This House Will Feed

by Maria Tureaud

Genres: Occult & Supernatural; Historical Fiction; Horror; Gothic

Synopsis

Amidst the devastation of Ireland’s Great Famine, a young woman is salvaged from certain death when offered a mysterious position at a remote manor house haunted by a strange power and the horror of her own memories in this chillingly evocative historical novel braided with gothic horror and supernatural suspense for readers of Katherine Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts and The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins.

County Clare, 1848: In the scant few years since the potato blight first cast its foul shadow over Ireland, Maggie O’Shaughnessy has lost everything—her entire family and the man she trusted with her heart. Toiling in the Ennis Workhouse for paltry rations, she can see no future either within or outside its walls—until the mysterious Lady Catherine arrives to whisk her away to an old mansion in the stark limestone landscape of the Burren.

Lady Catherine wants Maggie to impersonate her late daughter, Wilhelmina, and hoodwink solicitors into releasing Wilhelmina’s widow pension so that Lady Catherine can continue to provide for the villagers in her care. In exchange, Maggie will receive freedom from the workhouse, land of her own, and the one thing she wants more than either: a chance to fulfill the promise she made to her brother on his deathbed—to live to spite them all.

Launching herself into the daunting task, Maggie plays the role of Wilhelmina as best she can while ignoring the villagers’ tales of ghostly figures and curses. But more worrying are the whispers that come from within. Something in Lady Catherine’s house is reawakening long-buried memories in Maggie—of a foe more terrifying than hunger or greed, of a power that calls for blood and vengeance, and of her own role in a nightmare that demands the darkest sacrifice . . .

Release date: January 27, 2026

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

Ill fares the land, to hast’ning ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

—Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village

Ennis, Ireland. February 1848

The taste of my brother’s flesh still haunted me.

Eat it, my brother, Michael, had said. Live, Maggie. For one of us had to. Extended in the last breath of impending death, his offer had smarted of desperation and the Devil himself, but God above bore witness that I fought to shake it away and bury it six feet under. ’Twas hard to forget what I’d done, when daily duty led me to the dining hall of the Ennis Workhouse, not a quarter hour past staff mealtime, air heavy with the taunt of stewed meat only the masters could enjoy.

But inmate number 1-3-4-0, of the Ennis Union, had work to do.

An icy draft toyed with the candle flame, shifting the shadows as I forced the brush back and forth over the cool stone floor. The workhouse was my life now—the raw judder of numbed knees, sweat coating my brow as I scoured and scoured. And yet it didn’t seem to matter how hard I worked, for the cold had a way of seeping into bones, freezing the very marrow that kindled with a sliver of hope. Of tomorrow. Of the bright, burning dawn.

But hope was for the masters.

Leaning into the task, I winced and pushed the brush left, then right. Left, right; left, right. The matron would have no call to chastise me, no reason to halve my rations or double my debt. This was my penance, so I scrubbed and scrubbed. Day in, day out. Left: I’m; right: so; left: very; right: sorry. Until the task became part of me, as natural as the memories I’d buried away. A fever dream of what if and should-have-could-have. Except it was daylight, with no hope of waking from the nightmare beyond these bricks and mortar—like there was no hope of finishing this floor.

The supper hall of the workhouse stretched from wall to wall, a sea of black slate that bred exhaustion just looking at it. Sighing, I sat back on my heels and glanced up. Just a moment of respite. A fortifying breath to prepare myself.

Vaulted ceilings reached for the dark gray sky above; charcoal stone walls rose high before a trellis of curved beams slashed toward the ceiling, the clean-picked rib cage of a monstrous carcass. Stained-glass windows stretched above what was probably once an altar, its elevated stage now used to seat the esteemed workhouse officials and supervisors.

Right now, ’twas silent, save for my brushing. Calm. Peaceful. Everything my mind was not. Lord, but I yearned for true quiet.

“Margaret O’Shaughnessy, 1-3-4-0?”

The loud address whipped through the silence, cracking along the damp stone floor like thunder. Pursing my lips, I tightened the threadbare, workhouse-issued cloak around my skeletal frame and slowly struggled to my bare feet.

At least I could stand. At least I could turn. I had been on death’s door when I was delivered through the gate by a rare Samaritan of the matron’s acquaintance.

