u/Ty_Pose

I’m trying to find a middle school library book I read around 2022, but it was likely published earlier (2000s–2010s). It was a Scholastic-style flip book / two stories in one volume, where each side had its own cover and summary.

I only remember the second story clearly:

• Main character: teenage boy in a modern setting
• He gradually discovers an older, more “historical” supernatural layer to the world
• There’s a haunted old house (possibly called something like “___ House”)
• The house has a basement with a secret passage
• He finds an old Civil War soldier’s journal
• The journal explains a “veil between the living and the dead”
• The ghost/undead figure is named Ulysses (or something very close)
• There is also a widow spirit who whispers/chanting “Ulysses”
• The tone gets very dark, eerie, and somewhat violent/horror-heavy
• At the end, the boy realizes he is meant to replace Ulysses

The first story in the book was completely unrelated and I don’t remember it at all.

Other details:

• The cover for this story was a dark, shadow-covered old house
• The book was checked out from my middle school library (James Madison Middle School)
• Format was definitely that dual-cover flip-book style (two separate stories)

This has been impossible to find because every search for “Ulysses ghost Civil War house book” or “red house horror YA” gives nothing.

If anyone recognizes even part of this, please help 🙏