A Christmas Tale of Ancient Dread in the Monmouthshire Snow.
For a tired Abergavenny solicitor, whose life is dictated by the precise, comforting logic of precedent and statute, the supernatural is little more than quaint parlour entertainment. He is a disciple of the rational, a man who believes the shadows have long since fled before the lamp of empirical thought.
Seeking festive cheer on Christmas Eve 1901, the solicitor travels into the snow-bound Welsh uplands of Monmouthshire. It is a world of ancient, uncompromising stone and deep winter cold, but his spirit is warm with good cheer and the prospect of a hearty drink at a remote, local hostelry.
Nestled within the stone walls of The Whistle Inn, the solicitor indulges in the local Christmas Eve tradition: the telling of ghost stories. But when a veteran farmer speaks, his tale is not of spirit lights, phantom carriages or conventional spirits, but of the Mari Lwyd: the spectral grey mare, a hideous skeletal survival from a time before scientific reasoning. This is a story of the earth itself, of a relentless, primal entity that tests the unwary traveller.
The solicitor dismisses the tale as mere superstition, delivering a lawyerly scoff that silences the room and earns him the wary, chilling gaze of the locals. His arrogance-his steadfast refusal to acknowledge the deep, unmapped territory just beyond the rational-has, perhaps, opened a door.
As he departs The Whistle Inn for his lonely walk home through the intensifying snow and oppressive fog, the solicitor finds his certainty beginning to dissolve. A sound follows him in the darkness-a thudding, then a galloping-that logic cannot explain away.
Trapped on the desolate mountain road, with every footstep leading toward an inevitable confrontation, the solicitor is forced to face a truth more profound and terrifying than any legal scripture.
This Christmas, the spectral horse comes calling.
Autorentext
Born at The Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, in 1969, Darren Powis is a native of the Eastern Valley in Gwent, South Wales, and hails from a long line of coal miners, steelworkers, and railwaymen.
After wiping the coal dust from his face, escaping the clutches of the wicked iron masters, and dodging being press-ganged by roaming gangs of male voice choirs, he ran away to join the newspapers. He soon found himself standing in the middle of Newport shouting: 'Echo!' at disinterested passersby.
His career in newspaper journalism led him to community radio and public relations work. He now dabbles with online media and publishing. Jobs he'd rather forget include call centre agent and toffee apple dipper ? he needed the money.
Darren has previously co-written and published a range of sci-fi novels with friend and fellow author, R.W. Finlan. The Talgorse Horror is Darren's first solo published work.
Darren and his wonderful wife, Wendy, are overseen at home by their feline overlords in a small, quiet Gwent valleys town, surrounded by lush green hills, gently flowing rivers, and the occasional very confused alien visitor.