I can see the dust motes swirling in the air.

1. The Twisted Ones – T. Kingfisher

I have recently moved house and I can safely say that one thing people tell me a lot is that I “have a lot of stuff.” It’s not so much “stuff,” as it is vinyl toys, books, movies on various media, records, and art supplies. These all contribute to my life goal of being that unseen person in the creepy house where children dare each other to run up on the porch. But, by the actual definition of a hoarder, the ones with the levels and not being able to open doors or get rid of garbage or broken things, I am not a hoarder. I’m an inside person with inside pursuits. I say this because I can relate to the problems that come with clearing out the house of a hoarder because I have the many things, but not all of the problems. In The Twisted Ones, Mouse is clearing out the house of an actual hoarder, her grandmother, after she has passed away and her dad asked her to.

In a creepy book you must have atmosphere and The Twisted Ones managed to make a muggy, humid place full of the stench of old mouse (Ew.) and stuffy detritus eerie and cold, but, then again, at night everything changes. I work at night, that’s truly how it is. People and not people do things at night they wouldn’t do in the light of day and when you’re alone, even if you are on the weird end yourself, stuff can creep you out in an unfamiliar place at night more so than it ever would otherwise. Especially if you read the wrong thing. And Mouse finds that trigger of many horror stories for reading material, the journal written by someone you can’t ask what the hell they were on about full of craziness. Mouse never should have agreed to do this job alone.

Peregrine also had a lot of toys, but clearly they all sparked joy as here she is using her anthropomorphic asparagus as a pillow.