A seasonal selection of spooky stories, published 1992, and featuring a story each by authors Tessa Krailing, Garry Kilworth, Robert Swindells, David Belbin, Anthony Masters, Jill Bennett, Ian Strachan, Joan Aiken and Susan Price.
Three nights before Christmas, prematurely retired farmer Hal and nurse Margaret bid daughter Anna goodnight. Anna hopes their newly bought semi-detached house to be free of her seasonal bedtime haunting - however, four-year-old sister Becky has just heard, from outside her window, a succession of chimes. Outside Anna’s bedroom window, a soft jangling; tapping, and a brief, unaccountable bout of suffocation announce the ghost to have followed her.
Next night, Anna’s desperate attempt to open her bedroom window draws visiting Aunt Jen - who, next day, protests Margaret’s refusal to discuss some mysterious past occurrence. Why is Anna forbidden to enter the loft? Why has the ghost followed her? And will her next bout of phantom suffocation prove fatal?
This tale provides examples of:
- Big Sister Instinct: When smoke seeps beneath her door, Anna follows it to Becky’s room; and with a yelled sudden memory of her dead brother, alerts everyone to the danger.
- Cheerful Child: Becky.
- Death of a Child: When Anna was four, her baby brother Andrew died in his cot of suffocation.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After years of spectrally empathic suffocation, Anna’s prevention of another fatal suffocation unlocks her memory of her baby brother’s death; laying to rest her misplaced guilt, and letting her brother’s spirit back into the family.
- Ectoplasm: Subverted. When a filmy, insubstantial shape seeps beneath her bedroom door, Anna soon realises it to be smoke.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Downplayed, but implied - Anna fears her parents’ dismissal of her annual haunting.
- Fiery Red Head: Downplayed; Aunt Jen, whose hair is a dye-job, earnestly rather than aggressively challenges her sister-in-law’s suppression of baby Andrew’s death.
- Friendly Ghost: Andrew just wants his bereaved family to acknowledge his memory, and, seemingly, to save the life of his smoke-endangered sister.
- Ghostly Chill: Averted - Anna’s seasonal nightly hauntings, instead of a drop in temperature, bring choking, sweltering heat.
- Guardian Entity: The ghost of baby Andrew may be deliberately trying to warn of Becky’s impending danger.
- History Repeats: On the third night of the haunting, smoke, from Becky’s night light, onto which has fallen her teddy bear, threatens suffocation - she narrowly evades a similar fate to baby Andrew.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Having suppressed the memory of baby brother Andrew’s cot death, Anna unconsciously interprets her parents’ silence as blame.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Chillingly so - an inscrutable tapping on Anna’s window is followed by an unaccountable bout of suffocation.
- Poor Communication Kills: Hal and Margaret’s refusal to discuss baby Andrew’s cot death has unconsciously persuaded Anna that they blame her for it.
- Protectorate: Having lost a child to cot death, Margaret frequently has Anna check on Becky.
- Reluctant Retiree: Back trouble has forced Hal to give up farming.
- Supernatural Suffocation: Around each Christmas, for several nights, after a jangling of soft bells and a tapping on her window, Anna is plagued by unaccountable bouts of sweltering airlessness.
- The Atoner: Having unconsciously mistakenly blamed herself for her baby brother’s cot death, Anna is very protective of four-year-old sister Becky.
- The Quiet One: Hal tends to communicate in grunts - although briefly opens up to Anna.
- Tragic Keepsake: With Andrew’s brief life once more acknowledged by his family, his blue and white cuddly elephant is passed on to Becky.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: On their baby son’s cot death, Hal and Margaret’s refusal to discuss their bereavement persuaded Anna that they blamed her, seemingly forcing her to suppress all memory of the tragedy.
With their father working overseas and their mother awaiting an operation, thirteen-year-old Colin and ten-year-old Jill take a train to the village of Ashingdon, to stay with their Great Uncle Giles Foster - who isn’t at the station. Bert Wilson, a friend of their uncle, drives them to a currently unoccupied Chase Cottage.
