A story within a story, the frame tale told by astronauts on a long journey through space, arguably far more terrifying and eerie than anything back on earth. The main tale concerns an orphaned young man whose resentful relatives agree to let him live in the extravagant piece of art they purchased, a house in which a gruesome mass murder took place and its exact replica. The interjections of the sentient spaceship during the telling of the main tale raise further questions about the boundaries of human and inhuman. A dear friend of mine grew up partly in a haunted house and I think of this story all the time with reference to her early life.
First published in Get in Trouble by Kelly Link, Canongate, 2016
A Personal Anthology 