is. It's beautifully written, with an air of chilling, haunting vengeance throughout. You desperately want to find out what is causing the towns' people to act so strangely and violently; why the young boy is suddenly so ominously wise.
This beautiful tale takes you through an important history and social lesson. Although we all think we know what people of colour were put through in the middle of the 20th Century, as white people, we really don't understand the years of pain and torment that was suffered. Hallowed Ground opened my eyes in many ways, and made me reflect upon when I may have simply stood back instead of stepping forward. When I may have kept my mouth shut instead of opening it and offering my support to the marginalised and maligned.
Sometimes, secrets shouldn't be kept long buried. They should be unearthed, reexamined in order to ensure that justice is brought towards all those nameless victims of hateful racism.
S. A.