Hex

HEX is a 2013 supernatural horror novel by Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Originally published in the Netherlands, the novel was revised by the author for its 2016 English-language release, which changed the setting from a Dutch village to the fictional Hudson Valley town of Black Spring, New York. The story follows the residents of a town cursed by the presence of a 17th-century witch whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut, charting their attempts to contain her with modern technology. When a group of teenagers begins to test the boundaries of the curse, they trigger a series of events that leads to paranoia, violence, and the town’s complete social collapse. The novel explores themes including The Tyranny of Fear and the Erosion of Humanity, The Inescapable Past in a Modern, Technological Age, and The Slippery Nature of Victimhood and Villainy.

Heuvelt is an award-winning author of speculative fiction who has been nominated for both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. HEX became an international bestseller and drew praise from established authors in the horror genre. Heuvelt’s other works include the novels Echo and Oracle.

This guide refers to the 2021 Nightfire trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of physical abuse, child abuse, mental illness, rape, sexual harassment, graphic violence, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm, child death, sexual violence, animal cruelty, racism, and animal death.

Plot Summary

The novel opens in Black Spring, New York, a picturesque Hudson Valley town with a dark secret. It is haunted by the ghost of Katherine van Wyler, a 17th-century woman executed for witchcraft after being forced to kill her own son, whom she had purportedly resurrected. Her eyes and mouth were sewn shut after she reappeared in spirit form and caused mass death in the town, in part by whispering things to people that caused them to die by suicide or murder those around them. She now wanders the town at will, appearing in homes and on streets, but the ritual that sealed her eyes and mouth has largely minimized the threat she poses. However, the community lives under a strict Emergency Decree, enforced by a high-tech surveillance organization called HEX, to manage the curse and keep it secret from the outside world. The most important rule is that Katherine’s eyes must never be opened. Moreover, any Black Spring resident who spends more than a few days outside the town develops overpowering depression and must return or face death by suicide.

The narrative focuses on the Grant family: Steve, a medical professional, his wife, Jocelyn, and their sons, 17-year-old Tyler and 13-year-old Matt. Tyler, an aspiring vlogger, secretly documents town life, including Katherine, for his YouTube channel with the goal of breaking free of the fear that defines life in Black Spring. To that end, Tyler and his friends, Lawrence VanderMeer, Burak Şayer, Justin Walker, and the volatile Jaydon Holst, have created a secret website called “Open Your Eyes” (OYE). Meanwhile, the head of HEX, Robert Grim, monitors the town from a hidden control center. HEX actively discourages new residents, but a couple from New York City, Burt and Bammy Delarosa, manage to buy a house in town despite the town’s efforts.

Tyler and his friends begin conducting experiments on Katherine to test the limits of the curse. In their first test, they move a lamppost into Katherine’s regular path and film her walking into it and falling over. The clip becomes a local sensation, viewed as a harmless prank. However, Tyler argues with Steve, revealing his desire to “go mainstream” with the witch and tell his girlfriend, Laurie, the truth about life in Black Spring. Steve forbids it, explaining the town’s history of executing people who threatened its secrecy. The boys then conduct a “whisper test,” recording Katherine’s whispers on Jaydon’s iPhone. An outsider listens to the recording and is unharmed, confirming their theory that the whispers only affect residents of Black Spring.

Meanwhile, independent of the OYE project, Jaydon’s behavior toward Katherine becomes increasingly cruel. By contrast, Jaydon’s mother, Griselda Holst, is a secret worshipper of Katherine, who she feels freed her from her abusive marriage by driving her husband to die by suicide. She now asks Katherine to “visit” Arthur Roth, a man whom the town has imprisoned beneath the church for repeatedly flouting its rules of secrecy and who harasses Griselda every time she delivers food to him. During the annual Halloween festival, Griselda goes to check on Roth; when he attempts to rape her, she kills him. Jaydon, who now blames Katherine for the attack on his mother as well as his father’s death, escalates his own attacks, cutting Katherine’s dress to expose her breast, stabbing her, and siccing the Grant family dog, Fletcher, on her. Fletcher bites Katherine, who retaliates with a supernatural force, throwing the dog across the room before disappearing. Soon after, the town’s main creek begins to run with blood, and Fletcher is found dead, hanging high in a tree in an apparent death by suicide. Security footage shows Katherine leading the dog into the woods.

