The Tale of Halcyon Crane (36 page)

Have you read any good spooky fiction lately?

I’m always reading. My favorite book in the genre that I read last year was
The Spiritualist,
by Megan Chance. I read it in one day, sitting on the aforementioned deck of my cabin. It’s absolutely fabulous. This year, one of my favorite books is
The Little Stranger,
by Sarah Waters. It’s deliciously creepy and I could not put it down. I highly recommend those two novels for people who want a little tingle up their spines.

The Tale of Halcyon Crane
begins on the West Coast, north of Seattle. Do you have any personal connection with that area?

I lived in Bellingham, Washington, for a couple of years, and I absolutely love that area. It reminds me of Minnesota in a way. But of course, here on Lake Superior we don’t have seals or whales. One of the things I Ioved best about living out there was that I could actually hear the barking of the seals from my house. It’s a very relaxing sound. The San Juan Islands are hauntingly beautiful—maybe I’ll set a novel there one day.

Your tale is filled with ghosts. Do you believe in them?

I must admit I do. I think this world is filled with things we can’t see and don’t quite understand. I dedicated the book to my brother, who died of a sudden heart attack a few years ago. Since he passed away, several of us in the family have had odd experiences we can’t really explain. Here’s just one: I was sweeping the wood floor in my bedroom shortly after my brother’s funeral. After doing the entire room, I turned around and saw several pennies strewn on the floor . . . the floor I had just cleaned an instant earlier. It really happened, folks. I can’t tell you how or why.

I come from a family of storytellers. Some of my earliest memories involve sitting at our kitchen table, listening to my parents and relatives tell stories—some of them hilarious, others tragic—about my family’s past. These tales were filled with unforgettable characters and fantastic situations, and I know them all as well as I know my own name.

But as much as I loved hearing these stories, I’ve always wanted to spin tales of my own. In Halcyon, I found a woman whose background is the opposite of mine: I grew up hearing everything about my family; Halcyon knows nothing about her past. It isn’t until she is in her thirties that Halcyon learns of her childhood abduction and sets out to find some answers. What happened all those years ago? Who was her mother? Who were her ancestors? And most important, who was
she
?

I wanted to include an element of magical realism in the story because I love the notion that something otherworldly can be right around the corner, waiting for you on any given Monday; that the world is filled with things we don’t understand and many of us can’t see, and that fairy tales, Grimm’s especially, could really have happened. I love the goosebumps and tingles up my spine I get from shows like
Medium
and
The Ghost Whisperer
and books like
The Ghost Orchid,
by Carol Goodman, and I wanted to write a story that would give people that same type of deliciously haunting, eerie feeling.

I decided to set the story on Mackinac Island because the Great Lakes hold a magic and mystery unlike anyplace else. Many people think the lakes are actually living things, with moods ranging from benevolent to murderous.

I fictionalized Mackinac’s name—calling it Grand Manitou Island instead—so I could be free when writing about the specific places, happenings, and people there, but readers who have been to Mackinac will recognize it right away. When you go there, you really feel like you’ve traveled back in time—I think it has to do with the fact that there is no motorized traffic and everyone gets around by horse-drawn carriage. It’s a place filled with beautiful Victorian homes, grand hotels, great restaurants, fudge shops, wine bars . . . and a very creepy old cemetery. It seems to me that the whole island is teeming with spirits—if anyplace in the world is haunted, it’s Mackinac Island.

There does happen to be a Grand Manitou Island in Lake Nipissing in Ontario, but it’s not inhabited. I’ve since learned that this Grand Manitou Island also has a reputation for being haunted, interestingly enough.

What better place for a woman to go looking for the ghosts of her past?

Another reason I set the story on the Great Lakes was because I wanted to work in a real-life tragedy that occurred there: the worst storm in the history of the region, which happened in November of 1913. I came upon newspaper accounts of the storm when researching another story. They called it the Frozen Hurricane, and it destroyed harbors, piers, and shorelines, demolishing buildings, tearing up
concrete streets, dumping feet of snow on land, and, most horrifyingly, sending nearly every ship on the Great Lakes that day to the bottom, all hands aboard. One of the newspaper accounts told of drowned sailors, frozen together, floating out of the fog and in to shore. When I read that, I knew I had to include it somehow in my story.

Halcyon does eventually find the answers she seeks, and in doing so gains a greater awareness about who she really is. We’re all on journeys of one sort or another—some of us to the past, looking for answers; some of us tentatively moving forward, unsure of what the future holds, and I very much hope
The Tale of Halcyon Crane
speaks to that journey.

  1.
Hallie’s father talks about seeing Madlyn at the nursing home the day before he died. Do you think he really saw her spirit, coming for him? Why or why not? Do you believe the veil between the living and the dead is lifted as a person passes from one life to the next?

  2.
Hallie has twice been sidelined by men she loved: her husband and her father both were different men than she believed them to be. How did their deception—non-malicious though it was—affect her? Did she do the right thing by ultimately trusting Will?

  3.
Each child born of the spell from the Witch of Summer Glen has a special otherworldly ability or gift. With Hallie, her gift develops as she stays on the island. Do you think Hallie simply grew more aware of her innate talent, or did being on the island somehow change and enhance her abilities?

  4.
What is the significance of mirrors with respect to Hallie’s ability to “see”?

  5.
Why couldn’t Madlyn understand the danger the island posed to her young daughter, Hallie? Was Madlyn a good mother?

  6.
Was Hallie’s father justified in taking his child away from his wife and their home? Did you think he could have handled
that situation differently—perhaps more openly and truthfully?

  7.
Mira befriends Hallie, but she also harbors a great secret that isn’t revealed until the end of the book. Did you understand Mira’s decision to keep the truth to herself for so long, given that she barely knew Hallie, or should she have revealed it sooner? What secrets would you keep from a friend?

  8.
Did you enjoy the way Hallie’s “tale” is slowly revealed to her? Are there storytellers in your family who have kept family lore alive?

  9.
Forgiveness is one of the themes in this novel. Who most needed to be able to forgive? Who most needed to be forgiven?

10.
Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you know anyone who has? What are some of the best ghost stories you know?