“May I have your name, sir?” asked the mousy young woman who stood just beyond the threshold of the concave wooden door.

It was always the same spot. The exact same spot. First it was a money plant. Then a bird of paradise several weeks later. Then an aloe which was quickly followed by a schefflera.

I was picking a piece of viscera out of my teeth with a thin shard of femur when I received a communication from a littermate, one I long assumed had either trudged off to Alaska with the grizzlies or finally fallen into a ravine as dinner for the coyotes.

Words, like incantations, can serve as the backbone of any Halloween spectacle. Stories complement images to conjure a delightfully spooky mood.

'Ethereal Realm' is a vision, as seen by Mary Sweeney (as Horror Floral) and photographed by Tracy Whiteside.

Spirits peer out the bay windows of the breakfast room trying to see what’s going on in the world outside. Black vines grow around the windows as black birds and mice dance around the room.

Perhaps you have driven down Sheridan Road passed the Harley Clarke Mansion and seen its windows alight with scenes of not-so-scary Halloween horrors.

One Halloween he picked up a book / And read in the library’s nook / The story, bewitching and clever, / Cursed him to read there forever

Under the full moon, in the dark of night / Beware the bedeviled conservatory / If you witness the spectral birds take flight / You’ll be trapped in their haunted aviary

One Halloween night in 1927, they gathered after dark / All the fellas and dames met for a swanky shindig at the Harley Clarke / Every Halloween, they return to cut a rug underneath the full moon / Joined in their revelry by all their furry friends, the resident raccoons

Once upon a midnight dreary, / A raven broke into the house / At first we were a little leery / He sat there quiet as a mouse

The Skeleton Sisters give many a fright / With their macabre merrymaking / They save their spooky tricks for Halloween night / And leave all the mortals shaking

Artist @hbatsel brings the party to the Harley Clarke Mansion in Evanston. Her carefree ghouls and mischievous creatures will haunt the windows of the house — and our website — all month long.

You may be wondering why we’ve called our annual Halloween spectacle A House, Haunted. Is the Harley Clarke Mansion in Evanston actually haunted?

Alison Aldrich was one of the evil geniuses who helped concoct the annual Rags to Witches Halloween event at Ragdale.

A murder of crows ascends the staircase together / An image made ominous by their ink-black feather / But this flight does not portend a gloomy foretelling / There shines a hopeful future for this bookish dwelling

We ghouls at Artists Book House welcome you to the haunted halls of the Harley Clarke Mansion — virtually, that is.