Terms of Occupancy

The rent never goes up. The cost of living there does.After her divorce, Ruth Marren needs somewhere she can afford to start over. Aurelia Court offers more space, beautiful afternoon light, and rent so low she can hardly believe her luck.Ruth reads contracts for a living. She signs the lease anyway.For three weeks, the apartment feels like a second chance.Then a Notice of Adjustment slides under her door.Two fingers stop bending. Familiar memories begin to fade. Her neighbors recognize the symptoms-and have spent years finding reasons to stay.Behind a bathroom medicine cabinet, Ruth discovers a missing tenant still alive inside the wall.Aurelia Court has been collecting from its residents for generations. Its patient manager calls the losses maintenance. Its tenants call them manageable. Every notice gives them another opportunity to accept a little less of themselves.Ruth begins keeping records, questioning the lease, and comparing what her neighbors remember with what the building claims they agreed to. But the longer she investigates, the harder it becomes to trust her own memory.Somewhere in the paperwork is the arrangement keeping them there.And somewhere in Ruth's missing hours, she may already have agreed to stay.Terms of Occupancy is a slow-burn supernatural horror novel about a predatory apartment building, unsettling bodily transformations, and the terrible price of finally finding somewhere affordable to live.