The Face

Summary

Edward Frederic Benson (1867 - 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known as the true master of the gothic occult story.

The Face tells the story of a woman, Hester, who has a strange recurring nightmare. The night before the nightmare she dreams of walking a path across fields, over wooden stiles, through a wind-blown wood, to a grey stone church at the top of the cliff. The next night she always has a nightmare about being at the base of the same cliff and an eerie horrifying man's face appears and tells her that he will be coming for her. After these nightmares, Hester always awakes screaming. Then one day, Hester finds out who the strange hideous man in the nightmare is... and the mystery deepens.

The nightmares increase in frequency until a doctor prescribes a rest cure at the seaside. But a walk along the cliff-top brings Hester to uncannily familiar territory... it is the landscape of her dream, where she knows the terrifying man is waiting for her.