Books like 'Water Shall Refuse Them'
Readers who enjoyed Water Shall Refuse Them by Lucie McKnight Hardy also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical horror mystery thriller historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal witches-wizards coming-of-age folk-horror
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The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras... -
![Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi]()
Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSt. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys.Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania.Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future... a family... -
![Cardinal Black by Robert McCammon]()
Cardinal Black by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsCardinal Black is the latest installment in Robert McCammon's unique series of historical thrillers featuring Matthew Corbett, professional problem solver, who has been called "the Early American James Bond." December 1703 finds Berry Grigsby living as Mary Lynn Nash in a small English village where she has fallen victim to Professor Fell's involuntary drug experiments... -
![Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom, Бром]()
Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom, Бром
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA spirited young Englishwoman, Abitha, arrives at a Puritan colony betrothed to a stranger – only to become quickly widowed when her husband dies under mysterious circumstances. All alone in this pious and patriarchal society, Abitha fights for what little freedom she can grasp onto, while trying to stay true to herself and her past... -
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![Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M.R. James]()
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe only annotated edition of M. R. James's writings currently available, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary... -
![Callie by Bill Thompson]()
Callie by Bill Thompson
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDeep in the bayous of southern Louisiana, an ancient mansion called Beau Rivage sits empty and abandoned. Arceneaux family members built the house and lived there for two hundred years. The house is inherited by Callie Pilantro, a down-on-her-luck granddaughter of Juliet Arceneaux, its most recent owner who died there a few months ago... -
![The Best Ghost Stories Of Algernon Blackwood by Algernon Blackwood]()
The Best Ghost Stories Of Algernon Blackwood by Algernon Blackwood
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSelected from the entire body of Algernon Blackwood’s work, this collection contains some of his finest writing. Blackwood’s ability to create and sustain an atmosphere of unrelieved horror is witnessed in ‘The Willows’, a starkly terrifying tale of another dimension impinging on our own. In contrast, ‘The Other Wing’, is a chilling but delicate evocation of the mysteries of childhood... -
![The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy]()
The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil mines the subtle horrors of 1950s America in a gripping novel about a woman under pressure—from the living and the dead. The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices. Missouri, 1955... -
![Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones by Richard Gleaves]()
Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones by Richard Gleaves
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"My earliest memory is of discovering my grandfather's severed head." The HEADLESS HORSEMAN has risen and rides. JASON CRANE is the Horseman's target. But Jason must stay and fight, to protect those he loves. For Sleepy Hollow is falling to evil. Now Jason Crane lives under a tyrannical guardian. Jason Crane must descend into fearful darkness. And Jason Crane has an appointment with death..Categorized as:
folk-horror gothic historical-fiction paranormal rural action-adventure book fiction -
![Charlotte Says by Alex Bell]()
Charlotte Says by Alex Bell
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe much-anticipated prequel to the bestselling FROZEN CHARLOTTE, a Zoella Book Club title in Autumn 2016. Following the death of her mother in a terrible fire, Jemima flees to the remote Isle of Skye, to take up a job at a school for girls. There she finds herself tormented by the mystery of what really happened that night... -
![Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories by Shirley Jackson]()
Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAcclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House—classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe—Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty... -
![Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James]()
Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsM. R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre... -
![Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 54 ratingsFifteen-year-old Oscar Drai meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of Barcelona. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dark gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal spooky -
![The Willows by Algernon Blackwood]()
The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTwo friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River. Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character...Categorized as:
dark folk-horror gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal rural -
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![Ghost Summer by Tananarive Due]()
Ghost Summer by Tananarive Due
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWhether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence bestselling author Tananarive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening...Categorized as:
dark gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal season-summer spooky -
