The Letter
As Kate passed through the drafty hallway of her family’s flat, an envelope slipped through the letterbox with a soft, heavy slap against the cold linoleum.
Footsteps echoed away in the stairwell outside. Kate knelt, picked up the letter, and was about to toss it onto the pile with her parents’ mail when something caught her eye. Written across the front in stark, precise capital letters was her own name: KATE MELLING. There was no postage stamp, no return address, and no postmark.
A subtle, creeping chill settled over her-a quiet disconnect from the mundane world, something peculiar lingering just beneath the surface of her very ordinary life. She pulled open the front door and hurried into the communal corridor, her bare feet padding quietly against the cracked grey tiles. The corridor had its ever-present rubbery scent, a smell that for some was unpleasant, but for her meant home.
She wore an oversized Cure t-shirt and black leggings. At the end of the hall, the heavy doors of the lift hissed open, and an old man stepped out clutching a fresh packet of cigarettes. It was Mr. Blackledge, a retired miner who spent his afternoons down at the local pub. Seeing Kate rush toward him, he clutched his chest with a wet, raspy gasp.
“Bloody hooligan!” he barked, coughing into his fist before steadying himself against the wall. “Running around like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Sorry, Mr. Blackledge,” Kate said, taking a step back. “Did you just see anyone walk past the lift?”
“Only my own shadow,” the old man grumbled, fumbling with his keys as he shuffled toward his door. “And it’s a lot better looking than most of the riff-raff hanging around here. Put some proper clothes on, for God’s sake. I’ll be having words with your mam!”
He shoved his door open, muttered something under his breath about the youth of today dressing like ghouls, and slammed it behind him.
Kate stood alone in the drafty hallway for a moment. The lift doors remained open, humming faintly, but the corridor was completely empty. She returned inside, clicked the lock, and carried the heavy envelope into her bedroom.
Her room was small and cluttered, lined with pine shelves her dad had helped her assemble a few summers back. A teetering stack of paperbacks sat beside her single bed, topped by a worn copy of Breton’s Nadja. Through the thin walls, she could hear the television in the living room-her parents watching Coronation Street, the theme tune just finishing, the adverts starting up with their jingles for washing powder and beer.
Sitting cross-legged on her duvet, Kate examined the envelope. She thought it might be another invitation from Susan, but the handwriting wasn’t like her classmate’s loopy, pastel-pink scrawl with little hearts over the i’s. This writing was cold, angular, and sharp-drawn with rigid precision, as though the sender had used a ruler to guide every stroke.
She slid her thumb beneath the flap, tearing the thick paper open. Sliding her fingers inside, she pulled out a single piece of newsprint, yellowed at the edges and neatly folded into quarters. There was no greeting, no letter, and no signature-only a trimmed cutting from a back issue of the Wigan Evening Post.
LOCAL WOMAN IN SPOOKY ENCOUNTER
Ms. Evelyn Fairclough of Swinley Lane got more than she bargained for on Tuesday night while walking her West Highland Terrier, Bouncer. Ms. Fairclough spotted a faint light among the trees near the Plantation gates. Expecting another dog walker, she was startled when a barefoot woman in ragged, ancient clothing ran across the path.
According to Ms. Fairclough, the figure appeared to be from another century and was in visible distress before disappearing into the thicket.
Local lore connects such sightings to Mabel Bradshaw, wife of Sir William Bradshaw. Tradition holds that Lady Mabel walked barefoot every night from Stanwick Hall to Wigan as penance after a tragic turn during the Crusades. Sightings of her wandering spirit persist in the area to this day.
Kate read the short article through twice. The local paper printed quirky filler pieces like this all the time-UFO sightings over the coal pits, massive vegetables, or local ghost stories. It was the sort of light reading her dad used to mock over his morning tea, calling it “daft nonsense for daft people.” But this was different. This had been hand-delivered. To her. By someone who’d vanished without using the lift or the stairs.
She got up and pulled her school bag from the back of her door, rifling through it until she found her geography folder. Inside was a hand-drawn map of the area she’d made for a project last term. She spread it on her bed and found Swinley Lane, traced it with her finger to where it met the Plantations-the woods between Wigan and Standish that everyone said were haunted, though nobody could ever say by what exactly.
The Plantation gates. She’d passed them a hundred times on the bus to school, never thinking twice. Now the words to loom on the page, charged with something ominous.The map smelled of pencil shavings and the glue she’d used to stick the edges down. She’d gotten a B for it. Mr. Sinclair had written “good detail” in red pen, but circled the Plantation gates with a question mark. Strange area. Be careful.
A sound came from the hallway outside her door-the softest whisper of paper against metal. Kate froze, the map crumpling in her hand. She counted to ten, then twenty. Nothing else. Just the television next door, her mother’s laugh at something Eric Morecambe had said, the ordinary sounds of an ordinary Thursday evening in 1984.
She slipped the cutting back into its envelope and hid it beneath her mattress, right at the back where the springs were broken. Then she sat on her bed and stared at the map until her eyes blurred.
Someone wanted her to know about this. Someone who’d chosen her, Kate Melling.
She thought of Tom, with his encyclopedic knowledge of Doctor Who, the fact that he seemed more interested in boys, his nervous laugh. She thought of Pete, his sarcasm and lack of boundaries when it came to pranks. She thought of her parents, who’d take the envelope straight to the police and that would be the end of it.
No. This was hers. Whoever had sent it, whatever it meant, she would find out for herself.
Kate got up and went to her window. The estate spread below her, concrete walkways glowing orange under the sodium lights. Beyond them, the dark mass of the Plantations. She watched for a long time, waiting for a light to move there, for some sign. Nothing. Just the wind in the trees, or what she told herself was wind.
Kate folded the map and slid it under her pillow. Outside, a siren wailed in the distance-police or ambulance, impossible to tell. The miners’ strike had put everyone on edge, the whole town crackling with tension that had nothing to do with ghosts. But ghosts didn’t care about politics. They didn’t care about strikes or police or the price of coal.
Kate turned off her lamp and lay in the dark, listening to the house settle around her. Somewhere out there, in the Plantations or beyond them, a barefoot woman was still walking. And someone-something-wanted Kate to know.
She closed her eyes. Sleep came slowly, freighted with a growing sense of having been chosen for something. In the corridor outside, the lift hummed to life, though no one had called it. It rose to her floor and stopped. The doors did not open.
