Reception at High Tower — Dewey Ward

THE MONSTROUS TRUTH OF HIGH TOWER

When Maurie Thomas returned against her will to High Tower, it was as if she were setting foot in her ancestral manor for the first time. The lovely young girl had but recently emerged from the darkness of insanity, and her memory had been destroyed.

But if she did not know the strange secret of High Tower, there were those who did. Her imperious grandmother, with her bitter hate for Maurie...her father, seeking solace in drink...the silent, handsome groom...the whispering servants...

Here, where the very walls and corridors seemed rank with evil, Maurie felt rising from the icy depths of her mind the horror that would not let her go...

“PLEASE DON'T SEND ME BACK AGAIN!”

Maurie remembered it all too clearly -- the cold room with its barred windows, the dining room where forks and knives were counted after every meal, and the others, with their gibberings, their mad visions, and the sudden outbreaks of violence.

They had let Maurie out -- to return to High Tower. She had convinced them she was not really insane, that she was cured.

But now, as it had once before in the forgotten past, High Tower was claiming her as victim. And once again, the terrified young girl clung to her sanity by a single frail thread -- a thread that somebody wanted desperately to snap…