The breeze had increased somewhat, whipping hairs loose from Mavis’ bun and blowing them out to the side. Her heavy cloak was still not billowing in an overly dramatic way, but the wind was wrapping it tight around her legs so that she kicked back at times to untangle it.

  “She’s got much better at this, really leaning into the whole feel of the summoning now.”

  “I am relieved to see that a little bit of flare has survived down the generations.”

  “Oh, I’d say so. Watch this bit, Gran, it’s really impressive!”

  Mavis crouched to light the fifth and final candle. She had created a few windbreaks around the candles using stiff paper from her notebook. The one to this grave’s south was in danger of catching fire, but the ritual was almost over, and it had served its purpose.

  “...let the living once more see your visage!” Mavis threw her hands up in the air just slightly behind the candle flames’ own rise, which she was a little disappointed with. However, the sharp clap of her hands as she snapped them together matched pretty well with the blue flames shooting inwards. The southern windbreak had finally caught, so there was a slight hint of yellow to the new spirit as it formed.

  Deirdre sounded very impressed, “That was quite something to see, love. It is a pity my Pops is at the other end and shall not get to see it himself.” Mavis’ great grandmother drifted forward to the new spirit, “Mavis, meet your great, great, great grand... mother?”

  There was a slight pause as the three younger (relatively speaking) members of the family gazed at the newcomer.

  Again, there was the same nose, but the face was much thinner, drawn together still further by pinched lips and a disapproving frown. Her hair was hidden beneath a starched cotton hood, or at least the memory of one, while the rest of her dress seemed plain and severe to a fault.

  “Grandmama, we were wondering if Grandfather might...”

  “I daren’t believe it! That my own progeny should be resorting to witchcraft and necromancy! What dark and terrible times is this, that such should come to pass! Where the peaceful rest of the departed be cruelly ripped asunder by the wicked hands of the black arts! And them my own flesh and blood!”

  Her voice was... piercing. Mavis had always prided herself on a voice which carried, using it to great effect to organise others, but this was a voice which wormed its way into her ear engendering feelings of guilt and resentment. She quailed a little under its onslaught.

  Deirdre was also taken aback. She had been so excited for Mavis to meet her Pops that she had quite forgotten that her grandmother had been buried in the same grave. It was as if she were back a hundred years or more, berated by her grandmother for some minor silliness worked up into a calamity yet again.

  “I’ll not stand for it! I am a respectable upstanding woman: I can’t be seen out of my grave doing something so vulgar as haunting!”

  The complaints had become more generic, and Mavis took the opportunity to rush to one side and stamp out the southern windbreak.

  “And you, Deirdre Weaver! I expected better of you, than to be encouraging, nay inciting this dark witchcraft! My own flesh and blood!”

  “Well, not reeeally. Not any more.”

  “I beg your pardon!?” The new spirit turned around in surprise, her stream of complaints interrupted.

  “We’re not really flesh and blood any more, are we?” Sally swiped her hand through a gravestone. She was less cowed than the other two, being neither one who had experience of this figure in life, nor one still a little on edge from the illicitness of her night-time summonings. Nevertheless, she fell back before her advancing ancestor.

  “Salacia Weaver, what an awful thing to say! Still, I’m not surprised that somebody like you would be caught up in this...”

  Deirdre moved towards the shaken Mavis.

  “I am sorry, love. Pops is in there, or he was, but so was grandmama and she has Strong Views. On everything. Pops knows how to handle her. How quickly do you think you could bring him up? Whilst grandmama is distracted?”

  Another summoning was not what Mavis had in mind after being shaken by Deirdre’s grandmama. But Deirdre looked so pleading, and when she looked over at Sally she received a quick nod and a wink (completely unobserved by the third spirit), that she resolved to get through as much as was possible before her actions were noticed.

  Which turned out to be quite a bit.

  The fourth candle was lit, and Mavis bending over the fifth with her tinderbox when she heard the tone and volume of her great great great grandmother’s voice change. Her hand shook a little, and it took longer than it should have done to light the final flame.

  “What do you think you’re doing, young lady? I hope you aren’t intending to call up my dear Stanley as well?! You should be trying to put us back in our graves, not making things worse...”

  It was much harder to go through the incantation this time, harder still to hear herself think. Mavis only hoped that this wasn’t causing some interference in the ritual.

  Speaking of interference in the ritual, a ghostly face leaned down close to one of the flames and attempt to blow it out.

  “Grandmama, we’re dead. We have no breath any more...” Deirdre’s tired explanation came as Mavis again finished the final incantation. The blue flames shot up once more, startling the third ghost. Her own body, made from the blue flames as it was, seemed to rise up in tandem. Whether it was some magical cause, or a reflex to the surprise was unclear. The constant stream of complaint only suffered the most minor of stutters.

