Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sunday. The one day Alison didn’t have to get up early. They didn’t have another event on til Friday, the lightning strike had taken all the B&B hosting work off their plate for them, and there was no point in starting on any DIY work til B&Q opened and they could get more screws. The ghosts had been told to keep themselves busy til nine at the earliest - last she’d heard, Pat was planning to entertain them all with a nature walk, and Captain was planning on commandeering said nature walk as quickly as possible. Time for her to have a lovely Sunday morning lie in with her lovely husband. She rolled over and curled into him, the big spoon against his warm back.

‘Uh,’ mumbled Mike. He sounded… off, somehow. He rubbed his eyes. He looked at the back of his hand. ‘Oh,’ he added, flatly. ‘Hm.’

‘You all right?’ she asked, already knowing he wasn’t all right. ‘What’s wrong?’

He shuffled away from her as much as he could in bed, and rolled over to face her. His facial expressions and body language were all wrong somehow, like his voice.

‘Don’t get mad,’ he said.

Her first thought was: That’s a weirdly good Robin impression.

Her second thought was: Wait, Mike doesn’t know what Robin looks or sounds like.

Her third thought was: I’m imagining it. Too much time with the ghosts.

Mike darted his gaze away from hers, guiltily, his mouth crooked in a way that was at the same time far too familiar to her, yet utterly unfamiliar on him. He ran the knuckles of a loose fist absently over his chest.

She thought: I know that nervous tic. I know that nervous tic, and he doesn’t.

She thought: Shit shit fuck FUCK FUCK Robin WHAT DID YOU DO? - which was also exactly what she screamed.

‘Not on purpose,’ cried the Robin Mike Thing. He - whatever “he” was, scrabbled out of the bed. ‘Just… happen, sometime. Not for long time, now. But… I might as well say it, I been bit stressed lately, come out in weird ways.’

‘You’ve been stressed?? Robin, my business just burnt down, I live in a house full of mad ghosts, I’m still dealing with the fallout of one of them ghost-dying or moving on, or whatever you want to call it, and now I find out that not only can you repeatedly blow my fuse box, you have also possessed my husband??’

‘I do take responsibility for few of dose fings,’ said Mobin, or Rike, or whatever the hell she was supposed to call this horror show, ‘an can tell you upset, but…’

‘No buts! Get out of my husband! Get… oh God. It literally is Get Out. You’ve turned me into the girlfriend from Get Out! I don’t want to be the girlfriend from Get Out!’

‘I dunno whatchoo talkin about!’

‘It’s a film, you… you’re being very problematic, Robin. And also creepy. I take it you didn’t get Mike’s permission to drive his body. Is he even still in there? Can he hear me? Mike? Mike, if he put you in the sunken place, I swear to God, I swear to whatever stone age gods I can get my hands on…’

‘Mike bit of Mike sleepin,’ said… well, it was Robin, wasn’t it? It was just Robin, in her husband’s body. ‘I can feel his dreams, they nice. Him wake up when I go. Like I say, it happen few time before. When me go to sleep, me drift out, him drift back. He wake up, confused where day went but dat all. Him have nice rest.’

‘While you get to control a human being’s body without their say so for a whole day?’ Alison shook her head. ‘No. Out.’

‘Alison,’ said another voice, from under her bed.

‘But I save his life, other week,’ whined Robin. ‘Wiv lightning bolt. An he look up over my head for some reason an say “Fanks buddy, owe you one”.’

‘That was a figure of speech,’ Alison shouted, ‘It doesn’t mean you get a free day-long go inside my husband!’

‘Alison,’ came the voice again, urgently.

‘What??’ shouted Alison.

‘Dint say nuffin,’ replied Robin.

‘Mike can’t hear or see us, so while he’s like this, neither can Robin,’ said the voice. ‘Pretend I’m not here. I’m serious. I need to tell you something, and he can’t know I’ve told you.’

Robin squinted around, suspiciously. ‘Someone come in? Can’t see dem. Pat was takin dem to the wood.’

Alison decided to do as the voice advised. ‘What do you want, Robin? Why are you in Mike’s body and what will make you leave? Now, not tonight?’

‘Don’t antagonise him,’ came the voice, ‘don’t threaten him. Alison, I’ve been chased by Queen’s guards and been decapitated, and I promise you, in this state, Robin is the most dangerous thing I have ever encountered.’

That stopped her in her tracks. No. Robin was being incredibly annoying, but he wasn’t dangerous. Not little Robin. Not little Robin the ancient lightning wielding spirit who by his own account spent a lot of the early bronze age completely insane and was now controlling the body of a large living man.