“Maggie,” I corrected, my voice still rasped and torn from the constant thirst that came from starvation.

There was a little more meat between brittle bones and scaled skin than there had been when I’d arrived. But when I’d risked a glance in the sliver of broken mirror another inmate had smuggled into the workhouse, I still saw a gaunt, sickly thing. Skin, pallid with a greenish hue. Eyes, sunken in the darkened hollows of a waked corpse. Cheekbones, sharp enough to cut fresh-baked bread.

At the thought of bread, my stomach groaned with want—as if unused to going without. Fickle organ. Worse than new-money businessmen peacocking their trinkets, better than their neighbors for the few shillings more.

“Maggie then,” came the tight-lipped response, and I forced my wary eyes to meet those of the matron. God above, I was grateful—so grateful—to have a roof over my head and some food in my belly, but something about the matron sent chills down my spine. Perhaps it was the cut of her steel-gray gown, a fashionable habit well-fitted above a corset pulled too tight. Or maybe ’twas the shadowed angles of her face, the severe bun at the back of her head, the crooked nose, eyes set too close together, or the irises so dark they may as well have belonged to a raven, scavenging for scraps. Perhaps all those things, but in that moment, as I glanced at her, bathed in shadow as the glow of a stained-glass window depicting the Sacred Heart illuminated her back, a sinister crimson nimbus lent a hellish quality to her presence. “You’ll be coming with me, inmate.”

Old Maggie would’ve raised a brow, asked question after question to ease the curiosity sure to get her in trouble. But new Maggie—new me—had lost that passion somewhere between watching my entire family waste unto death and burying every last one of them. Well, no. That’s a lie. A turn of phrase. There came a point when weakness meant I could do naught but pull filth-stained cloaks over stiffening faces before whispering a prayer to the Blessed Virgin, hoping no starving dogs roamed the roadside that became their graves.

“Yes, maum,” I responded, bobbing a curtsy before scurrying to fetch my scrubbing brush and bucket.

“You won’t be needing that,” the matron snapped. “Run along to your mat and fetch anything sentimental. Leave the rest. I expect to find you in the hall beyond the office in five minutes.”

Surprise rippled across my skin until it puckered like a freshly plucked goose on Christmas Day.

“Am I being moved, maum?” I asked, fear creeping its way into my blood. Moved was better than the gallows, especially when the only real way out of here was with either bailiff or mortician.

“You’re to see the workhouse master, Maggie.” For a moment, something in her eyes softened, but the moment passed, and she barked, “As fast as you can. Now.”

My heart fluttered as I turned on my heel and hurried out of the supper hall. I’d never met the workhouse master. Seen him from afar, sure, with his nice clothes and round belly. The hunger didn’t touch the Anglos. Why would it?

My eyes widened as I reached the long mile—a dark, wood-paneled hallway with nary a candle to light the way. What if the workhouse master knew of what had transpired on my journey here? I hadn’t told a soul, hadn’t dared. But there was nothing else he could possibly want with the likes of me—a waif who’d traveled a great distance to give up all dignity and live in lifelong debt to a foreign crown.

A girl who shouldn’t have lived.

“Michael? What do I do?” I whispered the plea to my dead brother as a tremble rippled through my knees, up my legs, before settling into a knotted ball in my gut. All that struggle only to hang. My lungs failed my heart for two breaths, but I forced them to work. Forced myself to breathe. One step. Two. Until I reached the end of the corridor and glanced out the window.

I clamped my jaw shut and looked out onto the rock-covered yard dotted with hundreds of waifs. That was another thing to be grateful for—my appointment to floor duty. It was a sign of favor, and few women were afforded the luxury. It was better than the laundry or the yard. Those in the yard chiseled, they carried, and worked so hard the food they earned wasn’t enough to keep death from calling. The Toonagh quarry sent the rock each week, availing of the free labor. I was certain I should’ve felt something as I watched. Old me would’ve. At least a pang of guilt as a boy leaned against a massive boulder for a moment’s respite. Or a lurch of fright as a man dropped the heavy stone he carried—too close to bare feet for comfort.

