Dunny Pollock has six fingers. Her extra finger comes with a special power. Dunny and her sister Angelle found that if Dunny concentrated real hard on a thing her finger would guide her to it. Dunny’s finger also earned her a lot of ridicule and name calling while she was young. Later on she was plagued by people wanting her to use her power to help them in various ways. So, as an adult Dunny always wears gloves to keep her finger out of sight. Dunny’s pleasant farm life in the left to her by her parents in Cyler, Texas was jolted by a frantic call from Angelle desperately pleading for Dunny to come down to Bayou, Louisiana to help her.
Two 7 year old children are missing. Angelle is very afraid for their safety and needs her sisters help. Dunny reluctantly flies out and is picked up by Angelle and her strange grandmother in law “Poochie”. Dunny is introduced to the characters in this small bayou town while something very sinister is going on way out in the bayou.
A very seriously mentally disturbed man has been attempting to contact the gods of his native American ancestors asking that they give him wisdom and power. He had been making sacrifices. He first burned the body of his deceased father as an offering but that didn’t get him any recognition so he began sacrificing small animals slitting them open and bathing in their blood while dancing and chanting. Small animals didn’t work either, so he graduated to larger and larger animals, the last on a big horse. They didn’t work either. So, remembering stories of human offerings told by his grandfather, he kidnapped two children, took them to the island in the middle of the remote bayou, tying them up and placing them in a four foot pit each and gradually filling the pits with mud from the bayou. Each night he would add another bucket of mud leading up to their ritual murder under the full moon. He was sure that this would be seen favorably by the Gods.
Of course this was unknown to Dunny, Angelle and Poochie, but they did feel the urgency of finding the children. Dunny’s finger pointed them out to the swamp. They had to wait for the right time to borrow a boat and head out into the swamp one evening late at night. The adventure out into that swamp and fight to free the children keeps you on the edge of your recliner reading this strangely horrible and riveting tale.
Deborah LeBlanc’s “Water Witch” is a unique and compelling venture into the world of ghosts, extra-sensory perception and terror. It rates an 8 of 10 on the Weaver scale.
