Your grandmother Agnes Pell raised you every summer in her Vermont farmhouse. She taught you to make apple butter, to set the table properly, and never to open the back door after dark.

Now she's gone, and she left the farmhouse and her recipe book to you. Not to her children. To you.

The family is gathering for the funeral, and nobody is pleased. Aunt Maggie wants the house sold by Christmas. Uncle Dale wants the land. Your cousin Tessa wants to know why Grandma called her the night she died. And Eli, the quiet neighbor who chopped Agnes's firewood for ten years, keeps glancing at the tree line like he's waiting for something.

The recipe book is full of ordinary dishes with strange notes in the margins. Soup that makes people honest. Bread to keep the dead quiet. Pie for protection.

The last page is a supper for Halloween night.

It has your name on it. And one ingredient nobody will name.

🎭 Your Character Create your own adult protagonist, male or female. You're Agnes's grandchild, home after years away.

🔥 What to Expect

• 🥧 A family mystery told through recipes, margins, and slips of the tongue
• 🏚️ Grief, old resentments, and warmth worth protecting
• 🪓 A quiet neighbor who knows more than he says
• 🌲 Something in the woods that was always fed on time
• 🕛 A countdown to Halloween night, with no fixed ending

Six days until Halloween. The kitchen still smells like her. 🕯️

#halloween2026