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    Isis
    Isis
    Isis
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    Isis

    By Douglas Clegg

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    If you lost someone you loved, what price would you pay to bring them back from the dead? From New York Times bestselling author Douglas Clegg comes a classic dark gothic novella of quiet horror, "...as chilling and dark as the shadows on an October night," said NY Times bestselling author Christine Feehan.

    120 pages in print. For fans of Guillermo del Toro, Susan Hill, and Daphne Du Maurier.

    Note: Isis is a prequel novella to the Harrow Series.

    Old Marsh, the gardener at Belerion Hall, warned the Villiers girl about the dark places and old ruins along the sea-cliffs. “Never go in, miss. Never say a prayer at its door. If you are angry, do not seek revenge by the Laughing Maiden stone or at the threshold of the Tombs. There be those who listen for oaths and vows....What may be said in innocence becomes flesh and blood in such places.”

    From childhood until her sixteenth year, Iris Villiers wandered, a wild child in a repressive time, along the stone-hedged gardens and steep cliffs of the coast of Cornwall near her ancestral home. Surrounded by the stern judgments of her grandfather-the Gray Minister-and the taunts of her cruel governess, Iris finds solace in her handsome and beloved older brother who has always protected her.

    But when a tragic accident occurs from the ledge of an open window, Iris discovers that she possesses the ability to speak to the dead...

    From Publishers Weekly:
    “Clegg (The Abandoned) expands the burgeoning backstory of his multivolume Harrow haunted house saga with this poignant chamber tragedy involving young Iris Catherine Villiers (who, as an adult, will become Isis Claviger, oracle of the spook-ridden Hudson Valley academy)...This potent novella, one of Clegg’s best, is both a stand-alone triumph and a powerful new chapter in his evolving series.”

    From Fangoria Magazine:
    “...a story of love, loss and longing...told with the beautiful prose of an old-fashioned Gothic era.”

    From The Strand magazine:
    “Haunting yet poignant, Isis is a work that should firmly place Clegg among the all-stars of horror such as Straub, Machen, LeFanu, and Stoker.”

    Discover Douglas Clegg's fiction:

    Lights Out
    Neverland
    The Children’s Hour
    The Halloween Man
    You Come When I Call You
    The Hour Before Dark
    Nightmare House
    Bad Karma
    Goat Dance
    Breeder
    Afterlife
    Purity
    Dark of the Eye
    The Words
    Wild Things
    Red Angel
    Night Cage
    Mischief
    The Infinite
    The Abandoned
    The Necromancer
    Isis
    Naomi
    The Nightmare Chronicles
    The Attraction
    Night Asylum
    The Priest of Blood
    The Lady of Serpents
    The Queen of Wolves

    FIC015000FICTION / Horror
    FIC024000FICTION / Occult & Supernatural

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDouglas Clegg
    Release dateDec 1, 2015
    ISBN9780990464822
    Isis
    Author

    Douglas Clegg

    Douglas Clegg is a screenwriter, poet, and the author of dozens of novels, novellas, and short story collections. His fiction has won the Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award. He is married to Raul Silva and lives near the New England coast, where he is currently writing his next work of fiction.