Thing was, they were naught but walking graves to me. Specters who clung to the scraps they were thrown, while the world beyond the walls perished and died.

And if the workhouse master had discovered my crime, I’d be worse off than those below. I couldn’t spare an ounce of pity. I had to save it and will it into strength for myself.

I turned away as a supervisor unleashed his whip on the body of a fallen child. If they weren’t already dead, they soon would be. I couldn’t muster pity for them either, because there’d be none for me.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep, shuddering breath before taking a right toward the female dormitories. As my bare foot touched water, I scowled. Another burst pipe, which meant our sleep mats were drenched. At least ample moisture would keep the fleas at bay, though it would likely bring fever come morning.

Clucking my tongue, I splashed my way to my own mat.

The matron had said to gather my sentimental things. I had eleven, all carefully placed in the small burlap sack I’d carried from Kilrush to Ennis—safely hung from a flimsy rack alongside my blanket. Leaks happened more often than not.

I grabbed the sack and peered inside.

My mother’s wooden beads—worn and smooth from frantic decades of the rosary.

My father’s shoelaces—to remind me of the journey.

Pieces of my sisters’ filthy dresses, ripped from each as they died, one by one, on the road. Aoife. I breathed in. Síofra. And winced. Mary. Oh God. Martha. I squeezed my eyes shut. Nancy. I breathed out.

Michael’s handkerchief. Breathe. John’s cap. Breathe. A wooden toggle from Patrick’s shirt. Breathe.

And a lock of hair from baby Crofton—born soon after the first blight struck and named for our landlord in hopes he would show us mercy.

But he did not. And they were dead. They were all dead. And I was about to join them.

Hot tears stung my eyes as I reached for the iron door handle of my assigned dormitory.

It was all I had left. Not much, by any means. Nothing to leave a legacy, a mark, or a reminder that they, or I, had ever lived.

With a shake of my head, I opened the door. It was time to face my fate.

The matron stood tall and stiff, a pillar of shadow and brimstone as I approached, and I gripped the burlap sack tight with hands that shook. The rough-hewn fabric scratched my skin, the only reminder this was real—despite the death knell a-clanging in my ears.

Time was up. Father had said we simply borrow time to stay the reaper. Stumble one step ahead. One meal beyond his reach. But the reaper had just come calling, hand out, for debt owed and interest due.

I didn’t dare open my mouth to ask what was amiss, for if I did, I’d scream my throat raw as sure as the day was long. Instead, I watched as the matron rapped on the master’s door. As she tilted her head toward the thick, stained wood. Waiting. Waiting. And then she nodded. He must have replied.

But I couldn’t hear a blasted thing over the rush in my ears: an ocean of blood crashing against a storm-weary shore.

“English only once you’re within. Chin up, Maggie,” said the matron, rolling her own shoulders in case I’d forgotten how to stand. What language to speak. How to be. How to exist as a nothing and no one before a master.

As if I could forget.

And as the matron stepped from the shadow to push in the door, I molded my back, forcing it straight as if about to serve my own mistress, Lady Grace—as she had liked to be called—and followed the matron inside.

The office was a cave with no windows. A cavern of black so bleak, I’d not seen the like since the potato rotted where it grew—the only crop we could grow for ourselves, the only food we ever had to eat—and passed through our disbelieving fingers as a dark, inedible sludge.

There were no beeswax candles here, only the impossibly bright glow of oil lamps, made all fancy and delicate like the ones that had lit the darkest afternoons in Lady Grace’s parlor.

A painting broke up the boring wood paneling—a fierce-looking man in a high-necked white shirt with white cravat choking a well-fed throat. A lord, I supposed. But the man sitting behind a desk fit for a king was certainly not he. He scribbled and scratched, fingers blotted with ink as he ran a free hand through a generous cropping of hair.

His clothes were crisp. Well-laundered and kept, though not new. Local fabric at that. Wool, perhaps. My brother, Michael, would never stop talking about fabrics, describing their wins and woes in minute detail until we’d beg Father for a story. Anything to get Michael to shut his hole.

Jesus wept, but I could hear him now.

