An invitation to feast with ghosts is an invitation for one. The guest of honor is you, so dress yourself well. At the stroke of midnight, the lacquered coach comes for you. It will drive on if the invitation is ignored, but it is a standing invitation, and the coachman will call again.
As you sup, savor each dreadful course. Mind not the pale fingers, shedding dust like moths’ wings, that crimped the crust on the pie. Shrug off the grinding of the brittle boulanger’s arms as they crack while kneading dough for grey loaves, with a sound like dry corn trodden by a tired and ancient mule. Compliment the potager as he cools your broth with breath reserved in papery lungs for a thousand years. And waste not a single drop as you tip your bowl, not toward, but away, in the polite fashion. When the direful carver serves the inscrutable meat… eat. This is a solitary feast prepared expressly for you.
The stories shared at this feast are not of the persuasive or comforting kind. We offer no hopeful proof of existence beyond death, nor are we gentle guides to help spirits trapped between worlds find peace. At this feast, we celebrate the mindless fear which is real for each of us, at a time of reckoning when the unknown other, jealous of the spirit in your breast and the warm blood in your veins, will not be moved by bargaining, reasoning, or compromise. Then the true repast begins…