Amy Wilson - Lightning Falls

For Amber Caraveo

The Ghost House sits upon the shore of the river, beneath a great hulking viaduct, next to a graveyard. It is built of dark, damp stone bricks that wink in the moonlight. Its windows are small, its ragged rooftops swoop down low, and lights flicker within. The edge of the river reaches out and grabs at the gardens with greedy silver fingers; the waterfall thunders and echoes throughout the valley. A battered sign swings at the entrance to the car park, metal fixings creaking with every push of the wind. LIGHTNING FALLS, it reads, and anybody who stumbles upon it realizes this is not the place to come for a restful night.

Of course, that doesnt matter, because nobody does come for a restful night. The guests of Lightning Falls come for the creaks and the squeaks, and the odd vibrating undulations of the floorboards. The rooms clatter and howl, the dining room fills with mist, and the silverware never stays still. There are dripping, echoing cellars, and dust-filled attics, and whispers all through the gardens. Many tourists used to flock to Lightning Falls in its glory days.

Now its only a trickle, and those who do visit are either hardy ghost-hunters or here for a bargain break. We hammer and yammer about the place, and Meg does a very good shuffling whimper; and the guests enjoy our ghostly antics while drinking tea from Lord Rorys precious antique china.

Lord Rory is an acclaimed adventurer and the owner of Lightning Falls, and day to day the Ghost House is run by Mrs Peters. Neither of them is a ghost. Mrs Peters is the manager; Lightning Falls has been looked after by the people in her family for generations, ever since old Cecil.

Mrs Peters wears swishing dresses and pins her brown hair up in an endlessly unravelling bun. She divides her time between looking after the guests and looking after Lord Rorys concerns. He rarely makes an appearance, but Mrs Peters makes up for that. She watches everything we do, catching plates if they fall, pushing cups away from the edges of the lace-covered tables.

The guests love it. They love all our tricks, because thats really all they are. Theres nothing dangerous about Lightning Falls except for the cellar. Even the bravest ghost tourists do not venture down to the cellar, because theres something ancient and unknown down there that makes even my skin tingle.

Meg and I share a room at the top of the house where the old servants quarters used to be, behind a huge old sign that says PRI ATE (nobody knows what happened to the V ). Meg has been here a long time and knows most of the ghost tricks. She can appear or disappear before guests at will, but mostly shes a pale wraith-like figure who pulls her hair and moans when guests are at afternoon tea. I used to go with her sometimes, but we made each other giggle, so Mrs Peters has banned us from doing a double act. It isnt in character, she says.

All the ghosts are related either to the ancestors who first built the house, or to those who worked here. Or they had an accident in the river that rushes and tumbles down from the waterfall that gives Lightning Falls its name. There was a railway line on top of the viaduct once, but now its just a twist of rusted metal; the last train to Upper Slaught fell off twenty-five years ago, bringing more ghosts to join our ranks and an end to the viaduct as a working rail route.

I was the latest arrival, ten years ago, and toddlerme caused a bit of a stir, by all accounts. It took them a while to work out what I was. Not quite a ghost, and not living either. A Hallowed Ghost, old Cecil says: stuck in between, and still a bit of a mystery.

Nobody has any idea where I came from, and that includes me.

The river swells now as I tromp away from the Ghost House and down through the gardens. I sit down heavily on the cold, muddy bank and stare into its depths with a sigh. The moon casts its reflection on ripples of water, and the trees on the other side whisper constantly. They have pale, cracked bark and long strands of small arrow-shaped leaves that fall like tangled hair to the river.

Its a magical place, I think. Rainbows break through the soft early mist of the mornings and, if you look in just the right way, at just the right time, there are diamonds sparkling in the deep. I love it here. When Im feeling out of sorts, and my strangeness my lack of known history is bothering me, it matches my mood.

A strange, hollow sensation rushes through me as I watch the river churn, and I put my fingers to my old gold pendant.

Valerie!

I turn and smile as Meg comes towards me, silvery as the river. She struggles around water most ghosts do. But not me. Theres a saying that ghosts cannot cross running water. I havent actually tried, because everybody else says it feels like having your spine ripped out, and I dont fancy that. But I can be around it, better than most.

I dont know why you come down here, Meg says, tucking herself up next to me with a shudder. Shes always cold. It makes you moody.

You dont have to come out here, I say.

Well, I do if I want to find you, she says.

Maybe we should find a bell, and you can ring it.

And youll come? Her grey eyes spark.

I might.

I look at her for a moment. This is where she died, eighty years ago, when she was just thirteen. On the surface, if you could see us both, youd think we were the same age. But she stopped ageing when she became a ghost, which is normal and I didnt, which is not. She doesnt talk much about what happened on the day she died, but I know its never that far from her thoughts. I shouldnt have her come out here for me.

Time to go in? I ask.

She nods. Mrs Peters wants us all on duty. Shes fed up about the star storms, she says theyve already put the good guests off coming, and if were ever going to get back to full house we need to up our game.

Meg stands and pulls me to my feet. With a groan, I follow her up the steep hill to the Ghost House. Every window flickers with light from the heavy chandeliers, and the stone on the front is darker than ever, damp with the spray of the river.

Star storms have been happening ever since I can remember. They are very beautiful like little localized weather events, only instead of rain and clouds, stars fall instead, in clusters of bright, popping fireworks. Theyre not a problem if youre a ghost, but they can be off-putting for our paying human visitors. The worst was a few years ago, when an influential ghost-hunter got dazzled. He did not like the way hed been caught running around the gardens screaming and terrified, and it did terrible damage to our reputation, much to Lord Rorys fury. The fact that theyre getting ever more frequent doesnt help, at all.

The last one was just over a month ago. Two of our guests assumed it was a fireworks display, so they watched it, and ended up temporarily blinded by the brightness. They stayed on an extra week until it was safe for them to drive again, and Mrs Peters had to offer compensation. A ghost house is meant to be a little bit creepy, a little bit mysterious; charming, but not actually dangerous.

The cemetery looms into view as we walk up through the wild garden. Yew trees are dark shadows under the stars, and the gravestones look like giant teeth breaking through the ground. A little shudder winds up my spine and I look back to the river. From here its a thrashing monster, rushing from the waterfall down to the ash-brown valleys, overlooked by the loops of the abandoned viaduct. The sight of the river never fails to make my chest thunder; its awesome, and powerful, and it really doesnt care whether we like it or not. Its been here forever, always the same. Except