Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in Canada

This book was set in 13-pt. Centaur by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH

First Grove Atlantic paperback edition: May 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-5929-8

eISBN 978-0-8021-5932-8

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

1st Dedication

to the one who made a way out of no way

my mother,

Mrs. Mary Kenan Hall

and in memoriam

Maggie Williams Kenan

Leslie Norman Kenan

Roma Edward Kenan

Eric Robert Simmons

2nd Dedication

Quiet as it’s kept, a first novel is not written on a midnight candle and bread alone. This manuscript could not have been completed without the aid of: family—Mae, Edythe, Brown, Candie, Nikki, George, Mathis, Eleanor, Cassandra, Jackie; teachers—Max Steele, Doris Betts, Daphne Athas, Louis Rubin, Lee Greene; colleagues—Ann Close, Bobbie Bristol, Karen Latuchie, Laurie Winer; an editor—Walter Bode; an agent—Eric Ashworth; friends—Randy, Patrick, Zollie, Gregory, Beth, Nell, Toby, Tom, Amy, Terrence, Robin, Alane, Joe, Nina . . .

And the inscrutable grace of the Host of Hosts

We thank you all.

Contents

CONTENTS

Introduction

White Sorcery

Black Necromancy

Holy Science

Old Demonology

Old Gods, New Demons

Epigraphs

“Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge.

“My life upon this globe is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends to-night.”

“To-night!” cried Scrooge.

“To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.”

—CHARLES DICKENS

A Christmas Carol

To call up a demon you must learn its name. Men dreamed that, once, but now it is real in another way . . .

—WILLIAM GIBSON

Neuromancer

Introduction

Introduction to

A Visitation of Spirits

It begins with a fall, the time of year, from Grace.

It begins with a spell, as it must, with Horace, young, gifted, and Black, calling on all a sixteen-year-old knows of the earth, all he can remember from church, and all the ancestors whisper in dreams, to aid him in his plight to change. Horace Thomas Cross in fictional Tims Creek, North Carolina, is determined to find the strength to up and fly away; away from all that won’t understand him and that he himself does not understand.

Horace has made a self-discovery and needs to get out before anyone else uncovers it. And because A Visitation of Spirits, a story about an old family in the New World, ponders Grace and the mercurial absence of an omnipresent God, Horace’s journey leads him through sudden storms, into woods dark and familiar, and at long last, face-to-face with himself.