Status Updates From The Alleged Haunting of B——...

Bored. Whoever made the ebook didn't do a good job. Can't tell who is talking. The Victorian language also is annoying. Its only 178 or so pages and I am struggling through it like its 500. I can't really recommend it.

Interesting that one of the partygoers - I go back and forth between calling them that and 'investigators' in my head; I can't take them seriously as either - persists in only seeing ill-formed spectral lights where the others see full-fledged apparitions; Randles suggests in UFO Reality that some odd atmospheric lightshow or other might be one of the precursors - or even triggers - for paranormal visions.

'The Colonel reported that about, or just before, six, he had heard footsteps over his head. There is no room over No. 8, which is mostly a built-out bow, and the servants had not moved before 6.30. (If they moved then, it was contrary to their habits!)' Nudge nudge, chortle chortle; we all know how lazy the help can be, don't we, readers?

'The upper housemaid thinks ghosts the proper thing, and tolerates them along with the high families to which she is accustomed. The under housemaid [...] owns to discomfort, and is scoffed at by the other servants, who think it all part of her having been only a "general" till she came here. [...] I have had a girl out of the village to make up the linen, and she, we notice, is careful to go home before dark.'

'I may here mention, no one is ever disturbed the first night of their stay.'

'The register of the parish of L——, in which B—— House is situated, mentions under the date July 14, 1873, the death of Sarah N—— —' OH FOR GOD'S SAKE did the Victorians know nothing of the pseudonym? The family history - and, yes, I do have the 'History of Hill House' music from the 1963 'Haunting' playing in my head - has been initials and em dashes for three solid pages; it's worse than the 'begats'.

From the diary of Father H--: 'In both these rooms [bedrooms #8 and #3 on the little map] I heard the loud and inexplicable noises every night, but on two or three nights, in addition to these, another noise affrighted me - a sound of somebody or something falling against the door. It seemed, at the time, as if a calf or big dog would make such a noise. Why these particular animals came into my head I cannot tell.'

The roster of spirit noises at B-- House includes - just as in Jackson's Hill House, in which this text is name-checked - the crashing of invisible cannonballs against bedroom doors. 'The fact that the sounds appear to have been inaudible to every one except Father H-- is a strong argument in favour of their subjective, or hallucinatory, character.'

Con: it's a LARGE PRINT EDITION with a much fuglier cover than the one I wanted (I know I should read the 'Used & New' descriptions more carefully, but then there really should be separate Amazon entries for the books that LOUDLY OVERENUNCIATE). Pro: there are cute little Chrystery-style floor-plans (four attics just seems like overkill, somehow) for my cross-referencing pleasure. WE'LL CALL THIS ONE A DRAW.