Archives: O'Lantern Chapters

Nearly-sixteen-year-old Annalise Grisholme dies in a mysterious fire saving her younger siblings. Purgatory awaits her, to her shock, but not like any afterlife she expected. The Hallow is a vast hinterland that offers a home to legends and dark fairytales that used to be only real in nightmares. The Creature owns a bookshop and usually pretends not to hear when someone unwisely utters the name “Frankenstein.” Nevermore makes puns about his writer, Edgar “A. Poe-et” and has a penchant for whiskey. Arachne spins the fabrics for their odd little “town” and complains about the quality of modern-day textiles. As an actual human soul, Anna’s an oddity and they make sure she knows this. All the while, a blithe trickster of ages past makes the trip between the land of the dead and the living constantly, ferrying lost souls as the only monster able to do so when it isn’t Hallow’s Eve. Jack o’Lantern has lasted centuries, running from the past mistakes of his previous life. Days of childcare are long gone, but a precocious teenager who refuses the Hallow as her ultimate resting place throws his eternity of penance into turmoil with her insistence he returns her to her family home.