Postcard For Reader

Spookworthy Places (& Book Excerpt)

Random Magic is a book that's both dark and light - there's a lot of comedy and fun and sunshine, and a vast amount of silliness - but there are quite a few encounters with creepy things, people and places. It's Halloween, a celebration of all things eerie.

Don't believe me? Read this excerpt from Random Magic. Perhaps you've been invited to a lovely house party in a wonderful stately home - and perhaps this is what happened...next:

There couldn't possibly exist a more pleasant spot in the entire world. Not possibly. Watercolor painting in the garden? But of course. The lady of the house is in ecstasies over the proposal. So charming. Yes, it will be arranged at once, for tomorrow afternoon, when the light is best...

All, one decides in satisfaction, is well with the world. London and all her annoyances seem a million miles away, and that's all to the good.

Then night falls.

And one begins to realize that the confining stone walls of Castle Marlybone contain somewhat more than immediately meets the eye: All those attics. Gloomy hallways. Secret doors and unexpected dungeons. Moats, crypts, and spectral visits from irritating fellows popping through walls.

As the late midsummer evening winds along towards midnight, the goings-on in the castle become admittedly...strange.

Doomed nuns rise from musty oubliettes to walk the shadow-limned porticos with the waning moon, preceded by the rustle of invisible skirts. There are black dogs on the moors, big as bears, eyes like plates, that big around, and fellow dinner guests who vanish with the foie gras.

There are whispering teacups on the sideboard, unseen hands snuffling up the best hors d'oeuvres, and the appalling laughter in one's bedchamber of dissolute firstborns who've invariably snuffed it under 'mysterious circumstances.'

The crammed-in houseful of unwary guests are treated to ghastly shrieks at midnight and faces in mirrors which don't, alas, belong to them, levitating books, and amorphous balls of light flitting through the shrubbery...

Doors slam in deserted wings...and drowsy sleepers are forced to listen for hours on end to irksome commentary from feckless nincompoops who died for love...

Through it all, grey ladies whom everyone likes to pretend aren't really there pop up and down the stairs at odd hours, vanishing at inconvenient moments, so that one doesn't know at all where one is.

Every last bit of it is patently endured, in the name of keeping up appearances...until one is joined unexpectedly in the bathtub by a skeleton wearing nothing but a smile and a top hat.

The violet-scented guest soap is abandoned mid-lather. The luggage is left behind, to be sent for next season, if ever...One flees back to the embrace of ordinary, overcrowded London, sends for the family doctor and takes to bed for a month, sleeps with the lights on and jumps at every sound...

And, so, now you know what to expect when Lord and Lady Mucklewater invite you 'round for crumpets and tea at Castle Greylaudanum. Things are nearly never what they seem to be, and often a great deal worse.

Alas, Witherspoon Manse wasn't that sort of castle. It was rather more mundane than all that. Which made it all the more shocking, in the end.

Creepy castles are just some of the places visited in Random Magic. Here's the book trailer, if you'd like to know about other stops that Henry and heroine Winnie make on their journey:

Spookworthy Places: They're Out There
There's an enduring fascination with haunted places, in nearly every culture. It's hard to explain just why people are fascinated by legendary haunted mansions, towers and hotels, but if you're fascinated by creepy places, here are three famous - or infamous - haunts:

The Tower of London (London, UK)
The Tower of London is one of the most well-known historical buildings in the world. It's also, reputedly, one of the most haunted.

One of the Tower's most famous resident ghosts is the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, one of the wives of Henry VIII - he had her beheaded in 1536, on a scaffold near the Tower. Spooky sightings of Anne were reported for years afterwards, and she was generally recognized because of a unique feature - she was often seen carrying her head around, tucked away neatly under her arm.

Berry Pomeroy Castle (Berry Pomeroy, near Totnes, UK)
This Tudor mansion has two resident ghosts: the White Lady and the Blue Lady.

The White Lady is allegedly the spirit of Lady Margaret Pomeroy. She's usually spotted at St. Margaret’s Tower, dressed from head to toe in white. Visitors who've encountered the apparition reported feelings of great sadness, rather than fear.

The Blue Lady roams the entire castle and tries to trick unwary visitors to follow her into the darker, more ruined or disused parts of the castle. It would probably be a bad idea for anyone to follow this mischievous tour guide.

The Stanley Hotel (Estes Park, Colorado, U.S.)
Author Stephen King was staying at the 138-room hotel for Halloween (Oct. 31), in 1974. The hotel was about to close for the off-season, and King and his wife Tabitha were the only guests in the hotel. They ate dinner alone, in an immense - and totally empty dining room.

'Except for our table, all the chairs were up on the tables,' King later recounted. 'So...music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night, I had the whole book in my mind.'

The book he mentions is The Shining, set on the grounds of, yes, a big, creepy hotel during the off-season. The room that Stephen King and his wife checked into was Room 217, which was reportedly haunted.

The trouble with the Stanley Hotel is that it's not just one room that's haunted - it's the entire place! Hotel staff have overheard huge parties going on in the ballroom, only to check it out and find it empty. Hotel guests have reported hearing music coming from a piano in the ballroom - with no piano player to be found.

The U.S. Syfy channel sent a team to the hotel, to film for their program, 'Ghost Hunters.' So, did they scare away all the ghosts by finding likely explanations for all the spooky events at the hotel? Well, yes. And no.

The team of paranormal investigators assigned to the case were able to find rational reasons for some sounds - the echoes of the wind, or faulty plumbing. Unfortunately, they weren't able to explain the sounds of ghostly children running and laughing, a cupboard that opened by itself, or a table that suddenly leapt two feet into the air while they were standing nearby.

And the ballroom? They actually couldn't find a rational explanation for the music or the parties, either. Party on, departed hotel guests. Party on...

Can't get enough classic haunts? Here are some more spooky places:

Real Haunted Places
Six Creepy Castles
The World's Most Haunted Places (video)