Robin twisted Mike’s features in a Robinish frown. ‘Fink maybe I needed a break.’

‘A break.’

Robin nodded Mike’s head. ‘From bein dead.’

‘Don’t question him,’ warned the voice.

‘To do what?’ She asked.

Robin shrugged. ‘Alive fings. So much I missed out on. So much I miss doin. Eatin, drinkin, touchin fings…’

‘...Er.’ Alison blanched. She clutched the shirt she’d slept in around herself, defensively. ‘You don’t mean… Because, husband’s body or not, that’s still not… I like you as a friend, or like a weird little brother who’s somehow also much older than me… oh no, wait, I probably shouldn’t bring up sibling relationships while saying no to you…’

‘I don’t wanna waste my time doin’ it, Alison. No offense. You bit scrawny.’

‘You’ve got use of a living body and you don’t want to…?’

‘I said, “fings I miss doin”. I done it lots as ghost.’

‘Oh,’ replied Alison, relieved but also a little bewildered.

‘Much more than when I was alive,’ continued Robin, ‘an I got up to a lot when I was alive. Also, it better as ghost, just feel nicer, no hurt, no can get pregnant or sick, and if we factorin in Mike’s consent, get very problematical, so respeckfully, no fank you to offer of sex.’

‘I didn’t offer! I said no!’

‘You know what I would like?’ He nodded with a wonky leer in the direction of the ensuite. ‘Hot shower.’

‘Do you… miss hot showers?’

‘Never had one! Look nice, though.’

‘Yes, ablutions, perfect,’ said the voice under the bed. ‘Then we can talk.’

‘Do you need me to show you how it works?’ she asked Robin.

Robin shook his head, cheerfully. ‘Watched enough times to have worked it out.’

Alison smiled a tight smile, pretending to ignore the creepy implications of that. ‘I’ll get you clean pants and stuff.’

Robin’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh yeah! I get to wear pants for change! Julian be jealous.’ He turned towards the ensuite, and walked face first into the wall. ‘Ow.’

Alison winced. ‘Mike can’t walk through walls, Robin.’

‘Yep. Remembered dat a second too late. Hello again, physical pain. Did not miss you.’

‘Please don’t break my husband’s nose. Or scald him in the shower. Or slip in the shower.’

‘Alison, me twelve fousand year old. Me can look after fifteen year old body for a day.’ And with that, he carefully and deliberately walked through the doorway into the ensuite.

‘Wait,’ mumbled Alison to herself, ‘he thinks Mike’s fifteen?’

‘Alison,’ insisted the voice under her bed.

‘Robin, Mike’s 32,’ she called.

‘Can’t be,’ called Robin, ‘He not a grandfather.’ And with that, the water started up.

Alison took advantage of the white noise of the shower, and joined Humphrey’s head under the bed. Usually she would begin a conversation like this by asking how exactly he’d got there and just how long he’d been there, but she had a more pressing question, this time.

‘What do you mean, “Robin’s dangerous”?’ she whispered. ‘He can be crafty and mischievous, but he’s benign. Benevolent, even, sometimes. He saved us from the burglars, saved Mike’s life…’

‘Most of the time,’ replied Humphrey, ‘yes. But I was quietly haunted by him all my life and then I haunted with him for 500 years, and let me tell you, for the vast majority of that, he has been his usual kindly, wise, moon worshipping, squirrel chasing stinky little self. But believe me, there is a terrible darkness in that spirit, Alison, and I have seen it. I saw it the last time he possessed a living man.’

‘What did he do?’ From the ensuite, Robin had started singing the theme from University Challenge in the shower.

‘Dis so nice,’ he shouted. ‘You get to do dis every day? Orange stuff in bottle smell like fruities!’

‘It’s shower gel,’ she called back, ‘rub it on, then rinse it off, it’ll make you smell of tangerine.’

‘Wossa tanjy green?’

‘We’ve got some in the fruit bowl.’

‘GOOD MOONAH, CAN I HAVE A TANJY GREEN??’

‘After your shower,’ she called, and maybe this would actually be fine, Robin had been dead for so long, maybe he deserved a day off to have a wash and eat a tangerine and wear pants and Mike could just sleep through it til tomorrow and there’d be no harm done and…’

‘Alison,’ said Humphrey, urgently, miserably, ‘last time he did this, he killed three men.’

