“Goodwife Carter! What a joy to see you abroad so early this morning!”

  The greeting stopped Mavis in her tracks as if the speaker had grabbed at her cloak and physically tugged her backwards. She breathed out, plastered a smile upon her face, and turned about. Her neighbour was stood squarely in the doorway of her own house, which was shrouded in gloom behind her. Her face was filled with satisfaction at having apprehended Mavis before she could reach home.

  “Goodwife Hawkins, a pleasure to see you. I trust you are well?”

  Mistress Hawkins, Mavis’ next-door but one neighbour, was considered an interfering busybody by half the town. The other half considered her as much worse. She delighted in gossip above all else, except only the discomfort of others in her presence. Mavis schooled her expression: any flash of desperation or eagerness to be elsewhere would attach Mistress Hawkins to her unwary victim like a limpet. Her face was unpleasant to look at. Not hideously ugly, but every feature was twisted minutely by the personality inside in a way which gave an onlooker a sense of unease.

  Relations between the two women were exceedingly polite. Mavis knew that on her own part it was to cover up a deep sense of irritation. She was unsure exactly what this politeness meant on the part of her neighbour, but was certain that she enjoyed the discomfort she inflicted on others. Everything Mistress Hawkins did, whether to remark at how Mavis’ children were growing, how sensible her dress was, how good a man her husband was, seemed an implicit criticism of Mavis. Her children’s clothes were too small, her dress choice was dull, her husband could have done much better. Even that morning’s greeting contained the idea that Mavis was normally still abed at this time.

  What Mavis was normally doing at this time was making sure her children (and husband) were washed, dressed and fed. Mistress Hawkins had no children, and her husband was often out before dawn to check his overnight lines and traps. It was no wonder she could leave the house early.

  “Tolerably well, tolerably well. There’s the aches and pains in my old bones from doing the cleaning and cooking at all hours. I trust you’re free of those, Goodwife Carter?” Mistress Hawkins paused, and her smile widened ever so slightly. “Too young as yet, I believe. But youth and beauty fade, and even your own youth will be gone one day.”

  Mavis tried not to grind her teeth as her neighbour continued.

  “I saw the most curious thing this morning, Goodwife Carter. As I opened the door, methought I saw three shapes of blue light, like the afterimage from a fire, travel up the lane towards your home.”

  There was no inquiry as to whether Mavis had seen them, nor speculation as to what they might be. No opening in the conversation for Mavis, who was still quite aware of Hazel hiding at (and partially within) her back. Her skin was itching horribly with the ghost’s proximity. What Mavis did have time for, was to reflexively resent the fact that her neighbour seemed to be placing the blame for anything strange quite literally at her door. That it was indeed her actions that had led to it was quite beside the point.

  Nevertheless, she smiled politely and glanced towards her home. To her relief, none of her relatives, living or dead, were visible.

  “I can’t see anything myself, Goodwife Hawkins.” There was a brief tussle between different aspects of her personality that Mavis was barely aware of, before she continued, “Can you still see them?” Her tone was solicitous, her smile fixed in place, but Mavis was inwardly daring her neighbour to say yes.

  “No, no, I can’t see anything at the moment...” By reflex, Mistress Hawkins looked up the lane, and it was this reaction which saved Mavis from disaster when her great great great grandmother spoke up.

  “You do surprise me, you nosy old baggage!”

  Mistress Hawkins face swivelled around to Mavis but the younger woman had schooled her expression by then.

  “What did you say to me?”

  Holding back a smile, or a scream, Mavis forced herself to respond with a calmness she did not feel. “I said that I could not see anything, Goodwife Hawkins.”

  Even as she spoke, Hazel’s voice began talking over her, leaving no doubt that there was an extra speaker. “Oh, I’ve met many a woman like you, ‘Good’wife Hawkins, seeming good on the surface, but rotten to the core beneath! Why, you’re nothing special! But from each one of you, the badness will out itself in time! And so it is with you, your badness is outing itself something terrible it is!”

