Crowded House

A home occupied by the living, or a house inhabited by the dead?
Isolated and struggling to cope, April Hudson is haunted by the ghosts of her past, whilst her future is threatened by evil portents. But how much of her experience is the product of a troubled mind and how much is due to the influence of the malign environment besieging her?
Malevolent shadows are dancing in the windows again.
Twisted thoughts are tormenting her once more.
Even her young son Jack is behaving oddly. Is that why the other children in the village won’t play with him? And who is the mysterious new friend he talks of so often but who April has never met? She wants to believe it is just a lonely child’s innocuous fantasy, but she can’t help worrying that it might be the invention of a failing mind. April cannot confide in her husband either. She knows what he thinks: that she is, was and always will be mentally unhinged. Unless there is another explanation. After all, this is a very old house in a corner of England long known as a ‘troubled place’. Could Jack’s imaginary friend be a forlorn ghost, or something even worse?
Alone and sinking fast, like a witch thrown into a pond, April has only her harrowing thoughts and secret terrors for company. As the pressure builds, can she survive this latest, darkest crisis or will the shards from a shattered past finally rip her apart?
(Also includes the novelette, 'Our Friends From south America'.)