Every Saturday, Marcus's family hosts guests no one can remember.
The closer he gets to the truth, the more his mother begins to disappear.
For twenty-six years, the guests have come to dinner. No one can remember their faces.
When Marcus Ashford returns to his childhood home, he expects strained reunions and unfinished conversations. What he doesn't expect is the gap in his memory: a lifelong tradition of weekly dinners with "old family friends" he can't picture. Can't name. Can't recall at all, no matter how hard he tries.
The house is unchanged. The table is always set for six. Something in the walls remembers what the family refuses to name.
Marcus begins to notice small things that are not quite right. Guests who never eat. Reflections that lag. Shadows bending the wrong way. Wine glasses that stay full no matter how much is poured. His mother has spent decades protecting this household from a truth too dangerous to speak aloud.
Every question has a cost. Curiosity gets paid for in blood. In memory. In pieces of yourself you don't notice missing.
Some houses are haunted. This one is obligated.
The Hospitality is a gothic horror novella of inherited bargains and generational sacrifice: haunted house unease, ritual horror, the slow suffocation of family silence.
Perfect for readers who love:
- Gothic and haunted house horror
- Quiet, psychological dread
- Uncanny guests and ritual horror
- Folk-horror and cosmic undertones
- Stories about memory, inheritance, and family curses
For fans of Shirley Jackson and Susan Hill. For anyone who knows the worst hauntings are the ones you're not allowed to mention.
Come to dinner. Mind your manners. Don't ask what they are.
