Ham-Farir: The Faring of Matthew Thorin Dier
Volume One
by
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Alone, Geoffrey now spoke more freely with Daniel. “By the way, I was wondering if you’ll have a chunk or so of time free, some time soon.”
“Oh why, what’s up?” Daniel asked, almost guessing, given Geoffrey’s rather more serious tone.
“Well, I think we’re actually ready to start on those conversations you wanted to have with us about the Dier and everything that happened last year? I’ve spoken with everyone involved, and they’re willing – almost eager, some of them – to go through with it. You said you wanted to know the whole story_ do you still?
“Oh yeah! Especially about last year; if that’s possible? I know the earlier history of the original family – those ‘Dier’ – from your Chronicle of their lives back in the 1880’s.”
“So, would you be interested in hearing our ‘group confession’ sometime soon, then?”
“Definitely,” Daniel said, eyeing Geoffrey and relishing the thought of finally getting to find out whatever Geoffrey knew about the infamous Dier—and their trunks. He knew that Geoffrey and some of his friends had undergone some kind of ‘ordeal’ – in the Fall of 2003 – and that the trunks of the Dier had played some sort of role in what had happened—but beyond that he was in the dark; and curious.
“My summer session will be over by the 10th of July,” Geoffrey noted. “I won’t be teaching in second session.”
“Okay then, let’s set a date,” Daniel said, pulling his planner out of the inside pocket of his smoking jacket. As he did so, Geoffrey could see that Daniel had his old “Beatles Forever” T-shirt on underneath the more formal coat. This has long been Daniel’s unofficial uniform: smoking jacket, blue jeans and T-shirt, even when teaching his specialty-topic courses at Wickersfeld College. “As I just finished the new novel,” he mused, “I should be free, soon.”
“Is it off to the publisher, yet?”
“No. But Rosylynn and I should have all the finishing touches put on the manuscript sometime next week, I’d guess. Then we’ll send it_ After that I’ll need about a week’s downtime, I think—but anytime after that.”
“So about the middle of July for both of us, then?”
Daniel fingered the pages of his day-planner, looking at a couple of blank pages, turning them back and forth to jog his memory, just to make sure there was nothing he’d forgotten to write in so vast a stretch of open boxes. “That would work. How about Tuesday the 13th? Why don’t you just come over to Whispering Eaves, if that’s amenable to you? We’ll start our discussions and see what happens.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
After a brief pause, Daniel asked, “_Are you sure you want to do this?”
Geoffrey actually swallowed before saying, with a little too much surety, “I do. I have to get it all off my chest. We all do! I have to see if it all makes sense to someone else. _Did you get the story I e-mailed you last week?”
“‘The Dream of the Stalking Scarecrow’?”
“That’s it.”
“I did_ and I’m looking forward to discussing it. It made me shiver. ...
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About the Book
Two groups of unlikely companions have converged on the idyllic Deer Hill home of horror novelist Daniel Westforth Whittier in order to recall the bizarre events they experienced a year before in the summer and fall of 2003, ostensibly to furnish him with the plot for a new book. But Daniel’s guests soon reveal that something truly inexplicable and almost unbelievable has shattered the customary tranquility of rural Ross County, Pennsylvania—something that has shaped the history of the county and of Daniel’s own family.
Their tales return time and again to the enigmatic family known as the Dier who lived on Deer Hill in the 1880s. Several waves of murder and destruction in
The men and women who became entangled in the horrific and wondrous saga of the Dier must face the repercussions of their encounters with extraordinary forces. For some, the experience confirmed persistent whispers of lingering evil; for others, it was an unforeseen journey into a realm of terror and sublime beauty.
Who—or what—were the Dier, and what was their ultimate fate? The answers to these questions will challenge each participant’s convictions, and may hold dire consequences for their futures and that of
About the Author
Montague Whitsel, an earthen poet and philosopher rooted and sourced in the woods of western