If you’d rather listen to this essay in a browser or as a podcast, click the audio voiceover (“listen to post”) above. Read this if you need instructions on how to listen to episodes on your podcast app.

If you’re reading this in your inbox, you can find a shareable, web-friendly version at ashleighellskells.substack.com, where all my other essays and podcasts live. You can request to follow me on Facebook here and Instagram here, and I’m happy to hear from you at aellsworthkeller@gmail.com.

It’s October, and fall has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Like a lot of places I’ve lived, September is a late summer month, a bridge month, and it’s lovely, but by the end of it I’m ready for a chill in the air, apple cinnamon things, and that unsettled feeling that comes from the knowledge that hauntings are gonna happen for one month only and I better be ready.

Reflection Questions:

* What’s your favorite scary movie?

* Has anything strange or supernatural happened to you or someone you know? What did you think of it?

* Are you afraid of clowns? (You must submit a three-page essay, single-spaced, with at least four arguments proving your point, and you will be graded on grammar, humor, and believability).

Image: me and my cousin Ryan, Trick-or-Treating, c. 1985. Photo by Grandmother.

Get full access to Home is a Changeling at ashleighellskells.substack.com/subscribe