  Mistress Hawkins face paled and slackened, her jaw dropping. Mavis kept her own visage politely interested, veering to concerned as time passed, but inside her heart was thumping rapidly and her stomach felt ready to exit the body, one way or another.

  Eventually, Hazel stopped speaking, and Mavis waited for whatever would happen next. Whether it was another neighbour leaving their home, or some passer-by spotting Hazel, or Mistress Hawkins immediately accusing her of witchcraft, it would surely be disastrous. But seconds slipped into a minute, and all that happened was Mistress Hawkins’ jaw moving soundlessly, as if she were chewing a large piece of gristle. It slowly occurred to Mavis that it was possibly she who was to take the next action.

  She reached out and forced herself to gently touch Mistress Hawkins’ elbow.

  “Goodwife Hawkins, are you well? Do you want me to send for your husband?”

  The touch seemed to startle the woman.

  “My... husband? Jackson?”

  Mavis frowned at that. Clayton Hawkins was her husband, surely? But her confusion only deepened as Mistress Hawkins flushed and retreated quickly indoors without any further word. The door slammed shut, leaving Mavis with an afterimage of a woman who suddenly looked much older and much less sure of herself.

  “What was that?” she whispered to herself, but got an answer anyway. Part of an answer.

  “There are things we cannot tell the living, Mavis, so don’t ask! But just because we are dead, it does not mean we don’t know things! And one thing I know is that it is past time we were home!”

  If anything, it was the (relative) softness of Hazel’s voice which urged Mavis back into movement. It seemed there had been a reprise from the discovery of her actions, and it would be unwise to waste it. She quickly looked around herself once more, before striding to her front door, unlatching it, and slipping inside.

  The house remained shuttered and quiet, but the hallway was neither dark nor empty. It was illuminated by the flickering lights of three ghosts: Stanley glanced over at Mavis and beckoned his wife to join them, Deirdre stood tall and straight by the wall, whilst Sally had crouched down and was smiling up as gently as possible towards two of Mavis’ children stood on the wooden stairs. Kori, the eldest at about nine years old, was frozen rigidly, hand clasped tight around her younger brother’s hand. For his part, three-year old Thomas peered out from behind his sister’s legs, eyes wide and reflecting the shimmering ghost-light. Along the corridor, the faces of the twins could be seen staring out through the partially open kitchen door.

  Mavis smiled gently up at her offspring, set down the bundle of book and candles on a low table by the door, placed her lantern on top, and took off her cloak.

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  “Children, these are... well, this is my Aunty Sal, her grandmother Deirdre, and her grandmama and grandpa Hazel and Stanley. They’ve come to... visit for a little bit.” There was absolutely no reaction from Kori, who still stood with her gaze fixed on Sally, but Thomas looked at his mother, smiled a smile which could melt the heart of a glacier, and stretched his free hand out towards her. The other remained tightly held in Kori’s grip. It occurred to Mavis that it might not be held just to comfort Thomas. She climbed five steps up towards the two of them, gathered Thomas in her arms (he wrapped his own arms around her neck and snuggled his head into her shoulder), before freeing one hand to take Kori’s now released hand. She could practically feel her daughter vibrating.

  Kori’s eyes remained rooted in the direction of Sally, never mind that Mavis was now blocking her view. She spoke to her mother anyway.

  “Dad went out to look for you. He said he’d gone for milk, but he didn’t take the jug.”

  There was a moment where Mavis looked down on herself from outside, when all she could see was the morning’s events from the point of view of her daughter, and she felt her heart could break. She kissed Kori on her forehead.

  “I’m sorry, Kori pet. I was out much longer than I expected. But I’m back now. I won’t be doing it again.”

  In hindsight, Mavis was surprised that there was no interjection from Hazel at this point, but the spirit clearly had more discretion than she had given her credit for. At the time, though, Mavis was thinking of nothing more than the boy in her arms, the girl on the stairs, and the two twins in the kitchen.

