Jess stumbled, her body colliding with someone else as the crowd sang and danced together. She felt the drink in her hand get crushed, spilling its contents down her legs and onto her scruffy trainers.

'Isn't this great?' Daryl shouted in her ear, the sound of the DJ drowning out his words for anyone but Jess.

'I'm going to get a drink,' she yelled back.

Daryl nodded and kept dancing whilst Jess squeezed through the crowd and back to the pop up bar. She tossed her paper cup in the basket and took a breath.

Her head felt fuzzy and her feet zigzagged over the grass. There was a defending ring in her ears that meant she'd stood too near the speakers for too long.

'Another Vodka and lemonade,' she slurred to the boy who wasn't much older than her behind the bar.

'Sure thing.'

Jess grabbed hold of the makeshift bar, finding it difficult to stand. She couldn't remember how many drinks she'd gotten through, only that it was more than she would normally have.

Her feelings towards her sister were fueling her reckless behaviour. She wanted to just be a normal college student who didn't have a dysfunctional sister for a change. She wanted to go back to the way things were before Ash had shown up.

The music was less deafening by the bar, but it was still making her head pound. She screwed her eyes shut as the DJ let loose the strobe lighting. It flashed across her eyelids, making her feel lightheaded.

She staggered away from the bar, her hand pressed firmly against her mouth. The strobe lighting was an ineffective means of lighting her way, but she didn't have the coordination to get her phone out of her pocket, and she was growing desperate.

At the edge of the field, she lost the battle with her rolling stomach. Her throat burnt and tears leaked from the corner of her eyes as she heaved.

She used the tall bushes to steady herself and wiped her mouth as best she could when her stomach was finally empty. The ringing in her ears was worse, and that made her temples throb with renewed vengeance.

'Stupid idea, Jess,' she criticised herself. 'You could have been tucked up in bed. But no, you had to get Ash out of your head. And look at how that's working out for you.' She hung her head, feeling truly awful.

A pale face stared at her through the hedge and she stumbled back. Her heart hammered in her veins and she flinched, waiting for an attack that never came. When she opened her eyes, the face was gone, but her heart didn't stop racing.

She shook her head. After all those defence moves Ash had taught her as a child, she flinched and closed her eyes at the first sign of danger.

'I'm a freaking idiot,' she muttered to herself.

But even though the face had disappeared, she still felt a pull to find the person it belonged to. She trailed along the hedge, getting further and further away from the DJ and the rest of her college friends.

The light got dimmer, and she finally pulled out her phone. She noticed the missed calls from her sister and thought about calling her back, but she silenced that nagging thought in her head.

Why should she worry about her sister when Ash was always keeping secrets from her?

She swiped the notification aside and turned on the mobile's torch. With a bit more light, she spotted an opening in the hedge and went to investigate.

An old style kissing gate confronted her. It's metal rusted and flakey. The hedge had almost swallowed it whole; the branches pushing through the gaps in the metal.

She paused as she saw what lay beyond it.

Tombstone after tombstone.

'Don't go into the spooky graveyard Jess,' she told herself, thinking about all those times, when watching horror films, she'd berated the characters for willingly putting themselves in danger.

She'd questioned their sanity and now she was questioning hers as she held the branches out of her way and entered the cemetery.

The gate softly clanged shut behind her, but in the eerie silence it made her jump. She risked a glance back behind her. The crowd and DJ were still there living their best lives, but here in the cemetery, the noise of it all couldn't permeate.

She couldn't hear the sound of her breathing or the crunch of the autumn leaves under her foot. It was a vacuum, and she felt herself getting sucked in.

The feeling intensified into a need.

Without the warm bodies of the crowd, the night air bit at her skin and raised goosebumps under makeshift toga. Her teeth chattered as her breaths formed clouds of white smoke in front of her face.

It felt like she was walking through December and not late October.

She shone her light over the first few tombstones, their appearance weathered and partially hidden by the overgrown grass.

Most of the tombstones were simple, but the further she travelled, the more ornate they became.

Stone angels, their faces disturbed with grief, watched over her. The torch light bounced off their carved faces, and she had to look away as her imagination spiralled out of control. Under the light, it was almost as though they were watching her.

The light fell upon a woman crouched at one of the more adorned graves. Her hand was raised as though to wipe away the years of grime that covered the tombstone, but she couldn't bring herself to touch it.

Jess skidded to a stop, recognising her as the one she'd seen through the hedge.

Her cheeks shone in the torchlight as crystal tears fell from her eyes. And yet she made no sound.

'Are you okay?' Jess asked. But the woman ignored her.

Jess bit her lip. She could leave. The woman was clearly not in the mood for company.

And yet she couldn't. She felt held there by some unseen force. It was like she was meant to be there.

'Are you sure you're okay?' She tried to place her hand on the woman's shoulder, but the woman flinched away.

Her eyes widened as she stared at Jess, her mouth moving as if she were speaking, but no words came out, or at least none that Jess could hear.

