The fog lay thick upon the moors of Eldridge Hollow that November eve, as though the very breath of the earth had frozen mid-sigh. In the crumbling manor of Blackhorn Hall, where ivy strangled the gargoyles and the clocks had long since surrendered their chimes, Miss Elizabeth Blackhorn sat alone by the hearth.

In the crooked little town of Hollowmere, where the fog clung to the cobblestones like a secret, lived Ebenezer Grimsby, a man who had arrived on the Mayflower with nothing but a scowl and a trunk full of grudges. Every year, on the 31st of October, the townsfolk draped their quaint homes in cobwebs, carved grinning faces into pumpkins, and let their children run wild in sheets and masks. Ebenezer hated it. The laughter grated on his ears like rusted hinges. The flickering ja