With night having fallen; heavy snow and a power outage, the siblings, from the nearby spinney, take the branch of an ancient yew tree, and light the fire. Giles Foster soon arrives, and tells them of a ghost - towards the end of the nineteenth century, a local woodman, dangling by his neck from the branch of the spinney’s yew tree, was found dead. Burning a piece of the yew tree is known to rouse his ghost, who will then demand an explanation for his mysterious death. Colin and Jill, being computer whizz-kids with a flair for riddles, decide to have a go…
This tale provides examples of:
- All Love Is Unrequited: In his advancing years, the Woodman’s affection for the local choir mistress was met with limited enthusiasm.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: With Colin and Jill having solved the mystery of his death, their great great Uncle Giles is free to move on.
- Barred from the Afterlife: Before reaching the next world, the Woodman requires someone to solve the mystery of his death.
- Campbell Country: Just outside the Essex village of Ashingdon lies forest-adjacent, haunted Chase Cottage.
- Cool Old Guy: The living Uncle Giles supplies cocoa and biscuits; knows about Ghostbusters, and, while rather old-fashioned, introduces his niece and nephew to a newly bought home computer.
- Dead All Along: The man who meets Colin and Jill at Chase Cottage is Giles Foster - spectral ancestor of his living namesake.
- Haunted House: The Woodman often extends his spinney hauntings to Chase Cottage.
- Mighty Lumberjack: The Woodman, from a lifetime spent at it, “cut trees like some folks cut butter.”
- Mysterious Mist: With Colin and Jill having solved the riddle, a mist weaves its way between the trees.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Giles warns that failure to solve the Woodman’s enigma will incur the Woodman’s relentless harassment, liable to drive one half mad with fear.
- Riddle Me This: When haunting, the Woodman poses the enigma of his untimely death.
- Shout-Out:Uncle Giles: I expect you’re tired after all your ghost-busting!
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Lampshaded.Colin: There’s no such thing as ghosts really, is there?Giles: You’ve spoke on that once already. Them what repeat things really don’t mean what they says. They usually mean the opposite.
- Teen Genius: Thirteen-year-old Colin and ten-year-old Jill, both with a flair for riddles, have serious ambitions to design their own computer game.
- Under the Mistletoe: The Woodman’s eventually revealed motive for his fatal tree climb - with a twig of its mistletoe, he’d hoped to charm the choir mistress.
- When Trees Attack: With the Woodman’s corpse found caught by the throat in a yew tree’s branch, Jill asks if the tree is thought to have attacked him.Giles: Nothing so theatre-like as that, I’m sorry to report.
Staying with her widowed grandmother in London, nine-year-old Laura, in search of the fabled ghost of the Weeping Maid, explores the attics above her Grandma’s part of the house. On a flight of stairs, Laura sees the sobbing figure of a teenage girl in a black and white housemaid’s outfit. At Laura’s approach, the Maid seems relieved. On Laura’s sympathetic enquiry, the Maid leads her to a small attic room, and telepathically imparts her tragic story…
In 1914, fifteen-year-old Alice, to support her village family, works as a housemaid for the Bertrams. Homesickness eased by older colleague Sarah, Alice, with young fishmonger Bertie, starts a discreet courtship. Shortly after twenty-year-old Geoffrey Bertram is shipped off to war, Bertie enlists - and is later killed in action. Half-crazed with grief, Alice, from Bertie's pal Herbert, receives a mysterious package…
This tale provides examples of:
- Big Fancy House: The large house shared by her Grandma with the Jenkinsons' offers Laura ample exploration opportunities.
- Due to the Dead: Bertie's posthumously sent bomb accompanies a verse which prescribes as such its detonation.
- Forgiveness: Eventual absence of the Weeping Maid persuades Laura of her Grandma’s forgiveness of the hiding of a bomb in her war-surving father’s fireplace by a bereaved housemaid.
- Gallows Humour: On Bertie’s request, Herbert Biggs, near Christmas, delivers to the bereaved Alice a mysterious package.Herbert: It’s a Christmas box, Miss. An early Christmas box, and I’m Santa Claus.
- If I Do Not Return: In the event of his death, Bertie asked his friend Herbert to deliver to Alice a package containing a bomb.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Alice, disorientated with grief over Bertie, lays in Geoffrey’s fireplace Bertie’s posted bomb; is overwhelmed by guilt, and gets out of bed to confess - but is interrupted by the explosion. Later, dying of influenza, she writes a confession note - which her distraught friend Sarah leaves in a cigarette tin, concealed behind a loose brick.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Obliged to help prepare the Betram’s farewell party for Geoffrey, Alice is denied the chance to bid her own farewell to Bertie.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: While she seems perfectly tangible, the Weeping Maid's ascent upstairs leaves the cobwebs undisturbed, and Laura's hand, offered in comfort, passes seamlessly through her.
