Mary Borsellino’s Wolf House books are coming soon–in one volume!–in print and in ebook! Look for special deals if you’ve purchased some of the ebooks individually, and get ready to win a copy for yourself.
We’re eagerly awaiting the first sighting of Mary Borsellino’s The Wolf House collection in stores. In the meantime, we’ve put our spookiest books on sale from today through Halloween. If you buy an ebook from the bookstore, or come tell us about your favorite classic horror tale in the comments between now and midnight Sunday night (US Eastern), you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a book. We’ll be giving away a copy of Mary Borsellino’s The Wolf House collection in print, one in ebook, and an ARC of our ebook of ghost stories, “Crossings” also due out soon.
Don’t miss out on some great stories, on sale now in the bookstore at 15-20% off!
My favourite ghost story is a Japanese one I heard for the first time earlier this year.
A young man (we’ll call him Nagi) was on a business trip out into the country. His company booked a room for him at a little hotel owned and run by a couple decended from the building’s original owners.
The hotel was empty apart from Nagi, which didn’t surprise him. I might have been an impressive building once, but it was rundown and falling apart now; the room next to his was boarded up. With nothing better to do in the evening, he decided to check it out, see if he could find out why it had been closed up. Confident his hosts were long in bed, he had no fears of being overseen as he knelt by the keyhole of the next room and peered in.
What he saw baffled him. There was a chair in the room, and sat on the chair was an old, old woman. Her hair was bright white, her clothes old fashioned, and her face lowered to her chest as though in sleep. There had to be another door to the room he couldn’t see, Nagi reasoned. His hosts couldn’t have boarded their own elderly mother in her room and just left her.
The next morning he was due to check out. He couldn’t resist having another peer through that keyhole before he left, and he took a break from packing to sneak back into the corridor to take a look. This time, though, his view was completely obscured by something red. Perhaps the old woman had been awake last night and covered to door after he left to prevent further prying.
Feeling a little embarrassed, Nagi admitted his intrusion to his hosts.
“I may have offended your mother,” he said, “by peering through her keyhole. Please assure her I meant no harm. I did not expect the room to be occupied.”
The couple looked at each other. The husband’s expression was grim.
“The room is not occupied,” he said. “You are the only one here.”
“You know which room I mean?”
The old man nodded. “It is not an old woman you saw. It is the wife of one of our ancestors. He killed her, believeing she was unfaithful to him. The abuse he heaped on her before her death made her old before her time. He distrusted her, you see, because of her red eyes. You are lucky you only looked in one her once. Her gaze, once met, will not leave you.”
Nagi opened his mouth to tell them he’d seen nothing the second time he’d looked in on the ghost, but closed it again. What big eyes she’d had.
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Deena Replied:
October 30th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
@nkkingston, oooh. That’s creepy. Thanks for sharing it!
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Deena Replied:
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:10 pm
@nkkingston, it looks like you’re our winner! I’m pretty sure I have your mailing address, but drop me a note so I can ship you a copy of Mary Borsellino’s The Wolf House.
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XD Cheers! I’ll drop you a line when I get home tonight.
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