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

I wanted to go right upstairs and have at it. Lys wanted to make some tea. "Tea's great," I said, without a ton of cheer.


I sat with her in the high-end kitchen, lost for easy words. This buildup had me wired. When Lys poured the tea, I noticed two different bags in the pot. One was a Bigelow herbal. The other was an Earl Grey caffeinated. High test. I had never heard of such a thing. To me, you did decaf because you wanted to stay mellow. You did caffeine to perk you up. Of course it was a tiny thing, but this seemed like a schizoid combination. It didn't even seem like the flavors would go.


While I was assessing that and waiting for the tea to steep, Lys went upstairs for something. I walked over to the piano and started tooling away at a bluesy rock Spencer Davis Group song that had recently caught my fancy, trying to pick out its organ chords by ear. It was taking me some time.


Chapter 36: A New Skull, Part 36