Alison gaped across the dust bunnies at the celaphor’s head as the hummed University Challenge theme struck up again.

‘What?’ She whispered. ‘No. You misinterpreted from only seeing shoes. Or you mean it metaphorically, or…’

‘My body had me that day. We were both scared. Or, all of me was scared, or… you get my drift. I saw him do it, my head on my shoulders.’

‘He… what, he tricked people, or…?’

‘He smashed their heads with rocks, Alison. Like a primitive, like an animal. They weren’t even in his way, he sent invites to them, to come. And then he smashed in both of their heads with rocks.’

‘See?’ Alison was panicking. ‘You said “both” just then, but before, you said he killed three. You’re getting confused.’

‘He staved in two heads using the body he’d snatched, and then left the host to be arrested and executed for double murder. That makes three.’

Alison shook her head. ‘No. You have to be wrong. When did it happen? Who else was around?’

‘Early 17th Century,’ Humphrey told her. ‘Not many of us about. Even Annie hadn’t joined us yet. The fellows from the village had already settled in the basement, so they missed it all, and Mary spent the first decade hiding in the attic. She was upset over her death, you see. Understandably. And, if she did happen to see any of it from a window, well, she’s not here any more. I’m the only witness left, And I know what I saw.’

‘But why invite two people over to kill them? None of this makes any sense.’

‘He’s still bound to the house, I think, even like this. When they came to arrest him, he ran straight for the boundary, and his ghost was thrown out of the body and his host went down like a sack of flour. And then, Robin just stood there, watching, grinning as they dragged him away. The living complained of static in the air around that fence for weeks later. I never mentioned it because he didn’t do it again for centuries, he calmed right down and I didn’t want to worry anyone. I don’t know why it’s happened again, Alison, but please believe me - you are in terrible danger. Mike even more so. Don’t tell him I told you. Don’t let him get angry, keep him happy, try to get him over the boundary as fast as possible, without him working out what it is you’re doing. Keep yourself safe, keep Mike safe, and let’s get our little cheerful electric caveman back. Because when he’s like this, I promise you, Alison, he is a monster.’

The water switched off. Alison rolled out from under the bed, swiftly, and got out a clean set of Mike’s clothes - underwear, his comfy trackies, a soft T shirt and a fuzzy hoodie that she thought Robin might enjoy.

‘You all right if I come in?’ she asked.

‘Yeah! Not my willy, an I’m assumin you already seen it.’

Still, she kept her eyes averted from Mike’s naked frame as inhabited by the caveman. It was all just too weird. Weird, and also now, thanks to Humphrey, she was absolutely terrified.

‘Um.’ She pointed at Mike’s deodorant. ‘Did you want to try deodorant? It makes you less sweaty and it smells nice.’

‘I would love to be less sweaty an smell nice.’

She risked a glance at him. Mike’s face had one of Robin’s most guileless expressions plastered over it. He looked genuinely moved. Grateful. Wistful, even. It just didn’t tally with what Humphrey had told her. This wasn’t a monster. This was her friend, who was sometimes selfish and sometimes silly, but who assigned stars to the dead, and sang to the moon. Robin had saved Mike - only weeks before. None of this made any sense. She decided that, for now, the best idea was to heed the easiest part of Humphrey’s advice. She would try to make Robin happy. If he was dangerous like this, then keeping him happy would de-escalate any threat. If he was just being her usual Robin, well - he was a twelve thousand year old ghost who’d lived off vermin and roots. If he really was just hanging out in a human body for a day, then he deserved to have a stab at a little bucket list.

X

Once she’d explained the concept of a bucket list to Robin three times, and that, in Robin’s current position, he could complete some of it post bucket-kickage, it transpired that much of said bucket list was food related. This was easy. What was less easy was explaining to the other ghosts on her return from the Londis what had happened during their nature walk. Their reactions ranged from naively delighted for Robin (Kitty and Pat), to deeply worried about what all this meant (Fanny and Captain), to horribly jealous (Thomas and Julian).

‘Had I a body, Alison, let alone - dare I even dream! - the body of your Michael, oh! The things I would do with solid flesh!’

‘OK Thomas, yes, I get the gist.’ Alison poured out four drinks - a tea for herself, and a tea, coffee and hot chocolate for Robin to try.

‘To touch, to kiss,’ trilled Thomas, wafting around the kitchen. ‘To so much as hold hands!’

‘I’d be straight over to the nearest sex dungeon,’ Julian informed her, dead serious.

‘I don’t think there’s one nearby,’ Alison told him, opening packets.

