Island Shakespeare Fest returns for its second season of spooky fun with another thrilling production of “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, adapted for the stage by Jeffrey Hatcher and directed by Erin Murray.

Performances will travel across Whidbey Island from Oct. 23-28 to Beaver Tales Coffee and Kingfisher Bookstore in Coupeville, to the Tipsy Jellyfish and Whidbey Playhouse in Oak Harbor and wrap up at Ott & Hunter Winery in Langley, Oct. 27 and 28.

Check www.islandshakespearefest.org for schedule details and tickets.

Based on the 1898 famously provocative tale of suspense, horror and repressed sexuality, this adaptation gives the famous story yet another turn of its own.

A young governess journeys to a lonely English manor house to care for two recently orphaned children. But she is not their first governess. Her predecessor, Miss Jessel, drowned herself when she became pregnant by the sadistic valet, Peter Quint, who was himself found dead soon after under mysterious circumstances. Now the new governess has begun to see the specters of Quint and Jessel haunting the children, and she must find a way to stop the fiends before it is too late! But one frightening question tortures the would-be heroine: Are the ghosts real, or are they the product of her own fevered imagination?

The performance is recommended for ages 12 and older.

Tickets are $40, $25, $15; Pay-what-you-will at the door, though the group expects to sell out.

Island Shakespeare Fest will also present “Tea & True Crime: Famous Women of Historic Crimes” with Seattle “dark historian” podcaster Kim Douthit at Dancing Fish Winery in Freeland on Wednesday, Oct. 29.