“Everything this writer pens, is carefully crafted. I just sink into her stories as the language and sensory are so tastefully overwhelming. The little details really place me in the story, and help me to live vicariously through the characters.” -Amazon ReviewerA normal day in the Deep South turns into a nightmare, as Chantal discovers that beauty and terror trace the fault lines between life … between life and death. She fights to understand why a good woman, her friend Aida is stricken with a debilitating illness that steals her mind and reason. When Aida’s terrifying visions are revealed, what price does it have when it’s shared with Chantal?
Take a walk on the dark side, where existence is fragile and knowledge of the after-life can cross over and become frighteningly real and physically dangerous to anyone who knows the truth.
Make it a summer to remember with a fantastic new story from Black Calyx Books!
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Troika, a supernatural short story etched from an all too common ailment in today’s aging society, traipse into a dimmed mind troubled with otherworldly visions, pulling the main character Chantal into its depths, and a frightening world beyond. Even in gravity, Ms. Krall infuses light with descriptive writing, juxtaposing good and evil, light and darkness, and life and death throughout the story as she does here with flowers surrounded by deadly waters.
“Nestled on a bed of Fiddlehead ferns, amongst pitcher plants and spider lilies, the exotic orchid splashed snow across the emerald carpet of the swamp-like jungle. An Ogeechee lime dropped its burnt-orange fruit into a river eddy. She crept carefully, worried about poisonous snakes and slumbering gators hidden in the mud banks.”
Chantal grapples with her dear friend Aida’s dementia, the deterioration of her beautiful, brilliant mind. Visiting Magnolia Manor, an extended-care facility, Chantal brings a single flower and light to Aida’s dismal room―light and darkness, life and death juxtaposed.
“Then the young woman pushed open the flannel-backed curtains to draw sunlight into a ponderous place. Holding lost time inside its concrete walls with a pervasive, humming loneliness.”
But there’s more to contend with than just Aida’s dementia. Chantal learns of her friend’s frightening otherworldly visitations, a phenomenon which resonates from a story told by her grandmother of Troikas. But are Aida’s visions just a symptom of dementia or something more sinister?
Chantal will soon know the answer as she comes face to face with evil. But Chantal’s encountered evil entities before but none as malevolent and powerful as these three. Regardless, she’s pledged her life to help others.
“She was a spiritual empath. A soul traveler who had passed safely through all the dimensions. Evil could not harm her, because she had learned to confront it head-on and it fed off distress, fear and ignorance.”
But will Chantal survive the all-powerful Troika when they wander into her path? Can she outwit death? You will have to read the story to find out.
Mrs. Krall’s writing is always descriptive, atmospheric, and ominous with just the right amount of hair-raising eeriness. In Troika, she’s incorporated these elements superbly. For those who love a quick supernatural tale bordering reality, I highly recommend Bibiana Krall’s Troika
What happens when disease lays its claim to those you care about–robbing them of their faculties, thoughts and dreams? When they speak to you through their clouded minds–what should you believe? Author Bibiana Krall takes you on a chilling journey that explores the untapped enigmas that exist somewhere between reality and the spiritual unknowns that wait and watch, biding their time…
Chantal cares deeply for her ailing friend, Aida. As her friend’s mind diminishes, Chantal tries her spirit lifting best to rid Aida of the nightly visions that haunt her frail intellect. Is it too little too late? Has she underestimated the power of this nemesis, and its true intent? A goose bump infused read that will chill you ’til the end, highly recommended!
Bibiana Krall wields a passionate pen in the short story, Troika, bringing us the well-developed, complex characters and relationship of Chantal and Aida. Krall writes, “From woman to woman, feminist-to-feminist, as trailblazers and academics, they recognized and an imperfect world that desperately needed bold women like them to stitch new ideas together.” Her writing is poetic and descriptive (She paints a vivid picture of Wilkes-Barre and the university campus there) and the story, unpredictable and dark. Indeed, Troika gets darker as the story progresses straight through to the final sentence. But don’t read ahead and spoil it.