That’s good Dublin wool, Maggie. Expensive enough, but not out of reach for a comfortable man of the Town. Now, if I were to show you his lordship’s woolens, you’d see at once the gulf between them, and know his lordship a man of great station.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory. Of my constant reminder to him that Colonel Moore-Vandeleur was only a mister, not a lord. Not high-born aristocracy like his wife, Lady Grace. But Michael would always roll his eyes and say, “What matter that, when he’s a-lording over most of Clare, and you and I the richer for being polite.”

The matron cleared her throat, stirring me from the past. “As requested, Mr. O’Brien. Inmate 1-3-4-0, O’Shaughnessy, Margaret.”

The master didn’t look up. Instead, he stilled his scratching and swapped the fountain pen for a pair of spectacles that had seen better days.

“What’s your place, inmate?” he asked, a thin, nasally preen that set my teeth on edge. There was a trace of London in his English, but he was Irish-born for sure. Educated across the sea then. I opened my eyes.

“Kilrush, sir.”

A grunt. He rose and turned to sift through a filing cabinet that lined the wall, then returned with a rectangle of cardboard, a ream of paper within.

“Kilrush,” he repeated, though more to himself than me. He thumbed through the file, licking his inked thumb between pages, and I fought the urge to remind him. But the ink now staining the corner of his wafer-thin lips made him less … intimidating. Less the master.

“O’Shaughnessy.” Murmuring, he seemed to find the right page, then glanced up at me, his beady eyes skimming from the tip of my crown to my dirtied bare toes. “Margaret, you said?”

“Yes, sir.” I bobbed my head, the movement stiff and odd, as if more than two years had passed between duty and now.

He took up the pen and made a note on the paper. “Family?”

I paused, but only for a beat. “Dead, sir.”

“In what union?” he asked.

I winced. “I don’t know, sir.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Pursing his lips, he glanced at me and circled the air with his pen. “What poor union did they perish in? Which workhouse, girl? What district?”

“They perished on the trip, Mr. O’Brien.” The matron stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. I would thank her for that small kindness later. “From the Kilrush union, by way of Kildysert, then Ennis.”

Mr. O’Brien’s wispy brows drew together. “Why not come straight to Ennis?”

My throat tightened, but it seemed he didn’t need or want an answer.

“No mind. I’ll pray to thank your destitute family for absconding their burden on Her Majesty’s charity,” he said, burying his nose in his notes. I didn’t know why I felt nothing, for I knew I should. But New Me would bite her tongue, so I did.

“Age?”

“Nine—” I broke off and pressed my lips together. “Twenty-two, sir.”

“Are you certain?” he asked, a sneer in his inflection. No. I wasn’t sure. But time had passed both fast and slow since that first summer, and I had aged a decade between.

“Yes, sir.”

He put down his pen, then spoke into the shadows beyond my shoulder. I raised a brow.

“Will she do, Your Ladyship?” he asked.

I didn’t whirl—for I was beyond childish surprise—but I did stiffen. There was a rustle, one I knew all too well. The crisp newness of fresh-pressed taffeta afore an outing, and a whiff of lavender blended with foreign spice.

“She’s the right height.” The woman’s voice rolled over my skin, a deep alto drizzled with warm honey that could spell fortune or ruin on a whim. And yet there was something unrefined about it; it lacked the nasaled clip of all the well-to-dos that had swanned through the Moore-Vandeleur estate at one time or another.

Click-tap. A pause. Click-tap.

The hair at my nape snapped to attention as she neared, her perfume wafting in the draft as I fought the urge to turn. To ask why my height mattered.

“It’s as I was told. She’ll do, Mr. O’Brien.” The woman’s skirts brushed my bare feet as she approached. She held a cane in her left hand, lazily dragging it forward with each step as a gentleman might. And as she came into view, my brow furrowed.

The lady wore a black gentleman’s frock coat, cut in the back to accommodate the frill of the charcoal taffeta bustle skirt that cascaded from rump to floor. A ruffled charcoal bodice peeked beneath her lapels, swimming up the length of her neck before pillowing in a cloud of black lace. A simple golden charm—three swirls, connected to a central branch—adorned her throat, held in place by a length of black ribbon. Her dark hair was swept up, a severe style I’d never seen before, and tucked into the black top hat perched on her head.