  “...And don’t you expect your grandfather to be happy about this either. My Stanley isn’t one to get involved in all this eldwitchness...”

  Yet the flames had shot inwards, and they were coalescing into a fourth spirit. A male one this time, with a rounder face than his wife and clothes which seemed to have been chosen more for their practicality than style. Mavis approved.

  “...Stanley, can you believe that our own descendants have been dabbling in Dark Magicks? So foolish and irresponsible...”

  The male spirit gasped dramatically, a noise that must have been made deliberately as Mavis knew none of the others had shown either the need nor ability to breathe.

  “Morrrrrtal! So, you have dared to peel back the veil between Life and Death? Between Light and Dark? Between what is Known and what must forever be beyond the Ken of living minds?” The new spirit flung his arms wide, leaned forwards to tower over Mavis and rolled his eyes. He rolled them in the exact same way Sally had several hours earlier, and Mavis remembered Deirdre telling them how her grandfather had been heavily involved in the plays that the town had staged on the common outside The Fox and Goose every Solstice and Equinox. She smiled.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Oh yes, dread spectre, spirit of my forefather! I come to you for Deep Knowledge that is lost, that is hidden from my living eyes! I wish to know... my family history!” She flung her right arm up to the night sky, where a crack of thunder failed to resound and lightning refused to play along. Behind her, she heard Sally giggle, and Deirdre quite clearly saw how she knew the two of them would get along.

  “Stanley Thatcher!”

  Stanley briefly wiggled his eyebrows at Mavis, before turning to face his wife.

  “Hazel, my darling! I see you’ve met our descendant...?” He turned apologetically to Mavis, “I do beg your pardon, my dear, I’ve not caught your name. I assume you are my descendant? There’s a definite look of Sally about you...” He was soon interrupted once more.

  “Stanley! Of course she’s our descendant, but we should be setting a good example to the wicked girl and not encouraging her descent into darkness and debauchery! We shouldn’t talk to her at all! And as for you, young lady, I should hope you’re preparing to return us to our graves!”

  The telling off had lost some of its terror by now, so Mavis struggled rather harder to restrain her smile at being called a ‘young lady’ than she would have done five minutes earlier.

  “The spell lasts until sunlight touches your ghostly forms, Grandmama Hazel. Dawn shouldn’t be much more than an hour away, and I had hoped that you and Grandfather Stanley could tell me something about your life and times. Do you see, I’ve been doing some research into my family history, and there’s so much you could tell me...” Mavis trailed off, finding herself pulling the very same look of hopeful anticipation that she had perfected as a young girl, and that she had not used for many years.

  “Oh, my dear, you’ve definitely come to the right people. Hazel has a wealth of stories of the people and town, and of our families before we moved here from Hindsbridge.” Stanley moved to Hazel’s side, and calmly placed his hand on her back. She seemed a little undecided.

  “Well, I don’t know, I’m sure about research and history...”

  “I didn’t know you had come from Hindsbridge! Why, my mother and brother have moved there now. Or moved back there, I should say. Please, Grandmama Hazel, tell me what it was like! Oh, but I need to write down what you say!”

  Mavis retrieved her pencil and paper from where she had left them, and sat expectantly looking up at the couple. Her eyes radiated sincerity. Stanley gave her an approving nod as his wife began to talk.

  “Hindsbridge was a wonderful place to grow up! Much smaller than here, of course, but I remember...”

  Sally and Deirdre moved closer to listen. Deirdre leaned in to her granddaughter. “I am very impressed: even Pops can’t talk Grandmama around so quickly!”

  “I know,” replied Sally, resting her head on her grandmother’s shoulder. “I’ve always been so impressed by her.”

  Hazel’s stories were full of gossip, intrigue and tiny details born out of all proportion. They were peppered by interjections from Stanley that would throw the whole thing into perspective.

  Stanley’s stories were wild, sprawling affairs told with humour and a knowing wink to the listener. And if the listener didn’t spot the wink, Hazel would throw in the occasional comment that threatened to collapse the whole edifice of bombastic farce.

  Mavis could see why Stanley’s stories appealed more to Deirdre when she was a child, but she found an equal enjoyment in Hazel’s retellings. It had taken her a little time to adjust to her great great great grandmother’s mannerisms, but she could have gladly sat and just listened to them both for the rest of the night, the daytime, and well into the next evening. As it was, she was forced to take notes: any time she seemed to slacken in her note-taking Hazel would pause everything until she took up her pencil again. As she said, this sort of thing wasn’t to be condoned, and she didn’t think it right for this to have been done for such a “frivolous” thing as hearing stories. And she definitely wouldn’t be coming back to tell them twice, so Mavis had better write them down.

