Mason Winfield

Author:
Author, teacher, storyteller, and supernatural historian Mason Winfield studied English and Classics at Denison University, earned a master’s degree in British literature at Boston College, and studied poetry and fiction at SUNY Buffalo with professor emeritus and MacArthur grant recipient Irving Feldman. He has written or edited fourteen books, including the regional sensation “Shadows of the Western Door” (1997) and “Iroquois Supernatural,” co-authored with Michael Bastine, on the traditions of the Six Longhouse Nations (Inner Traditions International/Bear & Company, 2011). Several of his surveys of upstate folklore and paranormal tradition may be found at the website of Western New York Wares: www.buffalobooks.com. He may be reached at www.masonwinfield.com.

An anatomically perfect human jaw fashioned of diamond-hard quartz crystal is uncovered at an Ohio burial mound and sold on the underground antiquities market. Shortly after, three pothunters are found dead.

A mysterious new drug suspected of South American origin surfaces in Buffalo, NY. Its unprecedented psycho-tropic effects include the momentary activation of ESP. 

Blind, speechless, emaciated street people start appearing in many parts of the world. An urban legend-cycle forms around them, and the name of a murderous old cult, “the Whistlers” attaches to them.

An archaeological team at a Mayan site reports finding a bizarre artifact and vanishes. 

An upstate schoolteacher’s book of New York legends and folklore foreshadows these developments and more. 

   These are the threads – plus his affair with a maddening woman – that draw narrator Ward Courier into the international adventure of occultism, terror, Native American tradition and onrushing prophecy that is Mason Winfield’s anticipated new novel THE WHISTLERS. By the time the picture of THE WHISTLERS becomes clear, we are ready to believe in a sinister conspiracy that could predate Atlantis and even hail from another world.

The Whistlers

It is evening, and Jason Jonas and his three colleagues sit at a table against a wall in a makeshift cafe, a two-car garage with a patio converted into an entertainment space with tables and chairs. A woman does the preparation in the open kitchen a half-level above it. Young women who appear to be her daughters serve.


On the Americans' table are the remains of a classic Mexican layout. The ominous-looking man with coal-black hair and beard swishes a bit of burrito through the last of some guacamole, pops it into his chops, sits back, and chases it with a sip of tequila. The glass looks tiny against his furry forearm.


"That's pretty good," says the big blond man beside him. "What I want to know is, who are those two guys making guac?"


The dark man and the light share a laugh together. Jason Jonas looks weary. "You guys are very easily amused, you know," he says.


Chapter 60: Who Is Those Two Guys?, Part 60