Lucky in Love

Tracey Pierce was born between two worlds. Tracey's mother, Angela, announced her pregnancy a couple of months after her husband's death. People described it as a miracle and nobody paid too much attention to the timelines. They'd all seen Angela's grief, but didn't know how it had torn through barriers that, in normal circumstances, stay closed.

A coachload of ghosts came to the christening. The driver was baffled, thinking he drove an empty coach, but he was happy to be paid for his time. The living scattered themselves through the church, avoiding areas of the pews that seemed somehow colder.

Tracey was raised by the living, but close to the dead. As a child, there was always someone watching over her crib - sometimes her father, sometimes other relatives. By the time she reached school, she learned not to mention out loud the things she saw – other schoolchildren teased her for it, and adults were disquieted. She nodded politely when people pitied her for not having a father.

Tracey grew to be an attractive young woman, if a little prone to looking away during conversations. Young men began to romance her – from both sides of the veil. Living men have much to offer - eating food together, lifts to work, warm bodies in the night. The dead are colder, but love no less intensely than the living. As she grew older, Tracey realised that she didn’t have to choose between one or the other.

Five years after their wedding, on their wood anniversary, Tracey and Paul are content. Their life is comfortable and they think about having children. Paul sometimes goes away for work and has no suspicions about these trips – Tracey's ghostly lover leaves no physical trace. He speaks little, but Tracey likes that, enjoys sharing silence with him. She loves her ghost no less than she loves Paul, but she loves each in different ways.

In a couple of weeks’ time, Tracey will stop taking her contraceptive pill – and, maybe, she will carry on with both of her lovers. Maybe she will leave her child's patrimony to chance, because it doesn't matter. Tracey and Paul will love the child as much as Angela loved Tracey, and it will grow to be as happy as she is.

Wilde Volk News

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on the Wilde Volk exhibition, which launches at In a Land gallery in Hebden Bridge on August 6th. We have a range of events taking place - mask-making workshops, life drawing, talks and appearances from Whitby Krampus Run on the 15th and 30th. We’re also hosting a poetry night featuring Rosy Carrick and Louise Machen on August 7th.

I’ll be at the gallery most weekend days during the run. You should come and say hello.

Background

I like writing to themes. Each fortnight, my writing group picks a topic, and everyone produces a piece for it. Sometimes it’s easy - other times I’ll fight the whole two weeks for an idea.

I start by scanning my list of prompts for anything that connects to the set theme. After that, I’ll sit with a notebook and scribble lines, listing concepts, to see if something grabs me. I’m not simply looking for an ‘idea’ - what I need is a phrase that resonates. Without a sentence as a way in, the story won’t feel alive.

The weird thing is that I always come up with a story before the deadline - but in this case I only had something viable on Tuesday morning, and my group is the ‘Wednesday Writers’.

In this case, I’d worked for ages on an interesting idea about auctions of haunted sourdough starters. I had the concept, some flourishes, but it wasn’t coming to life. Tuesday morning, I spent an hour writing lines, odd little wisps. Finally, I had the sentence about the ghosts coming to the christening, and the story you’ve just read collided together.

There’s an Alan Moore interview where he says that it’s important to know how your creativity works. For me, there is something mystical around how I detect if an idea is good - but if I generate enough ideas, I’ll find something that works. It feels inefficient, but it’s a method.