  Mavis found she didn’t mind so much. Writing these things down helped solidify them in her mind. It gave them a chance to sink in, to settle down. It felt, she thought to herself, that these stories were forming supports that buttressed the very core of her being. She didn’t say anything, though, but continued to write down the story of Constance Miller who had got so drunk she’d climbed into the henhouse and woken to find a chicken nesting in her skirts.

  However, time passed, and it was eventually Sally who looked at the sky and spoke up.

  “We’ll not be here much longer, pet. Dawn’s coming, and it’ll be time for us to go. When sunlight touches us, that’s right?”

  “Oh, what a relief! Then you must promise me that you will renounce this path of evil wickedness and debauchery, settle down, marry and have children at once!”

  “Must she do so again, Grandmama? I believe Mavis has already got her own family.”

  “I have, Great Gran, and wonderful children they are too. I wish you could meet them, but you’re quite right, Aunty Sal, you return to your graves when sunlight touches your ghost...”

  “So, if you want, Grandmama Hazel, we could hide in the shadow of that wall until Mavis brings the children over. I’d love to meet them!”

  “Salacia Weaver! You’re truly such a wicked girl to suggest such a thing! I’d never be caught dead haunting a graveyard!”

  As Hazel berated Sally, Stanley and Mavis shared a look. Deirdre had her head down, and her shoulders shook silently, but neither of them dared looked at her for fear it would release their own laughter.

  “It has been a pleasure to meet you, Mavis Carter. I am happy to see the family line still going strong in you.”

  “All the stronger for meeting you, Grandfather Stanley...”

  “Pops, please...”

  “Pops then, thank you. But there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. How did Grandmama Hazel know to call Aunty Sal, Salacia? Even I didn’t know that was her full name. And you called her Sally.”

  Stanley looked troubled. “Her name isn't Salacia. She is genuinely called Sally, Hazel just thinks that is a vulgar name. As to the how... she shouldn’t have said that, and nor should I. Don’t mention it to anyone: don’t even think about it if you can. As I said before, there are things which should remain beyond the ken of the living.” His voice took on an echo of his ‘Dread Spectre’ persona, but his eyes remained serious.

  By that time, Deirdre had regained control of herself, and called out softly: “Grandmama, we must return to our graves. You do not want to be away from it when the sunlight reaches you.”

  “Indeed, quite right, Deirdre! You’ve got a good head on your shoulders! Heaven knows you didn’t get it from your grandfather!” Hazel bustled over, which was quite impressive for a spectre, and floated next to Stanley above their grave. Deirdre turned to her own grave and Mavis hurried to catch up.

  “Don’t you want to say goodbye to your grandparents?”

  By now, Deirdre was once again above her own grave. It struck Mavis how bare it seemed next to her aunt’s, but then she hadn’t known its occupant until now. She resolved to find some flowers for it, and for Hazel and Stanley's too. Maybe bring the children, and tell them stories about their family.

  “Now, love, I believe my Pops mentioned something about you not trying to think about this sort of thing too much? However, I shall say farewell to you, in case it is required. I do not know if we need to be over our graves when sunlight reaches us. I suspect not, which is something for you to bear in mind. It does allow us to say our goodbyes without Grandmama being Grandmama.” She smiled at Mavis, from where she was hovering. “It was a pleasure to meet you, young Mavis. I hope we could provide you some of what you came here seeking.”

  “Of course, you’ve been wonderful! Thank you so much. And I’m sure Mum would have wanted me to pass on her love...”

  “I do not know if you will mention what has happened tonight to Emily, but if you do, please give her my deepest love and a embrace from me. Now, you had best say farewell to Sally before full dawn.”

  “Yes, I...”

  Mavis turned to look for her aunt, but found her stood barely two inches behind her shoulder causing her to step off balance in shock. She slipped to the ground.

  “I’m sorry, pet, but it seems it’s very easy to sneak up on people when you don’t make a sound!” She turned to Deirdre, “So, I made a living person jump, Gran, does that mean I get some sort of ghost award?”

  The cloak was somewhat tangled around Mavis’ body by the fall, and it took her some time to get herself upright.

  “Aunty Sal! We don’t have much time, it’ll be dawn very soon...”

  “Gran and I have been talking about that...”

  But Mavis was looking up now. The roofs of the houses around the graveyard were clearly defined. Colour had crept back into the world. It was already daylight.

  “...and if we return to our graves when touched by a ray of sunlight...”

  And Mavis looked up even further.

  “...well, what happens if it’s an overcast day?”

  The autumn sky was heavy with cloud.

  “More worryingly, who’s going to tell Hazel? Dibs not I!”