Manor of Frights / Now on Audible!

Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? Ghosts left to fester in the library? Or are the rooms themselves enchanted with malevolent energy? What was summoned long ago and what doorways were left open? Manor of Frights is a collection of tales all set in different rooms of the same house.

With authors: Judith Pancoast, Daphne Strasert, Loren Rhoads, Mark Orr, Michael Fassbender, R.L. Merrill, Sumiko Saulson, Ollie Fox, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Rosetta Yorke, Amanda Leslie, Lesley Warren, BF Vega, DW Milton, D.J. Pitsiladis, Jason Fischer, and Emerian Rich.

An excerpt from Manor of Frights

“Lanai” by BF Vega

The Lanai, 1960

“You need some sunshine,” Mrs. Castorelli said as she turned on lamps shaped like pineapples and palm trees in the large white room with its sloped open beam ceiling and full glass wall. “It’s too cold to go outside. The lanai will have to do.”

“Why does this house have a lanai? Wasn’t it built in the 1800’s?” her young cousin asked, standing in the doorway, distracted. She was concerned with the fact that her knees felt the weakest they had in months. She was trying her hardest not to appear to need the doorjamb to stand up. It was the only thing she could remember her mother teaching her, ‘never show weakness around the family.’

“Sugar, dear,” Mrs. Castorelli replied as she took covers off of art-deco recreations of Polynesian culture.

“Yes?”

“No, dear. Sugar.” Mrs. Castorelli replied. “The money for the lanai came from the family’s sugar plantations in the West Indies and Polynesia. We built it in memory of the 1946 tsunami in Hawaii that wiped out our last plantation in the Pacific, along with most of our workers and more importantly for history’s sake, your grandfather’s Polynesian antiquities collection. But, you should already know this dear. It’s why Sugar is such a common first name in our family.”

“Oh, of course.” Sugar gauged the distance between the sturdy wet bar beside the doorway currently holding her up and the delicate cane end table, which was the next piece of furniture she could reach. She wasn’t at all sure that the table would support her weight. “Mrs. Castorelli?”

“Yes, Sugar, dear?” The older woman paused as she pulled back a long emerald green brocade drape that blocked the floor-to-ceiling window furthest from the door.

Sugar stood very still as the first glint of the winter sunrise reflected off of Mrs. Castorelli’s long fingernails, where they lay very still on the brocade.

“Did you need help, dear?” Her voice had dropped two octaves, and the question came out in a low tone that Sugar could feel in her solar plexus. The soft hungry whisper was so different than the forced briskness Mrs. Castorelli normally employed, it made Sugar abruptly jerk backwards.

“I—” As Sugar moved, her hand stirred up what looked to be some fallen plaster into the air. The plaster-like dust caught in an unexpected draft and lifted up into a small cloud before falling gently, piece by piece, onto Sugar’s hand.

As the first particle fell, Sugar cried out, “Ow!” It seemed as if she could feel each individual dust mite as it touched her skin as a distinct pinprick of pain. Tears came to her eyes as each dust molecule fell onto her as a single shrill note being played over and over by more and more instruments until it became a cacophony of noise and pain.

She quickly pulled her hand away and held it close to her breast. Without thinking, she took the three quick steps to the cane table. From there, it was only one more step to the sofa with its sharp palm frond molded back and its dark green cushions shot through with gold thread.

Sugar allowed herself to fall onto the thick cushions with a sigh. The sigh turned to a grimace as more dust billowed up from the rarely used sofa.

Sugar put her hands on the cushions as the dust fell and the pinpricks of pain grew. She pushed up with all her might, but she could feel the weakness in her elbows and she heard the thin popping of joints too long deprived of moisture.

Pain shot through her arms as her muscles failed and her ligaments snapped almost matching the pain of the razor sharp dust. She tried to move her way forward off the brocade using her lower back muscles and thighs, but the gravel sound of vertebrae scraping on each other instead of any padding was loud enough to be heard across the room. Desperately she tried to stomp on the floor, but she could not muster the strength to shake off the dust settling in her lap. Even though she could still move her ankles, the soft Japanese slippers Mrs. Castorelli had brought her to wear made no sound on the inexplicably shiny hardwood floor. Anxiety built as a cold knot in her stomach. The panic leeched out into her veins and she found herself on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Are you quite all right, dear?” Mrs. Castorelli asked without turning around.

But Sugar couldn’t have answered her if she wanted to.

To read more, go to: Manor of Frights

Manor of Frights / Now on Audible!

Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? Ghosts left to fester in the library? Or are the rooms themselves enchanted with malevolent energy? What was summoned long ago and what doorways were left open? Manor of Frights is a collection of tales all set in different rooms of the same house.

With authors: Judith Pancoast, Daphne Strasert, Loren Rhoads, Mark Orr, Michael Fassbender, R.L. Merrill, Sumiko Saulson, Ollie Fox, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Rosetta Yorke, Amanda Leslie, Lesley Warren, BF Vega, DW Milton, D.J. Pitsiladis, Jason Fischer, and Emerian Rich.

An excerpt from Manor of Frights

“Turning Pages” by Mark Orr

The Ballroom, 1950

It had been decades since the gaudily ornate fountain in the old mansion’s foyer had contained water. It was now filling up with blood.

Jonathan Cahill and his attorney, Frederik Grant, stood on the third-floor landing at the spot where the banister had given way. They stared down at the body of Jonathan’s brother, Thomas, impaled on the fountain’s centerpiece. The decorative element happened to be made of pot metal, clad in cracked ivory and patinated bronze, the right arm of the Lady of the Lake arising from enchanted waters and bearing Excalibur. The sword’s point was aimed at the chandelier far above. Thomas’s torso was draped face up over the crossguard, the blade protruding through his chest.

“My God!” Frederik grabbed at Jonathan’s coat sleeve. “How terrible!”

“Yes,” the decrepit mansion’s new owner drawled. “Isn’t it, though?” He glanced around at the peeling wallpaper and worm-pitted woodwork. “I guess we have no choice now but to tear this old mausoleum down.”

The lights flickered. Frederik watched them and waited for them to stabilize.

“We have to call the police,” he said.

Jonathan sighed. “Yes, we must. We’ll have to go into town, though. I told Tom he ought to have a phone installed. He said it was bad enough the last owner wired the place for electricity. He refused to disturb its historical integrity any further.” Jonathan chortled. “Idiot.” He checked his watch. “Almost midnight. Tom’s girlfriend is due to start up with her racket any minute, now.”

“His girlfriend?”

Jonathan gestured behind them. “The ghost in the ballroom, there. Why in the world they put the ballrooms on the third floor in these old houses, I’ll never know. According to local legend, she’s the spirit of the young bride of the original owner who shot her one night as she was playing the piano. He thought she was having a fling with the butcher’s delivery boy. Lord, what fools those Victorians were.”

“Tom was in love with a ghost?”

Jonathan laughed. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? He told me he heard her play the first night he spent here. He ran into the ballroom but she vanished before he could get a good look at her. The next few nights, or so he claimed, he waited outside until she’d finished.”

“What was she playing?” the lawyer asked.

Jonathan smirked. “Something sad, I’m sure. Chopin, probably, or one of those other dreary Romantics.” He snorted. “If she really existed, that is, which is ludicrous. Tom always was a little too imaginative for his own good.”

“What happened after those next few nights?”

“He applauded.”

“Applauded? He clapped? For a ghost?”

“That’s what he claimed. Eventually, she accepted him. He claimed. He had been working up the nerve to get close enough to the piano while she was playing to turn the pages for her.” Jonathan sneered. “Apparently, sixty-five years of practice hasn’t been enough for her to learn her pieces by heart.”

“If a ghost has a heart.”

Jonathan laughed. “Not after her husband put a large caliber bullet through it. Tom said it bothered him that there was always a little pause when she turned the pages herself.”

Frederik looked back at the dark ballroom, through the partially open door. “I suppose that piano will fetch a few dollars, whenever we can get Tom’s estate probated. Have you looked at it?”

“It’s junk, like everything else in this house. It all goes under the wrecking ball the minute you get the will straightened out. There is a will, yes?”

Frederik looked up at Jonathan’s face and shivered. “Your brother isn’t even cold down there…”

“He soon will be. The will?”

Frederik nodded. “And you are the only beneficiary.”

Jonathan smiled. “As it should be.”

“I suppose the wood was rotten…” Frederik turned away from his client and looked at the railing to his left.

“Of course it was. Everything in this house is rotten. That’s why it needs to be destroyed. It killed my brother.”

“It almost looks…” Frederik fingered the break that had precipitated Thomas to his death.  “Sawn…”

To read more, go to: Manor of Frights

Manor of Frights / Now on Audible!

Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? Ghosts left to fester in the library? Or are the rooms themselves enchanted with malevolent energy? What was summoned long ago and what doorways were left open? Manor of Frights is a collection of tales all set in different rooms of the same house.