‘Nonsense. Repressed little picture postcard village like this? There’ll be at least ten.’ Julian shook his head at Robin. ‘And you seriously aren’t going to get yourself any rumpy pumpy? You actively turned it down?’

‘Again, Julian, Robin can’t see or hear you lot when he’s in Mike. So please, Fanny, stop shouting at him.’

Fanny, who had spent the past five minutes booming a constant diatribe about recklessness and unseemly behaviour into Mike’s left ear, looked up. ‘If he can’t hear of my disapproval, then what’s he crying about?’

Robin was indeed weeping, over a sausage and egg McMuffin. ‘Why it so good?’ he sobbed. ‘How dey get egg so round? What dis sticky yellow stuff?’

‘Placky cheese,’ Pat told him, salivating.

‘It’s processed cheese, Robin,’ Alison told him, bringing over the drinks.

‘Dis cheese? Pat!’ He let Alison point out where Pat was standing for him, and addressed the general bePatted area. ‘You right! Is amazing!’

‘That’s not even proper cheese,’ Alison told him. ‘I bought you some brie.’

This would be fine, she told herself again. Worst case, Mike would have to go on a few extra runs to shed all the calories Robin’s bucket list was going to cram into his body, but it wasn’t like Mike was on some vegan health kick as it was, now was it? Robin didn’t want to try heroin or base jumping, just stuff like cheese and caffeine and chips and tangerines. Robin took a slurp of coffee and immediately spat it out.

‘No. What dat?’

‘Coffee.’

‘Awful. Captain? You lied.’ He tried the tea, and had exactly the same reaction.

‘That was tea.’

‘Fanny Button, you are full of nonsense, that taste like bitter leaves and sadness.’

‘Well obviously Alison hadn’t brewed it properly,’ huffed Fanny. ‘She didn’t even use a teapot.’

‘He can’t hear you,’ Alison reminded her.

He sipped some hot chocolate. ‘Yes. Dis one. Who come up wiv dis?’

‘The Mayans, I think,’ Alison told him.

Robin applauded the Mayans, emotionally.

In the hour that followed, Alison served up the following foods for the little man piloting her husband’s body:
A tangerine (“Tasted better once you showed me how to skin it. Doesn't taste like the soap smelled though.”)
Oven chips, with salt, vinegar and ketchup (“YES. As good as always dreamed”)
A samosa (“Tastes hurty in a good way”)
A slice of Hawaiian pizza (“YES. YES. Kitty? Where she? You right about pineapple, you good girl, you clever girl!”)
A maki roll (“But I eat raw fish when alive, dis sposed to be bucket of fings I never did, woss dat in packet though? Wossarby? Never had wossarby. Give? Oh! Dat make me sneeze.”)
Spicy chicken wings (“More hurty good! What birdie dis?”)
A piece of brie (“No. Dis mouldy. Make sick. No eaty.”)
Mint ice cream (“Burny but cold burny? Good, though”)
Chocolate fudge cake (started crying again)

She also gave him a sheet of bubble wrap to pop, a hot water bottle to hug and a stress ball to squeeze, all of which delighted him, as well as a go with the shiatsu massage pad she’d been given as a birthday present years ago, which he absolutely hated, and use of Mike’s old rollerblades, which terrified him. He just clung to the bannister, wobbling and shouting at her to take them off.

So far, mostly so good. And now, thought Alison, with so much of the list ticked off, for the bit where she might start to gently nudge him out of her husband.

‘Would you,’ she asked, setting a bottle of gin on the table, ‘like to get drunk?’

‘Ohhh, yes,’ sighed Julian. ‘Say yes, Robin, honestly, you don’t know what you’re missing.’

‘Why gin?’ asked Pat. ‘Why not a nice tin of stout?’

‘Aye,’ sighed Thomas, ‘gin has proved the ruin of many a perfectly good nursemaid.’

‘We’ve discovered Robin likes sweet stuff,’ Alison told him. ‘I’m going to mix it with lemonade. It was that or alcopops.’

‘You sound like you’re trying to get a kid drunk,’ snorted Julian, and, as much as Alison hated to admit it to herself, he was a little bit right.

She tried to swallow down the guilty feeling. ‘What do you say, Robin? It feels really nice if you pace yourself. Dizzy, in a good way.’

‘I always enjoyed the odd sherry,’ said Fanny.

‘Mm. CocSoc was always a highlight for me,’ added the Captain. ‘And Robin, you really can’t go much wrong with a tall Tom Collins, I’ll tell you that. Slips down very easily.’

