An archaeologist losing her mind. A daughter grasping for truth. A buried evil that feeds on the forgotten.
Dr. Ellie Bennett was once at the peak of her field—until early-onset Alzheimer’s began unraveling her memory. But when she uncovers a forgotten Viking burial site in Newfoundland, she doesn’t just awaken history… she awakens Skuggr Valdr—the Shadow Ruler, an ancient entity that preys on minds caught between life and death.
As hallucinations, memory lapses, and violence grip her archaeological team, Ellie’s daughter Sarah is pulled into a chilling race against time. Together, they must navigate Norse myth, ancient ritual, and the dark world of Skuggarheimr, where the fading live in limbo and Skuggr Valdr reigns.
But in a memory care home filled with others slipping away, Ellie may hold the final key. To stop the darkness, she’ll have to surrender the last pieces of herself… before the past becomes the future, and no mind is safe.
Perfect for fans of:
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
The Taking of Deborah Logan (film)
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Nordic Noir meets folk horror
Slow-burn terror with emotional stakes
An archaeologist losing her mind. A daughter grasping for truth. A buried evil that feeds on the forgotten.
Dr. Ellie Bennett was once at the peak of her field—until early-onset Alzheimer’s began unraveling her memory. But when she uncovers a forgotten Viking burial site in Newfoundland, she doesn’t just awaken history… she awakens Skuggr Valdr—the Shadow Ruler, an ancient entity that preys on minds caught between life and death.
As hallucinations, memory lapses, and violence grip her archaeological team, Ellie’s daughter Sarah is pulled into a chilling race against time. Together, they must navigate Norse myth, ancient ritual, and the dark world of Skuggarheimr, where the fading live in limbo and Skuggr Valdr reigns.
But in a memory care home filled with others slipping away, Ellie may hold the final key. To stop the darkness, she’ll have to surrender the last pieces of herself… before the past becomes the future, and no mind is safe.
Perfect for fans of:
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
The Taking of Deborah Logan (film)
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Nordic Noir meets folk horror
Slow-burn terror with emotional stakes
Evanston, Illinois
Snow. A blanket of white snow.
The icy cover breathed until it cracked and caved.
The sun cleared the crevice, thawing the hidden.
And the animals of the forest were drawn to the stench of putrid flesh.
“Mrs. Bennett? Your address, please,” the neurologist’s voice broke through what he assumed was a growing dementia cloud obscuring her attention.
Ellie blinked, disoriented. The tight, sterile walls of the painted white examination room came into focus, but something else lingered at the edges of her mind’s eye. “I…I was just…”
Vermin were the first to feast on the decaying remains, merely to be invaded by wolves and circumstance when the Nordic permafrost regressed to slushy waters.
She shook her head, trying to clear the image seared into her thoughts. “Two…no, thray… Tiny… Piny Oalk… Oak?” The words tumbled out, jumbled and uncertain. She clenched her fist. “Ugh. I know what it is. It doesn’t come out. There’s so much going on. Here, let me check my purse.” Ellie searched around her, then paused and smiled to herself. “Do you have it? My purse? It was just here.”
“No, maybe your daughter does,” Dr. Aardema said. “No worries.”
“Oh, you’re right. I’ll give her a call.” Ellie tried to piece together where her phone could be, if normally in her purse… “Did I give it to you?”
Dr. Aardema shook his head, jotting something on his clipboard. “That’s okay, Ellie. Let’s try something else. Can you tell me what day it is today?”
“Well, I could if I had my phone.” She offered a quirky sarchastic look. “The date is always right there. That’s not something people just remember without the paper…you know…that paper thing on the ice box.”
“Calendar?” Dr. Aardema nodded.
“Yes, that’s what I was saying. I must say that a hundred times. I know what that is.”
“Not a big thing, Ellie. See if you can visualize the calendar on the refrigerator or on your phone.”
“I know it’s Tuesday, but everyone looks up dates.” Ellie closed her eyes, trying to focus. She could see the writing and numbers on a visual calendar in her head. As the synapses raced to the muscles in her mouth, they stopped abruptly and made way for a new vision.
Nestled deep within steep cliffs and a slender fjord, the longhouse rose from its polar blanket within the glaciated valley covered eons ago.
She huffed, frustrated, her hands trembling. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. That’s not what I see,” she whispered, opening her eyes to escape the vision. Her gaze was distant for a moment, then fixed on the doctor. Her eyes pleaded and asked for the help her tongue could not fully articulate. “Where’s my purse?” She looked around. “Oh, jeez. We were just talking about that.” Her hands tugged at the fabric of her pants. The doctor’s eyes tracked the movement. Noted it.
“No need to apologize,” Dr. Aardema assured her. “Now, I’m going to say three words. I want you to repeat them back to me, okay? The words are ‘apple,’ ‘penny,’ ‘table.’”
“Apple, penny, table,” Ellie repeated, clinging to them like a lifeline.
“Very good. Now, I want you to remember those words. We’ll come back to them in a few minutes.”
As the doctor continued, Ellie’s mind drifted. Shifted.
