The Ghastling: Book Five: 5

This issue is full of women. Women lost disappeared heroic misguided spurned haunted wicked put-upon neglected misunderstood bedraggled ghostly and preoccupied. In Bryan Marshalls the Grin Thief grief plants a black seed into the mind of a woman who loses her family to a terrible accident and so begins a frightful scheme... Callum McAllisters story the Smog Geist a young girl loses her way home from school amidst a thick yellow fog beware the stranger approaching... Parineeta Singhs Crocuses in Spring 1958 tells of a nanny employed to take care of a troubled little boy whose imaginings become unnerving... Enter the heady strange Fairy Glen of Claire Savages story the Flame Keepers where ghostly apparitions float in the woods at certain times of the year and people are spirited away or are they taken? In Joao Morais Corpse Candle a young girl is sent to fetch the doctor for her gravely ill father but her mother has filled her head with tales and warnings of a witch that may obstruct her route through the woods whatever you do dont look back and dont stop walking. Get out of the woods as fast as you can.... Enter a Conjurers tupenny show where promises of raising the dead before the audiences very eyes are made in Kristy Kerruishs story the Conjurer. In Mark Blayneys peculiar tale Sexistential ever wondered what it is like to actually be a ghost to live eternally as you died? This story explores the complex relationships of ghosts who cannot get physically ill - but problems of the mind are frequent... Renee Andersons Medium Black tells the story of a tragic death of a Victorian Medium. Ectoplasm conjurer of spirits or mistress of invention? But what killed her? In Melanie Marshalls sad story His Garden an academic mourns the end of a relationship finds herself wandering the gardens of a large stately home she meets an old woman and follows her along a dark path. A strange exile from her empty flat her abandoned life she wonders is she fated to be always out in the garden... Jennie Owens Alternative Therapy brings a new meaning to carrying your demons... Catrin Keans terrifying ghost story Blue a single mother despairing is offered a fresh start a new home by the sea when one day a stranger arrives soaking wet at her door...