- Outliving One's Offspring: While young Geoffrey survives the war, Bertie’s bomb, planted in his fireplace by Alice, kills him.
- Pensieve Flashback: To Laura, the spectral Maid directly imparts her memories.
- The Voiceless: The Weeping Maid, seemingly unable to speak out loud, communicates with telepathically imparted speech and memories.
From Southampton, student Mark Sullivan takes residence in a Victorian Nottingham terrace, converted into flats. Mark’s repainting of the place is shortly followed by a visit from Ruth and Ian. Psychology graduates, their PhD under paranormal researcher Professor Hugh Jenkinson has brought them to Mark’s stairs, site of three separately reported hauntings.
Mark happily accommodates their nightly investigation. Despite his scepticism, he can’t help wishing them some kind of success. One night, a jubilant Ruth and Ian greet Mark with a claim to have filmed a deathly white old man, with no visible feet, climb the stairs, only to unaccountably vanish. However, the camera doesn’t seem to have filmed any such sighting. Were the investigators just fooling themselves? Or has the camera failure a darker explanation…?
This tale provides examples of:
- Dead All Along: Ruth and Ian.
- Death by Falling Over: In the 1920s, an elderly resident of the terrace, which was then a boarding house, fell through a bannister rail and broke his neck.
- Happy Dance: Having filmed the ghost, Ruth and Ian hug; jump up and down and make whoop sounds.
- Haunted House: In the 1920s, a Victorian Nottingham terrace served as a boarder house, in which, from a rotted railing, a resident fatally fell. The stairs have since seen an incongruous, deathly pale visitor, followed by a discarnate scream.
- Jacob Marley Apparel: The stairway ghost is said to be an old man in an old-fashioned dressing gown.
- Jaded Professional: After Ruth and Ian’s deaths, Professor Jenkins closed the paranormal investigations department, and returned to psychology.
- Monochrome Apparition: The ghost of Mark’s stairs is said to be completely white.
- Occult Detective: Paranormal investigators Ruth and Ian.
- Odd Friendship: Solitary Combined Humanities student Mark is visited by two paranormal investigators. Despite his scepticism, he wishes them luck.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The terrace stairs are occasionally seen to host a completely white, dressing gown-clad man - whose feet are seamlessly obscured by the floor. Conversely, Ruth and Ian seem not to realise themselves to have died, and directly interact with the physical world.
- Shout-Out: On a visit from two psychology graduates on a paranormal investigation…Mark: You mean like Ghostbusters?
- Starving Student: Downplayed. Instead of halls of residence, Mark lodges in a converted Victorian terrace, and can’t afford a telephone.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Professor Hugh Jenkins irritability stems from grief over the deaths of Ruth and Ian.
- Wham Line: Two - a visiting Professor Jenkins reports Ruth and Ian to have died in a car crash. And then…Mark: Ruth and Ian were my friends. I'd like to go to their funerals, if I can. Do you know the arrangements?Professor Jenkinson: {his gaze was chilling, but he spoke gently} That won’t be possible, I’m afraid. Ruth and Ian died five years ago.
One wet Sunday afternoon, with maternal aunt Jenny out, young orphan Ian decides to visit the forbidden attic. Amidst the clutter, the face of one of several broken dolls is smashed to a macabre parody of a smile. Suddenly overcome by dizziness, Ian, in the suddenly darkened attic, hears a screech of brakes.
Next day, having served detention for accidentally breaking a school window, Ian, waiting at the bus stop, hears, from an empty old house, a sound of distress. Inside, a woman and a doll-carrying girl slightly younger than Ian both walk seamlessly through him.
On the unexpectedly single decker bus, near empty but for the insubstantial strangers, only the young girl seems aware of Ian’s presence. Back home, on Ian’s desperate curiosity, Jenny reluctantly recounts the deaths of Ian’s mother and sister…
This tale provides examples of:
- Creepy Basement: Or rather attic.
- Creepy Doll: Sally, at first - subverted when the doll's parody of a smile seems sad rather than sinister.
- Eerily Out-of-Place Object: Aboard the single decker bus, Ian sees local buildings to host different shops and establishments.
- Ghost Train: Ian boards what seems to be a phantom bus.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Having died in a bus crash, Anna and Sophie, aware of the phantom repetition, perish each day.
