Legacy by Chris Coppel

"She simply exists. She has become pure evil. Most of the time she doesn't even take human form. She feeds on suffering and pain. If she can't find it naturally, she will create it herself."

If someone bangs on your door in the middle of the night to leave a mysterious heavy crate, from an anonymous sender, without any clue as to what might be hidden inside, you and I would most likely not accept the unexpected package or take it in the house.

Craig Edmonds, the main protagonist of Legacy by Chris Coppel, however, doesn't think twice. He has no idea what is inside this super heavy and solid crate, but brings it in. In the morning the whole family gathers around the package to open it. Inside they find an antique mirror.

 "It was quite something. It was obviously old. Very old. The mirror had yellowed with time and was pitted. It had backing missing along most of its edging and a small crack across the top right-hand corner. All in all, it wasn't in great shape... The frame was the kicker. It appeared to be hand carved from what Craig guessed was walnut... It certainly wasn't the work of an artisan yet there was something intrinsically beautiful about its artistic naivety".

Jenny, Craig's wife, insists that the mirror should go up on the wall, touching the floor, looking like a doorway or portal.

The Edmonds live in an old remote house, built by an early settler to Southern Utah in the late 1800s. They love their little house, even if it's too small for four of them. The unexpected delivery of the mirror leaves Craig slightly unsettled. Somehow it feels wrong. 

A sheriff in the high desert of Southern Utah, Craig used to be an elite Marine sniper. It took him many years to to recover from the psychological trauma of his military life, as well as his very traumatic childhood.

The demons of the past, nonetheless, pale in comparison to the horrors which arrive in their house with the mirror. It hides the dark secret.

The mirror strikes terror into the family dog, who wouldn't come close to it, as if sensing something unholy. Strange occurences follow: the attic suddenly becomes infested with all kinds of vermin, soon turning into a vile giant throat with rattlesnakes, etc, yet the baffled Edmonds don't connect the dots.

The weird and dangerous events escalate, not just in the house, but in the nearby community. Craig is at a loss. Until he meets Ahote, an old Native American, (his name means restless in Hopi) who offers his help to fight the evil. This enemy is much worse than any Craig has encountered in his life as the marine. He is fighting against time and the essence of unspeakable evil, trying to save his family.

What Craig and his family don't know is that the mirror is indeed a portal for an ancient witch Beyath who needs to venture into the world of the living every twenty five years to keep herself immortal. All the ungodly events happening in the house come just before the arrival of Beyath as she intends to transition from the fifth realm and take on her original mortal form.

"She had fed the light fourteen times starting in 1643... She had witnessed almost 400 years of change in the old realm... The days when she cared about what went on within the old realm were long gone. She now had only one focus. To follow her bloodline and feed the light".

With the assistance of Ahote, Craig must time travel twenty five years into the past to defeat the 16C English witch with a taste for immortality.

Ahote himself is a powerful adversary of all things evil, but he is not strong enough to battle Beyath alone. Craig's talents from his days as the marine would come helpful. "His actions as a sniper played a big part in causing the stress that had almost destroyed him, however, Craig recognised that it was also a part of what had made him who he was".

Will Craig and Ahote be able to stop the witch on their travel back in time before her evil destroys his family forever?

As we follow Craig's story, we also get to know his background, from tragic childhood (both his parents die in a murder/suicide) and awful realities of the orphanage, to the stark distressing truth of his years as the marine. 

Potential triggers: murder, child abuse, PTSD, witchcraft.

Legacy is a chilling, immersive and compelling Gothic story. Its genre is a combination of sci fi, horror, and fantasy with elements of time travel. The book casts a sense of slowly-rising dread from the first pages. A horror story to chill the marrow. If you're sensitive, don't read this story at bedtime.

Many thanks to Chris Coppel and Henry Roi for my e-copy of the book!