What corpses kept their heads, had not been burned and divided, or otherwise butchered, remained in a row, beads of water dripping upon their carcasses with a dull drumbeat.
“Ellie?” The doctor’s voice pulled her back. “Can you spell the word ‘world’ backwards for me?”
Ellie nodded. “D…L… R…” She paused, uncertainty creeping in. “O…W?”
On their breasts, barbed metal shears bled rusty snow, thawing suspended slumber.
“That’s right. Now, do you recall those three words I asked you to remember earlier?”
Ellie’s heart sank. Water, wolves, death. The actual words had slipped away, lost in the maze of her mind. This much she knew. “I…I can’t remember,” she admitted. “This isn’t like me. I’m just really tired. I don’t know why we’re doing this all again. Didn’t we do it last week?”
“It’s been over six months.” The doctor’s pen scratched across the paper. “That’s okay, Ellie. Let’s move on. Can you tell me what this is?” He held up his wristwatch.
“Fancy Rolex,” Ellie replied with a snide smile, relieved to see something familiar. “It’s a watch. That I know right away.” She pointed with a smile. “Oh, there’s a date on it. The Submariner version with the glass bubble has that. You can check the little square near the three if you still need to know what day it is. I bought one for my hus—” She flinched as an image crossed the snow-colored walls of the room.
Within their rotted, sodden clothing, sticks and twigs were stuffed. Their blackened big toes were bound, but not for long, as field mice and rats gnawed on the frayed twine.
“Your late husband. Good. And this?” He produced a pen from his pocket.
“A pen,” Ellie said, her confidence growing slightly. She forced her mind to block the visions.
Dr. Aardema set the pen down. “Ellie, I’d like you to listen carefully and follow my instructions. Take this piece of paper in your right hand, fold it in half, and place it on the floor.”
Ellie nodded, determined to get it right. She reached out with her right hand, grasping the paper. White as snow. Snow.
With each scavenger’s feed, the feet of the dead loosed from the iron spikes hammered into the timber floor. The shears fell aside with each animal’s shredding of rotted meat.
Her hands trembled, and the paper slipped from her grasp, floating to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, bending to retrieve it. As she straightened, a wave of dizziness washed over her. She groped back for the chair arm, weight shift rebalancing, and she plopped down to her seat.
Dr. Aardema leaned forward, concern evident in his voice. “Are you alright, Ellie?”
She nodded though uncertainty gnawed at her. “I’m fine. It’s just…I keep seeing things, horrible things, in the last few days. I feel like when the visions come that’s when I lose my memory. It’s not the dementia but a horrific distraction. A calling or something.”
The intent was straightforward. Every effort performed in and upon the interment of this single-room Scandinavian hut was to restrain the revenants from walking again, even once dead.
The doctor’s expression softened. “Many people with symptoms of dementia relating to Alzheimer’s memory loss and cognitive decline experience vivid dreams or hallucinations based on false perceptions. To this point, I’ve not noted any progression towards Lewy body dementia that can involve sounds, smells, touch, and hallucinations. It can cause more confusion when people, pets, and objects aren’t really there. Can you tell me more about what you’re seeing?”
“Are you there?” she joked.
“I’m very much here with you, Ellie.” His face tight. “Tell me what you saw.”
Ellie hesitated, unsure how to describe the nightmarish visions. “There was a longhouse, in the snow. Bodies…so many bodies. And animals, going mad, becoming…something else.”
As evil roused, those animals that scavenged the decomposed warriors grew mad. They began to feast upon themselves.
Dr. Aardema made a note, his brow furrowed. “These visions, do they feel real to you?”
“Yes. Yes. I’m there,” Ellie whispered. “Sometimes more real than…than this.” She gestured vaguely at the examination room. “I can hear what you’re saying but can’t find the words because I am somewhere else. A place where we don’t have to use words, or rather, we don’t have to think of words.”
The powerful remained and reveled in the spoils of triumph, however short-lived, until the next rung on the food chain ravaged the rabid creatures. When the champions emerged from wild dogs and boars to bears, they, too, were ruined by the waking dead.
She closed her eyes. Shook her head.
“How close are these visions to your research, Ellie?”
She pursed her lips. “Quite a bit, actually, now that I think of it. God, I wish they would stop.” Ellie softly pounded her head.
He nodded in what he believed was understanding. “Now,” Dr. Aardema continued, “I’d like you to write a sentence for me. Any sentence you like, just write it down on this paper.”
Ellie took the pen, her hand still shaking slightly. She stared at the blank paper, willing the words to come. Finding the path back. After a moment, she began to write: “He will wake.”
Soon, the once-living beasts emerged and commenced the courses anew in a chain of contagion. They expanded their ravenous craving quest to the nearby forests, building a veritable horde of the undead, leaving in their aftermath the stench of rot and the sea.
Dr. Aardema glanced at the sentence, his expression unreadable. “Thank you, Ellie. Now, I have one last task for you. I’d like you to copy this drawing.” He placed a piece of paper in front of her with two intersecting rectangles.
