Spokelore

In Chapter 8 of Spokelore, we find out that Annie has not gone MIA, but is simply and suddenly…so tired. Her bones and joints ache, her energy is gone, and she feels increasingly isolated in the house without Linnea. But lonely though she may be, she also has a sneaking suspicion that once again there may be another presence in the house, and this time it is a decidedly unfriendly one. Meanwhile, Nikki’s magical and romantic entanglements come to a climax (heyo). A stop at a handsome mechanic...

Chapter 7 of Spokelore reveals what we all knew to be true: there were totally skeletons behind that locked cave door. After Annie successfully performs the soul-binding ritual, Linnea's response to her newfound freedom is a little less grateful than anticipated. But incorporeal communication remains spotty as ever. Annie performs another seance via telegraph machine, in which she learns that she has inadvertently freed more than Linnea's spirit from the house... there is something dark and d...

In Chapter 6, Nikki and Annie find themselves fraught with magical imposter syndrome, prompting some choices that turn out to be, well, pretty ill-advised. Nikki's magic escalates to unfortunate heights when a mishap with goblin fruit induces a Christina Rosetti bacchanal of orgiastic proportions. As she is saved yet again from the gluttonous masses by her mercurial folklorist, Nikki is suitably chastened and shunned by Bartleby and Squonk. Meanwhile, Annie finally stumbles upon the key to he...

Chapter 5: Annie finally performs a successful séance with the assistance of some circling context, Internal Family Systems applications and, perhaps more controversially, just a lil’ bit of low-key possession. The two begin to bond over a shared appreciation for Patrick Swayze’s hotness in Ghost and Annie is somewhat gratified to know that her knee pain is equally unpleasant for the possessor as the possessee. As Annie ponders the utility of spectral validation for chronic pain suffere...

Chapter 4: Nikki's culinary tinkering results in a delightfully strange outcome: people like her food and want to pay to eat it! However Bartleby's hijinks are just getting started, as he parks himself in a cemetery and starts upsetting the funereal statuary. Over at the Annie's abode--aka Spooky Central--Annie summons the courage to read the ghost-authored story she channeled during her possession ordeal and finds it even more sad and disturbing than she anticipated. Fortunately, the mystica...

Chapter 3: Nikki continues to be driven around the country by her sentient food truck, newly dubbed “Bartleby” for his “I would prefer not to” energy. She encounters a mysteriously tragical creature out in the woods, whose buckets of tears prove useful in cleaning up all remaining raccoon poop. Meanwhile, Annie learns that her haunted house was once owned by a sea captain who disappeared without a trace. Tiptoeing around malevolent clams and escalating haunting antics, Annie resolves to...

In Chapter 2 of Spokelore, Annie finds herself locked out of her new seaside Victorian manor, which has turned out to be rather more temperamental than she'd bargained for. Surely it's nothing that a little relational mediation can't fix? Meanwhile, Nikki flees her Jersey AirBnb for forests unknown, whereupon she gets lost, collects mushrooms that are most assuredly edible, and finds herself strangely drawn to a forsaken food truck sitting abandoned and alone. But all is not well with Annie, ...

Chapter 1 of Spokelore begins with best friends Annie and Nikki at a crossroads between the mundane obligations of capitalism and the lure of unseen mystical forces. In a fit of breakup-induced mania, Annie has bought an abandoned Victorian house on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, one that she's never seen but feels compelled to possess. Nikki is returning from a disappointing year spent researching mythical stories in Scotland, resigning herself to a humdrum existence in New Jersey...