Lovecraft and Hammer Horror, to name a few. You go into that dark space willingly.'Ĭhris Priestley’s unsettling and macabre ghost story collections – The Tales of Terror – are a series of uncanny portmanteau narratives, an uncanny concoction of all things Gothic from M.R. It also acknowledges the transgressive attraction the evil can have. The Gothic is an acknowledgment of that blurred line between the fear of death and the thrill of fear. I don’t think this is always the dismal exercise it seems. Michael departs on a journey as far away from Hawton Mere as possible.'I think that some people – maybe most people – do not want to look into the shadows. To escape from the flames she tries to jump of the balcony (just like Margret) but she also drowns in the moat. Michael nearly escapes but Charlotte is trapped inside. In his fall Stephen pushes over a candle and the whole room sets on fire. Whereupon Charlotte kills him with a pair of scissors. When Charlotte finds out he knows everything, she tries to push him from the balcony too, but sir Stephen can prevent that. At the Christmas dinner he notices lady Charlotte wearing the same ring. He also gets horrible dreams about sir Stephens wife who was pushed by someone with a green ring. Michael gets the feeling that Margret didn’t jump of the balcony but that she was pushed from there. He almost drowns but is saved just in time by a servant. When he goes for a walk around the castle he sees Margret jumping of the balcony into the moat below, then he feels someone pushing him into the moat.

Michael gets more and more the feeling that something strange is going on at Hawton Mere.

One day he finds a portrait of sir Stephens wife, Margret, and she looks just like the lady he saw from the carriage. At night, he hears strange sounds all around the castle but when he gets up to check it out, everything is quiet. But when he gets out of the carriage to help, the woman is gone.Īs he arrives at the castle he meets the strange residents: sir Stephen whose wife died in strange circumstances (she committed suicide by jumping of the balcony) and his sister lady Charlotte. On his way to Hawton Mere he notices through the window of the carriage a woman in wet clothes looking at him in horror. This man is sir Stephen and he owns a big castle named Hawton Mere. When his mother suddenly dies he has to go live with a friend of his father (his father died years ago in a war). The book tells the story of Michael Vyner.

The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley