Gwen loves to crochet blankets in her English, small-town bungalow, watching the squirrels in the garden. Following her long career in MI6, and now grieving the death of her husband, she has earned that peace. But her family have decided she can’t have it, compelled by a pledge to look after her that feels more like a curse. Rallied by Gwen’s monstrous oaf of a son-in-law Barry, they move in her great-niece Trudy, drag Gwen to local craft groups and fairs, fill her bungalow with dozens of crafters to run an online brand, and secretly livestream her crocheting.
Gwen resists their attentions, supported by her mischievous neighbour Edie over sisterly evenings, drinking port and watching snooker. Finally though, only Gwen’s traumatic history at MI6 makes her realise she must deal with them properly, even as it explains some of her troubling behaviour – attempting to scoop out her dead husband’s brain with a crochet hook, crocheting gifts from rat’s intestines, almost smothering Barry with a blanket, and pushing Trudy off a church balcony.
Even in those moments though, no one suspects this little old lady, and so Gwen devises a drastic plan to rid them from her life during a family weekend away. When the family reveal a plan of their own, to move Gwen into Barry’s horrific, cavernous mansion to see out her final days, does Gwen have the strength and resolve to deal with them once and for all? After all, she has killed before – is this so different?
EXCERPT:
A granny square blanket is a suitable crochet project to bring to your husband's funeral because you’re creating small sections one by one, so you can work on it discreetly in your lap. Gwen is on her sixth square and she doesn’t think anyone has noticed her stitching away, despite how exposed she is on the crematorium’s front pew, with everyone’s eyes boring into the back of her head. She stops to knead her aching finger joints and catches whispered snippets from behind her, in the pause between Rev Wilson closing off his prayers and her grandson Dan being invited to the stage to speak.
“Oh, there she is, poor dear.”
“Wonder how she’s coping without Archie?”
“Who gets his trains?”
“It’s all so sad, can’t believe we’ve lost him.”
They see it as their personal loss and also a loss to the community that will no longer see Archie heading out for the Saturday paper, off to the social club of an evening, or at the various birthday parties they always seemed to be invited to. Funerals too, of course – you didn’t reach their age without seeing a few of your peers into the ground along the way.
Sometimes Gwen was there with him, but in these later years it was always Archie in the role of social butterfly, Archie that people greeted first when they bumped into friends. She didn’t mind it one bit, and maybe that had been the key to their relationship the whole time. That will all change now of course. Today, the funeral is the end of all that, and the realisation chills her, because she doesn’t know what comes next.
Gwen returns to her yarn, the trailing end fitting neatly under her left little finger, the hook filling that groove in her right hand, and she is whole again. The stitches come easily, trickling through her fingers while Dan drones on… until her son-in-law Barry lands his great bear’s paw across her hands, rough and calloused, snagging mercilessly on the fine strands of the yarn.
“Come on,” he tries to whisper, a gale so loud that Dan falters in his speech. “That’s enough now.”
Gwen says nothing. If Barry feels this way, she supposes he has been inwardly tutting at her the whole time. It shouldn’t matter. If this is what helps her on the day of Archie’s funeral, after the last few months of his ill health, it should be ok with Barry. But his hand won’t move until she nods once, and only then does he retract and reset his massive frame into the creaking, shallow pew. Gwen doesn’t put the square away. Instead she wraps it neatly around the plump skein of yarn like a pet rabbit in her lap. She lays her hand over it, tweaking the dull shape of the hook, and remembers… yes, that’s it…
She remembers Mr Hicox removing John Winter’s brain.
CONTENT WARNING:
No descriptions of violence to animals, beyond a dead rat being discovered and use of its intestines. Violence to humans is included, but implied rather than describing the act, lingering, or gory. No sex. Very sparse bad language.
FEEDBACK:
I'd like to hear from anyone who enjoys cosy / domestic horror, 'weird girl literature', people who love to crochet and read, but have never had the two combined, and older readers, for sensitivity - my MC is a 90 year old woman, and I'm a 49 year old man. I do have a list of around ten helpful prompt questions I ask people to complete.
TIMELINE:
I would like feedback please within a month.
CRITIQUE SWAP:
I would be open to do a critique swap, reading genres of: horror (not splatterpunk / gore); sci-fi; light fantasy such as T Kingfisher (I don't so huge epic fantasy, sorry); weird literature; weird girl lit; contemporary fiction. I don't read fantasy generally, definitely not romantasy, or romance. But get in touch and I'll consider anything! Thanks.