  “What say we all go into the kitchen where we can talk, hey?”

  Kori nodded quietly, but it was only once the ghosts had floated along the hallway and into the kitchen that she allowed herself to be led down the stairs.

  The kitchen grate had clearly been cleared by her husband, Jack, that morning. It wasn’t that he did a bad job of it, it just wasn’t done the way Mavis would have done it. She was grateful, nevertheless.

  They had both agreed not to leave a lit fire in the house with the children until the children were some unspecified ‘older,’ so the fire remained unlit. It had been ‘made’ after a fashion by somebody, probably the twins. There was an attempt at neatness, a large log in the centre of the fireplace with kindling arranged in an orderly row along one side, with a small pile of wood shavings, loose threads and dried grass in the middle. They had seen a fire get laid plenty of times, without quite understanding what had been done or why.

  “Thank you girls for setting the fire, and good job at waiting for me to come back and light it! I’ll just move a couple of these things and start the fire going!”

  The six-year old twins, Lavender and Myrtle, beamed at each other proudly, not noticing their mother discreetly rearranging their work. They had clearly done each other’s hair that morning. The style was... imaginative. Thomas applauded them from where he was sat between them.

  The three children were clustered around one end of the table, an assortment of bowls, cups and spoons laid out in a vague approximation of place settings. The four ghosts hovered awkwardly at the other end of the table. It seemed that death didn’t remove the inability to know where to put oneself in a strange house where you wouldn’t get in the way. The younger children were unaware in a self-absorbed way: they were more concerned with their upcoming breakfast.

  Kori watched from the doorway. She couldn’t be coaxed any further in.

  Mavis shared a glance with Sally, a muted appeal for help. The grin Sally returned to her made her regret that almost immediately. The spirit rubbed her hands together with a sound of crackling, and a handful of blue sparks shot out, immediately attracting Thomas and Myrtle’s attention.

  “So, did your mother ever tell you about the time she let your Uncle Rickon cut her hair?”

  Mavis stopped moving momentarily. She could feel her children’s eyes swivel from her aunt, to her, and back. She couldn’t tell which one of the twins breathed the word ‘no,’ but it was a sound full of anticipation.

  There was a definite note of smug satisfaction as Sally began her story.

  “It was normally her Mum, your Gran, who’d do it, but one winter she burned her hand quite badly on the pot and couldn’t use the scissors. I’d have helped, of course, but I was rushed off my feet doing all the things your Gran couldn’t do at the time. Your Grandpa was busy too...”

  “We call him Grampy,” a small voice corrected her, unwilling to interrupt but needing to be precise.

  “Your Grampy was busy too, plus he had far too much sense to be cutting a seven-year old girl’s hair the week before the solstice fair. But your Uncle Rickon was too young, then to have much sense,” All the children nodded sagely at that despite Rickon being older in the telling than three of them were in the hearing, “And your Mum was just too desperate to look nice for the fair for her to think about anything else.

  “We knew nothing about it at first, of course, but your Gran and I came in from carding the wool one evening to see your Mum sat on a chair in the middle of the kitchen, hair all over the floor around her. Rickon was stood on a chair behind her, face a state, tears streaming down his cheeks because he knew that he’d made a bit of a mistake, and he knew your Mum would be furious with what he’d done.”

  Mavis remembered it well. She’d been so sure that her hair would look as amazing as it always did when it was cut that she was convinced Rickon would be able to do it right. It had seemed to take a while, but she wasn’t worried. Right up until the door had opened and she’d seen her mother and Auntie Sal staring at her in shock.

  “When he saw us, Rickon burst into full bawling-his-eyes-out tears. Your Mum just stared at us, and ever so slowly lifted her hands to her head.”

  She’d been expecting to find neatly cut hair, but her fingers had touched nothing but air and the occasional lonely strand. Ever more slowly, Mavis had lifted her hands higher and higher.

