morning comes early, and harriet and i enjoy the early part drinking coffee outside on the deck.

"it's so peaceful here, carlee," harriet smiles.

"when i first came here, it was so peaceful it was scary. nothing like the big city. oh, don't let me forget to scan the picture and the note you dug up, take the originals with you."

"we're eating at the moonlite today?"

"yes, you told me how good the menu sounded, now you'll find out first hand. bill clinton had nothing but praise for it. now it's your turn."

we dress in jeans and long sleeved flannel shirts, then head back to weaver morgan's. the calamitous rain of the night before is just a memory, and as we drive, a pale sun hovers overhead. it is hard to equate the jackson flats, friendly and calm, with the tumult and terror of the night before, and it is easy to think, in the clear and logical day, that the vision we saw at the doorway was no more than a shadow.

"how big is jackson flats, carlee?"

"over seven thousand acres; the city of owensboro has owned it for a hundred and fifty years. they sold a few acres to a strip mining company in the forties, a lot of hickory trees were cut down and sold."

"does it make good furniture?"

"not really, they make ladder back straight chairs out of it, like you see sitting on people's front porch. the wood is very hard, the grain is pretty unimpressive, though. my understanding is that most of the hickory was made into 'louisville sluggers,' the famous baseball bats dating back to babe ruth. the company is still in louisville."

"that's interesting, carlee. you sure know a lot." what i like about harriet is that she is inquisitive, always asking questions, trying to find things out. i smile at her enthusiasm. "we're not too far from the morgan place, are we?" she continues.

"no, less than a couple of miles." i answer.

despite the sunshine, the old place still looks ominous; not like the night before, not like it's trying to reach out and grab you, but still ominous. something about the way it just stands there, downtrodden but proud, neglected but still holding a secret. we walk up to the front porch as noncholantly as we can, looking around furtively. no, there is nothing suspicious. heartened and encouraged, we walk round to the side and head for the root cellar. aimlessly, we scratch about and survey the scene. i notice the holes we had dug, and harriet looks around for electronic equipment or something which could have caused the apparition we had witnessed the previous night.

"anything?" i ask.

"not a damned thing, no. there are no electric wires down here, none. not even the ones that there should be. this house doesn't appear to have electricity."

"god, it must have been a ghost then."

"i'm not conceding that yet. let's go." harriet, for all her inquisitive nature, is a very rational person, and needs proof before she will believe anything. we retrace our tracks, and everything looks much the same as it did the night before, only brighter and less eery: it doesn't seem to lurch out at us with the same urgency it did last night. harriet slips into the slaughter house, and i revisit the animal skeleton. it is prostrate on the ground, its shape more easily discernible in the daylight. yuk, i believe it is a goat.

"carlee! come quick!" harriet's voice is shrill and crackling.

i run to her as fast as i can, my heart racing, my mind imagining what might be wrong. she is crouched over and holding something in her hand.

"what is it?" i ask frantically, my nerves betraying themselves through the heightened pitch of my voice.

"a bone, carlee, maybe a finger." i take a look at the bone cradled in harriet's palm. it does indeed look like a finger. "it was sticking out of the wall, right here."

"gosh, let me go back to the car and get the shovel." i race to the car and grab the shovel from the trunk, not pausing to close it again before running back. the wall is clay, and digging is difficult. eventually, we retrieve three more bones, all of which look like fingers.

"i can't dig any more harriet, it's too hard."

"i think we need to, love. i'm sure there's something here. it just doesn't make sense. why would there be finger bones stuck in a wall?"

i scratch discontentedly at the wall, a bit further down. truth to tell, i'm not happy about the way things are developing, and i'm a little scared we're getting out of our depth. harriet is my guest, a guest in my country, and i feel that if anything happened to her i'd never forgive myself. i go through the motions of looking to satisfy her, not wanting to find anything else.

and then i do.

i feel sick deep in the pit of my stomach as i scratch away the surface and see, gleaming and malevolent, a scrap of bone emerging from its clay tomb. harriet spots the alarm on my face and follows the line of my vision. through a pinhole in the clay, the rounded shape of what is clearly a large bone glowers at us.

"fuck," she says. "what is that?"

i say nothing. i scratch harder at the clay, knocking off large lumps, and gradually reveal the bone, long and white, and cold and sad, held fast in the fabric of the wall. i have some nursing training and i know, terror knotting inside me, cold fever gripping my brow, that this bone is human. eventually, i release it enough to be able to pull it free from the wall, and with a plop it slides into my hand. it is shaped like an -f- with two curves: a collar bone, and judging by the size, a child's.

"is it human?" harriet says.

