A decaying mansion. A vanished woman. A man unraveling in the dark.

From M.L. Bullock, the queen of Southern Gothic fiction and author of The Seven Sisters and The Ghost Lights of Forrest Field, comes a chilling new novella that drips with atmosphere, dread, and broken memory.

Silas Thornbrook has spent decades rotting quietly inside Ashwood Manor—his family's once-proud estate now reduced to cracked plaster, warped floorboards, and ghost-thick silence. The house is falling apart, and so is Silas, held together only by the threadbare rituals of survival and the weekly arrival of one soul who still remembers him: Martha.

She brings food. A nod. A fleeting reminder that the world still turns beyond the kudzu-choked gates of Ashwood.

Until one Thursday... she doesn't come.

And something else does.

When a figure wearing Martha's face appears on the path, Silas must decide what's real, what's memory, and whether the true haunting lives outside his door—or within the house itself. As Ashwood awakens around him, hungry and sentient, Silas finds himself locked in a battle against the past, the present, and the thing that calls itself Martha.

Return to Me is a Southern Gothic novella steeped in slow-burn horror, psychological decay, and rich atmospheric detail. Perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead, and V. Castro's Southern horror.