‘I tried rum, once,’ giggled Kitty. ‘It was all so marvellous, until I was sick.’

Robin shrugged. ‘OK.’

Another thought hit her. Ooh. Leftovers of the naughty stuff Obi had brought round for her 30th. Would that stuff still be good? One way to find out, she supposed. She poured out a large gin and lemonade for Robin - heavy on the gin - and went off in search of it.

X

She found the sachet of weed stuffed under a book in a drawer. There wasn’t much left, and it was pretty old, and Robin probably wouldn’t know how to smoke, but maybe she could bake it into a cupcake or something and then if it was a dud, at least he would have had another piece of cake.

‘Are those herbs to make him sleep?’ came an eerie child’s voice from behind her.

Alison jumped, and turned. Jemima the plague girl glared up at her unsettlingly.

‘Jemima! Wh… what are you doing up here?’ Jemima was probably the plague ghost who wandered from the basement the most, and as much as Alison loved kids, she really wished the terrifying tiny ghost would stay down in her hole.

‘The wild man did it again, didn’t he?’ Jemima said. ‘He’s in your husband, and you’re trying to make him sleep so he’ll leave.

Well now, this sounded like Jemima might have been another witness all those centuries ago. She crouched to address the child. ‘Have you seen it happen before?’

Jemima nodded. ‘Twice.’

‘Twice??’

‘Before Headless Humphrey came to live here. The wild man talked to us more in those days, tried to make me play. Him and his ghosts - We always saw them as “his ghosts”. Him, Elizabeth, William. Elizabeth was nice. But then, she left, and the wild man and William became… The Wild Man And William. Just the two of them, and they stopped trying to make me play. And, mum wouldn’t let me go up to talk with them any more after I saw them having a noisy special hug…’

Alison blinked, several times. ‘Oh! That is… I am hearing a lot about Robin, today.’

‘And then William left too,’ continued Jemima, ‘and the wild man got all quiet and sad. Dad and some of the grown ups tried to talk to him, but he didn’t want to. And then a hunter stayed on the land, in a tent, and one morning we heard shouting from outside - the wild man was in him, like he’s in your husband.’

‘What did he do?’ Alison asked.

Jemima shrugged. ‘Tried to ride a horse, fell off, lit a fire, ate all the hunter’s food and drank all his beer, had a big cry, then shouted he wanted to see how the windmill up the hill worked, ran out of the gate and the wild man fell out of him.’

‘Was the hunter OK?’

Jemima shrugged again. ‘Just said “God’s Blood, my head, how much did I drink last night” and left. Elizabeth told me once, there was an old folk tale from a previous ghost’s time about the same thing happening to a traveller riding through here long ago, when this was a Roman ruin. Went to sleep, woke up in the afternoon on the edge of the ruins, with a full belly and a headache. That might have been the wild man, too.’

‘Oh.’ That didn’t sound bad at all, what had Humphrey been on about?

‘But then of course there was the second time I saw him do it, when he killed two men,’ added Jemima.

‘He… so he definitely did that, then?’ Alison felt the panic and confusion rise again - it just didn’t seem right, at all. It wasn’t Robin. ‘Could it have been an accident?’

‘It was calculated,’ Jemima told her. ‘The wild man is clever. Cunning. He told me of the traps he’d set when he was alive. It felt like a trap, a perfect snare. He took the body of the Squire, and sent for two men, and they came, because they thought he was the Squire. Separately, he took them both to a specific spot, right at the edge of the grounds. I watched from a hiding spot. He smashed them in, when they were half over the boundary. It was deliberate, doing it there. They couldn’t stay and haunt - not the house, nor the field beyond. And, their ghosts didn’t go up, they sort of… ripped, straight away, They ripped, and faded away. It was terrible. The men were screaming, Headless Humphrey was screaming, the wild man was screaming. The air went all crackly, for ages. Then, he just stayed there, until word got back that the Squire had been executed for the murders.’

‘That just doesn’t… Jemima, are you sure?’

Jemima tilted her head, disconcertingly. ‘Can anything be sure? They’d have kept records, though. The final Bone scandal.’

Alison got out her phone. Most google searches around a ‘Bone scandal’ were very unsavoury, and even adding Bone Hall to the search mostly brought up Humphrey’s story, but she did find something on a blog about dark magic practices in Stuart England. The Squire of Bone Hall, executed by hanging, for inviting and then bludgeoning two men to death on his land. His only defence had been that ‘the witch had made him do it, as revenge from beyond the grave’. After that, the estate had been bought up by the Highams, a line of wealthy merchants who had recently married their way into the aristocracy, and the rest was her family history.

