Runa’s Ghost & Other Stories

Runa’s Ghost & Other Stories

Published by sarahNet Ltd

sarahNet Ltd, Shedfield, Hampshire SO32 2JE

First Published in the United Kingdom 2014

Copyright © sarahNet Ltd

www.enchantedengland.co.uk

sarah@sarahnet.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The moral right of the author has been asserted

These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Cover Illustration courtesy of HiFipapers

Runa’s Ghost & Other Stories

S.H.Keen

Runa’s Ghost

The tears that had threatened all morning finally arrived as Runa stepped out of the car. She was helpless against them; they were still spilling down her face as she made her way up the High Street to the little teashop that had been so highly recommended. The rain sweeping across the harbour and into her eyes provided a welcome cover. She need offer no excuse for any moisture rolling down her cheeks when she pushed open the door and, hesitating in the café’s welcoming glow, saw her waiting friends.

Carrie sat splendidly upright as usual, overseeing the operations of the table with commanding vigour. Tim, her husband, poured tea as directed and handed the tiny, fragile cups, first to his wife and then to a couple that was evidently part of the party.  Carrie looked up and saw Runa stooping to avoid the cafés low timber beams and stumbling slightly on its sloping, wooden floor.

‘Runa, darling, you made it,’ Carrie called over her husband’s head. ‘So you managed to find us, in the middle of nowhere! Here we all are.’

It had been a close run thing, thought Runa as she folded her umbrella. The directions had been dire and now she realised that she had lost the tiny scrap of paper and its map, so her chances of getting out again were again remote.

Carrie called to the café owner, ‘Here’s my friend.’ The owner rushed across with a laden cake-stand, delightedly proffering its contents to Runa before she could sit down. ‘Any friend of Carrie and Tim is a friend of mine,’ he told her. ‘What can we offer you here at the Old Anchor Café?’ His stocky frame blocked the light from the door, but Runa could sense he was beaming at her. He thrust out the cakes and began to explain each one. ‘All lovingly baked in my kitchens, the building’s listing you know’.

Runa started and then realised she had misheard. Listed – not listing. The café owner was running on.  ‘Of course it means you can’t change a thing without permission… But why change says I...Food’s been baked here since the year dot. Always has been, always will.’

Behind him, a family who were waiting to pay grew restive and rapped on the counter. He turned a fierce eye on them and then magnificently ignored the situation. ‘Choose!’ he commanded Runa. ‘You have to! And tea of course.’ The list of teas was longer than the food menu. Runa chose in a rush and liberated, the family paid and made their way out into the New Year’s rain.

Tim greeted Runa with a knowing look and gestured at the owner. ‘We served in the Royal Navy together and he never forgets.’ He pulled out a chair for her. ‘He just loves Tim,’ said Carrie happily, ‘and of course we support his café - the least we can do after all these years. We holiday here often. So glad you could join us – even if it is just for the afternoon. Now, have you met —‘Carrie turned to the other couple seated by her and Runa realised with sinking heart that they could only be the much mentioned ecclesiastical supporters — ‘...the stalwarts of the church?’ Carrie continued. ‘Our little parish would be lost without them.’

Mr Stalwart looked at Runa. ‘On holiday alone then?’ he asked, pausing only momentarily to reach for a scone. Tim poured him another cup of tea and smoothly deflected the question. ‘Our friend has cleverly escaped from her children for a precious afternoon.’ Mr Stalwart was prevented from making any reply by his mouthful of scone, and Runa was altogether saved. She felt calmer, and looking around her she saw the little café was crowded. She could hear much of the conversations taking place.

A plump couple in waterproofs sat at the next table and, surrounded by their dripping rucksacks, were consulting a map. The man was saying, ‘…a shorter ramble. This rain, this wind, the sea is practically running up from the shore.’ They squabbled amicably about their new route for a while. Finally, the woman opened her copy of the Daily Mail. ‘But I have never met anyone who has been nominated,’ she said querulously after a brief glance, ‘all these honours given every year and not once have I met anyone – not even a dinner lady knighted for services to carrots!’ She dropped the paper with a thud and the forks rattled.