- Haunted Fetter: Attic-stored broken doll Sally, to which young Sophie was deeply attached, seems to trigger Ian’s spectral merge with the bus crash in which his mother and sister died. Having vowed to repair Sally, Ian instinctively knows the bus journey to be over.
- Haunted House: From an ancient, weather-boarded cottage, a cry of distress draws Ian inside, where a woman in slightly dated clothes and doll-carrying young girl walk seamlessly through him.
- Parental Substitute: Jenny, older sister to his late mother Anna, looks after Ian.
- Lovable Rogue: Ian’s lifelong friend Freddy aims to sell abandoned lead. Believing the voice from the old house to be a dosser, he suggests pranking him.
- Nightmare Face: Jenny’s attic holds a doll with one empty eyehole, a hole in one cheek, and whose pouting lips cracked into macabre parody of a smile. Later subverted, when, on Ian’s pledge to have the doll repaired, its face seems sad rather than sinister.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: On seeing, in their old house, his late mother and sister’s substantial yet unresponsive ghosts, Ian, following a disorientating dizziness, boards an unfamiliar bus. Driving past strangely altered streets, only his sister Sophie senses him.
- Tragic Keepsake: Having assured Sophie that he’ll have her doll Sally repairs, Ian kisses the doll’s broken lips - which seem strangely soft.
Sharon Butts and son Martin move into a third floor flat. One evening, with Sharon working at the supermarket, the living room’s windowless far wall, within shadow grows hazy, whereupon its shadows coalesce into a room - in the glow whose lamp, a mother, son and daughter who seem unaware of Martin. On Sharon’s return, the phantom room fades.
In frequent appearances of the “other room,” solitary Martin becomes engrossed - in the mother’s knitting of khaki scarves; the kids’ board games, and their attendance of wireless broadcasts, he feels included.
Curious about the mother’s hole-riddled letters, Martin, from elderly neighbour Mrs Collins, learns of wartime letter censorship - he realises the phantom mother’s husband to have been a prisoner of war. During that time, Mrs Collins recalls the bombing of a large boarding house near to the site of Martin’s current residence.
Suddenly obsessed by World War II, lonely Martin longs for his phantom neighbours’ closer company. But will they ever see and hear him?
This tale provides example of:
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Not absurdly, but Sharon is quite young, and adorns the flat with a pop group poster.
- Big Fun: Elderly, overweight Mrs Collins, while a little gruff, has moments of joviality.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Martin has a limited tolerance for being called "Mart".
- Food Porn: Some simple yet tantalising descriptions of pizza and fish and chips.
- Go Out with a Smile: Overjoyed to be noticed and invited by his phantom neighbours, Martin steps onto their phantom floor, and falls three storeys to his death.
- Haunted House: Martin's flat bridges the sight of a boarding house bombed in the war. One of the flats' walls frequently fades to accommodate the ghosts of the room and its occupants.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Across a windowless wall, evening shadows, with a blur, coalesce into a room occupied by a mother, son and daughter. They eventually notice and invite Martin in - whereupon he falls through the phantom floor to his death.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: While mother Sharon is clearly loving, Martin, having spent his young life in various allocated residences, feels alienated, and pines for the domestic fellowship seen in the other room.
- Lonely Together: Martin and the phantom family, whose husband and father is a prisoner of war.
- Ms. Exposition: From her memories of the war, Mrs Collins recalls the bombing of a house near the site of Martin’s flat.
- Must Make Amends: After shouting at Sharon in frustration at her unwitting banishment of the phantom room, Martin gets her, for Christmas, a blue ribbon-adorned basket of soaps.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Martin steps into the phantom room, and falls three storeys to his death.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Martin’s preoccupied introversion worries Sharon.
With parents; seven-year-old sister Emily and dog Sam, near-thirteen-year-old Christy, near a Suffolk village, arrives to spend Christmas at the Old Parsonage. Having been born at midnight on Christmas morning, Christy learns from a local ironmonger of the mystical lineage local lore accredits such people.
In the Parsonage, a pamphlet notes the cottage, during the English Civil War, to have seen Puritan Ezra Be-Thankful Dexter, for her inheritance, wall up and leave to die thirteen-year-old niece Rachel Sloane. Meanwhile, directly beneath the cottage bathroom, a crack in the stone wall has grown unaccountably wider.
