What is a story exactly? A lesson, an escape, a warning? Perhaps it's a light that shines through an endless expanse of darkness, a beacon of hope in times of need, or, it could be exactly what it sounds like,

something that's told purely for entertainment, meant to run you through a gamut of emotions,

to connect with someone else's experiences. Stories are empathy, a tool to share sadness,

fear, joy, envy, a tool of connection. But then again, sometimes they aren't.

Sometimes they're the most dangerous kind of lie.

Nice.

I try.

The sea has power.

We've always felt that, haven't we?

There's a reason you see so many stories with water as a conduit, between worlds and between

lives, even across death.

Enter Payne Manor.

This vast structure on the shores of York, Maine, was the lifelong dream of

entrepreneur and amateur architect Joseph Payne, and it began its long life just over 50 years after the

Fox Sisters emerged onto the public scene, with a ghost story in the start of a new religion.

By the time Payne Manor completed its construction in the waiting days of 1901, spiritualism still flourished in the Western

world. Good, respectable families turned their parlors into seance rooms, kept their talking boards

next to their fine china. Not Joseph Payne, though. He famously didn't

hold with that kind of nonsense. Too bad for him, really. Joseph Payne died in the autumn of 1902,

in a rocking chair on his porch overlooking the sea, not even a year after the completion of his dream home.

The cause of his death was unknown, but the house still stood even so.

Its name remained even if he did not.

...