I loved the prose style of this one.

“The cold earth speaks. I enter the earth, I follow the worms. I flee the creeping mist—I flee Death—into the arms of the Dead.”

3/ #AScareADay

Ironically, the people of this town must play dead to stay alive when the icy mist comes.

What happens to people who live alone? Why does the burden fall on their loved ones?

Like yesterday’s story, this is a bittersweet one of love and grief. But was this ending a happy ending?

2/ #AScareADay

Ashley, of course, has her own untreated heartbreak that she has allowed to fester.

Physician, heal thyself!

3/ #AScareADay

Each heartbreak that Ashley plants in her garden grows into a different kind of flower. I’m intrigued by if there’s meaning behind the different flowers they grow into.

If your heartbreak grew into a beautiful flower, would you want to keep it, abandon it, or destroy it?

2/ #AScareADay

A recurring theme in this month’s stories is a protagonist whose perceptions cannot be corroborated by companions. In this case, the painter sees a monster on the canvas, but others see a brilliant self portrait. What do you do when others mistake a monster for you?

3/ #AScareADay

Just like Basil in The Picture of Dorian Gray, the painter in this comic fears that he has put too much of himself into his most recent painting. Only, in this case, his fear comes true in a very literal sense…

2/ #AScareADay

And this time around, I paid a lot more attention to the article authors and their relationship to each other.

Every time, though, I giggle at this title: Dead and Delicious II: Eat What You Want, and If People Don’t Like It, Eat Them Too.

3/ #AScareADay

This story is still one of my faves and I get something new from it every time.

This time these lines struck me as Carmilla-like:

“prone to intemperate moods and a tendency to attach herself with sudden fits of feverish fondness to one or more of the other girls.”

2/ #AScareADay

This story gets quite gory, but the scariest part is the psychological effect Good Wife Henny has on those who interact with her. Just a conversation with her will make you grin and giggle and dismiss any suspicions…
Is Rochelle’s neurodivergence what allows her to see through it?

3/ #AScareADay

Rochelle struggles to communicate, but she knows a secret that could save lives. Thankfully the nameless narrator has the patience and curiosity to sit with and listen to the child the rest of the household dismiss as mad.

2/ #AScareADay

“The city fathers smash champagne bottles across the horse's legs
to christen the statue, and Oñate's spirit remembers the chainsaw”

I like the image of one spirit that inhabits all statues of Oñate and is tormented by the memory of the vengeance visited upon a single incarnation.

2/ #AScareADay

We know these spirits can manipulate her emotions, because they make her lonely when they want the house filled with company.
Was Eleanor truly happy, or was this an artificial emotion induced by the ghosts? And does that difference matter?

Were they right to board up the house?

3/ #AScareADay

The ghosts that haunt Eleanor’s home are benevolent…or are they? They keep her happy, leave money around, and help her discover pleasure and comfort.

But they won’t let her leave, and her children don’t want to stay in the house. “Can evil be needy?”

2/ #AScareADay

A mad scientist of the culinary arts, Javier seeks to both revive the dead and remake her as the perfect woman--catering to the pleasure of others, eager to be consumed.

In life, Una was a performer. In death, she is a cheap party trick, unable to live up to impossible expectations.

3/ #AScareADay

Like the automaton in Hoffman's story, Una cannot quite speak as humans do. Instead, she mostly repeats words that have been said to her. This seems enough for her creator Javier, but her family isn't fooled. This is not the daughter they lost.

2/ #AScareADay