THE ASHGROVE HOUSE

Every old house keeps a ledger. Most of the entries are things you can see - water stains blooming across a ceiling, a floor that slopes half an inch toward the west wall, a door that no longer sits true in its frame no matter how many times you plane it down. But some entries are written in a language most of us have trained ourselves not to read. This book started as an idle curiosity about a property listing in rural Arkansas: three acres, a wraparound porch, "highly motivated seller." It became something else once I started asking why the seller was so motivated.
What follows is a work of fiction. The Coltons are not a real family, Cedar Hollow is not a real town, and the Ashgrove House does not appear on any historical registry. But the fear in these pages is not invented. It is assembled, carefully, from the kind of accounts investigators hear again and again in old houses across the American South - families who moved in chasing a dream and moved out chasing daylight.
Lock your doors before you start reading. It won't help. But it will make you feel better.