So, it was true. She’d known Robin had been a killer in life, of course. He’d been a hunter. From the sounds of it, he’d had to defend his tribe from would-be assailants, both animal and human. It had been kill or be killed, in his time. But this was different. This meant Robin was a murderer. A cold blooded, calculated murderer who had made his host - his victim - take the rap, and for what? Catharsis? Relief from boredom? Fun? It was horrible, thinking about Robin like that. She’d thought they were friends. She’d thought she could trust him. She had a lot to unpack about what these revelations meant about her relationship with the caveman, but for now, she really, really needed to get him out of her husband, straight away. Cooking old weed into a cupcake would take too much time. She was just going to get him pissed.

X

When she got back to the kitchen, he was already halfway to pissedville. He’d helped himself to more gin, and was savouring a Jammie Dodger in a tipsy reverie. Only Julian had hung around, vicariously enjoying Robin’s descent into a happy state of drunkenness.

‘D’you think he’ll stay drunk, like I did?’ asked Julian, hopefully.

‘No, it’s Mike getting drunk really,’ Alison told him. ‘Robin won’t even have to deal with the hangover.’

Robin snickered to himself, drooping onto the table.

‘Shame,’ leered Julian.

‘What,’ asked Alison, hoping to mask her continuing unease, ‘because it might have given you a fighting chance of beating him at chess if he was drunk all the time?’

Even talking about Robin being good at chess carried an air of menace to it now. Words like ‘cunning, calculated, a perfect trap’ rang in her ears.

‘Yeah,’ replied Julian, still with that odd leer. ‘Chess. Sure.’

Alison mentally added that comment to Jemima’s memory of Robin with William, and a couple of casual comments Julian had made about ‘the rugger lads at uni’, and came to a conclusion that she very quickly decided to compartmentalise along with the rest of the information that she really didn’t have the headspace to deal with right now. She slapped the table and pointed at Robin. ‘What’s the fastest you’ve ever gone?’

Robin pointed back at her, drunkenly. ‘Woss the fastest I can run?’

‘Probably about fifteen miles an hour.’

‘Dat, den.’

‘Wanna double it?’

Robin slapped the table.

‘Yes!’

‘Want me to drive you around in my car, see how fast we can go?’

‘Yes!’

And, there it was. Her plan for getting Robin over the boundary of his haunting grounds, and pulling him out of her husband. She just hoped that he’d be so happy about all the food, drink and the car ride that he wouldn’t get angry about being tricked.

X

‘Seatbelt,’ she told him, strapping him in. He poked at the belt, with a worried expression. It would probably take him some time to work out how to undo the contraption. Good. ’Got to protect Mike’s body,’ she added with a smile, shutting the passenger door and running to the driver’s seat.

She didn’t actually drive at 30, but went up and down the drive, occasionally hitting the dizzying speeds of 20 miles an hour. For the first minute or so, Robin clutched at the seatbelt and panicked, as he had done in the rollerblades, but after that, he relaxed and began to drunkenly enjoy it, sticking his head out of the window, and roaring with the terrified delight of a child on a rollercoaster every time she turned the car. She turned a few times, getting Robin used to the sensation, but not enough for him to get bored. And then, she began driving straight for the gates.

‘Haha…’ Robin blearlily blinked. ‘Whatchoo doin?’

‘We can really let rip on the open road,’ she told him, as innocently as she could muster.

‘Uh. No. Nono. Alison, I can’t, I’ll be… wait.’ Robin glowered. He’d worked it out. Shit. Alison accelerated.

‘You know I can’t leave, Alison! Stop! Stop the car!’

‘It’ll be fun!’ She kept her tone light, pretending not to understand.

‘Stop.’

All of the lights on the dashboard went on at once, there was a pop from somewhere under the bonnet, and then the engine died. It rolled to a stop, a couple of feet from the gate.

‘Robin? What did you just do to my car?’

‘Did you jus try to trick me, in machine that need electric?’

Alison tried turning over the engine again. The ignition didn’t even spark. ‘I think you just destroyed the battery.’ She looked across at Robin, worried. Was he angry? What would he do? What could he do, in this body? What could he do, out of this body?

Robin just sighed. ‘Humphrey tell you bout last time, then.’

Alison stared at Robin, and nodded.

‘Understandable you scared. Understandable you no trust me. But, I would never do that to you an Mike. I save Mike!’