At the Christmas Eve church service, cottage caretaker Mrs Pargeter gives Christy a somewhat cryptic word of encouragement. Outside, a man in a white hooded robe, claiming to be a druid, hands Christy a golden knife for cutting mistletoe…
This tale provides examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: The golden knife given Christy by the Druid cuts through a branch “like an oar through water.”
- The Alleged House: Downplayed. The crumbling Old Parsonage is bitterly cold - but this is due to a wind-induced power cut. Getting the Aga stove to work improves things.
- Big Fun: Overweight, good-humoured Mrs Pargeter.
- Buried Alive: In the Old Parsonage, Ezra Be-Thankful Dexter, for her inheritance, walled up niece Rachel Sloame.
- Campbell Country: This part of Suffolk, apparently, recognises the mystical affinities of those born at certain hours.
- Cheerful Child: Emily.
- The Chosen One: Those born at the “magical hours of three, six, nine or twelve” are said to have mystical affinity with animals and herbs - those born at twelve with ghosts. Those who know of the Old Parsonage’s history anticipate Christy’s potential to free Rachel’s entombed ghost.
- Deal with the Devil: Ezra Be-Thankful-Dexter is said to be infused with the Devil’s power.
- Druid: A modern one briefly approaches Christy with the gift of a golden knife; and to advise the protective properties of mistletoe.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: An uneasy Sam briefly runs away.
- Evil Smells Bad: Entry to the cottage briefly rouses a foetid smell. It later heralds the arrival of Ezra Be-Thankful Dexter.
- Haunted House: During the English Civil War, thirteen-year-old Rachel Sloane was walled up and left to die. A crack in the stone wall unaccountably widens. The stone leaks water - which tastes like tears.
- Holy Burns Evil: Mistletoe is said to repel evil; getting poked with a branch of the stuff causes one of Ezra’s spectral arms to wither.
- Meaningful Name: Christy, having been born at Midnight on the start of Christmas Day.
- Poltergeist: Inverted - on Christmas Day, after Christy’s struggle with the corporeal ghost, the disturbed furniture and ornaments have been restored.
- Power Glows: Cut by the Druid’s golden knife, a mistletoe branch glows gold.
- Self-Disposing Villain: In a struggle with Christy, Ezra Be-Thankful Dexter impales himself on the Druid’s golden knife, whereupon he disintegrates.
- Shock and Awe: Ezra Be-Thankful Dexter, from his fingers, zaps Christy with a blue-green bolt of light. With an impact like a blow from a hammer, it briefly paralyses her.
- Together in Death: Rachel longs to rejoin Will, the catholic boy with whom her Puritan uncle forbade romance.
- Undeathly Pallor: While substantial, Rachel’s ghost is deathly pale.
- Vampiric Draining: Proximity to her uncle’s demonic ghost saps Rachel’s ghost of energy.
- Vengeful Ghost: The ghost of Ezra Be-Thankful-Dexter, seemingly through unhinged sadism, continues to imprison the ghost of niece Rachel.
Each Christmas, usually while they adjourn to their villa in the South of France, John’s parents send him to stay with Aunt Nesta, Uncle Simon, and sickly cousin Becky.
Resentful of his banishment, John dislikes his year-older cousin, who constantly tries to engage him in such fanciful games as “Hunt the Minotaur” - and no longer seems terrified of John’s unusual ability to rapidly shake his eyes.
Aunt Nesta and Uncle Simon, while somewhat austere in some ways, are extravagantly generous with Christmas presents - as is Uncle Joe, Becky’s America-based godfather. One year, he sends her a pair of knee-high, lavishly dressed dolls, which, with installed batteries, glide across the floor in an astounding mechanical waltz. Becky terms them Crespian and Clairan.
Overcome with envy, John plans a way to steal the dolls - but at what cost...?
This tale provides examples of:
- The Atoner: Having accidentally caused his cousin’s death from pneumonia, John, as an adult, runs a school for delinquents.
- Catch Your Death of Cold: Convinced by John that Crespian and Clairan have fallen through the frozen garden pond, Becky fatally contracts pneumonia.
- Creepy Doll: Following John’s indirect cause of Becky’s death from pneumonia, Crespian and Clairan uncannily mimic John’s rapid shaking of his eyes.
- Cheerful Child: Becky, and her younger brothers Robbie and Will.
- Delicate and Sickly: Becky, prone to asthma and bronchitis, needs to carefully wrap up warm.