Griselda, believing an offering is needed to appease Katherine, ties a stolen peacock to the witch. Katherine kills the bird with a touch and begins wandering the town carrying its carcass, a major deviation from her pattern. Meanwhile, the Grants hear an unidentified dog barking, and Tyler believes he sees Fletcher, returned from the dead, out in the woods one night.

Events come to a head when Jaydon, Burak, and Justin drive Katherine into an empty tank and throw stones at her—an event Tyler and Lawrence see but try to prevent. Racked with guilt over his role in everything that has happened and now convinced that both Jaydon and Katherine are dangerous, Tyler becomes withdrawn. He eventually explains what happened to his father, who has him delete all material relating to Katherine from his devices and close down the OYE website. Steve then goes to Robert about Jaydon, Burak, and Justin’s actions, concealing Tyler and Lawrence’s role as anything but witnesses to the stoning. In a public forum, the town’s residents vote to have Jaydon, Burak, and Justin publicly whipped and then sent to “Doodletown”—a controlled environment outside the town limits where wrongdoers experience the intense suicidality that leaving Black Spring causes.

After the boys’ release from Doodletown, a broken Jaydon sneaks into Tyler’s room and repeatedly plays the recording of Katherine’s whispers into his ear as he sleeps. Soon afterward, Steve and Jocelyn return from a shopping trip to find Tyler has hanged himself from a beam on the landing, with Katherine standing behind his body. Their younger son, Matt, has apparently sealed his own eyes shut with construction adhesive and ingested poisonous mushrooms, leaving him blind and catatonic. Matt is rushed to a hospital in Newburgh, but Grim insists on containing the situation before involving outside authorities. Later, Katherine appears to Grim in the HEX control center and whispers directly to him, leaving him deeply shaken.

After Tyler’s funeral, Steve begins to suspect Katherine can raise the dead, a belief that strengthens when he finds a video on Tyler’s laptop showing what appears to be the resurrected Fletcher. Driven by grief and a desperate new hope, Steve removes Katherine’s chains and cuts the threads sealing her mouth and eyes. As he finishes, a massive supernatural event occurs, causing a complete power and communications blackout in Black Spring. Steve flees into the woods in terror.

The curse intensifies exponentially. Residents outside the town are overcome with suicidal urges. The town is completely cut off from the outside world, and the community descends into panic, paranoia, and violence. Led by fanatics, the townspeople lynch Jaydon Holst, blaming him for the catastrophe. Katherine appears on the town square, her eyes open, holding the hands of two small children she has taken from their home. Her expression is one of sorrow, not malice, but in a panic, Marty Keller, a HEX officer, shoots at Katherine but kills the children instead. In retaliation, Katherine unleashes a plague that kills Marty instantly.

Steve spends three days in the woods remembering nothing but scattered, dreamlike visions of the town’s fate—plague, mass violence, and Katherine’s attempts to shelter the town’s children collapsing under the weight of the residents’ fear. When he regains consciousness, he returns to the town and finds that it has descended into a medieval witch hunt, culminating in a mob burning the church with dozens of people trapped inside. Steve is captured and thrown into the burning church, where he finds Jocelyn and a now-conscious Matt. In a final, terrible choice, Steve escapes into the vaults below, shutting the door behind him and thus trapping Jocelyn and Matt in the burning building, all in the hopes that he will find Tyler. As Katherine performs a final ritual, the remaining townspeople walk into the Hudson River and drown.

On Christmas Day, Steve awakens alone in his silent, empty house. He understands that the entire town is gone and that he made the wrong choice in deciding to “sacrifice” Jocelyn and Matt. Tormented by guilt, he sees a figure resembling a boy at his front door. In complete despair, he takes a needle and thread and begins sewing his own eyes shut.