![The Resurrectionist by Paul T. Scheuring]()
The Resurrectionist by Paul T. Scheuring
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's 1820, and the physicians of London are on fire to unlock the secrets of human anatomy, some consorting with criminals to get their scalpels into a fresh body. Job Mowatt has become such a criminal—a body snatcher, a resurrectionist. The wages are just enough to keep his brilliant daughter, Ivy, clean and safe in London's worst slum... -
![Witch Wood by John Buchan]()
Witch Wood by John Buchan
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsSet against the religious struggles and civil wars of seventeenth century Scotland, John Buchan's Witch Wood is a gripping atmospheric tale in the spirit of Stevenson and Neil Munro.As a moderate presbyterian minister, young David Sempill disputes with the extremists of his faith, as all around, the defeated remnants of Montrose's men are being harried and slaughtered... -
![The Bayou by Arden Powell]()
The Bayou by Arden Powell
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 7 ratings"Eugene didn’t know if he believed in the devil beyond the wicked things people did of their own accord, but if the devil had a face, it would look like Johnny Walker’s."Small-town Louisiana, 1935.When Eugene was twelve, a girl from town disappeared. Everyone said the gators must have got her when she strayed too near the bayou. No foul play, just a terrible accident... -
![The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights by Bridget Collins, Susan Stokes-Chapman]()
The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights by Bridget Collins, Susan Stokes-Chapman
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the creators of The Haunting Season comes a dazzling collection of never-before-seen ghostly tales.The tradition of a haunted tale at Christmas has flourished across the centuries... -
![Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne Ashford]()
Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne Ashford
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTwo women disturb the dark history of a deceptively quiet postwar Cornwall village in a haunting novel by the bestselling author of A Feather on the Water and The Woman on the Orient Express.It’s winter 1947 when newlyweds Ellen and Tony Wylde move into an abandoned Cornish farmhouse overlooking the sea... -
![The Long Home by William Gay]()
The Long Home by William Gay
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine - until he learns of it first-hand...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dark gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction rural spooky 20th-century -
![Small Favors by Erin A. Craig]()
Small Favors by Erin A. Craig
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTHE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the critically-acclaimed author of House of Salt and Sorrows comes a mesmerizing and chilling fairy-talesque novel about Ellerie Downing, a young woman in a small town with monsters lurking in the trees and dark desires hidden in the shadows--in Amity Falls, nothing is more dangerous than a wish come true. Unique, enchanting, and haunting...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dark folk-horror gothic historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal rural -
![The City of Mist: Stories by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
The City of Mist: Stories by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsReturn to the mythical Barcelona library known as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in this posthumous collection of stories from the New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow of the Wind and The Labyrinth of the Spirits...Categorized as:
dark gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism action-adventure adult anthologies -
![The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor]()
The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsAn unconventional vicar moves to a remote corner of the English countryside, only to discover a community haunted by death and disappearances both past and present--and intent on keeping its dark secrets--in this explosive, unsettling thriller from acclaimed author C. J. Tudor.Welcome to Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, eight protestant martyrs were burned at the stake here... -
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![The Spook's Tale and Other Horrors by Joseph Delaney, Patrick Arrasmith]()
The Spook's Tale and Other Horrors by Joseph Delaney, Patrick Arrasmith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThis is 3 stories inside, one about Alice and grimmalkin and those two that hav been published with 3 additional stories in the stort story collection as Spooks`s Stories witches (uk) or A Coven of witches (us) but with the additions World book day story Spooks`s tale included in this edition.The Last Apprentice series follows the terrifying adventures of the Spook's apprentice, Thomas Ward...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dark gothic historical-fiction paranormal spooky witches-wizards action-adventure -
![Summer of Night by Dan Simmons]()
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIt's the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, and five 12-year old boys are forming the bonds that a lifetime of changes will never erase. But then a dark cloud threatens the bright promise of summer vacation: on the last day of school, their classmate Tubby Cooke vanishes. Soon, the group discovers stories of other children who once disappeared from Elm Haven...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dark gothic historical-fiction paranormal season-summer spooky thriller -
![Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite]()
Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsONCE A PERSON LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN, THEY NEVER COME BACK, NOT REALLY. THEY’RE LOST FOREVER. Nellie Clay married Hobbs Pritchard without even noticing he was a spell conjured into a man, a walking, talking ghost story. But her mama knew. She saw it in her tea leaves: death. Folks told Nellie to get off the mountain while she could, to go back home before it was too late... -
![On the Edge of Darkness by Barbara Erskine]()
On the Edge of Darkness by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe eagerly awaited new novel by the author of LADY OF HAY and HOUSE OF ECHOES is the story of a woman trapped in the wrong time. Abandoned by her twentieth century lover, she plots a terrible revenge on him and his family. Adam Craig is fourteen when, near an isolated Celtic stone in the wild Scottish Highlands, he meets Brid, whose exotic, gypsy-like dress and strange attitudes fascinate him...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal witches-wizards adult book family -
![The Listener by Robert McCammon]()
The Listener by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings1934. Businesses went under by the hundreds, debt and foreclosures boomed, and breadlines grew in many American cities. In the midst of this misery, some folks explored unscrupulous ways to make money. Angel-faced John Partlow and carnival huckster Ginger LaFrance are among the worst of this lot...Categorized as:
dark gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal thriller adult -
![The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke]()
The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLook out for C.J. Cooke's atmospheric new novel . . . In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall. This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who was not quite a child. Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed. Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction paranormal spooky folk-horror rural witches-wizards horror -
![Come Along With Me by Shirley Jackson]()
Come Along With Me by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA haunting and psychologically driven collection from Shirley Jackson that includes her best-known story "The Lottery"At last, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" enters Penguin Classics, sixty-five years after it shocked America audiences and elicited the most responses of any piece in New Yorker history... -
![Revelator by Daryl Gregory]()
Revelator by Daryl Gregory
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders comes the gripping tale of a family's mysterious religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their god. In 1933, nine-year-old Stella is left in the care of her grandmother, Motty, in the backwoods of Tennessee... -
![Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill]()
Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAgainst a background of witchcraft in 17th-century rural Lancashire, ROBERT NEILL has woven an extraordinary novel of the power of evil.. -
![The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean]()
The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSome ghosts never leave us.SHORTLISTED FOR THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE 2021'A wild rural gothic with some slick plotting . . . the perfect novel for our phantom present' Guardian'Outstanding . . -
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![The Big Blow by Joe R. Lansdale]()
The Big Blow by Joe R. Lansdale
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“The sea had turned black as a dutch oven, the sky the color of gangrene, and between sea and sky there appeared to be something rising out of the water, something huge and oddly shaped, like a horrible sea god, and then Simmons realized what it was.”Galveston, Texas. September 4, 1900. A giant hurricane—destined to be remembered as the storm of the century—is brewing offshore... -
![Before the Devil Knows You're Here by Autumn Krause]()
Before the Devil Knows You're Here by Autumn Krause
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA deliciously dark folk horror for fans of Maggie Stiefvater and Erin Craig, blending the tall tales of Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan with Faustian elements, and centering a fierce Mexican-American poet on a quest to rescue her brother.1836. Wisconsin Territory. All Catalina has left is her little brother—Mama died years ago, and Papa was buried just yesterday... -
![Fyneshade by Kate Griffin]()
Fyneshade by Kate Griffin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMany would find much to fear in Fyneshade's dark and crumbling corridors, its unseen master and silent servants. But not I. For they have far more to fear from me...On the day of her grandmother's funeral, Marta discovers that she is to be sent to be governess at Fyneshade, her charge the young daughter of the owner, Sir William Pritchard.All is not well at Fyneshade...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction dark magical-realism witches-wizards paranormal romance horror -
![Orpheus Builds a Girl by Heather Parry]()
Orpheus Builds a Girl by Heather Parry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBased on a true story, Orpheus Builds a Girl is a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession, and the battle for control of the story. A dark, chilling debut novel from award-winning writer Heather Parry.German doctor Wilhelm Von Tore shares with the reader the story of his one true ove; a love written in the stars, decades in the making, a love so strong it transcended death itself...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction dark horror fiction retellings historical -
![The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal]()
The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory, The Burial Plot is an unstoppable historical thriller about murder, manipulation, and a young woman trying to wrestle power from the hands of a dangerous man. But he’s always one step ahead . . .London, 1839... -
![The Reckoning by Alma Katsu]()
