An old and hungry thing wakes beneath the house on Wood Island. It calls out to another generation of children. In J.D. Barker’s supernatural mystery, Something I Keep Upstairs, a circle of New Castle teenagers digs up the unholy secrets of those who came before them.
When the hermit Geraldine Rote dies without clear cause, her grandson Spivey inherits Wood Island and the historic house upon it. He plans to spend the summer as a carefree sixteen-year-old rather than submitting to another round of cancer treatments. With the help of the mysterious estate lawyer Marston, Spivey escapes his parents’ reach.
At first, the island becomes a perpetual party, drawing an endless stream of kids and alcohol. But only a few learn the truth behind Wood Island’s dark stories.
Billy Hasler goes along with the strange rituals that self-styled witch Alesia introduces to their friend group. He defends Spivey from their parents trying to wrestle legal control of his inheritance away. But both on Wood Island and among the older generation of New Castle, Billy begins to see a dangerous influence overtake the people he knows best.
A missing girl, a doorway to the dead, and a demand for sacrifice leave Billy unable to tell who might get—or already have—blood on their hands.
Billy struggles to protect himself and his friends without being ousted from their ghastly project. Local Police Chief Whaley roots through decades-old evidence to figure out the strange cycles of death surrounding Wood Island. Among those who were already claimed by the thing on that solitary rock, some push the kids away from that same fate while others lure them further in, eager to feed the beast.
Drawing on the real-world ghost stories of New England, Barker creates a familiar small-town setting before revealing the horrors beneath the surface.
The cast of teens embody the emotional struggles and reckless passion of adolescence. Spivey becomes swept up in the excitement of his inheritance and the social standing it gives him. He doesn’t consider the danger he’s putting himself and his fellows in—not until it’s too late to back out. Billy, even as he worries his friends might be taking their rituals too far, can’t bring himself to abandon his girlfriend Kira Woodward.
Everyone wants to belong among their friends and loved ones. The only question is how much they’re willing to sacrifice for it.
These mundane, relatable character conflicts both contrast and give emotional weight to the growing supernatural terrors. We fear and root for the teens because they feel like people we might know in our own lives—or might have been ourselves.
This grounding character work makes each mystery impactful as Barker ties the tragedies of the island to those of the cast themselves.
Something I Keep Upstairs holds a wealth of mystery fitting to its New England inspiration.
The implausible coincidences around Geraldine’s death lead Whaley to the strangeness of Marston’s family law practice and the particulars of the will, which in turn only reveal further questions about the sinister power within Wood Island itself. The abduction of fifteen-year-old Lily Dwyer hangs over myriad characters as a dreadful implication of what their peers or family might be capable of.
As the supernatural threats become undeniable, Barker reveals a blood-chilling history that confirms just how much danger the characters have welcomed upon themselves. Small details seeded throughout the early parts of the story take on new, terrible implications.
By the time Billy learns what sort of beast his friends have awoken, they’re all caught in its jaws.
Over the course of a Stygian summer storm, Something I Keep Upstairs pits its characters against a roaring, famished death. Uncovering the past might give them the chance to avoid repeating it, but not without a hair-raising fight.
A tale of adolescence in the shadow of sacrifice, a mystery that relishes the mythic power of the dead, and a relentless supernatural thriller, Something I Keep Upstairs will—like its ancient villain—grasp myriad readers with no intention of letting go.
