Dan Poblocki

Poppy Caldwell is an orphan who keeps seeing a figure standing behind her in the mirror at the group home where she lives, but she does not associate this ghost with the letter that mysteriously appears in her file, claiming to be from a long-lost aunt, and inviting her to Larkspur House--and she is just one of five children who find themselves gathered in this strange house with a deadly past, and apparently no intention of letting the children escape....

Four of the orphans who were lured to Larkspur House have made it out of the shadow house alive, but Poppy, Dash, Azumi, and Dylan are still on the grounds of the estate and far from safety--and unless they solve the mystery of what it is that the house wants from them they may never escape.

Gilbert is visiting his injured brother, Ant, in the hospital, when he sees a shadowed figure leave behind a satchel filled with old cassette tapes. Despite a strange, garbled voicemail telling him "Don't listen to the tapes," Gilbert can't resist playing them and listening to the chilling stories they tales of cursed seashells, of doors torn through the fabric of the universe, of cemeteries that won't let you leave, of a classroom skeleton that hungers...