Marie is a young runner who was ranked fifth in her class world-wide during her last big competition, and is just about to qualify to compete again in Portugal. Her life is bland and circumscribed, defined almost completely by training and the watchful eye of her mother, a New Age-y type who owns a vegetarian supermarket. One day, she "accidentally" meet Bobby, an archer who trains at the same facility. Soon after, Marie starts having odd dreams and gets inexplicably ill--might be anemia, might not--which means she has to rest for at least a month, bumping her out of the Portugal fast-track entirely. As a result, she plunges headlong into a relationship with Bobby, and ends up moving in with him.
Bobby lives in an odd apartment building on Antwerp's Left Bank (ta da!), which--we later learn--was once where all the people deemed not "good enough" to live inside the city ended up: "Witches, the gangs, people with the plague." In fact, his apartment used to be occupied by a woman who's disappeared, and was researching the link between the area the building was raised on and a pattern of cyclical "accidental" deaths going back to Celtic times, at a rate of roughly one every seven years. Also possibly involved is the local Archery Guild, which Bobby just happens to be dean of; at one point, his grandmother reminds him to call them about their "big feast", which is due to take place on Samhain, aka two weeks from now.
Add to all this the fact that Marie injures her knee while running (even though she's been told not to)--a wound which becomes increasingly grotesque-looking--as well as her growing obsession with a mysterious puddle of black mud located inside "Cellar 51", one of the building's basement storage spaces, and you know it'll end up nowhere good. But again, characterization is key here; Marie's an outwardly dour girl with a true Romantic's inner sensibilities, alternately lured and repelled by the ancient null-point lurking beneath Bobby's home. It's The Golden Bough with a slacker slant, and well worth your time.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 03:11 am (UTC)Bobby lives in an odd apartment building on Antwerp's Left Bank (ta da!), which--we later learn--was once where all the people deemed not "good enough" to live inside the city ended up: "Witches, the gangs, people with the plague." In fact, his apartment used to be occupied by a woman who's disappeared, and was researching the link between the area the building was raised on and a pattern of cyclical "accidental" deaths going back to Celtic times, at a rate of roughly one every seven years. Also possibly involved is the local Archery Guild, which Bobby just happens to be dean of; at one point, his grandmother reminds him to call them about their "big feast", which is due to take place on Samhain, aka two weeks from now.
Add to all this the fact that Marie injures her knee while running (even though she's been told not to)--a wound which becomes increasingly grotesque-looking--as well as her growing obsession with a mysterious puddle of black mud located inside "Cellar 51", one of the building's basement storage spaces, and you know it'll end up nowhere good. But again, characterization is key here; Marie's an outwardly dour girl with a true Romantic's inner sensibilities, alternately lured and repelled by the ancient null-point lurking beneath Bobby's home. It's The Golden Bough with a slacker slant, and well worth your time.