Coffin Kids

a novella by Brian Higby and Rick Snyder

I never thought of taffy as creepy before. I do now.

There's a touch of Ray Bradbury in the wind sweeping past that odd little knick-knack shop, through the town and leading right to the front door of the creepy house owned by the old crone. Four children on the cusp of adulthood live here. Rachel, Horatio, twin brothers Henry and Charles. It's Halloween, and children are going missing. Tom, the proprietor of Impossible Dreams, recruits the kids for some holiday mischief that may save all of them.

I had fun with this. Each character is distinct, well drawn and carefully considered, including the minor ones. There's great imagination here (the next time I see a clown I'll be paying attention to the texture of his skin) that kept surprising me (a turn involving a, ahem, full moon got a startled laugh) and I was amused that the Bokar twins, who many adults would call little monsters, become that literally. You might spot influences here and there (there is a Bradbury street, so they're not all hidden) without finding a direct lift anywhere. The prose is terse, which keeps the pace at a comfortable flow – the story moves but is never rushed.

Beginning even before the supernatural elements sweep them into each others' company, the kids are learning to recognize and hone their own judgment. . The story has a strong motif of fallible authority. The kids' parents are neither villains nor heroes. Horatio's are good folk who do what they can, and it's good the story begins with them – they're sympathetic folk who, if they fail their child, its because of their limitations. There's no simplistic demonizing going on here. Rachel's mother is buried under grief and guilt she can't operate beyond. Tom seems a magical replacement: the wise, alluringly mysterious parent we might all wish for, yet he proves to be every bit as unreliable in judgment and for all his cool demeanor (I kept picturing him as Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, or maybe a little bit of Tom Baker) shows precious little wisdom. Though the central adult in the story he's still not the final final word as he takes his orders from a veiled group of presumably higher beings, of whom he expresses his own misgivings. Of human authority (ala the police), an aside makes clear he has little use for them.

If I have any criticism about the writing, it's a minor problem with story elements introduced and then dropped undeveloped or forgotten. Tom equips the kids with the modern analog of a trail of breadcrumbs with which to escape a trap but the device is forgotten once the action finale begins. (I was also unclear as to Chuck's position when hauled to the kitchen in the final act – is he in the kettle or chained nearby?) There's also a moment when we learn that the use of magic can become a physical addiction that one of the kids is succumbing to. Nothing comes of it. Addiction is almost a motif with the behavior of some of the parents and with a reference to might be an alcoholic streak in Tom. That probably should either have been expanded on or dropped until the next story...it has potential but I can't see where it fits into this tale, so as it is it's kind of obtrusive.

I very much hope to see this set of characters continue