Antique has been called a paranormal romance, but there is more in this frightening novel than meets the eye. Antique is the story of Quinn Channing, a university professor who suffers from outbursts of anger until a colonial, standing mirror in an antique shop on a back road in New Hampshire beckons. What happens, if anything, is a matter of the reader’s conjecture. Are events natural, unnatural, or supernatural? Once again, Majkut writes about the reader who holds his novel in hand.

excerpt from beginning of Chapter 1 ©

 

The New Hampshire back road that had been a pleasant adventure when Quinn Channing started after breakfast was now a tiring chore. Each turn on the one-lane, county road was a tedious ordeal of patience that tested Channing’s resolve at anger management.

 

Quaint roadside villages in shady mountain hollows and picturesque, crossroad settlements in sunny meadows passed without names, all the same to Channing, all way stations of hell. Carefully crafted Ye Olde Shoppe signs hawking collectibles, antiques, and country cooking vied for attention with plastic invitations from 7-Eleven, Wendy’s, Citgo Service Stations, and other demonic solicitations. Bumpkin strip malls fashioned by artsy, Boston run-aways whose aspirations for Beauty were transformed into cynical commercialism.

 

Channing cursed the road for slowing progress, though there was no destination, and towns for interrupting the litany of obscenities heard by no one but the driver. What had been intended as a leisurely jaunt into upstate New Hampshire, an unplanned excursion without a goal other than unwinding, was now more of the same for Channing. The aggravations of daily life and angry reaction become routine was a habit that, Channing knew, would be difficult to break. The addiction to ire, acquired in childhood, brought relief. Anger was a solution to intractable problems.

 

One hand on the wheel, Channing speed-dialed a friend in Boston. The phone rang, the red Hertz Nissan Altima swerved, and a woman’s cheery voice answered. Purred, Channing thought.

 

“You said this would be relaxing,” Channing said without preamble, accusatory.

 

“Good morning to you, too, Channing, dear,” the woman said.

 

“It sucks. Your New Hampshire autumn painter’s palette is a trashcan of colors discarded by Mother Nature, Silvia.”

 

“Are you driving and talking on your cellphone at the same time, Quinn?”

 

“Are you drunk and talking on your phone at the same time, Silvia?” Channing replied tartly.

 

Channing put the hand with the cellphone on the wheel to negotiate a sharp, hairpin turn.

 

“Quinn?”

 

“I’m back.”

 

“Look. Slow down. Let’s get off the phone. Call me when you pull over. Take time to look and see and enjoy the magic of New England scenery.”

 

The phone went dead. Silvia Blanchard poured the last of a bottle of dark Australian Shiraz and drifted into tipsy daydreams that reward ambition.

 

“Lush,” Channing cursed aloud, flung the cellphone on the passenger’s seat, and punched in Madbury, Strafford County, New Hampshire on the GPS. The Altima meandered into the on-coming lane. When Channing looked up, a rusty pickup, horn blaring, was pulling off the road on to a siding, bellows of dust trailing.

 

“Sorry,” Channing said, maneuvering back into the right lane. The man in the truck waved the finger and shouted inaudibly. Channing flipped him the finger in return.

 

“Asshole,” Quinn muttered.

 

The GPS stuttered and gave directions for a town in Manitoba.

 

“Imbecile!”            

                              

Channing was lost.

 

I must have missed a turn. This goddamn state doesn’t mark things clearly. What road am I on?

 

Two hours of anxiety and anger yielded to a straight road, the lessening of stress, and the Altima emerged into sunlight. On each side of the road, trees displayed a spectrum of yellow, ocher, orange, red, and brown leaves. Channing saw only monotonous forest, not Blanchard’s beautiful trees in it.

 

Finally, I get a break. Goddam road. Twists and turns, twists and turns, goddam, pretzel twists and turns. Goddam Silvia. Fuck New Hampshire. Fuck trees.

 

The world was an obstacle for Channing, a place where some days you win, some you lose, and every day you curse your fate.

 

A small town, no more than a crossroads, came into view. Roxbury. From appearances, it had yet to be gentrified. A ramshackle filling station, Ellen’s Strawberry Lane Bed and Breakfast and Keene’s Kountry Kitchen on one side, Adam’s General Store and Gault’s Antiques and Collectibles on the other, the town was closed in by forest. On a side road, no more than an unpaved, gravel lane leading up a rocky slope cleared of trees, halfway up the hill above the town, a few dozen homes, a few trailers, and propane tanks decorated the landscape. Below the town, a stream caroused with moss in a stony bed.

 

Channing rolled to a slow stop and parked in an empty lot next to the filling station.

 

Keene’s Kountry Kitchen was empty except for a boxy waitress who, in an act of futile obligation, guided Channing to one of the unoccupied tables. “Menu,” the woman said, handing her only customer a soiled sheet of paper.

 

Seated, Channing attempted to call California. No bars, no dial tone, no luck.

 

“Not much of a signal here,” the waitress said. “The mountains, you know. Want something?”

 

“You have salad?”

 

“No, not lettuce and tomato, if that’s what you mean. The grilled cheese sandwich is pretty good. Comes with potato salad.”

 

“Soup?”

 

“Not today.”

 

“Maybe a piece of pie?”

 

“All out.”

 

“OK. I’ll have the grilled cheese sandwich.”

 

“The lunch plate includes chips and a Coke.”

 

The waitress disappeared through a swinging door into the kitchen. Channing heard a muted conversation.

 

The menu was spotted with food stains. At its top, it read, “Keene’s Kountry Kitchen—The Only Place to Dine in Roxbury.” Many of the items were crossed out with sloppy pencil lines.

 

 The sandwich was served on a chipped plate, a ball of potato salad scooped at its side. The waitress placed a small, crinkly bag of Wise Onion and Garlic Potato Chips on the table next to the plate and left. The surface of the table was sticky. The waitress returned.

 

“I forgot. We don’t have any Coke. Here’s an orange soda instead. I didn’t think you’d mind. Ketchup?”

 

Perfect, Channing thought. This trip is perfect. A perfect disaster. My anger therapist tells me to get away from it all. My Dean tells me to take off a few weeks. Go back East. Visit friends. My shrink tells me New Hampshire is marvelous at this time of year. Relax, he says. Take the time off, both assholes tell me. My so-called friend, Silvia, a second-rate scholar and third-rate friend, says to take a few days in the woods in New Hampshire. Good for the soul, she says. All this just because I told off one snotty, incompetent student. I told the truth. Screw the student, screw the dean, screw my friends, and screw this god-awful woman and this goddam, shitty town.

 

The American cheese on the sandwich hadn’t completely melted. The discolored edges of the yellow, processed-cheese slab were dry and crusted. The slice had been unwrapped from its cellophane and left in the open air too long. The potato salad was dry, mostly potato, little mayonnaise. Channing hated orange soda.