"These Things We Have Always Known" by Lynda E. Rucker

Good morning to all, and if you are wondering why I have composed my first morning post then let me tell you that I had not planned this. Originally, my plan for today was to get up and have some coffee, then throw on my snow clothes and spend a day with friends sledding on innertubes at a nearby snow park.

My friends, however, bailed out. So here I am, fully awake and with The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20 on the desk in front of me. I scanned through the story titles, and though there were a handful of writers that I recognized, the majority of the names were strangers to me. Lynda E. Rucker was one of those strange names. I chose to read this story because I like mysterious titles like "These Things We Have Always Known", and because she spells her name with a "y" instead of an "i".

Hey, we all have our reasons.

And so, my thoughts on "These Things We Have Always Known" by Lynda E. Rucker, a story that can be found in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20.

I was not disappointed by my first foray into the mind of Lynda E. Rucker. This story is about a strange town, that has a secret. What the secret is exactly, now that is a question. The residents of Cold Rest have always been a bit strange, and dreamed dreams that others could never imagine. There is a mine that brings up unknown things, and a presence that fills the people with a foreboding sense of what is to come.

Wooden carvings come to life.

Words look unlike any real words.

Poems are hidden away, because of the things they contain.

Lynda E. Rucker did a wonderful job at giving me a sense of her small town. I myself spent a good portion of my childhood days in a one street town, and while I read this story I felt a connection between that town of mine and hers of Cold Rest. When you live in a place like that, you wait for something to happen. For most of us, nothing ever does.

In Cold Rest, nobody knows what is to come, not really. But we find out this time, we sure do find out.

Memorable quote: "We have always known in Cold Rest that we were waiting on something."