The night was dark and moonlit as the cloaked figure moved unseen through the cemetery.

  It perhaps was not the traditional cemetery that one might be expecting. There were no gothic spires tapering away into the night. There were no forbidding mausoleums, eerie statues of the departed, no uneven stones or tree roots ready to trip the unwary traveller – or the desperate person trying to leave in a haste. There were no bats.

  There was an elderly snowy owl, soundlessly flitting around the well-maintained gravestones, hunting for small rodents amongst the neatly trimmed grass. More than once had an unsuspecting passer-by, vision a little blurred from time spent in the tavern, mistaken the owl for a ghost. Their half-incoherent ramblings had caused more than a few of the townsfolk to avoid the cemetery come dusk. If anything, this helped the barn owl: too many humans scared away its prey, but other than that it paid them no heed.

  The cloaked figure did not see the barn owl. They believed in ghosts and the supernatural in general, of course, else they wouldn’t be moving through this graveyard at night time. However, they didn’t believe there were any ghosts at this cemetery. That just wasn’t the sort of place Wester Oakforth was. The dead did not rise from their graves here. Why would they? Heaven knows there was little enough to interest the living. The youth of the town suspected that boredom was a major cause of death.

  There was nothing supernatural in the graveyard. Yet.

  The cloaked figure was also not as you might expect. It was not particularly tall, striding purposefully towards its dark destiny, nor shambling and unsightly, warped by the inexorable pull of some grim fate it could not escape. The cloak itself was not rich and velvet, its owner did not have the means to spend on such frivolity, nor tattered and torn, as its owner would not be seen dead in such a garment. Indeed, the wearer had no wish to be seen at all, hence the cloak and the raised hood. These were neat and well-made, a deep brown faded just a little by careful washing. An equally clean hand frequently reached out of the folds of the cloak, tugging it tightly around the figure and the bundle it carried before they nervously scurried into the next patch of shadow. A shuttered lantern provided just enough light to see by.

  The cloaked figure knew exactly where they were going. A small square gravestone, around twenty years old, sat off to the left of centre of the graveyard, near to the wall which separated the town of the living of Oakforth from the graves of their ancestors. The figure stopped in front of it, looked all around carefully (shuffling around in a circle), before putting the bundle down gently and unwrapping its contents: one book and an assortment of candles. Five candles of black wax were selected, four to go at the cardinal points of the compass, the last balanced carefully on top of the gravestone. After a moment’s thought, this last candle was temporarily removed and a clean cotton handkerchief put down beneath it to catch any spills.

  There was a slight panic as a breath of early autumn wind rustled through the trees, making the branches of a nearby yew knock and clatter. The figure jumped and made a move as if to hide behind the headstone before realising what had happened.

  Finally, the book was opened. Whilst everything else was neat and tidy, the book itself seemed oily and grubby. Nevertheless, an attempt had been made to neaten it up. A hessian cover had been made and neatly fitted around the book only the day before, but even this was quickly becoming disfigured and stained. The figure sighed, disappointed, and riffled through the book to where a formerly pristine pink ribbon marked the page. Stepping over the grave to the headstone, a tinder box was produced from the folds of the cloak, and the first candle was lit.

  “Spirit, I implore you, rise from your sleep, shake off the shackles of death and return to the world. Show us your face, let us hear your words: let the living once more see your visage! Spirit, I implore you, rise...”

  It would be inaccurate to say that the voice was uncertain at first. Clearly the words had been learned by rote, and practised as well. But there was a quietness verging on a mumbling at first, suggesting that wherever and whenever the words had been practised before it was somewhere secret. By the third repetition, and indeed the third candle, there was a bit more confidence, and the voice was revealed to be a strong, no-nonsense kind of voice. The sort of voice that one could imagine organising the flower rota for the local shrine, or sending especially grubby children (or men, who were probably classed as ‘large children’ by the speaker) back out to the waterbutt to clean before entering the home.

  It was about this time that the figure was revealed. A particularly strong breeze caught the edge of the cloak, tugging it away from a plain but respectable dress around a figure that would best be described as plump. The hood fell back from the face at the same time, showing a tight bun of dark hair held in place by bobby pins, atop features where the last vestiges of youth were held back by a well-worn expression of slight disappointment. It would be poetic to say that the wind whipped the cloak around in the night-air, but the wind was not so strong for that. The woman was far too sensible to try to raise the dead on an evening with strong gusts or rain. For one thing, it would have blown out the candles.

  The last candle to be lit was at the foot of the grave. As the woman finished the last recitation of the verse, the flames of all five candles rose higher, elongating to almost a foot and turning a bright blue. And then, as the final “...visage!” was uttered, all five flames shot inwards. The four outer flames streaked across in bright lines, the one at the gravehead streaking through the gravestone but leaving no mark. The flames met above where one might suppose the heart of anybody buried in the grave would be, whirling around each other in the night. The flame above the gravestone detached itself from the candle and moved more slowly to the same position, but at head height. The light danced around in the darkness, their movements leaving glowing afterimages in the eyes of the woman. Slowly, inevitably, those images formed into the shape of what had once been a person.

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  The spirit turned to face the woman.

  For her part, the woman had been expecting all this. Certainly, this was her first time, but the book had said that all this would happen, so really there was nothing to be surprised about. Nevertheless, there was a note of wonder in her voice as she addressed the ghost.

  “Aunty Sal?”

  The dread spectre opened its mouth, glowing lines of cold fire dancing and moving in a mockery of human life. And, from beyond the grave, a voice that had not been heard for nigh twenty years spake once more unto mortal ears:

  “Little Mavis? Is that really you? Why, you’ve gone and grown up!” The spirit cooed fondly.