It was bold. Daring. Like her eyes. I thought they could have been a smoky dark blue. But in the dim light of the master’s office, shadowed by the languid sweep of black lashes, I could swear they too were charcoal.

I knew I stared, but I couldn’t glance away. Even as she stepped before me, a half-smile lighting her pale face. She didn’t need the powders and kohl that Lady Grace had always insisted upon. By no means young, yet I couldn’t place her age.

“Leave us,” she said, shooting the words over her shoulder at the master. I shivered, from chill or fear, I knew not.

His face flushed as the woman raised a black, lace-gloved hand and gestured for the door. He was dismissed, and the arch of his brow screamed displeasure.

“Th-there’s still the matter of her debt—” he began, but the woman cut through his words with a sharp rap of the cane against the concrete floor.

“Later,” she snapped, her eyes locked on mine. They were both cold yet warm, and my heart raced in tandem with my thoughts as I wondered what this woman wanted with me.

“I must insist, My Lady. We also discussed compensation for silence in this matter.”

My guts turned to water as his words sank in. What in the name of God did he mean?

“And you will be compensated,” the lady said, a dangerous edge creeping into her voice as she turned in his direction. “Though what value would you put on a life when that soul spends their days toiling for naught but a cup of gruel and a place to lay their head? I’m sure she’s repaid her debt to the state ten times over. See my man in the courtyard. He has your purse.”

With a curt bow, the master backed out the door, and I didn’t blame him. I wanted to follow. There was a charge in the air, the kind of shift that warned of a coming, violent storm. But there was nowhere for me to go. Nowhere to take cover.

Not as the lady turned her attention back to me. Not as those dark eyes gleamed as bright and dark as a selkie’s.

I swallowed, forcing a lump down my throat.

“Margaret, is it?” she asked, and I found I could do naught but nod. “Do you prefer that name? Or do you go by another?”

“M-Maggie.” Wincing, I cleared my throat to steady my nerve. “Maggie, that is, Your Ladyship.”

“Maggie,” she repeated, nodding. “Very well. Tell me, Maggie. What is it you desire most in the world? If the wrath of God, and the British Crown, weren’t determined to wipe this country and her people off the map, what is it you would want?”

Danger settled hard and heavy in my stomach, filling my heart with dread even as I opened my mouth. As if I had no control of myself. “A house. A few acres. Land in my own right that could never be taken, and food enough to never know hunger again.”

“And?” she urged, leaning forward, the scent of her perfume overwhelming my senses as the truth slipped, unbidden, from my lips.

“Revenge.”

She smiled, a wide grin that brightened the room.

“Good. Excellent. Well then, Maggie. I have a proposition for you.”

There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports that delay in acting on them is always desirable.

—Sir Robert Peele, prime minister of the United Kingdom, 1845

“Please. Take a seat.”

I pursed my lips, following the sweep of her ladyship’s hand as she pointed toward the master’s chair. Was she jesting? “I-I’m fine here, Your Ladyship. Standing, that is.”

“Ah.” With a curl of her lips, her ladyship clasped the curved silver handle of her cane with both hands and rapped it on the floor before her. “You prefer to speak as equals. Eye to eye. I like that, Maggie. It shows character. Though, do know I was merely concerned for your health.”

She pivoted, her dark gaze affixed on the portrait that stood witness above the master’s chair.

“I don’t envy him. Inherited quite the calamity from Peele,” said her ladyship, taking one step, then another toward the master’s desk, dragging the cane as well as any dandy who took luncheon with Colonel Moore-Vandeleur. It was enough to remind me of another cane. Another dandy. Another time. I shuddered.

“Lord John Russell, prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Tried his best, poor chap, but bungled everything, if you ask me.” She gestured toward the portrait, paused, then turned to face me. My heart leapt in my chest as she perched on the edge of the desk, and I stood that little bit straighter. “I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. First, the terms. You said you wanted land, a place you can call your own. I can provide that. I have a need that requires what I hope will be your full cooperation. In exchange, when your task is complete, I will gift you a cottage with five acres on my land.”

