On Oct. 29, ninety-seven living souls dragged their bones across the creaky old floors of the Opera House of Boothbay Harbor (OHBH) to behold the magic of community spirit and the terror of storytelling.

Ghostly shadows waltzed throughout the grand room. Flickers of candlelight cast spells. Friends dressed in their Halloween bests amassed in clusters around the potluck, as skeletons peered down from the balcony, evoking a sense of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre.” Twice, something unseen brushed against my leg.

Kevin Kiley, the evening’s ghastly master of ceremonies, summoned attention for the evening’s first story: "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" (Gaiman, 2012). The story plays on the power of suggestion, turning a mundane act into genuine horror. The narrator walks a young boy up a drafty flight of stairs in an old, presumably haunted house, to his bedroom in the attic. Along the walk, the boy tells the man about the Click-Clacks, creatures of the darkness who prey on people by biting them, liquifying their internal organs and sucking out the milky goo from their eye sockets. The creatures then hang the lifeless bodies on a hook. As they dry, they rattle in the wind. The man reassured the boy that no Click-Clacks are lurking in the house before realizing that the boy is a Click-Clack and he has just walked into a trap.

Mary Boothby amped the tension of the first story with her rendition of “The King o' the Cats,” a British folk tale (earliest citation in 1481, most common citation, William Baldwin, 1553). Tom, with his one yellow eye and one green, a beloved tuxedo cat and family pet, lounges on his pillow beside the fireplace. But Tom has a dark history. When a stranger announces a villager has died, and he has just witnessed a group of cats holding a royal funeral, Tom announces, "Now I am the King of the cats!" and rushes up the chimney to the funeral to claim his crown and is never seen again.

Frances Mercanti-Anthon delivered a spectacular performance of her own writing, an all-too-familiar haunt. A middle-aged woman tormented by a supersized Italian supernatural woman. She is a crass, menacing and intimidating ghost, first name: Peri, last name: Menopause. More comical than terrifying, the story lightened the atmosphere, but not for long.

Ending the evening, Honora Boothby questioned reality vs. illusion, blurring the line between a manufactured fantasy world and the harsh consequences of the subconscious mind. She read Ray Bradbury’s "The Veldt," originally published in a September 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. What starts as a happy, futuristic home life turns the world of virtual reality into an African killing field for little Peter and Wendy, who use the room to trap their parents. Let’s just say, it doesn’t end well. Some event guests scanned the room for exits, wondering if perhaps they, too, had been called forth to their final room.

“Selecting the stories to be read was a joint effort,” said Kiley. “I like letting the readers pick the stories they can really get into.” About the event, he said, “The bars have their parties, and there are tons of stuff for young children at Halloween, but what about the people that don’t fit into either of those groups? This is what tonight is about at the Opera House, a place for them, an event for them.”

“People look forward to this event every year. And Kevin (Kiley) does a wonderful job decorating the house and creating the perfect mood,” said OHBH Board President Kari Smith. With a wink in her eye, she would neither confirm nor deny whether the grand old building is haunted.