I lost his trail amidst a maze of dismal pine-choked gorges etched into the mountains. The woman’s cabin was in a rare clearing, completely overrun with a creeper that had gone crazy with the light, dripping off every branch and overhang.

When I stumbled in, storm-drenched and relapsing into delirium, she put aside her fear of strangers and tended to me. She told me about the four men who had caught her in the forest and what they did to her.

“Please stay!” She was standing between the door and me, her eyes tearful and imploring. “I’m so afraid they’ll come back.”

I shook my head sadly. She was just a ghost; I was so used to seeing them everywhere that it was hard to distinguish between living and dead. I found her body a little way up the hill and gave it a decent burial; it was the least I could do. As I left, the morning mists seemed to whisper her thanks.

It was not difficult to track down the men responsible and I left them to rot where they fell. If their ghosts choose to come after me then so be it. I’ve a more important quarry.

I wandered for so long in those mountains, I began to forget why I was there. Then one morning I came to a high windswept pasture. It had been the site of some pointless, long-forgotten battle and the spirits of the soldiers were drifting, shapeless and still bewildered, in between the threadbare, skeletal trees. Tethered outside a ruined barn were three horses – white, russet and black. As I approached, I could hear their owners talking.

“So what happens now?” asked the first voice (like distant rumbling cannon-fire).

“He has to fall,” demanded the second (like clashing steel).

“But it cannot be from us,” warned the third (parched and empty).

“The human must accomplish it,” said Conquest.

“We could provide the weapon,” said War. “But will he find it if we leave it for him?”

“Yes, he will,” said Famine. “He’s outside, listening.”

I rushed over but found no one there; the horses had also disappeared. Lying on the floor was a long, sheathed knife. I knew it, even before I drew the notched blade and saw its blue flame flickering.

In an instant, the enormity of my task lay stark before me. I hid the knife deep beneath my coat.

How do you describe the ghost of a ghost? She was a death that hadn’t happened yet – nothing more than a shimmering possibility. We were sitting on the kerb together, watching the girl who might bring her into being as she stood trembling, high up on the hotel roof opposite. A crowd had gathered and some police officer was trying to talk her down.

There was little I could say to help my companion or the terrible emptiness she described. But she seemed comforted by my presence, so I stayed until the officer succeeded, the crowd cheered, the girl came down and her ghost’s ghost dissolved into a sunbeam.

That dismal mining town was full to bursting with disgruntled spirits and I was finding them hard to cope with. A few days later, I was drinking myself into oblivion in some bar a few blocks away when the girl herself came up and asked whether she knew me. I was so lonely and, having sat with her death, I knew her better than she knew herself. But it wouldn’t have been fair to drag her into my life, the way it was. I just smiled sadly and carried on drinking.