Dr. Moira Ready is developing a cutting-edge brain-computer interface that allows users to program their dreams, like a gaming console plugged into your brain. However, her latest tests, conducted at the remote Northwoods Sleep Center, have been a string of failures, thrusting her into a dark gothic dreamworld unlike anything she has programmed. . .
“The Ghosts of Glenmirror” appears in Castle of Horror 4: Women Running from Houses, a gothic-themed anthology edited by Jason Henderson and In Churl Yo. The cover is an example of its inspiration; covers of gothic romance novels almost always featured a woman running away from an ominous house, mansion, or castle, as you can see for yourself if you Google “women running from houses.” The excerpt below is from the opening scene of the story.
The Ghosts of Glenmirror
Moira stood in the sunroom of Glenmirror manor looking out over the sea. The name of the room—like the name of the manor itself—was optimistic to the point of irony; the world outside seemed always a grayscale nightmare. Dark gray clouds scudded across a minimally lighter gray sky over the deep gray swells of the sea. Or ocean. Just which body of water Glenmirror overlooked from its slate-gray bluff was one of many details she could never quite put her finger on. Her memories were as insubstantial as the soft gray fogs, fed by sea and moor, that often billowed around the mansion. At those times, with no other landscape feature visible, Glenmirror appeared as a castle floating atop the clouds, a surreal vision that may as well have been reality, for the mansion, even on the ground, was just as cloistered and inescapable. . . .
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