Then again, maybe it's more disturbing than refreshing.
That's what author Mary Downing Hahn often does in her "ghost" stories. The apparitions just are - no explanation necessary. Took is no different.
I read this Mark Twain Award nominee very quickly, finding it very compelling. In other words, I had a hard time putting it down. I don't typically read this genre as a choice, so it always surprises me when Hahn keeps my attention so well.
Took is sufficiently creepy because it puts a young boy in the role of lone wolf. He, and he alone, can get his sister back from the mysterious and ghostly old lady who lives on the property. Sister, Erica, has been took, somehow crossing into some other reality, taken as a slave to the "witch" in return for another girl who has served the role for 50 years.
A visit to another strange character provides the boy a single chance to get his sister back, but not without danger of being attacked by the old lady's pig-son-pet along the way. It's all quite unbelievable and weird, but I suppose that's why people read scary stories in the first place.
From the author's website: “Folks say Old Auntie takes a girl and keeps her fifty years—then lets her go and takes another one.” |