The Inhabitants

 The Inhabitants

Nilda Ricci is an artist and painter who inherited an old Victorian house filled with unusual hidden secrets, voices, paintings and more. The house was once her mother’s a glass lower so inherited in a will from Nilda’s aunt. The house was a creation of architect Nathaniel Farleigh, and the rest is eerie, frightening and creepy. The former housekeeper is sent there and is to remain as Helen has secrets if her own plus her next-door neighbor Graham Emmerly gives you the creeps, created a potion fueled by a strange herbal potion giving it to Nila hoping to increase her artistic ability and yet the effects are not what they seem. She is a weekend painter and is inspired and hovels over her work but the painting she’s need commissioned to do haunts her as the subject comes into view the painting entered in a festival and her reaction and statement that she does not want it back shocking. Her college friend Toni is a positive effect and she’s nicknamed The Fixer because she’s able to remedy and fix issues that her friends need . Toni shares her abused past and relates that others were abused by this teacher at school. But the subject of the commissioned painting is this man and now she’s aiming to take him down. Justice!

Graham is her neighbor and a chemistry teacher with an odd collection of books on toxicology. The house has serious adverse reactions on both Nilda and her daughter who seems bent on telling her about Alex her imaginary friend, and the outbursts and explaining why and why he’s there frightening. Then the author takes us back to certain times in the past related to Farleigh House, her neighbor and Henry, Farleigh’s son and what Helen shares about him the houses found by her child in the attic that she wants out and hidden panels, strange closets and the episodes with her child as she wants to complete the painting for the money, the housekeeper who works for free and the neighbor she falls for and fear, imaginary friend in the woods and odd remembrances of her mother and her daughters connection to her in her dreams. The house has been affecting Nilda and her appearance and face needs direction and a doctor to assess her. The tonic or potion Graham has been giving her exactly what it is and why do we get a feeling he’s not what we think he is.

The pieces before the chapters begin revolving around physical effects caused by the house, unexplained phenomena, intelligent and haunting plus spirits and that they are aware of their surroundings plus Graham’s journal entries and a 1978 column by Dr. Clifford Emmerly eerie and more. Then the hidden uneasy feeling about an article from the past leads us to wonder about Graham, the truth about Helen and her daughter’s obsession with the house, the oddities and her imaginary friend. What does she see in the crystal Graham gave her and how will this all turn out?

Then reading about a boy named Alex was he Helen’s son and the biology textbook in Graham’s study and The bad kids house what did her daughter mean? Hadn’t Arthur Emmerlys victim have multiple organ failure? Then what about Alex and spending time around this house and as Eula Joy stated?

A raging storm and huge encounter and a memory of Helen singing about what? Graham gone where was her daughter and was the killer of a friend? Then a true nightmare as Graham appears was he going to drug Nilda how does he wind up dead and an article in in the Halifax Sun sets in motion allegations that were ignored about Tenneman but the painting sets off the need for justice. What you learn next is shocking and harsh realities sudden changes and Nilda now has the power to rid herself of the things in the house that created the doubts and fears hoping her daughter will settle into their new lives but is this the end or a beginning? A house that dominated the people living in it and a child almost possessed by it. How did Graham die and what role did Helen play in the lives of the past as author Beth Castrodale allows us along with Nilda to enter the house , see the spirits endure the supernatural and become with her one of the Inhabitants. A story that will haunt you and make you wonder would I live in a mansion like that?

Fran Lewis just reviews