The Twisted Ones

The Twisted Ones (2019) is a folk horror novel by T. Kingfisher, the pen name for Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Ursula Vernon. The story follows Melissa “Mouse,” who, while cleaning out her deceased grandmother’s house, discovers a journal that unveils a terrifying world of supernatural creatures in the rural North Carolina woods. A direct reworking of Arthur Machen’s classic weird fiction story “The White People,” the book reimagines Machen’s found manuscript premise within a contemporary setting and explores themes of The Thin Veil Between Rationality and Nightmare, The Unsettling Inheritance of Family Trauma, and The Double-Edged Power of Narrative. The Twisted Ones won the 2020 Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel and was a finalist for both the 2019 Nebula Award and the 2020 Locus Award.

This guide refers to the 2019 Saga Press trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of death, pregnancy loss, child death, illness, sexual content, mental illness, graphic violence, emotional abuse, cursing, and animal death.

Plot Summary

Melissa, a freelance editor who goes by the nickname “Mouse,” agrees to her aging father’s request that she clean out her recently deceased grandmother’s house in rural North Carolina. Mouse remembers her grandmother as a cruel woman and her step-grandfather, Frederick Cotgrave, as a quiet man who was the target of his wife’s constant verbal abuse. Seeking a change of scenery, Mouse drives from Pittsburgh with her dog, a coonhound named Bongo, and arrives at the isolated, wooded property.

Upon entering the house, Mouse discovers that her grandmother hoarded objects. The rooms are packed with junk, including stacks of newspapers, Tupperware, and other clutter, creating a fire hazard and an overwhelming cleaning project. She finds three bedrooms: one is filled with creepy baby dolls, another is her grandmother’s cluttered room, and the third is Cotgrave’s old room, which is surprisingly neat and untouched. Mouse decides to stay in Cotgrave’s room. In his nightstand, she finds a handwritten journal detailing his torment at the hands of his wife, who he claims has hidden a cherished “Green Book” from him. The journal contains a disturbing, repeated litany, “I made faces like the faces on the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay down flat on the ground like the dead ones” (31), and describes his fear of supernatural beings in the woods that are repelled by his wife’s malevolent presence. It also references a transcription of the Green Book that Cotgrave has attempted to reconstruct from memory. Intrigued, Mouse begins searching for the manuscript.

Mouse begins the arduous task of clearing the house, making trips to the local dump. In town, she meets Enid, a goth barista who confirms her grandmother’s nasty reputation. She also meets a neighbor from a nearby commune: Tomas, a friendly and strong young man who warns her to stay away from the woods. While settling in, Mouse notices strange occurrences. Bongo becomes terrified of a bizarrely carved rock in the backyard, and Mouse hears unexplained knocking sounds at night.

One day, Mouse takes Bongo for a walk in the woods, and he leads her through a strange tunnel of woven branches. They emerge onto a grassy, bald hill that does not appear on any local maps. The hill is covered with grotesque white stones carved into the twisted shapes of animals and humans, matching the descriptions in Cotgrave’s journal. Disturbed, Mouse feels a strange compulsion to touch a large monolith but resists and quickly leaves with Bongo. She later discusses the hill with the people at the commune—not just Tomas, but also Skip, a quiet potter, and Foxy, an older woman with a larger-than-life presence. Foxy confirms that the hill comes and goes.

While walking in the woods again, Mouse discovers a horrifying effigy, a crucified and gutted deer with an upside-down animal skull for a head and stones tied to its ribs. She flees in terror to town and reports it to a local policeman, Officer Bob. When they return to the location, however, the effigy is gone, leaving Mouse feeling isolated and questioning her mental health. The supernatural threats escalate when the deer effigy appears outside her bedroom window at night, tapping on the glass with the stones in its ribs. Terrified, Mouse resolves to leave, but the next morning, she trips on the porch steps, drops the leash, and Bongo runs off into the woods.

Devastated, Mouse feels she cannot leave without her dog. While helping to search for him, Foxy comforts her, sharing more local lore about the uncanny “holler people” and their creations. Foxy gives Mouse a hickory-wood rosary, explaining that hickory belongs to the “normal” world and can ward off the weirdness. Later, while moving the mattress in Cotgrave’s room, Mouse discovers his typed manuscript hidden underneath. It is a partial transcription of the Green Book, the diary of a young girl in Wales who encountered supernatural “white people” and a similar hill of stones. The diary describes a powerful white stone and introduces the term “voorish dome” for the hidden world where it exists.

Bongo returns the next day with a note tied to his collar reading “HELP” and a drawing of Kilroy, a doodle Cotgrave was fond of. Believing someone connected to Cotgrave is in trouble, Mouse feels compelled to return to the hill. Foxy insists on accompanying her. Guided by Bongo, they find the tunnel and ascend to the hill of stones, pursued by an effigy that runs alongside the tunnel. On the hill, they are confronted by Anna, a tall, supernaturally pale woman, and Uriah, an ancient man. Surrounded by dozens of effigies, Mouse and Foxy are forced to follow them through a stone archway and down into the voorish dome, a hidden city beneath the hill.

There, they are imprisoned in a stone cell, where Anna reveals that she is also a captive. Lured into the city decades ago because of her holler people ancestry, she has been forced to bear children to continue their lineage. She admits that she sent the note, having mistaken Mouse for Cotgrave’s blood relative (Cotgrave was also related to the “hidden people”), but she does not explain how she hoped Mouse could help her. The effigies then take them to the “Building,” a massive structure resembling a wasp nest, where they witness the effigies building more of themselves from a mound of bones, junk, and clay. Mouse realizes that the creatures are self-replicating, their masters long gone. The effigies communicate through clicks and rattles and decide that Mouse is an unsuitable replacement for Anna. They plan to use Foxy and Bongo for “materials” and to keep Mouse to bear children that they can similarly harvest for parts.

Anna creates a diversion by murdering Uriah, knowing that the effigies must pause to perform death rituals. She leads Mouse and Foxy on a desperate escape through the city and back up the hill, pursued by a few of the effigies. At the mouth of the wicker tunnel, Anna betrays them, grabbing Mouse and offering her to the effigies in exchange for her own freedom—something Mouse has by this point deduced was her plan all along. Mouse and Foxy fight back. In the struggle, Foxy fires her gun toward Anna and the effigies. Anna’s screaming stops, and she is left behind as Mouse, Foxy, and Bongo escape back through the tunnel.

They return to the house to find the front door open. They are chased inside by the deer effigy, which Mouse now suspects is made partly of Cotgrave and simply wants to return to its home. Once in the house, however, they are confronted by a new effigy, which Mouse realizes was built by the deer effigy from the hoarded junk and doll parts. Mouse, Foxy, and Bongo barricade themselves in an upstairs bedroom, and Mouse sets the house on fire. They escape through a window onto the porch roof and jump into Mouse’s truck. The hoarding effigy lands on the truck’s hood but is consumed by the spreading flames. As they drive away, they see Cotgrave’s effigy lie down beside the burning hoarding effigy in the yard as the house collapses.

Mouse and Foxy give the police a cover story about squatters to explain the fire. The house is demolished, and Mouse returns to Pittsburgh with Bongo, deeply traumatized. She donates the insurance money to public radio in Cotgrave’s name and places his manuscript in a safe-deposit box. She remains in contact with Foxy, who reports that the woods have been quiet. Mouse is left to grapple with her knowledge of the holler people and their monstrous creations, carrying the hickory beads as a talisman and reflecting on the ambiguous fate of Anna.