  “Rickon told us later he had tried so hard to get it neat and matching, but one bit was always a bit too short, so he’d cut a longer bit so that it had become too short, and had then had to cut again, and again. The hair right on the top of your Mum’s head was still there (mostly), but the sides and the back were as short as a boy’s. Shorter even!”

  “What happened?” Lavender was looking at her mother’s hair like she was suddenly going to whip off a wig and reveal the most hideous haircut in existence after thirty years or so.

  “Well, your Mum stormed off, of course. I don’t think she was angry with Rickon, but she just felt...”

  “I think foolish is the word you’re looking for, Auntie Sal. That or ridiculous. Maybe stupid.” Mavis' face was a little red from remembered embarrassment as she blew on the coals left smouldering from the previous night's fire and placed them at the heart of the kindling.

  “Aye, one of those words. Maybe all of them. Well, the room was silent after she’d gone, ‘cept for Rickon’s crying. I was too busy trying not to laugh to be of any use, but your Gran just swept up to Rickon, kissed him and told him it was going to be all right, then plonked him in my arms for a cuddle. She picked up the scissors from where Rickon had dropped them, wiped them on her skirts, and headed upstairs to your Mum.”

  “Gran was knocking on my door for ages to try and come in, but I wouldn’t let her. Eventually, I asked her if she would come in to help me make a really good bonnet for the fair. I thought, if my bonnet were just pretty enough then nobody would wonder why I wasn’t taking it off. Well, she came in, looked at me with head on one side and said, ‘Why, love, it’s not so bad. It just needs a bit of tidying up.’”

  “Did you go to the fair?” That question came from Myrtle.

  “Well, first she needed some reassurance. Your Gran really did do a good job on your Mum’s hair. Short and neat on the back and side, and then the top gathered into two plaits that hung down to her shoulders. We spent days telling her how nice it looks, and by the time the Solstice Fair came around next week the problem we had was to get your Mum to wear her bonnet at all! She strode around the fair showing off her haircut to all and sundry. Caught a terrible cold because of it. But come the spring, half the little girls in the town had it short on the back and sides, and long plaits on the top!”

  “Mistress Garland wears her hair like that!”

  The tale was done, and the fire was lit. Kori had moved in to join her siblings at the table. At some point during the telling she had decided that Sally was clearly family, and so there was nothing to be afraid of.

  Her place was taken by a new figure at the doorway.

  “Oh yes, Becca Worthing, as she was then, was very taken by your Mummy’s haircut. Almost as much as I was!”

  Jack Carter smiled at his wife.

  “See we have some houseguests. It’s good to see you again, Sal, if a bit of a surprise. I’ve bought some fresh milk, and some buns from the bakery. Afraid I forgot the jug, was a bit distracted this morning.” He placed the buns in front of the twins, who took turns burying their head into the bag to inhale the scent, much to the unhappiness of Thomas who wanted his own turn. The borrowed jug was placed more in the centre of the table. Next to it, Kori was listening to something Sally was whispering in her ear. The other three spirits watched the newcomer.

  Mavis moved to her husband.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “I’ve been...”

  “I know. Well, I don’t, but I knew something was bothering you. I didn’t know how to help.” He gave a snort of laughter, “Was going to ask your mother to visit, but I see you invited relatives yourself. Assuming they are all relatives?”

  Before Mavis could make introductions, Hazel spoke up. She had been silent for far too long.

  “This is Deirdre Weaver, your wife’s great-grandmother, so she certainly is your relative! And we are her grandparents, Stanley and Hazel Thatcher!”

  Before Jack could respond his daughter burst in, giving him a significant look. Sally had a similar look on her face, one he knew very well.

  “Dad, Grandmama Hazel knew Constance Miller when she was alive!”

  “Constance Miller! Well I never! You’ll have to tell us all about her, Goodwife Thatcher: we’re all big Constance Miller fans in this household, aren’t we children?”

  Mavis kissed her husband on the cheek (unwashed, but she'd forgive him), and set about cooking the breakfast porridge.