The Ghostly Past

Chapter 1

"Do you think this place is haunted?" Clara Fitzroy asked as the train driver announced that they would soon be arriving in Gloomsdale. "I mean with a name like that, it hardly sounds friendly."

The man in the business suit, nose in a financial newspaper only grunted, probably regretting choosing a seat near the door. But Clara couldn't help it, she tended to talk more when she got nervous, and travelling by night to a new place and a new job was enough to make her anxious. Besides, it was just safer, wasn't it, to not sit alone on public transport at night?

"Maybe it came from some old English word." She continued to muse aloud, acutely aware that he just wanted her to leave. "But it's a bit of an unfortunate evolution. It's probably a local joke."

"Probably." He said finally, looking relieved as the brakes screeched and the train lurched to a halt. "Do you need a hand with that?" He looked up, spotting her attempting to haul her suitcase from the luggage rail. She was just that little bit too short to reach.

"Thanks." She gasped as he did it with ease, nodding to her uncomfortably before sitting and raising his paper again.

She hit the button on the doors, and with her backpack on her shoulders, hefted the case over the gap onto the empty platform.

Behind her, the automatic doors closed, shuttering the window of light as the train took off, weaving its way into the distance, leaving her alone.

Alone.

That was unexpected.

She checked her phone again and the text from her new landlady definitely said she'd be there to meet the 11pm train. "Maybe she's late." Clara said brightly, taking a seat on the wrought iron bench, case at her feet.

It was the typical kind of English country village, lucky to be on a train line but with no office of any sort, at least, not one manned at night, just the dim blue glow of a distant ticket machine and the pool of light from the single lamppost at the end of the platform.

Clara waited, five and then ten minutes before trying to call. The call went straight to voicemail. "I suppose she forgot?" She said aloud, her voice sounding loud and high pitched in the dead silence of the summer night.

It was June, and unseasonably warm for that time of year, but she felt herself shiver in her battered leather jacket. There was no noise, not like in the city, no blare of horns and sirens and traffic noise, music playing and people talking. Here, she could hear birds and the whisper of insects and the wind in the trees.

In the daylight, she imagined that would be lovely but right then, it was downright spooky.

"Well, I guess I'm going to have to walk it." She groaned, standing, not sure why she was continuing to talk out loud. Maybe it was just to fill the silence.

She was twenty one years old, fresh out of university and straight into a prestigious teaching post most musicians would gouge each other's eyes out for. The Cantabile Academy, a small country school which took only the best and brightest of all ages, wanted her as a piano coach and orchestral assistant.

Sure, she wasn't one of the great professors there...yet. But give her time, she reasoned, she would make it. This was her dream, and she would learn so much herself just by being there.

So after the rigorous audition process, she'd almost snapped their hands off to say yes when they offered her the post.

Even if she knew no one here. Still, she was used to keeping to herself at home. She'd never had a big social circle so maybe she wouldn't be too lonely, she mused as she crossed the platform, opening the quaint little gate that led into the main village.