should already know who she means. In my mind, I see the man with the spade.
“Okay, I’m warned,” I say. “But I’m not going into the bog. Now, please leave me alone.”
A whirlwind of air so cold it burns my eyes. My breath hangs in frozen condensation, and I brace myself for another blast. None comes. I start forward again, step by careful step, ready for the sudden gust that will knock me off my feet.
It never comes.
She has done what I asked. She’s left me alone.
I cross the rocks and come out onto flat, soft moor, my toes reveling in the sponge of heather underfoot. The smell of it wafts up, and somewhere in the distance, a cow lows, and a dove coos, and I realize how quiet it’d been before. Too quiet even for the moors at night, every beast going silent as the ghost appeared.
I round a corner to see a white shape moving across the field. I yelp and fall back . . . and a sheep turns to bleat at my foolishness before clearing out of my way.
“Sorry!” I call, my voice echoing in the night.
I find the path easily enough, and then I’m off, circling the bog as I make my way home. I relax, my strides lengthening, step confident, swing around a corner and nearly collide with the ghost.
I draw back, my lip curling in a snarl. Then, I see that it’s the woman from my first night out here. I’ve all but run into her, poised on the path, her breath coming in sharp, shallow bursts.
“P-please,” she says. “Please stop.”
I wave my hand inches from her indistinct face. She only swivels, gaze tripping over the stunted trees all around us.
“I know you’re there,” she says. “I saw you.”
She keeps looking.
“I hear you breathing,” she says. “You want me to hear you.”
She turns in a full circle, hands clenched but lowered, as if ready to defend herself but having no idea how. Her face is blurred enough that she could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty. I can make out dark eyes and light hair, sweat sodden after her flight. Her blue dress is torn, the crinolines askew.
“Stop this,” she says, trembling as she struggles to steady her voice. “Please. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know why you’re doing this. I don’t care. Stop it, and let me leave, and I’ll never come back, and I won’t tell anyone what you did. Just let me—”
A scream as she pitches forward, as if struck from behind. Blood sprays as she drops face first to the ground . . . and disappears.
I stand there, stock still. When a gasp sounds, I jump, only to realize it comes from my own throat. I’ve been holding my breath, and now it bursts forth.
I stare at the spot, waiting for the scene to resume so I can see what happened to her.
I know what happened to her.
It’s a long time before I can gather my wits enough to leave, and when I do, it’s at a jog, my lungs burning, panic welling up. I tear down one path and then turn onto another, and a man steps around the next bend. I jerk back, but it’s too late. He’s looking right at me. It’s the man with the spade. Except he isn’t carrying the spade. He’s carrying a body. A figure lies draped over his arms. A figure wrapped in a bedsheet.
The man keeps coming, moving straight for me. I scramble off the path, but there are no trees here to hide behind. It’s open moor, and all I can do is run. I take three steps and look back over my shoulder to see the man still walking along the path, his face set in the same grim expression, gaze fixed straight ahead. He walks with the slow, measured pace of a pallbearer in a funeral procession.
“Hello?” I say, my voice creaking.
His stride doesn’t even hitch. I ease toward him, ready to turn and run at any sign he hears me. But he isn’t there, at least not in the sense that the other ghost was, where I could interact with her. This is one of those “spectral replays,” like the woman I just encountered on the path. I take a deep breath, realizing I’m safe, and as my panic subsides, curiosity slips into its place.
I keep going until I’m jogging alongside him. Then I swing into his path. I see his face more