- Death of a Child: Convinced by John that Crespian and Clairan have fallen through a hole in the pond, Becky fatally contracts pneumonia.
- Freudian Excuse: Narrating the story as an adult, John admits his tendency to selfishness and spite - which he traces to his parents having had little time for him.
- Haunted Technology: Shipped back home after Becky catches pneumonia, John, on hearing of her death, sees the battery-powered dolls to mimic his eye-shaking.
- Ms. Imagination: To play with a reluctant John, Becky invents such games as “Hunt the Minotaur.”
- Nightmare Face: By letting his eyes fall out of focus, John has the rare ability to make them rapidly vibrate. While this used to terrify Becky, it no longer seems to work.
- Oblivious to Hatred: While he dislikes her, Becky, seemingly lonely, delights in John’s annual visits.
- Parental Neglect: Unexpectedly, and quite late in life, John’s parents birthed him. Instead of taking him on their annual Christmas holiday, they leave him with relatives.
- The Professor: John's father is an author of scientific textbooks.
- Sticky Fingers: Jealous of Becky’s consistently slightly larger Christmas present supplies, John discreetly nicks some of the smaller of such items.
On Christmas Eve, 1924, near the West Midlands town of Oldbury, thirteen-year-old Emily arrives to arrange her older brother Jon's purchase of tomorrow's meat. At the marketplace, Jon, with his wages, buys a large goose, and some sweets for Emily and their younger siblings.
Along the dark, gas-lit road home, Jon, tired from a day down the mine, decides to take a short cut. In the windswept darkness of the fields, a strange man invites Jon to a Christmas Eve wrestling match - with prizes to be won. For his struggling family, Jon seizes this chance of extra food or money.
By a distant fire are gathered numerous strangers - some of whom seem ominously familiar. And why do they want Jon to wager, as well as goose and money, his "heart and soul"...?
This tale provides examples of:
- Big Brother Instinct: As they walk home through the dark, Jon reassures and emboldens younger sister Emily - she's also protective of him when he goes off with a strange man to a wrestling match.
- Came Back Wrong: Waiting outside the mining office, Emily fearfully imagines Grace’s drowned, swollen face. To an extent, some of the field’s fireside crowd are seen to retain aspects of their deaths. The hair of Grace herself constantly drips water; and Tom Rugeley’s sunken face shows the outline of his teeth.
- Campbell Country: Local lore of Our Grace, a drowning victim who seeks to drown others; Padfoot, a spectral canine death portent, and, in a remote field, a Christmas Eve bonfire gathering of ghosts who wrestle the living for their bodies.
- Cue the Sun: When the sun finally rises, and the dead still haven’t solved Emily’s riddle, they return to their graves.
- Dead All Along: Among the fireside crowd, Emily recognises a schoolmate of hers who died. In the firelight, Jon recognises his wrestling opponent to be old acquaintance Tom Rugeley.
- The Gadfly: Round the brazier, Jon’s fellow miners, with playful impudence, greet Emily.Miner: Jon! Tha little sister here, come to walk home with thee, so thee don’t get scared!
- Ghost Story: Round the hut’s brazier, coal-blackened miners pass a jug of beer. To the merriment, some add mention of “Our Grace,” a drowned girl whose spirit is said to walk the fields in search of others to drown; and Padfoot, a spectral, death-portentous dog.
- Grand Theft Me: Jon’s wrestling opponent aims to win Jon's living body.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: A clear, dark, windy night - even darker out on the fields…
- Nothing Is Scarier: By the brief light of the mining office; the gas lamps of the road, and the near-total darkness of the open fields, Emily persistently fears what might lurk unseen.
- Oh, Crap!: When Jon seems to be losing the wrestling match, Emily is near-panicked.
- Primal Fear: Surrounded by distant, impenetrable darkness, Emily struggles to quell her fear of malign spirits.
- Promotion to Parent: Partially - the family heavily relies on Jon's mining wage.
- Riddle Me This: Instead of wrestling, Emily challenges the dead to a contest of riddles. Since they know all the old ones, Emily quickly improvises a new one.Emily: I nothing fear but morning bird-song/ My heart is still, but still it longs/ By day I am gone, by night I show clear/ Now riddle me-ree-a/ What be I? note
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A strong lad Jon may be, but he’s been working down the pit all day, and his spectral opponent has boundless strength - of course he loses the match.
- Real After All: Our Grace - although she doesn’t seem to want to drown anyone.
