by Roselyn Soul
Six-year-old Matteo Ross loved toy cars more than anything. He dreamed of growing up, building his own car company, and living a normal life with his family. But one October night, everything ended. Men dressed in black entered the Ross family home. By morning, Henry, Janette, Adeline, and Matteo were dead. Matteo should have moved on. Instead, he woke in a white room, caught between a warm white light and a beautiful red one. A voice that sounded like his mother told him to touch the red light, protect the house, and never let anyone take it from him. But the voice was not his mother. Years pass. Matteo remains trapped inside the house and its garden, becoming a ghost tied to the place where he died. He scares away every family that tries to move in, until a lonely boy named Antonio arrives. Unlike everyone else, Antonio can see him. What begins as fear turns into friendship. For the first time since his death, Matteo feels like a child again. But the entity that bound him to the house has not forgotten its promise. As Halloween approaches, Matteo must choose between rage and love, between obeying the voice that wears his mother’s memory and protecting the only friend who ever saw him. A quiet supernatural tragedy about grief, childhood, friendship, and the painful difference between being remembered and being unable to let go.
