Rectified: The Birthing is the second book in the Rectified saga, a multigenerational gothic horror epic spanning 1888 to 2019. Though published after The Recollection, this prequel reveals the foundational tragedy that creates the Rectifier and sets the entire series in motion.
THE ORIGIN
In 1889, a newborn boy is abandoned in the Michigan wilderness. Cuthbert Willem, a reclusive blacksmith, discovers him and raises him in isolation. The boy-Josef-possesses inexplicable power: superhuman strength that emerges when danger strikes. Cuthbert guards this secret fiercely, knowing exposure means death.
For twenty years, Josef grows in ignorance of his true nature, his bloodline, and the supernatural entities hunting him. He knows only work, prayer, and a mysterious pendant bearing Saint Sebastian's image. When Cuthbert ages, he makes an agonizing choice: place Josef in the Diocese of Marquette, the only institution that might understand what he is.
THE TRAP
At the diocese, Josef meets Father Erasmus-a charismatic priest who becomes his mentor and guide. What Josef doesn't know is that Erasmus has orchestrated everything. Every piece is positioned with deliberate precision: the contracts, the camps, the arrival of a young woman named Marybeth.
Erasmus serves ancient forces far older than the Church. He is building toward a ritual that will transform Josef into something unprecedented: a fusion of sacred and profane, human and demon. A weapon. A slave. The Rectifier.
THE COST
When Josef meets Marybeth at Easter service, he experiences love for the first time-genuine, consuming, desperate. She is kind and beautiful and seemingly innocent. She is also part of the trap.
Marybeth's pregnancy becomes a crucible. Josef's love becomes a liability. His faith becomes the instrument of his enslavement. As summer approaches in 1919, the village grows suspicious. Sarah Clarke, a woman scorned years earlier, becomes the instrument of exposure. The Knights of Flauros converge. The binding ritual approaches.
On July 15th, chosen for its cosmic significance, everything culminates in fire, blood, and transformation.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF DAMNATION
The Birthing is a meditation on how good intentions become pathways to destruction. It explores how isolation breeds vulnerability, how love can be weaponized, how faith itself can become a cage. The Upper Peninsula becomes a character: forests, harsh winters, isolated towns where the supernatural bleeds through.
This is horror that prioritizes emotional truth alongside supernatural terror. A tragedy disguised as a ghost story. A love story corrupted by cosmic machinery. A coming-of-age narrative twisted into darkness.
For readers who loved Mexican Gothic or The Haunting of Hill House, The Birthing offers atmospheric, literary horror grounded in historical detail-complex characters caught in impossible situations, slow-burn dread building to catastrophe, exploration of faith and the cost of belief.
This is where the century-long curse begins. This is how the weapon was forged. This is the tragedy that echoes through generations.
Kris Michael McKenna is an author, screenwriter, and creative technologist based in Skowhegan, Maine. His background spans law enforcement, defense technology (patents approved for Department of Defense eyewear specifications), and multimedia storytelling across screenwriting, graphic novels, and prose fiction. He is the author of Rectified: The Recollection (2019) and holds a world ranking in competitive powerlifting. The Birthing is the second book in the Rectified saga.
