Horror devotees will recall the story of the infamous gathering at a lake house outside of Geneva, Switzerland in the summer of 1816 where a small party celebrated the settling darkness by reading ghost stories aloud to one another. Present were the host, Lord Byron, and his guests: Percy Bysshe...

Riding with the devil at midnight. Dancing with witches under the ripening moon. Rattling chains and moaning ghosts. When you really get down to it, there are a startling number of traditions that are far more sinister than your usual red-suit wearing, welcome-lapped (don't go there) Santas. I'm not talking...

One dark and early morning of late, when the fog horns signaled low in the distance and the view of shrouded Victorian rooftops outside my kitchen window seemed particularly haunting, the ghost again made its presence known. This may sound like the opening to a short story but it is...

Of late I have found myself up well past the Witching Hour but not for the usual reasons: freaky movies, wild parties, the muse seizing me by the collar and insisting I write that story down right now! No,my insomnia was of a far more domestic nature than that. I...

I was probably seven years old the first time I dabbled in the fine art of Metaphysics. A mysterious gift arrived from my mother's aunt, wrapped in bright red paper and suspiciously like the shape of a Monopoly board. My sister and I were gleeful to discover that it was...

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about vampires. Not those clingy ex-boyfriend kind of emotional vampires that end up stalking you, nor the ritual vampires who host balls and craft fangs (though they are cool, too!) And not even the True Blood or Twilight Saga type of vampires. I...

It happened again. It was coming on midnight and I found myself awake and alone with my baby boy, staring at a lumpy childlike figure that seemed to be a ghost. We had been visiting a friend a good hour away, and loving hubby was driving around and around in...

You may have read recently about this couple in California who staged the most incredibly awesome engagement photos of themselves. To announce their engagement, the couple posted pictures of the two of themselves in a lovely, wheaty field, picnicking and holding hands in the perfect sunlit moment, when suddenly a...

Skeletons in the closet? Try skeletons in the floorboards, or beneath them. In recent news the house for sale on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea going for 4.1 million Swedish kronor, or about $650,000, complete with visible skeleton in the cellar floor (Goths, eat your...