Tomorrow's Ghosts by Charles Christian Page A

the fridge.”
    “Er, tea please,” she replies, “it’s a little early in the day for wine for me.”
    “Don’t tell me,” I say, as I switch on the kettle and then pull the wine bottle from the fridge and unscrew its cap (it’s not too early in the day for me) “that was your first face-to-face encounter with the supernatural?” She nods her head and I slowly shake mine in mock disbelief. “What do they teach people at priest school these days.”
    She smiles wanly. “I think that after all I do need something a little stronger than tea,” she replies, “is that offer of wine still open?”
    It is and I pour us both a glass.
    She takes a large swig, then breathes in deeply. “So, you live here alone at the end of a track in Foxburrow Wood with only a ghost for company. One of the churchwardens warned me you were a little strange but I didn’t realise how strange!” She gives me a distinctly arch look before asking “Go on, what do you know about it, I mean her?”
    “Not a lot,” I reply. “The ghost was already in occupation when I moved in. I’ve done some research but there is no record of a woman ever dying in this cottage. I’m guessing she must be the shade of someone who once stayed here or visited regularly. Going by the style of her hair and dress, maybe Victorian or Edwardian era? Maybe she took her summer holidays here.”
    The vicar nods in agreement, adding “Perhaps she came here to take a cure beside the sea. They were keen on the restorative benefits of ozone, bracing East Coast sea breezes, sunshine and all that back in those days.”
    “They still are,” I reply. Then, before I can button my lip, I add “Of course it’s a classic Type Two haunting.”
    “What? You have categories for ghosts now!”
    “Sorry,” I say, “I forget not everyone has the same fascination with the occult as me. OK, here’s your absolute beginners 101 guide to ghosts and hauntings. There are four categories of ghost. The Type One is an intelligent haunting, where the ghost seems to be conscious of its surroundings and may try to interact with the people or place it haunts. This is the spook or
revenant
you encounter in ghost stories from Dickens’
Christmas Carol
and the M R James tales through to movies like
Ghostbusters
and
The Woman in Black
. Despite their high profile in fiction, in the real world, well at least in my world, they are relatively rare. Though that doesn’t stop them from being unpleasant, malevolent, scary and annoying. The sort that tug at your bedclothes in the middle of the night with skeletal hands.”
    The Reverend Ursula shudders and takes another sip of wine.
    “The second sort, the Type Two ghost we have here, is a residual or imprint haunting. These are the most frequent type of ghost sighting, where the spirit is oblivious to its surroundings, and anyone present, and just keeps living out the same set of past events over and over again. You can’t communicate with this type of ghost. In fact there is a suggestion, known as the
Stone Tape
theory, that they are not so much spectral beings but a playback, like a video, of an event in the ghost’s past life that was so powerfully emotional it left an imprint or recording in the surrounding fabric of a building or landscape. That’s why you get reports of ghost sightings at the scenes of murders, fatal accidents and battles. But they can also occur where a ghost had enjoyed feelings of great happiness during its life.”
    The Reverend Ursula nods her head and absent-mindedly taps the foot of her wine glass on the tabletop. “That makes sense,” she says. “And these ghosts can also be seen during the daylight, like the one I saw?”
    “Exactly. I’m sure that’s what we have here. The ghost you saw looking out of the front bedroom window was probably waiting for a friend or possibly her lover to return.” I don’t add the reason I’m thinking the explanation is a love affair is because I once entered that