    Read more from Douglas Clegg

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    Reviews for Isis

    3.5/5

    76 ratings9 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Beautifully written supernatural tale. Douglas Clegg has been one of my favourite authors for some time and this novella cements that position. A quick but wonderful read.
    • 3/5
      Had no idea this is apparently linked to other stuff by Douglas Clegg, which might've helped it feel more substantial. Still, even as a stand-alone novellette (or novella, or whatever the exact definition might be), it works quite well: it feels a bit Shirley Jackson-esque, a bit Susan Hill-ish -- it's something more gently creepy than all out guts 'n' gore, which I tend to prefer. I think really what's most horrible about it is the tenderness: the key event, the turning point, tore my heart a little, because even in so short a space I got to care about the characters... And the ending doesn't strike any false note of comfort, just something bleak and hopeless.I read this during the course of my twenty-five minute bus journey back from the clinic I volunteer at, so it's obviously pretty short and sweet -- which is to be preferred, sometimes.
    • 2/5
      I am uncertain as to why this book was offered on its own rather than as part of a short story collection. The illustrations were very good (sort of a Dore/Gorey combination), but the story itself wasn't terribly compelling, and felt incomplete. If it were to be offered as a stand-alone book there were many pieces that should have been expanded (the brothers, the nanny, the father, the mother--clues and inferences, but no completion).
    • 5/5
      The novella concerns a young girl living in a manor in England with her family. After a horrible tragedy, the young girl tries to call up the forces of the dead to solve her life, and to see a loved one again. As the book says numerous times 'death has a price', and she finds out deaths price in a fairly gruesome way.It was marked as a suspense, though to be honest I didn't find it all that scary. A younger audience would probably be more frightened by the cautionary tale.Regardless, I thought it was a really interesting little story. It was imaginative and there were some great supernatural elements. As I said, I didn't find the book to be scary, however it was thoroughly entertaining. It was also beautifully illustrated throughout. The whole novella was actually quite visually beautiful.So, while a younger audience might be frightened by the story, I think an older audience would appreciate this novella as an unusual fairy tale about consequences and death. I absolutely recommend this novella.
    • 5/5
      This short book- 113 pages that I read in an hour- is downright heartbreakingly sad. It’s a book of loss, a book of horror, a book of grief. Set in the late Victorian era, Iris is the youngest child in a family with an absent father and a mother with depression. Her brothers are her only friends; Harvey, one of the twins that are 3 years older than her is her favorite. They spend their free time together; he protects her from his twin who has a streak of cruelty. Living in the ancestral mansion in the far reaches of Cornwall with their mad grandfather locked up in one wing the atmosphere is charged with the occult and death. The setting is a gothic dream; not only is it an old, isolated manor, but it has an on site mausoleum in a cave where family members are buried. The gardener tells them tales of the dead and of the past, and of the perils of calling up the dead. When Harvey dies, Iris risks all to have him with her again, only to find that the gardener was right and some things are best left alone because there *are* fates worse than death. Beautifully illustrated with pen and ink drawings, the book is like a tone poem of loss. Very, very good.
    • 4/5
      Douglas Clegg's Isis is a supremely creepy novella, with a fascinating Gothic aftertaste. According to my research, this novella is meant to provide a back story for a series of novels by Douglas Clegg. I will definitely be putting his other works on my lengthy tbr list! Isis is deliciously eerie and captivating. Iris is a well-written and sympathetic character and the setting and auxiliary characters are fantastic. I thoroughly expect the story to haunt my dreams tonight! Isis is thrilling and chilling - a truly satisfying tale of the world of the supernatural, told using the backdrop of the mythos of Isis and Osiris. Unique and interesting, Isis is also a quick and effortless read, easily conquered in just a couple hours time. I recommend it for any fan of classic horror. The spooky atmosphere Clegg has conjured in Isis will be well worth your time.
    • 3/5
