The Painted Ones

A house that remembers. A past that won’t stay buried. A legacy painted in secrets.When Marla Renwick inherits a crumbling Victorian mansion from a great-aunt she barely knew, she’s expecting dust and disrepair. What she discovers instead is a place alive with whispers, tugging her into a nightmare she can’t escape. It starts with a mural: a girl with eyes that track her every step. Then come the diaries, brittle pages spilling tales of a family undone by obsession, grief, and something called “the painted ones”—children trapped in the walls, their faces staring out from the plaster, their lives seeping into hers.The house isn’t just haunted; it’s hungry. Red balloons drift through Marla’s dreams, trailed by echoes of a carnival she swears she’s never seen. The painted girl, Anna, isn’t content to stay on the wall. She calls to Marla, her voice a lure into a timeless prison where love curdles into something dark. Reality frays at the edges, and Marla can’t tell if she’s losing her mind or if the house is rewriting it.With every step deeper into the mansion’s history, Marla teeters on the edge of becoming one of the painted ones herself. She has to unravel the truth before the walls claim her for good. The Painted Ones will hook you, haunt you, and dare you to turn the page—just don’t expect to sleep easy after.