Chantel's Reviews > Multo

** spoiler alert ** Imagine yourself as you had been; small, unsure, growing, & curious. Back in the time that was before, you had heard stories that poisoned the simplicity of the life you thought you might have. Whether it be the tormented tale of a malevolent spirit under icy water or the marooning whistler in the woods; the devil at play was in all the stories that existed in your childhood. All the more frightening were these cautionary tales when they seeped into the colourful lair of your own imagination. Adan was like you once, an innocent child who was paralyzed by the creeping fear that accompanies the scrapping claws of the demon slithering behind bedroom walls.

It was a stroke of luck that I fell into this story when I did. We near the month of spooky stories & whispering darkness, leaving me all the more eager to visit the parameters of intentionally crafted horror. I have not been shy to admit that there is a particular facet of Horror that I love above all others. Though I remain a supporter of the goblin king & the ancient vampire, I need something more patient; a story so foul & detrimental to inner peace, its rivulets masticate the easy grooves of the mind. During one such night—darkness looming over the city as I prepared myself for sleep—I realized the creaks & heaves in my ears were the introductions of fear.

In many ways, the scariest story is the one that reminds the reader of themselves. The most vulnerable aspects of our person when displayed with shingles of overwhelm & suffocating despair leave a reader to tremble; these are things for night & solitude, not satires of stories & ancient phantasmic beings in the middle of the afternoon. If the reader in question has it in their heart to hold steady, to leave the intentional logic & analysis that follows them—keeps them on course—to the side of their mind, over the ear & near the temporal lobe; they will be met with the dead eyes of terror written in the most jejune way; easy on the eyes & quick to the heart.

This story follows Adan, a man in his 30s, as he reconnects with a memory long since suppressed. He is a father now with children of his own but, once upon a time, he was a child too. During his youth, Adan heard stories of the Multo who haunted the grandmother of a friend. The children spoke freely of the Multo & claimed to see him everywhere & in everything. Readers will remember their own misgivings towards the paranormal. Whether or not readers believe in ghosts or the disembodied spirit that lurks alongside the traditional body of the living, this story will remind them what it felt like to know that they were unsafe.

While I sat in the dark, like it was my first time hearing a ghost story, I wondered whether or not this particular narrative had the power to bring me back through the years to when, I too, had been sitting with my friends at sleepovers & standing around in school hallways sharing the tales of a haunted existence that differed from the one that I had been living in secret. Without exploring my person too profoundly I will express to you that my quest for a scary story does not originate from a place of apathy; I have known deep-rooted fear. Rather, I seek out the story that removes me from the chronic tremor of what I have known. Very rarely, if ever, has a story come to my door, wiggled itself into my mind, & spoken to me of a fear I can behold.

Marzioli’s writing is not artistic in the same way as a garden of yearly sophistication. His writing is attainable & thick with ease; easy to understand & uncomplicated to grasp. Due to this fact, the reader is met with no struggle, their mind is welcomed into the story as it is told to them via a friend & friends do not need the flowery language of the river water to murky an already dreadful tale. I am inclined to believe that somewhere along the line, the reality of laying in bed wishing for slumber became all too vivid for me; I remember what it was like to be small.

What is of particular intrigue in this plot is the dedication that accompanies the haunted being & his prey. Many people experience a despair that ripples their souls into fractions & tethers them to landmarks over the course of their lives. Adan’s life was mundane & normal, for all intents & purposes. He was happy & at peace with the person that he was & the loved ones around him. The reminder of the nights when he was stuck in a state whence no one could save him, opened the door to the disfiguring visage of disquiet.

Simply put, the Multo that haunted the grandmother promised Adan that he would find him again. I will not lie, though I sat in the darkness listening to the quiet thuds that accompanied the Multo through the bedroom wall & into the room with the terrified Adan, I questioned the logistics of a ghost that would wait 20-plus years to haunt another person. This did not necessarily take me out of the worry that accompanied my own memories but, it reminded me that in all the most frightful things in the world, there is a murmur that stutters the sinus rhythm of the heart.

Does something have to make logical sense to be scary? Does the villain's motive need to have analytic validity to be terrifying? For me, the answer has always been yes though, I have found my fascination to grow when faced with the horned beast that knows no reason.

The Multo, real or not, represents the end of an era. Adan’s childhood is far behind him & he will never get it back. While doing his yard work, he feels the presence of a dark force around him, certain that he is being watched. For some readers, this scene might ring true to the alert of death; the passing of the grandmother.

For other readers, this is simply the moment when our main character feels the most alone. There is no way to tell whether or not Adan’s fears are justified. If the Multo is real, his life is not hopeless. The grandmother figure in his youth lived an entire & long life filled with the echoing joys of laughter & love in her home & neighbourhood. I am left wondering if perhaps the demons that haunt us lie in the distant & unreachable sections of our minds for a reason.

Ultimately, I find the story that scares me is the one that reminds me of myself. The experience of being caught off guard while listening to this in the night left me with a smile on my face & an eagerness to meet my match. Though there are questions that remain—as there always shall be—I am not disappointed by what I found alone in the dark with LeVar Burton’s melodious voice whirring a shushing performance of the story at hand.

It might stand to reason that the uncontrollable familiar nature of the sibling who sleeps soundly, & the comfort of a known space, is the breeding ground for the most frightful & deranged terror of all. Adan, like many readers, will be asked to prepare himself, day in & day out, for the life in light & darkness that saunters the ageless Old Serpent to his feeding ground.

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