At one point in this door-creaking vehicle one character observes that ""The house is really turned on tonight!"" And turn on it does, with black evil THINGs in the basement, a WASP dybbuk, feathery calls in the night, moving draperies. Caught up in all the terrestrial racket are widowed Ruth, her niece Sara, middle-aged professor Pat and Sara's bean, Bruce-all plotting and researching in Ruth's haunted Georgetown, Washington, D.C. house. The fantastic four spend anxious hours there, while first Sara, then Pat and Bruce are possessed--then back to the old drawing board at Pat's untenanted digs to unravel the meaning of the latest sortie of the spirits. Turns out that former eighteenth century inhabitants--father, daughter and lover--had accomplished a battle ending in two murders. The dauntless twentieth century pairs finally put all ghosts to rest. Old spirits in old bottles.