‘You killed people.’

‘It was… extreme circumstances, that time. Would never, usually. I never do this on purpose, take over living, maybe unconscious decision? But never on purpose, an when I do, I just take chance to blow off bit of steam for a day, then I go to sleep again or I leave boundary - either way, I leave body.’

‘But that last time, then. Why did you do it? That wasn’t “blowing off steam”.’

‘In a way, it was. It was necessary.’

‘How?’

Robin sighed again. ‘Fing about bein dead long as I have - you see lots of life, but also, you see lots of death. And, sometime, you left with the dead and the trauma from those deaths. I never seen no one burned alive before her, and never since. Always thankful was smoke inhalation technically kill her before burns - dass why her ghost still had skin, hair, clothes. But they hurt her. And they accused her of all these horrible fings she never done, an she was so confused and shamed, an hurtin.’ Robin pulled an expression on Mike’s face that almost hurt to look at - an animalistic snarl, bright with rage and grief. ‘An they laughed. They watched her scream an plead an die an they laughed. Humphrey an me, we was there, Humphrey tried to pull me away, sayin “don’t watch it, dere nothing we can do, we can’t help her”. I tried.’ He looked across at Alison, tears pricking her husband’s eyes. ‘I knew I couldn’t get enough lightning to zap dem all, an even if I did, she’d still burn, so… I tried gavvering enough just to zap her, make it quick. If it was now times, wiv wiring and stuff, easy squeezy. But then, to zap someone? Difficult squifficult. Couldn’t pull enough electric together from the cloud to do it. Wasn’t enough. Jus made it worse. Some of dem notice the cloud above going dark, said it was her magic at play. It wasn’t her, it was never her, she never did nuffing wrong. I was so angry, never been so angry. Was all so unfair. Her ghost staying didn’t make the anger fade, it made it worse. She wouldn’t stop cryin’. She was scared of me, of Humphrey - she was scared of men. Hid in the attic for ten year, nothin we could do to help her. An I just got angrier an angrier, an at the time, I told myself, was gettin angry on her behalf because she still too scared to remember to be angry. Dat was lie, though, Was jus angry. An den, one day I wake up in body of man who had her killed. So I send for the two men who lied about her in first place, the two who was up at the front, laughin. Penalty for murder in them days was death. So I put them murderers to death. Would have burned them, but didn’t have time, so smashed them, like I would smash a kill when I was livin. Didn’t want their ghosts botherin her, so did it careful, in careful place, right at the edge, half here, half not.’ Mike’s mouth grimaced something that was too bitter to be a smile. ‘Humphrey said they didn’t zoop up. They tore. Dunno where they went, but not up. They not in same place as her, not never. Wish they’d burned the Shire, but they only did that to women and herryticks. Hangin had to do. So, yeah, I kill them. An I’m not sorry. Was justice.’

‘It was vigilantism,’ said Alison, quietly, ‘on Mary’s behalf, without her sayso. Humphrey said she didn’t even see it. How was that supposed to give her any closure?’

‘Wasn’t for her. Was for me. Was selfish. Said I’m not sorry, didn’t say it was right fing to do.’ He paused, and gave her a sad little glance. ‘You scared of me, now? ‘

‘Robin, you’re a lightning-channeling ancient ghost who’s always jumping out of corners shouting “boo”, and can communicate with dogs, for reasons we have yet to get into.’

‘Yeah,’ replied Robin, sheepishly, ‘dat whole other story.’

‘By which, I mean I’ve always been kind of scared of you. But I feel that’s a healthy level of fear. And, it’s a fear that hasn’t been changed by learning you wreaked horrible vengeance on the men who killed Mary 400 years ago. If it helps, I’m also a bit scared of Fanny. And I was definitely scared of Mary.’

Robin twitched his lopsided grin on Mike’s face. ‘Yeah. She was good at hauntin, Mary.’

Alison kept watching Robin, her hands on the useless steering wheel. ‘Jemima said you and William were, er…’

‘Doin it,’ interrupted Robin, sadly.

‘I was going to say “intimate”, but…’ Alison tried again. ‘She said, soon after he moved on, you possessed a hunter for a day.’

‘Needed to blow off steam,’ said Robin, quietly. ‘Jus, needed a day to feel somefin but hollow an sad. I wouldn’t want to hurt someone while doin this - not til they killed Mary. Done it a few times in the past. Always just a day, usually less. Try some new food, get drunk.’

