The dark tale of a girl named Lauren and the slate that brought her drawings to life and hell to her doorstep.
The dark tale of a girl named Lauren and the slate that brought her drawings to life and hell to her doorstep.
Lauren Bevill was alone the day it began. And hungry. Snow had soaked into her striped leggings, and the hem of her dress was cold and wet. Although she’d rolled down the long pink sleeves of her undershirt, the snow had managed to sneak up the pilling fabric.
Her dress was a finely stitched gray rabbit. Its paws were shallow pockets, and ears flapped near her shoulders. It had passed between manicured hands at last week’s Young Midwest Mothers get-together, followed by rephrased comments of cuteness. And still, details would be disremembered in the unofficial police report.
Puffs of moisture popped into the air as Lauren carved her favorite creature, her late dog—a boxer named Roark—into the hard soil. Despite the jagged curves and chopped edges, she had developed him quite well before she began to tire.
Missing children had become common in Luso County. Perhaps something going terribly wrong should have been expected. As it happened, the Bevills—all of New Sagres City really—were ill prepared.
A grumble. Lauren dropped the small stick, held her stomach, brushed the collecting snow from her dress, and picked it up again.
Leaden clouds paused over the patchy yard. Dad wouldn’t be back before dark. The routine wait allowed the adroit artist patience for detail. The floppy ears. His droopy eyes and animated brows. The cone on the top of his head.
Permission to go inside the mossy mobile home before the clouds made good on their threat seemed increasingly unlikely. The looming trees bowed in waves, their spikes setting mists of snow gliding from the edge of the woods toward the little girl. She constricted. All but her shaky drawing hand.
She tried to distract herself from the biting cold by focusing on her project.
A loud crack.
Then it stopped. Like an interrupted lightning bolt.
The echo carried beyond the lake to the south, where birds plunged and ripples scattered from their predatory dips.
Snow crunched. Not near the lake to her back. Lauren’s eyes crawled across the treeline before her to the trunk of a spruce some forty feet ahead.
A glanced atrocity and her feet kicked from her cross-legged seating, scattering her canvas. Her hands slipped, in an attempt to brace herself on the slick snow and push herself up to stand.
Bloodied eyes. Or were they just sockets? A broken jaw hung open, and blood oozed down its neck.
And there was a second presence, someone far less marred. A mannish figure who held the sufferer; carried it, steadying its battered head, which shook in subtle spasms.
A good time to leave.
The next sound wasn’t a moan from the bludgeoned or an effort-born grunt from the man who carried it. As Lauren squeezed her eyes, pain shot from her tailbone up her spine. When she looked up from her clumsy misstep, the tree sat alone. A red streak ran down its trunk, forming a puddle at its base.
The silence was commanding enough to emphasize the snowflakes that whisked past her face and tickled her nose. Don’t scratch. Don’t move. She waited: still only fallen branches and thick roughage past the woods’ border.
The house. She could break the rules.
No, the punishment would be worse than the gored face if she didn’t remain outside. Worse than the throbbing ache that lingered from her slip. A sufficient deterrent from interrupting Mom’s visit with her handsome friend—and from leaving her lookout post and running the risk of ruining the mendacious game of which parent would greet the other first. A game Mom wasn’t keen on losing.
Besides, no one would believe her. She didn’t believe her. Her mind had played a trick. That was it. But the blood had looked real enough. It pooled and puddled into the slushy snow.
Just a peek. A tiptoe to check its authenticity.
Suddenly a squeal pierced the air from deep in the woods. Much deeper than the tree tagged in smeared handprints. Her investigation was aborted before it began.
Thin, frail fingers gripped the splattered base of the tree. Broken nails splintered the brittle bits and dug into the more resilient grooves. Half a forearm protruded. Dark and shiny, like it was draped in oil. Muscles contracted behind tight, dehydrated skin.
Lauren squinted, her eyes flashing over its arm. Lying on the ground, it shivered. The crippled thing was now hauntingly alone, gripping the trunk for stability and exposing its face again. Lauren’s fear concealed the details. But the hurt thing was a woman; that much Lauren could make out. Blood swathed her twisted form.
That was enough incentive for a run. She peeked over her shoulder as one foot lunged in front of the other. A swivel, just enough to catch the mangled woman crawling from the woods before her sight went dark.
Nate Ferreira crafts a tale of magic, surrealism, horror, and child trauma in The Devil She Drew.
Lauren Bevill was born into a family she wanted to run away from. As she discovers a mysterious slate that is powerful beyond her comprehension, she awakens a series of events that play with her mind and emotions and that lead her towards a point of no return.
My interest in horror and magic piqued my interest in this unique tale that sways from reality to fantasy; we chase for answers the more we turn pages, while the detailed writing pulls us into a new world of mystery and gore.
The author offers us such a unique vision of an unknown world of monsters and demons; the abstract image we draw in our heads results from Ferreira’s ability to detail special creatures just enough to leave something to the imagination.
Nate Ferreira managed to build a seamless bridge between the real world and the fantastic underworld of demonic presences and powerful creatures beyond our imagination. Swerving from the exciting encounters between demons and humans to the tragic reality of Lauren’s family, we’re entranced by the author’s ability to switch so quickly from one sequence to the other.
For those hyper focusing readers, the book requires you to dive deep into the story, allowing no room for any distractions to pull you away from this mystical tale. At times, such shifts are so quick that you get hit by the confusion of how one sequence resulted from the other.
I particularly enjoyed the blatant call to themes like child abuse and trauma; Lauren represents—in the author’s characteristic style—the regrettable results of a child being neglected by their parents and abused in ways only these kids can understand. Lauren’s recklessness and hunger for the unknown can only be described as a child in need for an escape to a new world where she knows no one and no one knows her.
The Devil She Drew is for all those avid horror readers that want to explore the thin wall that divides realism from fantasy.