Over the centuries, the inhabitants of author Edith Wharton's fictional mansion, Kerfol, are haunted by the ghosts of dead dogs, fractured relationships, and the bitter taste of revenge.

Drawing on dark fantasy and the fairy tale as well as horror and wild humor, ten acclaimed authors pay homage to the gothic tale in wide-ranging stories of the supernatural and surreal.

Lungewater / Joan Aiken -- Morgan Roehmar's boys / Vivian Vande Velde -- Watch and wake / M.T. Anderson -- Forbidden brides of the faceless slaves in the nameless house of the night of dread desire / Neil Gaiman -- The dead and the moonstruck / Caitlin R. Kiernan -- Have no fear, Crumpot is here! / Barry Yourgrau -- Stone tower / Janni Lee Simner -- The prank / Gregory Maguire -- Writing on the wall / Celia Rees -- Endings / Garth Nix.

After being expelled from school, thirteen-year-old David Eliot is sent to Groosham Grange, a spooky and sinister boarding school where nothing seems quite right.

Ashley Reeves, journalist, receives a letter promising him a once-in-a-lifetime story. The only thing is, his life is exactly what it might cost him. The letter is from Reginald Mather, a man who at first seems no more than an eccentric collector of insects, living in isolation on a remote island. But when Ashley finds himself stranded with Mather and unearths the horrific truth behind the collector's past, he is thrown headlong into a macabre nightmare that quickly spirals out of control. Ashley's life is in danger. . . .And Mather is not the only enemy. . . . Gruesome, compelling, and terrifying, The Hand of the Devil will make you never want to leave the house without bug spray again.

A sixteen-year-old girl suffers a near-death experience in which her twin sister, who died in an accident twelve years before, returns to forcibly share her body.

In a land that has been at war so long that no one remembers the reason for fighting, the shapeshifters who rule the two factions agree to marry in the hope of bringing peace, despite deep-seated fear and distrust of each other.

Amelia, long a ghost, forms a strong bond with eighteen-year-old Joshua, who nearly drowned where she did and who awakens in her long-forgotten senses and memories even as Eli, a spirit, tries to draw her away.