"If dear Old Albert finds you, / Still your tongue, be still your tongue." — School Rhyme The place is Larkhill House, and during its century and a half of existence it has hosted an array of peculiar tenants: the reclusive though brilliant ornithologist Ellis Grimwood; a murderous wine merchant and his young wife; and the Sacred Order of the Mysteries of Thoth, who re-christened Larkhill the “New Temple of Abtiti” and practised there their outlandish and mystical rites. After vacating Larkhill, these individuals—all of them—left something of themselves behind . . . Set in the same haunted neighbourhood as the stories in the award-winning collection The Bleeding Horse, Old Albert continues with the idea that not all is well in the leafy Victorian suburb of Rathmines, Dublin. Contents A Note to the Reader by Jim Rockhill I. Prologue II. Ellis Grimwood of Larkhill III. This Terrible, This Unnatural Crime IV. An Exaltation of Skylarks V. Thin and Brittle Bones VI. Come Like Shadows, So Depart An Afterword by Adam Golaski Notes Bibliography Acknowledgements Brian J. Showers is originally from Madison, Wisconsin. He has written short stories, articles and reviews for magazines such as Rue Morgue, Ghosts & Scholars, Le Fanu Studies, Wormwood, and Supernatural Tales. His short story collection, The Bleeding Horse (Mercier Press), won the Children of the Night Award in 2008. He is also the author of Literary Walking Tours of Gothic Dublin (Nonsuch 2006), and the co-editor of Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Hippocampus Press 2011). He currently lives in Dublin, Ireland.