(We did not run. If we ran then we would have to admit there was something to run from. If we ran, then the small child that lives in every soldier’s heart knew that the monsters could get us. So we did not run, but it was a near thing.) [p. 137]
Another novella from T Kingfisher, whose The Twisted Ones and The Hollow Places retell, and transform, classic horror tales. What Moves the Dead is based on Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, relocated to the imaginary East European country of Gallacia, and with rather more fungus than the original. Our narrator is Alex Easton, a former soldier, who's travelling to visit Roderick and Madeline Usher, having served with the former and received a communication from the latter. Easton, as a soldier, gets their own -- kan own -- set of pronouns: Gallacian has seven sets of pronouns, including a set for pre-pubescent children. (This becomes significant later.) With the help of a redoubtable English mycologist (Miss Potter) and the Ushers' other guest, an American doctor named James Denton, Easton investigates the mysterious condition that seems to be sapping the life of Madeline, and perhaps of the house itself.
This short novel is marvellously atmospheric, with vivid descriptions of the gloomy countryside, the glowing lake, the lurid fungi and the unusual behaviour of the local wildlife. The characters are equally vivid, with Miss Potter the mycologist being a protofeminist delight and even Hob the horse having more personality than is usual in his species. I liked Easton a great deal, and the sickly Usher siblings felt much more like actual people than Poe's versions of them. The resolution was surprising as well as deeply unsettling, and I enjoyed seeing 'behind the scenes' in the author's afterword, which describes the origins and evolution of the story. Perhaps less supernatural than I'd prefer for a Halloween read, but still pretty unsettling.
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