The Reckoning by Alma Katsu
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn the second installment in her supernatural Taker trilogy, Alma Katsu, author of the highly acclaimed The Hunger, takes you on a breathtaking 200-year journey through the landscape of the heart.Lanore McIlvrae is the kind of woman who will do anything for love. Including imprisoning the man who loves her behind a wall of brick and stone...Categorized as:
dark gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal witches-wizards abuse -
![Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe]()
Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this second chilling novel by Jonathan Aycliffe, orphaned Charlotte Metcalf arrives on the doorstep of her relatives, the mysterious Ayrtons, in the hope of locating her younger brother Arthur. Their home, Barras Hall, is at first a welcome refuge, until Charlotte realizes that the manor has become her prison, and that she is surrounded by a horror she cannot escape... -
![The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell]()
The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDominic Sheldrake has never forgotten his childhood in fifties Liverpool or the talk an old boy of his grammar school gave about the First World War. When his history teacher took the class on a field trip to France it promised to be an adventure, not the first of a series of glimpses of what lay in wait for the world... -
![Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell]()
Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTerror grows in Babylon, a typical sleepy Southern town with its throbbing sun and fog-shrouded swamps.Margaret Larkin has been robbed of her innocence -- and her life. Her killer is rich and powerful, beyond the grasp of earthly law.Now, in the murky depths of the local river, a shifting, almost human shape slowly takes form. Night after night it will pursue the murderer... -
![Twilight by William Gay]()
Twilight by William Gay
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA Southern gothic novel about an undertaker who won’t let the dead rest. Suspecting that something is amiss with their father’s burial, teenager Kenneth Tyler and his sister Corrie venture to his gravesite and make a horrific discovery: their father, a whiskey bootlegger, was not actually buried in the casket they bought for him...Categorized as:
dark folk-horror gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction rural 21st-century adult -
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![Babes in the Wood by Mark Stay]()
Babes in the Wood by Mark Stay
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe Witches of Woodville Part 2July, 1940In a quiet village in the English countryside, a magical mystery leads to murder...Woodville has returned to 'normal' after the departure of the Crow Folk. The villagers put out fires from aircraft shot down in the Battle of Britain, and Faye Bright discovers that magic can be just as dangerous as any weapon...Categorized as:
witches-wizards historical-fiction paranormal coming-of-age fantasy audiobook fiction mystery -
![Dark Entries by Robert Aickman]()
Dark Entries by Robert Aickman
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSewn signatures, printed on 110gsm acid-free paper, and bound by Biddles in bergundy wibalin cloth stamped in gilt and silver, with a silk ribbon marker and head and tailbands. 350 copies.(Out of print).Contents: "Introduction by Glen Cavaliero, "The School Friend", "Ringing the Changes", "Choice of Weapons", "The Waiting Room", "The View" and "Bind Your Hair"... -
![The Plague Charmer: A gripping story of dark motives, love and survival in times of plague (171 POCHE) by Karen Maitland]()
The Plague Charmer: A gripping story of dark motives, love and survival in times of plague (171 POCHE) by Karen Maitland
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Plague Charmer, by Karen Maitland, Queen of the Dark Ages and bestselling author of Company of Liars, will chill and delight fans of C.J. Sansom and Kate Mosse's Citadel in equal measure. 'A compelling blend of historical grit and supernatural twists' - Daily MailRiddle me this: I have a price, but it cannot be paid in gold or silver.1361. Porlock Weir, Exmoor...Categorized as:
dark gothic historical-fiction magical-realism spooky witches-wizards adult audiobook -
![Little Eve by Catriona Ward]()
Little Eve by Catriona Ward
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWinner of the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel and the August Derleth Prize for best horror novel, Catriona Ward's Little Eve is a heart-pounding literary gothic with a devastating twist.Eve and Dinah are everything to one another, together day and night. They are raised among the Children, a clan ruled by a mysterious figure they call Uncle... -
![A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland]()
A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPagans tackle the Knights of St John with terrible consequences in the new medieval thriller by Queen of the Dark Ages, Karen Maitland. Set on the wilds of Dartmoor, this is a ghostly tale for fans of The Essex Serpent, C. J. Sansom's Shardlake series and The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse. 'A dark read..Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal witches-wizards adult audiobook book -
![The Bone Weaver's Orchard by Sarah Read, Daniel Pérez Castrillón]()
The Bone Weaver's Orchard by Sarah Read, Daniel Pérez Castrillón
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHe’s run away home. That’s what they say every time one of Charley Winslow’s friends vanishes from The Old Cross School for Boys.It’s just a tall tale. That’s what they tell Charley when he sees the ragged grey figure stalking the abbey halls at night.When Charley follows his pet insects to a pool of blood behind a false wall, he could run and let those stones bury their secrets...
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