Goodreads asked Karen Maitland:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Karen Maitland I spent my early childhood in Malta and lived an old house which had been divided into two apartments. Several strange incidents occurred there. Some of our high rooms had curtains with rods threaded instead of doors and several times we discovered these curtains lying on the floor, but the brass rods were still firmly in place, though they were impossible to reach without a ladder.

I often told adults that I woke in the night to see a strange man standing at the foot of my bed in this house. Naturally no one believed me until one night our neighbour, who lived in the apartment below, was minding me. His front door led into the hallway of the house and he'd left it ajar so he could hear if I called out. The neighbour saw a man climbing the stairs and though he knew the door to the street was locked, he thought someone had broken in. He was solider, so he grabbed something heavy and charged after the intruder and found him standing at the foot of my bed watching me. As he challenged him, the stranger simply vanished into the air. The neighbour was apparently shaking when his wife and my mother returned.

There was a sealed urn on the windowsill on the stairs cemented in place. We always thought it was just ornamental, until one day it was broken during some repair work. Ash and charred human bones spilled out, together with a stiletto dagger. So was our ghost the victim of a murder? Was he the murderer or had the knife been laid with the bones in an attempt to keep a restless spirit from walking?

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