Duane's Big Mistake.

Duane and Debbie were a young couple from the north of England (or it might have been Essex; I don’t rightly remember.) They were visiting the city of Winchester in the south, and had chosen to stay at the Eclipse Inn because Duane had heard that it was haunted by the ghost of Lady Lisle, a Cornish noblewoman who had been executed there in 1685. Duane liked ghosts, you see, and when he’d suggested to Debbie that this might be a good opportunity to see one, Debbie had merely rolled her eyes and acquiesced.

It was approaching midnight on their first day in the old Saxon capital and they were sitting quietly in bed – Debbie feeling a little tired and occupying the time smoothing her fingernails with an emery board, and Duane sipping the double scotch he had brought up from the bar earlier.  Neither bothered speaking to the other, but Duane shivered suddenly as he felt the air turn noticeably colder. He caught a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of his eye, and turned his head to seek recognition.

The diaphanous figure of a woman dressed in ancient finery stepped into the room from a blank wall, and began to walk slowly across the floor.

‘Lady Lisle, you beauty!’ said Duane, quite unable to contain his excitement. Look, Deb, what do you think of th…?’

He turned to discover that his partner had slid down the bed and pulled the covers over her face. Duane lifted them.

‘What the hell are you doing down there?’ he asked

‘I’m scared, you moron,’ replied Debbie.

‘There’s nothing to be scared of. She can’t hurt you,’ replied Duane encouragingly.

‘How the fuck would you know?’

‘Because she’s not the spirit of the real Lady Lisle; she’s just a wraith, a phantasm, some kind of energy still hanging around in the atmosphere.’

And then Duane heard a second female voice, low and dark and speaking with a rich West Country accent. ‘What the fuck would you know, moron?’ it said.

Duane looked back at the phantom and saw that it was staring at him dismissively. And then it continued its slow perambulation before disappearing through the wall on the other side of the room. Duane opened his mouth wide, but said nothing.