Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, April 2018
“The Witching Hour” by Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald
Reviewed by Seraph
“The Witching Hour” by Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald
These are not your grandmother’s witches. These are creatures of real power, not superstitious old women grinding herbs and cackling into cauldrons. A tribal, pre-technological village, ostensibly in Africa, of a somewhat indeterminate era forms the setting. (One might assume based upon the reference to the “white Christ” and use of kerosene lamps that it would be sometime in the vicinity of the 19th century.) Astral projection, shapeshifting, the manipulation of fates, and vampiric feeding on souls all coalesce into a freely flowing story of the good and evil inside each of us, and the battle to determine which one controls us. It reminds me very much of the Native American story of the two wolves inside us all, but with magic. The story makes a bold, yet reasonable statement: that power only exacerbates this battle. And yet it is deeper than a simple parable, with a more fully realized acknowledgment of the consequences of evil winning, even temporarily: pain and loss. It answers the question “what if good cannot win?” “Perhaps it is enough that evil does not win, either, and it only wins when we stop fighting” she says, sagely. While not a clean-cut response, it avows a truth all too often ignored: the struggle to be good rather than evil is not some global conflict, but one that plays out inside each of us, unendingly. To feel the loss and pain caused when we fail to choose good over evil is key to understanding why we must make that very same choice, she seems to argue. It is, after all, what gives her the strength to overcome her own great corruptor. The words are simple and short. The plot is not complicated, and the characters are not complex. Yet there is a depth to this story that belies the humble trappings, speaks deeply to the soul. I am always impressed by an author who finds courage to lay aside heavy-handed words and overly complex plots to deliver a simple, ageless message.