      A slim little volume whose cover caught and tag line caught my eye, Isis is apparently a prequel of sorts to his Harrow haunted house saga (which I will admit to having not read, much less heard of). The story is about the Villiers family who has moved to their ancestral home in Cornwall after the father has gone off to war. The family consists of Iris, twins Spencer and Harvey, older brother Lewis (who has gone off to school) and their mother and lunatic grandfather. Iris and Harvey are closest and are rarely seen apart. The estate gardener, Old Marsh, likes to fill their heads with the stories, legends and folktales from around the area; particularly about the burial grounds, or Tombs, of the Villiers family. One such story goes that you musn't make wishes or threats in the Tombs, as the dead will answer you, and then you must pay a debt to the dead.After a time, there is an accident, and Harvey is killed while trying to save Iris from falling from a window. In her grief, she runs to the Tombs and asks that her brother be brought back to her, and he does come back, but with consequences. By the time I finished the story, all I could think of was W. W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw and the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for." Not knowing any background of the rest of the series that Isis is taken from, I have no idea whether or not this is a good background for these characters, but based on this book alone, I probably wouldn't pick up the rest of the series. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't that engaging for me.
    • 5/5
      Isis by Douglas Clegg was originally published by Cemetery Dance Publications in 2006 as a special, limited edition. Fortunately, the novella is now readily available from Vanguard Press. Clegg is probably best known for his work as an author of horror, but I recognized his name form his Arthurian novel Mordred, Bastard Son, which I haven't actually read yet. But this was enough to interest me in accepting the offer to review Isis. What clinched the deal for me, however, where the examples of the illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne. I am not familiar with Chadbourne's work at all despite it being primarily fantasy and horror themed, but the examples were great.Ever since Iris Villiers was small, her head was being filled with ghost stories and ancient legends and tales about the undead surrounding her ancestral home. The superstitious gardener warns her about making careless wishes near the family tombs, for they just might come true and the dead always collect on the debts owed to them. But when a tragic accident takes the life of her beloved brother Harvey, she is willing to do anything to see him again, regardless of the cost. Only, deals with Death never work out as anticipated and she won't be the only one to pay the price.Even though it is a newer work, Isis has the feeling and characteristics of older traditional ghost stories and campfire tales. It's terrifying and chilling not because of blood and gore but because of the consequences of people's actions and how they choose to deal with them. Clegg even manages to work in a few more twists and details that I wasn't expecting that were quite effective and leaves the ending of the story somewhat open. From the very beginning, the book has a sense of sadness about it that is vaguely ominous and otherworldly, a feeling that only increases as the tale progresses.Chadbourne's illustrations are wonderfully creepy and atmospheric, perfectly complementing Clegg's story. I would have actually liked to have seen more of them, especially seeing as some of the illustrations were simply details of larger pieces, but they made for a fantastic addition. In fact, as much as I liked the story, it is the illustrations that really make the book worth picking up for its cover price. The story is great, don't get me wrong, it just seems a little short to be selling on its own were it not for the art. I'll definitely keep an eye out for other projects that Chadbourne works on.One thing that I hadn't realized about Isis until I had finished reading it and was poking around the Internet is that it can technically serve as a prequel to Clegg's Harrow House saga. The book itself gives no indication of this and since I've never read any of his other books I had no idea there was a connection. Now, that being said, Isis can and does stand completely on its own. Though, now that I do know the novella is related to a few of Clegg's other novels, I want to track down some copies to read because I enjoyed Isis even more than I was expecting.Experiments in Reading
    • 5/5
      This short book- 113 pages that I read in an hour- is downright heartbreakingly sad. It’s a book of loss, a book of horror, a book of grief. Set in the late Victorian era, Iris is the youngest child in a family with an absent father and a mother with depression. Her brothers are her only friends; Harvey, one of the twins that are 3 years older than her is her favorite. They spend their free time together; he protects her from his twin who has a streak of cruelty. Living in the ancestral mansion in the far reaches of Cornwall with their mad grandfather locked up in one wing the atmosphere is charged with the occult and death. The setting is a gothic dream; not only is it an old, isolated manor, but it has an on site mausoleum in a cave where family members are buried. The gardener tells them tales of the dead and of the past, and of the perils of calling up the dead. When Harvey dies, Iris risks all to have him with her again, only to find that the gardener was right and some things are best left alone because there *are* fates worse than death. Beautifully illustrated with pen and ink drawings, the book is like a tone poem of loss. Very, very good.

