Unhappy with this setup, a group of the town's teenagers secretly make plans to broadcast the witch's existence across the world, a move that puts them at risk of severe punishment from the town's council as videotaping the witch is forbidden. The townspeople try to make do as best as possible and discourage new people from coming into town, but this is not always successful. Leaving the town is not an option, as being away for longer than a few days causes townspeople to become suicidal.

Two of the most major rules is that no outsiders can ever learn about the Black Rock Witch's existence and her stitches must never be removed. The town has several core rules and safeguards in place to ensure that a delicate balance is kept. She will randomly appear in places throughout Black Spring and the townpeople track her progress via the HEX mobile app, which they use to avoid her as much as possible. The witch was formerly a woman by the name of Katherine van Wyler, who was put to death in 1664 and had her eyes and mouth sewn shut after death.

The novel is set in the town of Black Spring, New York ( Beek in the original Dutch version), where its inhabitants are routinely terrorized by the ghost of the Black Rock Witch. įilm and television rights for HEX have been purchased by Warner Brothers. While re-writing the work to change the setting from Beek, Berg en Dal to New York, Olde Heuvelt also re-wrote and changed the book's ending from the original Dutch version. The English version was translated by Nancy Forest-Flier and the decision was made to localize the work by shifting the story's setting from the Netherlands to New York. It was first published in Dutch in 2013 through Luitingh-Sijthoff and was published in English in 2016 through Tor Books, marking the first time one of Olde Heuvelt's novels have been published in English. HEX is a horror novel by Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt.

Hex book rebecca