Some artists can’t catch a break, even with an agent.

25. The Dead House – Billy O’Callaghan

The Dead House doesn’t tell the story from the perspective of the person enduring the blunt force of the haunting once the seance and Ouija board are put away, it tells you how that looks from the perspective of someone who it seems will be more haunted later since they got away after said seance. It’s a bit of an odd choice to set the story with someone who isn’t experiencing the main part of the story, but it wasn’t a totally frustrating read despite this.

Maggie, an artist who was beaten very badly by her boyfriend and thankfully managed to not go back after getting out of the hospital, ends up finding a cottage in an isolated area of Ireland where she could paint, if she wasn’t so busy being haunted by another controlling man (ghost) after her housewarming weekend and drifting into madness. Eventually, her agent does go and check on her, finds the madness and the creepy story and the disheveled cottage, and is convinced to leave, but must go back, with another of the seance participants, and finds the cottage burnt and almost gets pulled into the sea by ghosts who will now follow him and his family. Pleasant.

Salem does not think any of that sounds pleasant.