‘Was it usually soon after a ghost you cared about moved on?’ asked Alison.

Robin thought about this. ‘Maybe.’

Alison thought more about Robin’s story of terrible revenge. ‘Were you and Mary “intimate”, too?’

‘Dat very personal question.’

Huh. This, from a person who cheerfully described his intimate relationships with other ghosts as “doin it”. Alison had a suspicion their conversation was skirting around something even bigger and sadder - something full of a grief and a rage that was too much to expect him to process in a mortal human’s timeframe, let alone a half a day of food and gin. She decided to swing the conversation back away from Mary.

‘Will I need to send Mike away if Julian moves on any time soon?’

That made Robin snort a laugh. ‘You been peepin, Alison?’

‘No!’ She made a mental note to always knock whenever she was about to go into either Julian or Robin’s rooms in the future.

Robin gazed out of the windscreen at the gate, and took a deep breath. ‘Fanks for this. For the talk, an also the food. An the gin. Sorry it turned out you wasn’t gettin me drunk for the first time - this isn’t my first human rodeo - but cocktails was new. I liked cocktails. Always thought it was very funny word.’

‘I had a plan to get you high and everything,’ replied Alison.

‘I like bein’ high,’ he sighed. ‘Safer from predators up there. Sorry bout your car, too.’

‘But still not sorry about your murders?’

‘Never. But good to get off my chest. Um.’ Robin checked an imaginary watch. ‘So. I’m gonna go.’

He got out of the car. Alison did the same. ‘Are you sure? It’s only been a few hours. I could order you a Chinese or a curry? Or more cake?’

‘No. I fink I let off enough steam. I feel lighter. I feel… like I discharged. What is it they call it in electricity? Earthing. Might make fewer accidents with the electrics now, so win win for us both. I never wanted to put Mike out too much. I taken his body long enough. See yous in a minute.’

He started shambling towards the gate.

‘Wait,’ called Alison.

He turned around.

‘There’s something you forgot to do,’ she said. ‘One last thing you can do like this but can’t do as a ghost.’

‘What?’

She held out her arms towards him. With a nod of understanding, he walked back to her, and enveloped her in a tight bear hug. It was so strange, being held by her husband with a hug that was not his own. Strange, but far from unpleasant to finally hug one of her ghosts. They both held each other for a while. Alison wasn’t so proud as to hide that she was crying.

‘You’re a good hugger,’ she managed, eventually.

‘Fanks. I always thought so. Not as good as Kitty or Pat, better than Fanny and Captain. Also, I am currently smelling a lot nicer than I usually do, which works in my favour.’

Alison snorted a little laugh, smelling the ridiculous amounts of body spray Robin had put on, wafting off her husband. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. He pulled away from the hug, patting her on the shoulder.

‘I hug you again when you dead.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t ruin it.’

And then, he turned again and walked the last few feet to the gate, and through.

And Robin’s ghost stepped back in through the gate.

And Mike stood stock still just outside the gate, blinking around with a frown.

‘Why is that?’ asked Mike. ‘Why am I outside? Why do I smell like I’ve got a whole thing of Lynx on me? Why does my mouth taste of cake and lemonade? Is this a ghost thing? Wait… am I drunk??’

‘It’s a ghost thing,’ Alison told him, taking his hand. ‘But it was only for one morning and it’s over, he left you.’

‘Was I possessed?? Did one of those maniacs possess me? Which one was it? Not Julian, please tell me it wasn’t Julian.’

‘It was Robin, he just ate Maccy Ds and drank cocktails.’

Mike tutted. ‘It would be the one who saved my life.’ Mike looked up into the air. ‘Fine, you get a pass for now, but next time, ask permission first. Otherwise it all gets a bit Get Out’

‘He doesn’t get that reference,’ Alison told him, walking him back to the house.

‘Oh.’ Mike looked up at the air, again. ‘I’ll watch it with you? You’d like it, it’s horror, but it’s like about issues and stuff, like politics, and why you shouldn’t steal people’s bodies, and…’

‘He’s wandered off,’ Alison told him, watching Robin shuffle away - a triple murderer, an ancient spirit of electricity and thunder, distracted by a magpie.

‘Why’s our car there?’ Mike asked.

‘Battery broke. Ghost thing. Robin thing.’

‘Argh. How long’s a polite amount of time to stop letting a ghost get away with things, just because he saved your life?’

‘How long ago did he save your life, again?’

‘Three weeks?’

Alison rested her head on his shoulder as they walked back. ‘I’d say about three weeks.’