"i've no idea," i lie. i don't want to alarm her. she scrabbles at the rough hole i've created in the wall, her bare fingers pulling at the rubble, teasing it out. now that we have a decent sized hole it is easier to work the remains of the clay clear, and i join harriet. together, we excavate a large area in the wall, penetrating almost through to the other side. i am excited but afraid, expectant but anxiously hoping to find nothing more.

it is harriet who finds it, but me who pulls away enough of the clay to discover what it is. the shape, rounded and irregular, with a series of ill-formed ridges, is clear. for a second, i fear that i am going to throw up, and walk away, holding my hand over my face. a sick, acid taste is in my mouth, my jaw is clenched hard and my eyes are staring, staring, staring at anything, anything other than what i have just seen.

for i have just seen a skull.

it takes harriet a minute longer to understand what it is and, unaware of my discomfort, she continues to snatch at the rubble, her nimble fingers pulling energetically at it. all of a sudden a huge lump peels free and clatters to the floor, and from the recesses of the wall, unblinking and unseeing, the ghastly, clay-filled eye sockets of a child stare accusingly at us. harriet screams and wretches, doubled up in shock and terror, her hands covering her eyes. too late, harriet, too late. a sight once seen cannot be unseen.

harriet runs for the door, screaming at me to follow. i know i can't, i know i have to free the skull from its hideous tomb. i owe it to the little girl, for i am sure it is her, i am sure it is the child who first terrified me and then appealed to me the previous night, the girl with the mischievous grin, the girl with... the girl with the bloody stump where her arm should have been.

fury overtakes me. fury at weaver morgan, who has done these things, fury at the evil perpetrated in this place, fury at the loss of innocence, the waste of life, the casual, baleful, heartless destruction of a child's hope. in my anger i discover a strength i didn't know i had, and i tear at the clay, ripping it out, flailing at it. lumps fly off, crashing to the floor, and finally the skull comes loose. i pull it free and cradle it in my hands.

"you're safe, little girl," i say. "you're safe with carlee."

i turn to the door to find harriet and in that instant i discover what real fear is. real fear is nothing to do with stopping hearts, sweeping chills or sudden shocks. none of that melodramatic rubbish. real terror is physical. it inhabits your marrow, slices through your skin, gouges your eyes. real terror makes you want to die.

in front of me, hovering and shimmering, ten foot tall and four foot wide, is weaver morgan.

at least, it is the essence of weaver morgan, the ghost, the spirit, whatever you want to call it. the room has dimmed to an unearthly half-light, and the wispy, whispering apparition before me, translucent but strangely solid, has a greenish, phosphorescent glow. a look of such intense evil masks its face, clouds its features, that you could stare at it for a million years and still not be able to understand it. except to know that it hates, hates everything and everyone. and that it destroys anything in its path.

i grip the skull, and somehow that gives me strength. for some reason, and i don't understand it at all, i feel protective towards the little girl. she has been dead these seventy years, and yet i feel obligated to her to look after her mortal remains. i scream, my lungs scalded by the venom of my voice's projection. i am deafened by my own noise, and this vocal acknowledgement of my fear spurs me into action. i bow my head and run full tilt into the spectre of weaver morgan. eyes tightly shut and screaming at the top of my voice, i lunge into the gloom in front of me. instantly, i am gripped by an overwhelming coldness, a raw, dry, icy chill which penetrates to my bones. i become sluggish and slow. i feel like i am running through water, feel like i am braced against the wind, being swept back, forced back, suffocated, smothered. this is it, i think, i'm going to die. i know it is weaver morgan. i know i am fighting against evil, and i know that i am not strong enough to beat it. though my eyes are shut tight i feel a flood of tears emerge, scarring down my cheek. i am impotent, i am helpless, and i am drowning.

i can't catch my breath, and my heart is pounding so hard in my chest that i expect it to break through. my muscles are weakening, my thighs and calves aching, sinews snapping, the power draining from me. still, i grip the skull, and in the dreadful cold of my confinement i feel it glow warm. through my closed eyes the dark becomes light, and an all-encompassing, nerve shattering whiteness suddenly blasts my senses: it is too powerful to be felt by only one sense, and i believe i can smell it, and taste it, and feel, and hear it. i look down and the skull is aglow, a livid, living, seething mass of neurons and impulses. the eye sockets, still filled with the clay of a seventy year death, gleam brown and purple and gold and green, pulsing and heaving.

around me a war rages, a war played out in my mind, played out with my body, a war between hate and love. i know the little girl is helping me. in some way an energy is being released by the skull which is fighting the evil of weaver morgan. here was me, i though, trying to help the little girl, and it is her who is saving me. the entire building thrums with screams and wails, shouts and moans, sighs and cries. it sounds like the last trump, the choir of the dying, vain and hopeless and helpless. the whole building is white, and glowing, and shaking, and alive. still, the two powers clash, my little girl and weaver morgan, a fearsome battle of strength. good and evil, the oldest story. believe, carlee, i tell myself. believe in the strength of the girl. believe she can do it. believe she can win. the grip on my body loosens, the waters part, the winds cease, and i understand that we are prevailing. with a yell of defiance i strike free. i shuck the malevolent force of weaver morgan from my shoulders, feeling his evil grip loosen and his influence wane, and i burst out of the door into the hideous, bright daylight, staggering, shreiking and sobbing. real life, after the intensity of the battle in the building, seems strangely pale and unformed. my legs are weak and trembling, and with difficulty i run to the car and throw myself into the driver's seat. harriet is in the passenger seat, horror fixed on her face with the startling clarity of a dürer etching, and with a prayer to the god of starter motors, i turn the engine.