    Book preview

    Isis - Douglas Clegg

    Part I

    The Window

    Chapter

    1

    Beware a field hedged with stones, our gardener, Old Marsh, told me in his smoky voice with its Cornish inflections, as he pointed to the land near the cliff.

    See there? The hedge holds in. Will not let out. Things lurk about places like that. Unseen things.

    A house, I suppose, is a stone-hedged field.

    A tomb,

    as

    well

    .

    The place where the stone-hedges ended, as they grew ‘round our house and the gardens, formed an old cave entrance that had been turned into a mausoleum beneath the ground, carved out for centuries for the bones of my ancestors.

    The locals called it the Tombs, although it was much more than merely a series of subterranean burial chambers. It had been carved from rock by the local miners for some early Villiers ancestor and had been used just two years before my birth when my grandmother had died. Her coffin was sealed up in granite and plaster within the Tombs, leaving spaces for other Villiers

    to

    come

    .

    My mother made me swear that I would never allow her to be buried there.

    I don't like that place, she told me. "It's cold and horrible and primitive. Put me in a churchyard with a proper marker. Do you

    promise

    me

    ?"

    Certain that her death was years away, I promised whatever she asked. I coaxed a smile from her when I demanded that upon my own death, she have the Ragman cart me away to the

    rubbish

    pile

    .

    What lay below the Tombs had once been a sacred site to the Cornish people, more than a thousand years earlier. It had been a cave, leading down the cliffside through a series of narrow passages, out to sea. It was believed to be an entrance to the Otherworld — the Isle of Apples, it was sometimes called — where a stag god and a crescent moon mother goddess ruled.

    There had been a legend, once, of a Maiden of Sorrow, who traveled deep in the earth to the Isle of Apples to find her lover who had died a terrible death in a distant battle. When she had returned, she brought him with her and held his hand as they emerged from the winding caves into the sunlight. 

    But when others saw the couple, they cried out in terror — for her lover's eyes were black as pitch, and he had no mouth upon his face, just a seal of flesh as if he had not formed completely upon his journey back to the land of the living. The villagers knew he was not meant to be among them, yet the Maiden would not allow him to return to the earth. The legend went that the Maiden lived with him at the edge of the sea, but he could not speak, nor did his eyes return to life, nor could anyone look him in the eye, lest they be driven mad from seeing the Otherworld reflected in his glance.

    When someone in the village was near death, the Maiden's lover would appear at their doorway and seek entrance, as if trying to find his way back to his soul, which had remained on the

    other

    side

    .

    There was, also, a large round granite stone in the field at the edge of the sunken garden, not ten paces from the Tombs. Called the Laughing Maiden, it was believed that once in early times of the Christians, another maiden went out and laughed at the priest on Sabbath day and was turned to stone.

    I went to this stone as a girl with our gardener, who believed all the ancient tales. Old Marsh was thought of as the local color and he was cautious of all superstitions, and would walk backwards around a graveyard to avoid upsetting the dead. He had been known to plant sheep-nettle at the stables when one of the horses had fallen sick to keep out bewitchments, he'd say quite proudly. He knew a story for every stone, every fountain, ever plant, and every tree at Belerion Hall. Old Marsh took it all seriously, and he warned me against upsetting spirits by changing the old gardens

    too

    much

    .

    They like their flowers as they like them, he said when I had been uprooting the weed-like milk thistle. Bad luck to do that, for the saying goes, 'Set free the thistle and hear the devil whistle'.

    At the Tombs, he gave me the most serious advice. Never go in, miss. Never say a prayer at its door. If you are angry, do not seek revenge by the Laughing Maiden stone, or at the threshold of the Tombs. There be those who listen for oaths and vows, and them that takes it quite to heart. What may be said in innocence and ire becomes flesh and blood should it be uttered in such places.

    I looked upon the rock chamber with its small double doorways and its chains and lock, a ruins more than a mausoleum, sunken into the grassy earth with a view of the wide gray sea beyond it, and remembered such stories.

    I did not intend ever to cross its threshold.

    Chapter

    2

    I was born Iris Catherine Villiers. In the days before we arrived at Belerion Hall, my parents were still in love with each other.

    My older brothers — the twin Villiers as old Mrs. Haworth would later call them — Spencer and Harvard, and my eldest brother, Lewis (whom I rarely saw once he had left our first home), made up the children. To tell the twins apart, Spence parted his hair on the left, and Harvey, on the right. Harvey had a birthmark behind his ear while Spence had none. Spence smelled, in the summer, distinctly of dirt and pond water, while Harvey had a fragrance as if he'd rolled in lavender.

    I could tell them apart from the moment my

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