SYNOPSIS:

Viola Kroll emigrated from Russia to the US when she was 12 yo, after the tragic death of her father, and spent her first year there living with her widowed aunt - a wretched year she succeeded in forgetting. Now, freshly divorced, she finds refuge in the isolated cottage bequeathed to her by her reclusive relative. At first, it seems like a perfect place to lick her wounds, but soon, she starts feeling a ‘presence’… It’s gentle and accommodating while she submits to its lull, but turns murderous when she tries to leave. From that point on, her only chance of breaking free and saving the man who loves her is to solve the mystery of her childhood friend’s death (something that He tries hard to prevent from happening), and to be willing to pay with her life for her past mistake. ‘He, Of The House’ is a ‘slow burn’ horror borrowing from Slavic demonology and medieval European lore. The bulk of the story takes place in an isolated old house and the surrounding woods, in a place reminiscent of rural Maine, and revolves around two main characters: a troubled young woman Viola Kroll and her love interest Finn Buchan. But ‘He, of the House’ offers an unusual take on the ‘damsel in distress trapped in a haunted house’ theme: 1. Its monster is a home spirit fed by the energies of the past and present inhabitants, a cross of Domovoi (a Slavic house goblin) and Incubus. 2. The protagonist is a deeply flawed, mentally unstable woman; 3. It is she who saves her lover and not the other way around; 4. To survive He, she must not only confront her insanity, but also rely on it.