Author: literallystories2014

The art of projection, in this instance, involves an ingenious contraption that allows me to float above ground while speaking grave truths to those I’ve been hired to frighten. Or to comfort. Or to confuse, as the case may be. Sometimes silence is all that’s required, but silence of a special kind, needless to say, the kind they call ‘loaded’, the kind that towers, or otherwise makes a portentous impression. Ghost is what I do. It’s a living, if you’ll pardon the expression; and a good one too, in that those who require my services, being usually very rich, pay very well. I’m familiar with the interiors of castles, manor-houses, hunting lodges, theatres, the odd inn. I’m given the requirements, told what manner of ghost it is needs to haunt the place, and adapt accordingly. Doubtless, to your bodily eyes, at this moment, I appear little more than a tallish man, bearded, bald and middle-aged, but trust me, when I’m clad in dusty servant’s garb or bedecked in faded finery, my face moon-pale, I’m altogether more imposing, unsettling – especially if observed from a short distance. Should a haunting entail my having to speak, I learn the words given me, no matter the language, and intone or croak or mutter or bellow in whatever accent is most appropriate. I’ve made cryptic pronouncements in Old French, I’ve made cryptic pronouncements in Latin; I’ve cursed in Swedish, foretold ill fortune in Gaelic. I’ve been a judge who was hanged for murder, I’ve been a minstrel who drowned in a moat; I’ve even been a dead gravedigger, one said to haunt a particular cemetery adjacent to a certain cathedral. It wouldn’t do to be too specific. As I say, ghost is what I do. But never, never have I knowingly been party to any kind of plot or conspiracy or such like. My involvement in matters was always necessarily limited to brief appearances, a few words here, a protracted silence there. I was not privy to the wider machinations of those who engaged my services.