  “Oh it’s so good to see you, Aunty Sal! I’ve got such a lot of things to tell you, but I’m afraid we’re a bit stretched for time...” Sal and Mavis had always been close before the former’s death, and seeing her favourite aunt again after all these years made the years fall away from Mavis Carter. Her face cracked open the smile that she had spent most of her adult life hiding. But time was an issue. Mavis pushed the excited child she had been back within herself, but not so far down as before, and got down to the matters at hand.

  “...I’ve become very interested in family history over the last few years, Aunty Sal, you know, just finding out who I am when it all comes down to it. I mean, I know who I am, of course, not going too soft in the head yet: I’m Mavis Carter! It’s just, well, I’m married: decent husband, kids growing up, and they’re getting to the stage where even the littlest doesn’t need me in the same way they did. And, I’m Mavis Carter. But... somewhere along the way I think I misplaced who Mavis Carter is. Everybody knows me round here,” she paused, and looked around quickly, reminded of what she was doing. When she spoke again, she was quieter. “Pillar of the community, always to be relied upon. This life has built up around me and I don't know that it's mine. Everyone knows who Mavis Carter is, it seems, but me. But... didn’t I used to be someone else? Someone different? With more... I don’t know: freedom? happiness? Less responsibility, like all this stuff rests on my shoulders, and I daren’t move too much or it all comes crashing down...”

  Mavis paused, head down, and the ghost of Aunty Sal drifted forward, half-raised a hand and dropped it again. When Mavis raised her eyes again, the reflection of her aunt’s spectral shape glistened in her eyes, and along a trail which ran down her cheek.

  “Maybe it’s foolish, but I thought that I just needed to find my feet again. Be grounded by my family. So I started looking into the family history, but I’ve got only so far and it gets a bit muddled, and I remember you always used to tell us such stories about your grandparents and their parents, and I thought you could help?”

  This last came out as more of a plea, and less of a statement. For all that Sal’s image was that of a woman two decades dead, when the ghost looked at Mavis she saw a child gone much longer ago.

  “Of course, Mavis pet, anything for you.”

  Time passed, as it does, and the two women sat and talked. Mavis had produced a second, larger, linen handkerchief from somewhere within her clothes and lain it on the grass between two graves, before lowering herself down onto it. For her part, Sal had perched atop her own headstone, or tried to. She had sunk right through it the first couple of times, while her niece had looked on in pale shock. Each time, Sal had picked herself up in a fit of giggles.

  “Well, Mavis, I might not be able to sit down on anything, but it doesn’t half tickle when I try!”

  Eventually, she’d given up and just floated in roughly the right position, shivering slightly when she drifted too far in any one direction. Then Sal had smoothed the memory of her dress over the dancing lines on her dress, and had started to talk.

  She’d spoken of her parents, Mavis’ grandparents, and their efforts to build up the weaving business. She’d spoken of her Mum, sitting in the doorway on the wheel, nattering away to anyone who’d come to visit, or else singing to herself or her children, foot pressing the treadle in time so that the whirring of the wheel made a rhythmic pulse beneath the songs words. She’d spoken of her Da, up in the dry room, clacking and clattering away on his loom, and the beautiful woollen cloth he’d produced.

  She spoke of her own gran teaching Sal and Mavis’ mother how to wash and comb the wool, and then ‘supervising’ from the comfortable chair by the fire as she grew older. But when she was awake she had told them stories in turn of her husband, Sal’s grandfather, who’d gone off to fight in the war with the Blue Duke and not come back.

  Mavis sat at the feet of her aunt as she’d done all those years earlier. At first she made notes, but as time passed her note-taking became less and less comprehensive as both women became lost in the stories.

  Eventually, Sal stopped talking.

  “Is something wrong, Aunty Sal?”

  “Not at all, pet. I was just thinking... you don’t want to hear me tell my gran’s stories. Not when you could hear her tell them herself!”

  Mavis sat a while in silence.

  “I suppose, it probably would be better for the family history,” she waved half-heartedly at her notes, “but I don’t mind it coming from you, Aunty Sal. It’s nice just hearing you talk again.” Mavis looked up and smiled shyly at her aunt’s ghost, although if truth be told she had quite forgotten that the other person was a spirit.

  Sal looked at her tenderly. “It’s wonderful to talk to you again too, pet. But I’m coming to the end of what I can remember. Gran’d be much better for you. I know just where she’s buried, I can give you directions. And don’t worry, she’s a lovely woman. She’ll love you: how could she not?”

  “Directions? Don’t you want to come with me?”

  Sal’s mouth opened and shut a few times soundlessly, the blue flame that moved to show her outline flickering faster as if mimicking her thought processes. “I mean, I want to, but I thought... isn’t there a ring of salt that I can’t cross, or don’t I get sucked back to my grave if I move too far away, or you’ll need the candles again, or something?”

  “Not really. You go back to your grave when touched by a ray of sunlight... I mean, there is a dismissal spell I could do, but I’ve not learnt it, and I’d need some dried rosemary. I just thought we would be talking ‘til dawn.” Mavis’ voice sounded wistful here. “The salt circle’s a thing, but I tried the ritual without it. It was a waste of salt and it seemed a bit... rude. Is that why you’ve been trying to sit on your gravestone the whole time?”

  Nobody was quite sure who giggled first, but it was definitely Mavis who laughed so hard that her eyes started streaming with tears and her chest heaved with hiccups.

  “Stop... stop... I can’t breathe!” she gasped, fanning her face with her hands as if to blow air into her lungs.

  “Neither can I.” Sal’s reply was delivered plainly. Mavis’ eyes widened, but then she saw Sal wink at her, and they both dissolved into full-throated guffaws again.