Five? I pursed my lips. There wasn’t a landlord in Ireland with five spare acres to rent, never mind give away. Every inch was accounted for. We toiled the land for the landlord, who sold every ounce of our labor to the markets in England. Even now, they were sending food across the sea while we died in ditches. In exchange, most got a quarter acre. Barely enough space for a one-roomed home and a patch of potatoes. “Did you say five acres?”

Her ladyship nodded slowly. “I will be frank. The land isn’t disposed to cultivation, save the blaggarding potato. But sheep should thrive.”

“I don’t understand.” With a shake of my head, I took a step forward, then thought better of it and rocked back onto my bare heels.

“You don’t have to. Just know it’s yours if you agree to our arrangement.”

This smelled of the Devil himself, come to deal with the soulless wretches who yearned for anything but existence. I was one such soulless wretch. My crime was proof of that.

“Lady—” I stopped. I didn’t even know her name. She smiled.

“Browne. Or, Lady Catherine. Whichever you prefer.”

I nodded. “Lady Catherine. You’ll forgive my asking, but how can I be sure you’ll keep to these terms?”

“Ah! You are a clever one. Good, good!” Reaching into the dark depths of her coat, she produced a folded sheaf of papers. “I have it all here in this contract. I can, of course, read it to you.”

There’d be no need for that. My eyes slid from the contract to meet her steely gaze. “What must I do in exchange?”

Placing the document on the desk, Lady Catherine stood. “I need a girl to pose as my daughter, Wilhelmina. I have six months before a bevy of lawyers arrive at my home to prove that she is, in fact, dead. Our goal is to convince them she is not. In that time, I expect you to learn how to hold a conversation with these learned men, and how to comport yourself as Wilhelmina in society. Her husband, the Earl of Norbury, passed last year, and his family have heard rumor of her own passing. If they can prove it, Wilhelmina’s inheritance will revert to the old earl’s great-niece, and I will be left destitute while her money-grasping husband milks the situation to fill his own coffers. I’ve put it about that Wilhelmina is sick with her grief, but I’ve stretched her mourning period as far as decorum allows. This is, of course, no great matter to you. However, there are four hundred souls under my care. Good people. And though I am no great landowner, I will not see them suffer if I can help it. We’re the same, you and I. Born and bred and sick of the suffering.”

A chill wended its way under my smock, and my father’s words echoed in my mind: An Anglo would sell his soul to own the flea-bitten shirt off an Irishman’s back. And any aristocrat in Ireland is not only Anglo, but well and truly British.

“Think of it, Maggie,” her ladyship continued. “A simple task in exchange for your own freedom. The opportunity to pull the wool over the eyes of the very people who refuse to do anything but dig mass graves and export Irish-grown food to feed their own people.”

Nothing about this arrangement felt right. I was no idiot … but I needed to sit before I fell from lack of blood. It drained from my face all the way to my toes with each word she spoke, until I shivered where I stood. I took a step, and another, being sure to keep distance between us as I circled the master’s desk. She followed my movements, her dark gaze locked on mine as I carefully placed a hand on the chair and lowered myself into its forbidden depths. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t ask permission to sit. Could do naught but tear my eyes from hers and glance at the contract that lay within arm’s reach.

It couldn’t have been for nothing. All this, everything that had happened—it wasn’t enough to be alive, to survive. It had to be for something. For it was all my fault. Everything.

From my father’s wan face as we were turned out of our home, to his silent tears as we laid eyes on the hundreds of bodies crawling over each other outside the Kilrush workhouse. To the scalp my father and neighbors had dug—a hole in the ground large enough for the twelve of us to huddle within, with naught but branches to keep out the rain—certain Colonel Moore-Vandeleur would recant, would forgive, would invite his prized land agent back to work. We had to stay near. Stay close, lest he came looking. Until baby Crofton died in my mother’s arms, and her with no energy to weep. And by the time Father realized we had to try and make it to Ennis, we were too weak to travel but a little every day.

That’s when the dogs came baying. And it was all my fault.

“You appear piqued,” said her ladyship, but I still stared at the contract. Breathing in, then out. Gathering my thoughts. A home, independent of a master, of relying on the whim of another. A place I could call my own. A place where my family could live in memory. A tangible thing to atone for my sins, where I could finally put them to rest, where they could finally be at rest.

“I have … I have questions,” I said softly, closing my eyes against the stin. . .