Readers know her as Isis Claviger, the reputed psychic from Doug Clegg's Harrow novels. However, she was born Iris Catherine Villiers, and spent her formative years at Belerion Hall, a Gothic manor situated on a rocky cliff at the tip of Cornwall in southwest England. Originally published as a mini-hardcover limited by Cemetery Dance Publications in 2006, this new edition of Isis is profusely illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne, featuring perhaps his most sensitive and delicate work to date. Iris is the youngest of four Villiers children and the only girl. Her oldest brother, Lewis, is absent and the twins—Spence (cold and cruel) and Harvey (warm and gentle)—attend boarding school during the week. Her British father is perpetually abroad in Burma or India or South Africa, trading in the wars that are the source of the family fortune, and her mother—an American former actress and pianist—spends most of her time cloistered in her rooms, drinking away her sorrows. Iris's grandfather, who she dubs the Grey Minister, is imprisoned in Belerion Hall's North Wing, from which he rants and raves his sermons of doom. When Iris discovers his collection of arcane and occult books in the library, the implication is that he isn't suffering from dementia, but rather that he has dabbled in things better left alone—a tacit warning Iris doesn't heed. Harvey is Iris's only companion. On weekends, they pretend to be the Great Villiers Trapeze Brother-and-Sister Act on the yard swing. They play Isis and Osiris in a fundraiser organized by their mother's Ladies' Club. "If Osiris is dead, why doesn't she just let him be?" Harvey and Spence wonder, but his understands. "Because she loves him. She doesn't want him to be dead." The first half of the book establishes the mood and foreshadows the calamity to come. The caretaker, Old Marsh, regales Iris with local Celtic legends. He warns against certain behaviors, especially near the Tombs, a subterranean burial chamber housing the remains of generations of Villiers. "What may be said in innocence and ire becomes flesh and blood should it be uttered in such places." The sense of foreboding builds, fueled by Iris's burgeoning awareness of sex (through pictures of naked women she finds with her grandfather's Bible, and her discovery of Spence's affair with their sour but beautiful governess), but for a while it is unclear that anything supernatural will occur. Then, a tragedy sets the real story in motion, and Isis turns into a story reminiscent of "The Monkey's Paw." As well as being an origin story of sorts, Isis is about misguided actions taken in the name of love, and the horrifying and devastating consequences when someone challenges the threshold between life and death. What happens to the object of her ill-considered summoning resonates long after the end of this brief, poignant tale. Web site and all contents © Copyright Bev Vincent 2007. All rights reserved. |
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