When through Deep Waters

May 14, 2018
Dekker (the Seer trilogy) turns away from dystopian themes to tell an intricate psychological suspense story with fine shades of the fantastical. Alicen McCaffrey is satisfied with her life in Santa Monica, Calif. Although she believes her husband may not be faithful, she finds joy in her five-year-old daughter, Jane. But when Jane dies in a tragic accident in the backyard pool, Alicen feels she has lost everything, including her will to live. To give herself time to heal, Alicen leaves her husband behind to move back to her childhood home of Red Lodge, Mont., and enter a mental health outpatient treatment program at Clover Mountain Retreat Center. Although she receives therapy, she has trouble feeling she has the right to heal due to her failure to care for Jane. During her daily walks around the center’s grounds, Alicen begins to have visions that plague her—memories of her grandmother from their time spent together in the surrounding land and visions of little children “with faces expressionless and haunting.” Suffering from guilt and certain that the visions are signs she is inflicted by more than just grief, Alicen begins to engage her visions and finds she must truly understand forgiveness in order to heal. Tackling topics of grief and mental illness, Dekker has crafted a story that is hauntingly hopeful.