The Apparition Phase

by Will Maclean

And so the first thing my twin sister and I did, when we finally got access to a camera of our own, was fake a ghost photograph.

Great first line!

‘No, you don’t. Neither of you. You drew a shape on a wall, thinking it was clever, thinking it was funny. But it’s not. And now it’s here. And you live here.’

Siblings, twins especially, must go out and forge their own identities, no matter how close their bond. They have to become their own people in order to remain people, in any meaningful sense. I see that now.

we were heading into Suffolk. The county where M.R. James had woven his ghosts from half-remembered childhood days and the horrors and heresies that lurked in the masonry and misericords of a hundred parish churches.

Sally, with her bespoke mish-mash of superstition, folklore, ghostlore and barely understood concepts from the fringes of current science.’

Waiting for me to join the others, for six to become seven? Seven souls, their little human essences glowing dimly in a grey wash of static, like distress beacons, broadcasting their vulnerability to anything that has eyes to see.

It took me about half an hour to make beans on toast, toasting the white bread under the grill and heating the beans up in the large aluminium pan my mother had,

I someday want to eat beans on toast

‘I made tea.’ He gestured towards a mug on the kitchen counter.

Also, the UK is so appealing for the simple fact that afternoon tea is essential and tea is a comfort during stressful times.

‘Walking and laughing. Singing. Humming. Like a lunatic. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. For as long as I watched it.’