It was difficult to be the type of person Serenity was in this day and age. Her last boyfriend Crenshaw did not understand her attraction to buildings over people. He didn’t understand why she hoarded, collected housing magazines and architecture manuals...
We had moved, thousands of miles away. Dad claimed it was a job transfer, but I knew the real reason. I knew it was because of the shadow in the house. At first, my parents didn’t believe me. Said I was just hearing things; all in my head. Then, out of t...
There once were three ordinary friends from an ordinary neighborhood in the ordinary town of Edinburgh, Scotland. One day, as they gathered for coffee, they decided they needed to get away from the city and so a camping trip was planned. Being tired of th...
I never jerk awake. I open my eyes and listen before I move. Without going into the reasons why I forced myself as a young boy, to not be afraid of noises in the dark. My door was always closed and I never slept with a nightlight. I relish the dark. As I...
Everybody's gone out againEveryone has left me hereAlone am I to trudge on throughThoughts and lonely fearThey know not what they play withA composite soul of dreadIf only someone welcomed meAs if they were one of the deadOh, but what's this?Yet another b...
The walk seemed different today. I lived near these woods almost all my life. I played in the woods. I built many little hovels using branches and undergrowth as cover. Instead of going through neighbor's yards to get to the woods, I walked down the stree...
Chapter Nine They all began to talk at once as soon as it sunk in that it appeared that Hugo was correct in his assumption of where my remains were lying. Sophie went to one of the bell pulls and rang for a servant and asked him to fetch six men and some...
Chapter Eight With the loss of Alice and Arthur, the spirit had gone out of the other children in respect of their ghost hunting activities during that winter. So they looked forward to the summer to resume their hunting for my grave in the gardens, but t...
Chapter Seven This letter made a staggering impact on the family when it was produced that night at the dinner table by Sophie. ‘Odds bodkins!’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘This would definitely have killed father if he’d seen this. So Richard was my grandfather an...
Chapter Six Call it a quirk of fate if you wish, though I am more of a quirk than the fact that both Grace, wife of Henry, and Sophie went into labour at the same time to produce their offspring in unison. In some way I was pleased that the doctor was see...
Chapter Five When I wasn’t watching the children play and grow, I spent time looking over the shoulder of William while he was at his desk in the study. This was a definite no go zone for female members of the family as this was where all the business of...
Chapter Four Sophie, if you remember, was the baby that smiled at me at her birth, the daughter of my sister Joan. She was six years old now, and had been brought over to the hall with her parents for the ball being held in the main hall. I had already wa...
Time. That man made name for the passing of the seasons and the years. To me, it had no meaning. It was limitless as far as I could see. I was nearly twenty years of age by this reckoning, and likely to remain so for eternity. But I still wanted to fight...
Chapter Two In that instant I was outside of my body to see the pistol ball come erupting out of my chest in a gout of blood and gore and watched myself pitch forward to fall on the carpet. Caroline screamed and then fainted as I turned to see Edward stan...
PROLOGUE Our story opens on Wednesday, June 22 nd 1727. The day King George the first, died in Germany, but more importantly, it was the day I was born. I was christened Richard Oliver Philip Stapleton in our family chapel, the second son to Earl Cecil St...
