“Harry?” I asked.

“What are you doing on the floor, Ames?” Harry asked sarcastically.

I was able to lift my head just enough to see Harry standing above me. I could barely recognise him; it was as if he was made of fine dust that was constantly eroding in the breeze. His hair was darker than I remembered, and his skin much paler. His eyes were the most off-putting part; they were almost entirely black. He reached out to offer his hand to help me stand, but when I reached for it, my hand went through it like I’d tried gasping fog.

“Tough luck, Ames. Looks like you are on your own,” Harry jested with a smile.

“What are you doing here?” I gasped.

“Well, I’m not really here, am I? I’m where you put me. About three feet to your left and six feet under.”

“Harry, I’m so sorry for how I treated you.”

“No, you aren’t,” Harry said, pacing around his own grave.

“I loved you!” I shouted,” Of course I’m sorry.”

“Then why did you do it? You tortured me for almost the entire time we were married.”

“That’s not true.”

“You left bruises, Amelia. You broke bones. But worse, you made me feel like I was nothing. Less than nothing, even.”

“I didn’t mean to. I had a problem.”

“Had? You have a problem. It’s taken you this long to even face it yourself. All this time, I thought I was the pathetic one, but that was you. You had to control me just to feel better about yourself.”

“No, that’s—”

“Every single time you called me a nasty name or you told a stranger something embarrassing about me, you put me in that hole over there.”

“I’m sorry!” I screamed.

“I was planning to leave you, you know? Everybody knew. My mother, my sister, everybody. They were even helping me do it.”

“You are just trying to hurt me.”

“Yes, I am trying to, just like you hurt me. But I’m not lying. I’d found someone else, and I was going to leave you. A few more days, and I’d have been gone.”

“You cheated on me?”

“All the time, Ames. At every opportunity I had. That was the only thing you were actually right about. If anything, I did it just to get away from you for a little while.”

I mustered what little energy and coordination I had left and took a swipe at the apparition before me with a scream. My hand travelled straight through Harry, and the dust reconstituted itself back into his ghastly form as soon as my hand made it through.

“Even now, you can’t help but take a swing at me, can you?” Harry laughed ironically.

“This isn’t real. This isn’t real,” I repeated to myself.

“That’s it, Ames, keep telling yourself that. Keep justifying and hiding your vile actions, even to yourself.”

“You gave me as good as you got.”

“You really believe that?”

“It’s true.”

“Anything I did, I did to protect myself from you. Stop kidding yourself.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” I whispered.

“Oh, Ames. I don’t know what to tell you. I could tell you it was because of the way you treated me, but that’s only half true.”

“What is it then?”

“I was going to leave you because you weren’t even capable of giving me a child. And because you are a venomous, barren monster who doesn’t deserve a second of happiness. The only thing I regret is wasting so much time with you.”

“I am carrying your child!”

“Whatever you are carrying, that is not my child. A child is made from love and happiness, not hatred and violence. You will lose it. Just like you’ve lost everything.”

“Don’t you say that!”

“In fact, I hope you lose it. For their sake. You wouldn’t be able to look after it anyway.”

“Just leave me alone! Please.”

I tried to crawl away from Harry's shadow, but he followed me everywhere as I tried to move. It was as if he was all around me, and I couldn’t escape him. Harry started to smile sinisterly, and he backed away from me as I remained on my hands and knees at the grave. Pleased that he had sufficiently broken me, the particles that made up his image started to corrode and disappear. I watched him slowly fade into nothing as what was left of him scattered into the air. I plunged my face into the dirt, screaming and sobbing into it. My heart was beating faster and faster, and I prayed each thump would be its last. I wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole.

The sky began turning black, and what little light that was making it through the clouds shrivelled into nothingness. Every tree in the cemetery shed its leaves in synchronisation, and the grass underfoot me turned to ash. The very ground disappeared underneath me, and I was granted my wish. I started falling at speed down a huge shaft made from soil and earth. I fell for what felt like miles, gathering speed as I continued down the passage in freefall. I extended my arms, and my fingernails started to drag in the dirt walls of the mud chute to try to slow my fall. I could just make out the bottom of it, and there lay a single coffin. Just before I made an impact with it, everything turned completely black, and I was left unconscious.

XIII

THE HERMIT

AMELIA

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the flickering fluorescent light above me and the brown-stained ceiling tiles surrounding it. The light popped with every flicker, each time making my skull-splitting headache even worse. I had no idea where I was, but I barely had enough energy to turn my head. A doctor came into my field of vision, but I could barely focus on him because he was that blurred. He shined a small torch in my eyes, and I closed my eyes in response.

“Do you know where you are? Amelia?” The doctor asked.

“No. What happened?” I asked wearily.

“You are in Bridlington Hospital. You were found unresponsive next to some tablets; we think you overdosed. I have to ask, were you intending to harm yourself?”

“No, I had a panic attack. The tablets are prescribed to me.”