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| The sequel is Don't Come Back! |
Here's what happens. The main man of the novel here's drumming and he feels the presence of his ancestors. At first it's almost a stereotype. He's Navajo, and he has just moved to New Mexico, and he believes he is hearing the voices of his ancestors. Of course, maybe he's simply depressed and searching for his identity. (His mother moved away to Maryland before he was born, and never kept it touch with his family here.)
Then, Molly hears drums -- or is it just the subwoofer in a passing car?
I like to feature spirits in my stories...and themes of loss and abandonment. Are there spirits. I think so. I can't prove it, of course.
I grew up with lots of spirit stories: Miss Rosa rocking in the front hall, translucent figures in white, ghosts of former slaves haunting the lives of their white former owners, stories of spirit hauntings...were they true? I felt certain of it as a child. On the former plantation where I grew up, I noticed a strange phenomenon and still do. When I walked out the door as a child, the world I saw, the trees the grass, the farm buildings, seemed ephemeral, as if they might disappear or be transformed in a moment to another time and place. We had a tool house which had once been the outdoor kitchen, a graveyard where dead children were buried, still grieved all these generations later. Could these mothers still be heard crying, especially when the wind kicked up? I heard them. I often wanted to step through the veil and experience that past. But, of course, I never did. Maybe I thought there really was no veil, maybe I was afraid the veil was a one way travel and I could not return to the present.
Even today, when I walk out the backdoor of the old farm (my brother now lives there), I see a wavering light that threatens to reveal the buildings and plants of my childhood, my grandmother hanging clothes while chickens squawk at her feet. Is my memory of that time correct -- can I go back for fifteen minutes or so simply to check? Or will I then have to relive that past to get to the present
In Don't Come Back, Molly and her FBI helper Ray address the issue of spirits -- what do they find? I don't know yet, but it's still .... mysterious in New Mexico.
Do spi