Runa saw from Carrie’s face that she too had heard the woman’s complaint.

Carrie did not pause but effortlessly diverted her conversation; she turned to the plump couple. ‘— do excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing you. May I introduce my husband?’ Tim stood up. ‘Commander Tim Wharton‘, Carrie paused and lent on the next three letters. ‘OBE.’ He shook hands with the astounded pair. ‘And now Carrie,’ he said, ‘I really must go – I have some errands to run. See you in an hour.’

Runa watched him leave and realised that even after all these years, she had no idea what his OBE was for. Something to do with charity? The café owner caught her glance. His eyes, Runa noticed, were fathomless as the sea. — What do I know? thought Runa. She shivered and felt her own hollowness threaten to shatter her shell-like skin. She would break into empty space and dissolve. She clasped her hands tightly under the table.

Carrie returned to her original conversation with the Stalwarts. ‘Indeed I did. I saw a ghost in the Lake’s wool shop, here in this town! ‘She threw herself back in her chair. ‘What do you think of that?’

Runa gasped and realised that the impossible events of the last month were horrifyingly true. If a ghost could be so out of tune with its role as to inhabit such a dull place, then nothing could prevent what had happened to her.

‘I was looking for a particular shade,’ said Carrie as the Stalwarts laughed at her. ‘I went upstairs and it was so cold. Something made me go down again and ask the shop assistant to help me choose and so we went together up the stairs and started to go through the selection. They have a marvellous range, I have to say.’

The Stalwarts agreed — the Lakes did have the most marvellous range.

‘But it was still uncannily chilly. I could not get warm and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a brown fog start to form in the shadow by the window. It gathered into a shape of a man that walked by us and onwards, through the opposite wall. It didn’t stop. Such old fashioned clothes. It didn’t pause. I turned to the shop assistant and she could tell from the look on my face. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You’ve seen our ghost too? He usually shows up once or twice a week.’ So proprietarily! I just paid for the wool and left.’

The Stalwarts clearly did not believe her. ‘Make sure you don’t knit any baby blankets,’ they joked – ‘it will give the child bad dreams!’

It was incredible, thought Runa, but so were the words from her husband when he told her he didn’t love her anymore. After twenty years.  She took a deep breath. An invisible fault line that lay at the heart of everything she knew shifted and stirred.

The Stalwarts gathered up their things and prepared to leave. They kissed Runa on their way out. ‘So lovely to meet you. Enjoy your stay.’

The weather had worsened and rain drove in against the closing door. The scent of the sea crept through the frames and the thin glass. The café owner swabbed up puddles and put out Health and Safety cones. TRIP HAZARD. I will see sea-monsters soon, thought Runa. Waddling up the High Street, looking for me. Deep, secret creatures, delivering nightmares of reason.

Carrie looked suddenly exhausted, her pride in her story draining away. ‘But do you know what’s troubling me, Runa?‘ Carrie’s thoughts were still running on her tale. Expecting her friend Runa to counsel her as normal. Expecting sound advice from someone who had not noticed even the ghost of her husband’s love walk through a wall and leave her.

‘The thing is Runa, I go to church.’ Habit caused Carrie to stress the next two words, ‘I am the daughter of a bishop. But I saw the ghost and the shop assistant saw it with me and if it is a walking spirit, what have I believed in all these years? The resurrection and the hope? Now when I pray, I think what is the point? Everything I held true, just cast adrift when a lost soul walks through a wool shop endlessly – unable to frighten anybody — least of all me.’

But the ghost is terrifying, thought Runa and she could see a crack begin at one end of the café and run towards them. All certainty vanished in the chasm that suddenly opened at their table.

She jumped to her feet suddenly. ‘We are lost,’ she cried, and then saw heads turn towards her while Carrie, seeming not to notice, asked quietly, ‘How can we live the rest of our days – as before?’

The End.