Ellie picked up the pen again, focusing on the shapes. As she began to draw, the lines seemed to blur and shift. Instead of rectangles, she found herself sketching the outline of the longhouse, surrounded by broken, monstrous figures and the rune symbols of a language she did not know.
The town on the outskirts of the timbers and jagged peaks remained oblivious of the Draugr resurrection and settled in for a good night’s slumber.
One child, however, lay awake. Was it something she heard outside?
“Ellie?” Dr. Aardema’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Ellie, can you hear me?”
She looked up, blinking rapidly. The doctor’s office came back into focus, the unfinished drawing lying as damning evidence on the desk.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I got…distracted. I saw a little girl who looked like Sarah when she was younger.” Her lips trembled; tears rolled down her cheek. “The people will think it is something it is not. It’s not the beasts; it’s the beast. The weaver. He sees what will come and doesn’t like it at all. We see him, but we’re not supposed to. His land is a secret from the gods. He’s been cast from sight, now lives in the shadows.”
Dr. Aardema’s expression was grave. “It’s alright, Ellie. We’re all done for today. I’m going to talk with your daughter now, okay?”
“Am I okay to go back on the dig? It’s my life’s work. Nearly sixty and senile is the new forty, right?”
The doctor smiled. “You’re aware enough to know that you have memory deterioration. Your mind is active, you are physically in outstanding shape. At times, when you have to rely on recall, your speech pattern gets disrupted. When you are at ease and more reflective, you have no verbal struggles whatsoever. Early onset Alzheimer’s is no fun, especially with good health. I’m a bit concerned about the visions, however.”
“It’s not schizophrenia, right?”
He paused to reflect. “Schizoaffective disorder could cause delusions, hallucinations, and high-energy manic periods…” He shook his head and gave Ellie a gentle smile. “Let’s not worry about that yet. Overall, I’d say, do the things you love now, but know that you’re in a fairly rapid decline, I’m sorry to say. This disease isn’t linear, so you could be great for a while and then have a sudden and fast-moving downswing. We can test some meds that have been recently approved. But if you are looking to dig up another King Tut, let’s try the meds in the next months to follow your trip when you are back and can be monitored.” As the doctor spoke, he moved about the room, scribbling down some notes before tucking his pen in his coat pocket and walking back towards Ellie. “While you’re traveling, make sure you’re with someone you trust. And don’t fake your loss of recall. Ask for help. As hard as that may be and as vulnerable as you may feel, do it. Next year or the year after could be a different story. Unfortunately, yours has been progressing…fast.” He shrugged and put his hand on her shoulder. “But we’re all here to help you through it.”
“I need you to just make this go away.” She shook her head. “I look at so many cultures. I feel our own is one of the worst at avoiding and denying getting old. Right? Youth is everything. Almost to the point where we turn the old invisible. Disengage them. Lock them away and just make visits. I did it with my own mother, and suspect my kids will do the same. I just never thought it would come so soon. Now here it is, but it doesn’t feel like just memory loss.”
Dr. Aardema forced a smile. “I’m holding out hope. No one is locking you away any time soon. Plenty of adventures left for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back.”
As the doctor left the room, Ellie found herself drifting again back to the snow-covered valley and the horrors that awaited there. The ancient evil was stirring, and Dr. Eleanor Bennett, a searcher of historic secrets, was lost in the labyrinth of her own mind and yet might be the only one who could see the danger that was coming.
She brought pen to paper one more time and wrote the words “Skjold Valdr.”
The little girl didn’t dare check what was coming to the windows.
After all, if there were monsters outside, who was to say some weren’t already under her bed?
If you've followed me for any time, you know that I'm a big fan of JT Patten and his body of work. Weaver's Web is no exception.
The story starts deceptively mundane though tragic. We're introduced to the main character at a doctor's appointment, where she and her doctor are discussing the progression of her Alzheimer's. He puts her through the normal measuring standards, like drawing a clock, writing a sentence and remembering three words, and those three words opens the door to the rest of the story.
I particularly love how Mr. Patten further introduces us to Ellie's chosen path, archeology, as well as her team without any of them or their relationships turning into any expected trope. They are each their own person holding specific places in Ellie's life. He also carves out a relatable and real character in her daughter, Sarah.
Through Ellie's eyes and in no small part, Sarah's experience, the plot is dug up, both figurative and literal, while intertwined with every part of this story. We follow Ellie's journey from the unexpected confusion of her archaeological dig to its relation to her mental degradation.
Along the way, each twist and turn pulled me into the story, deeper and deeper. His creation gained my investment, and even better, I had no clue where this was going, at least not specifically. He doesn't overly complicate the science of her infliction or the historical notes of archeology, instead making them part of the story without pulling me out or jarring my suspended belief.
And his antagonist? Perfection.
I felt for his characters, especially Sarah, finding myself gasping at her realizations, saying aloud that she should be careful as she slides down the rabbit hole her mother had carved out. I cheered her and her mother on, and held my breath, as the tension escalated.
If you love paranormal thrillers, as you know I do, then you should pick this up and read it tonight. This fast-paced read will not disappoint, and if I'm honest, I know I'm going to read it again.
Bravo, JT Patten.