With authors: Judith Pancoast, Daphne Strasert, Loren Rhoads, Mark Orr, Michael Fassbender, R.L. Merrill, Sumiko Saulson, Ollie Fox, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Rosetta Yorke, Amanda Leslie, Lesley Warren, BF Vega, DW Milton, D.J. Pitsiladis, Jason Fischer, and Emerian Rich.

An excerpt from Manor of Frights

Bye, Baby Bunting

by Lesley Warren

The Nursery, 1900

After leaving her to grieve in private for a socially acceptable amount of time, Cora Billington decided she would call on Ida Wells.

Ida had sent a telegram to say that was fine. After all, she’d been doing precious little in the weeks since her husband’s death—receiving and attempting to comfort family guests, arranging the funeral flowers in vases, sitting around in her widow’s weeds, thinking of nothing save how slowly the time seemed to pass.

“Indeed,” she told Cora, “I’d rather welcome the company.”

Perhaps that really was how she felt, but she wasn’t altogether sure. She was no longer sure of anything.

In truth, she had found herself caught in something of an emotional straitjacket since Frank’s untimely passing. For the two short years of their fairytale marriage, he had always made the decisions, and left alone, she was rudderless and numb. He had been the one who wanted the baby, and that as soon as possible. Her sentiments toward children were decidedly cooler, but she was more than willing to fulfill Frank’s expectations. He always knew best. Or at least, he had…

Automatic tears welled up in Ida’s eyes, although the vessel of her soul remained empty. She swallowed them and painted on her sad widow’s smile.

In the sitting room, she let herself fall into her best friend’s rustling embrace, jealously taking in her new blush-pink crepe dress and the matching feather in her jaunty hat.

“This is just a little something I found in town for your little angel,” Cora said coyly, placing a blue corduroy rabbit in Ida’s lap and smugly rearranging her own lacy skirts.

“Why, thank you, dear, he’s ever so sweet.” An invisible foot clanged against Ida’s ribs, making Ida and the rabbit jump.

“Oh!” Cora said in delight. “Baby knows we’re talking about it!”

“Yes,” Ida said, encircling the globe of her stomach with her arms and trying to appear unruffled. “If it has an ear for gossip, it must be a girl.”

“How precious!” Cora cooed. “Let’s say she has your perfect skin and your thick hair. Do you think she’ll have Daddy’s eyes?”

Ida thought of Frank’s amber eyes and the way they’d made her insides turn to honey that night at the dance. How she’d melted for him when he asked for her hand, soft and sweet. She closed her eyes on the memory, so that unlike a photograph, it could never fade.

***

That night, after she had eaten dinner, the pains began.

When the doctor settled the blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms several hours later, Ida was tired but pleased. The labor had been relatively short, the birth uneventful. Baby Minnie—the pretty name had sprung to Ida’s mind instantly—had thick black hair, Ida’s grey eyes, and plump little lips like two pouty rose petals. She was without a doubt already the most attractive child in Ida and Frank’s circle of acquaintances, just as Ida had foreseen. It was so satisfying to be proven right.

Once Ida was alone with the baby, she promenaded her around the nursery, proud of the cozy nest she and Frank had made for their precious fledgling.

“If only Daddy could see you now,” she said tenderly and was surprised at herself, the sudden onrush of emotion breaking down her heart’s defenses.

Tucking Minnie and the corduroy rabbit into the cradle, she sang gently into the tiny shell-like ear.

“Bye, baby Bunting,
Daddy’s gone a-hunting,
Gone to get a rabbit skin,
To wrap the baby Bunting in.”

Yet motherhood was not entirely idyllic. The first time Ida attempted to feed the child, she had a nasty surprise. She had spent a long while propping up pillows and carefully arranging Minnie in her arms, her breasts throbbing and heavy with milk. When the little red mouth opened, though, she shrieked. It was as though a ring of red-hot needles had pierced her flesh. She held the child at arm’s length and exclaimed. Inside the newborn’s mouth were the tiniest of teeth, fine and pointed and savage—like those of some small animal. Such wicked teeth for a baby who was otherwise a porcelain doll. Its grey eyes huge and glassy, stared out from her elfin face.

Ida persisted in trying to feed her, but the more she tried, the more bruised and bloodied her breasts became, and the less milk she produced. Eventually, her mere presence at the cradle seemed to upset the child. Ravenous Minnie wailed pathetically and screamed like a banshee by turns. When a single drop of pinkish milk appeared at the tip of the nipple after fruitless hours in the nursery, Ida buried her face in the baby’s bedclothes and admitted defeat.

To read more, go to: Manor of Frights