She could hear Fogg River’s dead now, whispering under the crash of the water on the struts and the stones.”
What the Dead Know
- Book: What the Dead Know
- Author: Nghi Vo
- Series: Into Shadow Collection, 4
As she looked down into the water, Maryse saw an arm flung up from the waves, the curve of a round dark shoulder and the flash of a pink palm rising from the froth before sinking away from sight. “Water women,” Vasyl said. “They have them here too.”
“They have them everywhere,” Maryse said absently, looking for others. “There’s never a shortage of unlucky girls who end up in the water.”
Synopsis:
A woman posing as a medium who can channel the spirit world comes face to face with the truth in this short historical fantasy by Hugo Award–winning author Nghi Vo.
The Fogg River Seminary, a girls’ school in a small Illinois town, is supposed to be just another stop on Maryse and Vasyl’s endless travels. They’ve made lucrative use of Maryse’s “foreign” looks in their melodramatic séance act—and an act is all it is. Then, during their performance, a blizzard sweeps in and cuts them off from town completely. In the freezing halls, there’s a voice speaking the secrets of the dead, and Maryse has no choice but to listen…because this time, the voice is real.
“She is far away, so deeply in the trance of her ancestors that she will not be wakened by conventional means.”
Genre:
- Historical Fic
- Fantasy > Paranormal
- Horror
- Short Stories > Collection
Tropes & Themes:
- “I see dead people”
- Forced Proximity > Blizzard > Seminary School for Girls
- The Con > Scams and Money Making Schemes > Silver Tongue
- Paranormal > Seance Performance
- Ghost Story
- Time Period: 1899
- Multicultural
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
“How lucky we are, then, to know what the dead say.” They didn’t, of course they didn’t, but it was a living, and thus better than a dying…”
What the Dead Know
Maryse and Vasyl are travellers, onto their next town to perform their morbid yet fascinating seance act, and quite the performance it is:
“Silence!” Vasyl boomed, and they quieted like startled children, taking in the view in front of them: Vasyl in unrelieved black with his pale hair glowing like a halo in the dimmed electric lights, Maryse on the table doing her best impression of a corpse.”
What the Dead Know
After five years of claiming to be a Medium and Spiritualist, Maryse has never even once actually heard the dead speak. However, after a performance with a little extra ✨ razzle dazzle✨ Maryse’s ears are wide open to spiritual communication — much to her absolute horror.
When a snow blizzard hits and she and Vasyl, (and attending guests), are forced to stay overnight at the Fogg River Seminary School for Girls, Maryse gets an earful of what the dead have to say. Knowledge she wished had stayed hidden in the shadows of her brain, now that she has no choice but to listen.
What The Dead Know, oh how I love thee!
This ghostly, historical fantasy surprised me in the best way possible. I absolutely loved Author Nghi Vo’s lyrical and poetic writing style. Spooky and atmospheric, Vo crafted a unique and magical story about a pair of travelers who swindle and con their way across America, and despite this, they are extremely likeable.
I only wish this read wasn’t so short because there were a lot of themes in this horror-short that I would have loved to see explored further, especially that absolutely intense, read-it-again-and-again-AND-again, Kindle-highlight of an ending.
Great story. I would recommend it to fans of paranormal horror, set in a historical setting.
About the Author:
Nghi Vo is an American author of short stories, novellas, and novels. Vo’s fantasy novella The Empress of Salt and Fortune has received acclaim and won the Hugo Award for Best Novella and the IAFA Crawford Award.
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