“Fine stuff, but it’ll rot.”

136. It Will Just Be Us – Jo Kaplan

Is it really surprising that a house built on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp is going to have problems of great variety? Nope. The good thing is, the haunting of this house is not dismal at all. It’s creepy and sticky and also damp. Uncomfortable. Kaplan does a great job with the environment of the inside and outside of the house and in haunted house stories, there should be a lot of tension in the feelings they inspire. Like any little noise will push your brain to panic because it was already on edge from being in that space. And that’s outside of that room that’s always locked. The house is stuck both in and out of time, with ghosts of residents past and present who pop up like holograms – or like the “Ghostfacers” episode of Supernatural- harmlessly replaying events over and over like TV. Also, they do not seem to own a TV.

Sam, the main character who can be a little unreliable, has a good handle on who everyone is that keeps showing up…until her sister Elizabeth comes home while pregnant for reasons she doesn’t seem to want to express. Sam starts seeing other ghosts that she doesn’t recognize, one she’s seen before, but one is a hallmark of super creepy stories – a cruel, faceless child. The one she’s seen before involves someone with their mouth sewn shut, so, not like good happy memories kind of ghosts. Once Elizabeth’s super angry, controlling husband who can find fault with anything and nothing shows up, everything gets much worse, as abusive relationships do tend to have far reaching consequences for those in and around them, even ghosts. My favorite little tick though was that they put Donovan the controlling in the room haunted by a relative who is still tuberculosis coughing from beyond the grave – and he can hear it.

Twiglet was not scared of faceless child ghosts; she also did not own a TV or meander in swamps, but I don’t think she missed out.