Mosaic
By: Catherine McCarthy
Illustrator: Devin Forst (Cover Art and Design)
Release Date: August 8, 2023
Publisher: Dark Hart Books
Rating:

2020’s Aberystwyth University Prize for Short Fiction winner Catherine McCarthy incorporates stained glass window repair, long-forgotten churches, and the macabre into one compact tale in her 2023 novella Mosaic. A compelling front cover by Devin Forst draws readers in with its depiction of a woman half-illuminated in the myriad of colors of an unseen stained glass window, that rainbow-colored half portrayed oddly corpse-like.

The story is told in first-person narrative by protagonist Robin Griffiths. This woman has the unique career of restoring stained glass, this time called to the tiny UK hamlet of Bilbury. Quaint as the town may be, no one seems to know much about the ancient church Robin has been hired to help restore. Strange, perhaps, but certainly not unheard of.

The church is odd too, largely in the way that all old, mostly abandoned buildings are. Long-buried secrets lie buried beneath the church, and pieces of stained glass turn up in and around the church, all of which are oddly intact.

Much of the tale involves the physical rebuilding of the window. Great detail is gone into, outlining the nitty-gritty details of stained glass making. While this is fascinating overall, it can stall the narrative slightly, placing focus more on Robin’s career than the mysteries surrounding the church, the town, and the individual who hired her.

Robin also finds herself dwelling on the past, especially on her parents and childhood. While intricately tied to the plot, this narrative function feels overused, leaving readers easily predicting when another flashback will occur.

However, McCarthy proves very adept at relating the tiny oddities that slowly build to true fear: faraway sounds, pieces of glass found in unexpected places, things that might be easily explainable and yet are not. The horror in this novel is a quiet sort of horror for much of the narrative, the sort of prose that will leave you feeling unsettled, a creeping dread lingering in the back of your mind. Truly, overtly frightening moments are rather few and far between, but it is important to note that this sort of horror isn’t what the author intends to portray here.

This is a quiet story that only finds true momentum near the end of the tale. This ending is interesting but perhaps unearned; not enough is fully established beforehand, making Robin’s actions extremely out of place.

Overall, Mosaic by Catherine McCarthy is a short horror tale worth a read, especially on a rainy night or crisp autumn day.