Wytches #4

There are secrets in the Rooks family, and not all of them have to do with Wytches. That makes them all the more interesting targets for the creatures; it would’ve been too prosaic to thrust a completely innocent family into this supernatural nonsense. The Rooks came packaged with a preexisting set of problems, ones that the Wytches push to the breaking point. Your instinct is the Rooks need to stick together to survive this threat, but this extra pressure on their internal fractures is already starting to split them apart.

You can almost see the emotional distance widening between Charlie and Lucy as he becomes more convinced that the evil in the woods is real. His ravings land on merely tolerant ears; Lucy is concerned, but oddly unexcited about all this. When she tells her husband to call the police, she says it in a casual tone that clearly indicates she’s not buying anything weird is going on here. Even admitting that she’s blocked out Sail’s cries for help doesn’t make her any more receptive to what those cries were for. So Lucy was always going to be more of an obstacle to saving Sail, even before she forgets who Sail is.

It’s something Clara, the lady who attacked Charlie, warned him about last issue, and it should be the final piece of evidence that she wasn’t just talking crazy. It’s also proof of how powerful these Wytches really are and the reach they have over this town. For all their capabilities—curing illness, staving off age, instilling thoughts of love or death—the Wytches require intermediaries to effect their work. Why is a mystery for another day. Someone made Lucy forget Sail, and if Clara’s right that almost everyone in town knows what’s really going on, there’s no way to tell who that someone is.

That leaves Charlie to go after and save Sail by himself, whether he’s up to the task or not. He doesn’t have the greatest track record in this area. Flashbacks show that he’s more well-intentioned than effective. In his mind, he may have been trying to help her overcome her fears at the abandoned Rickett’s Arcade, but his treatment is indistinguishable from psychological torture. There’s a lot of horror in this book, but the scene that may be the hardest to get through is Charlie baiting Sail to climb up a Ferris wheel to him, drunkenly screaming encouragement as she shudderingly obeys:

“Stop being such a chickenshit for once and do it! Don’t you fucking get it?! I believe in you! …I said I believe in you, goddammit! I believe!”

The fact Sail actually does it and even goes beyond his dare shows that Sail’s got a lot of hidden guts in her. This whole thing may be a way for Charlie to prove he’s capable of truly being there for his daughter, but it’s also a way for Sail to prove she’s capable of helping herself.

But Snyder makes it clear this isn’t the kind of horror that love and courage alone can overcome. Clara, despite giving him all kinds of tips on the Wytches, has little confidence he’ll succeed. Knowing what she does about the Wytches, knowing exactly what’s forcing her to kill herself, even knowing methods to defend herself, none of those things saves Clara in the end.

It’s absolutely worth talking about how cleverly Snyder’s worked the traditionally campy witch concepts into something anchored to the real world. All the pieces are here—cauldrons, potions, burrows, hunger for children, burning—but seriously revamped to feel like something entirely new. Most novel and frightening of all is the degree of consorting between Wyches and humans. You’re right to fear the horrors in the forest, but it’s the people all around you should really be afraid of.

Earlier, obscured images of the Wytches were scary enough, maybe all the more so because you weren’t quite sure what you were looking at, but Jock gives us our first clear view of a Wytch here, and it’s so, so much worse. Clara suggests they’re creatures on a different track of evolution than humans, and Jock gives credit to that by taking the basic humanoid form and twisting it all around, placing limbs and organs where they’re not supposed to be. It’s not just the other that frightens you; it’s the vague recognition of yourself in the other. And thank you, Hollingsworth, for toning down the color splashes some. No longer a distraction, the soft bloom and swirl of the colors have an almost subconscious effect, blending memory of past traumas and present danger together.

Some Musings:

– “Rat Bullits.” I’m afraid that I don’t know what that means, and yet I also know exactly what it means.