Ardyce Ketterling

Keeper of the Lie Ardyce Ketterling

"Living in North Dakota was reason enough to commit suicide" (...living is an illness...death the remedy...). Bethany Schmidt lived the majority of her life in psychiatric facilities where infrequent pinholes of light revealed an entirely different history than the one written in her doctor's notes (... I was a child and she was a child in this kingdom by the sea...). Out in an unreal world, Bethany's childhood is revealed through flashes of faded photographs, bits of disjointed script, reruns of black and white video, and a few scraps of fact (..and after all, what is a lie, but the truth in masquerade?) A mental chorus of songs, quotes, scriptures, and the rhythmic cadence of a drumbeat accompany this dark, disturbing retelling of one possible story: Two little girls entered the woods; one returned. Mocked and scorned by voices of conscience or madness that oppose, contest, and shroud the facts (...darkness and light to thee are both alike...), Bethany desperately tries to piece together the truth before her fragile connection to reality is broken, and she is lost to the impending darkness (....lost to love and truth...).