'I didn't mean to startle you,' apologised Jess. 'It's just you were crying, and I wanted to make sure you were okay,' she rambled on, wondering if the woman thought she was as crazy as Jess herself felt.

Hearing her own words come from her mouth, Jess wondered if she really had lost it. Maybe hanging around her sister had completely fried her brain. Here she was having a conversation with an upset woman in a graveyard at night. This was the type of shady shit that was expected of her sister, but not her.

This is ridiculous, Jess thought to herself.

'I'm just going to go,' she finally said. This was all just a waste of time. She wasn't her sister. This wasn't her life. It was time she rejoined Daryl and the rest of the party.

She turned around and her heart practically gave out. The woman wasn't as alone as Jess had originally thought.

Twenty other people stood behind her, silently watching.

The woman by the grave rushed past her and into the arms of another woman. She was upset and pointing at Jess furiously.

The man at the front glared at her and held up a musket.

'Now hold on a sec.' She stepped back as the mob advanced on her.

The man cocked his gun, and Jess took off running. She stumbled over the headstones and darted between the graves. But more people materialised.

Her blood ran cold as she watched them pass through the tombstones like they were made of smoke.

The man with the musket appeared in front of her. Only now the one side of his face was bloody and his eye was clawed out. In her shock, she stumbled backwards, cracking her head against a tomb.

Stars flashed across her vision, but still the man advanced.

***

Ash ran from the car, flying past the Deputy as the feeling of horror washed through her and yet they weren't her feelings. Somewhere her sister was so filled with so much terror that she couldn't move.

'Where is she?' shouted the Deputy.

'Close. But she's terrified.'

The Deputy grabbed her hand and yanked her to the right. 'This way.'

The temperature dropped and their breath puffed out in front of them as they ran. Ash slid the package upside down and shook the necklace free. She needed to find her sister, and fast.

'Why did it have to be a graveyard?' the Deputy muttered.

But Ash knew why. Her sister would have been drawn to this place as helpless as a moth to a flame. The energy there was too intense to ignore. And her stupid kid sister didn't know the risks.

Ash skidded to a stop, forcing the Deputy to halt.

'What are you doing...' but his voice died out as he watched Ash's eyes lose all their colour until only a pale iridescent white remained.

'They're everywhere,' she whispered.

'Who are?' he demanded, drawing his guns.

'The ghosts.'

Irrational fear seized him. A gun would be useless against them, but he still flicked off the safety.

'What do we do?'

Ash's eyes returned to normal as she looked at him. 'You need to stay here. The ghosts aren't angry, just startled. They're acting defensively. We shouldn't have to worry.'

'Then why do you look so scared?' argued the Deputy.

She didn't answer as she made her way through the graves. It was like walking through peanut butter without the pleasant taste.

She couldn't see the ghosts, but she could sure as Hell feel them.

Her sister lay in a heap on the ground, her hands drawn over her head in defence.

'Jesse,' Ash whispered.

Jess' eyes peeped open. 'Don't Ash, run. They'll get you.'

But Ash didn't listen as she walked forward and knelt by her sister's side.

Jess watched on as the ghosts moved out of her way. The man with the musket flickered, his face reverting to normal, without all the blood. He still looked angry, but he lowered his weapon.

'She means no harm to you, nor do I,' Ash announced, as though speaking to a crowd. 'Let us leave. We won't bother you again.'

The ghosts flickered and, to Jess' amazement, they moved back.

Ash turned to her sister and held up the necklace. 'Put this on.'

Jess looked at it. 'What is it?'

'Something that'll dampen down your gift.' But still Jess hesitated. 'For Christ's sake, Jesse, do you want to be seeing ghosts everywhere you go?'

Jess flinched at the word "ghosts". Ghosts weren't real, she repeated to herself, but a traitorous part of her was already putting the necklace over her head.

'Do you see them now?' Ash asked.

Jess looked around, but there was no one there but her sister, who was watching her with a careful expression.

'There's no one there.'

'Good. Now let's go.' Ash helped her sister up and led her back to where the Deputy waited.

Ash looked at him curiously and he just stared right back. In the end, she was the first to look away. She wasn't sure what he was doing there, but she was too exhausted to ask.

Silently, the three of them made it back to their waiting cars.

'Thanks for helping tonight,' Ash said, looking at the grim Deputy.

'I'm not sure I was of much use.'

'I wouldn't have found her so quickly without you,' Ash contradicted.

'What happens now?' he asked.

Ash looked at her sister, who wouldn't meet her eyes. 'Now me and Jesse have a talk.' She turned back to the Deputy, noticing the tremor in his hands. 'Go home Elijah and pretend that this night never happened.'

He laughed harshly, drawing a hand over his bald head. 'I don't think that will be possible,' he muttered, but unlocked his car door. 'And what about them?' He jerked his hand back towards the cemetery.

'What about them?'

'Can we just leave them there?'

'They've been there for hundreds of years. They're not going to cause trouble.'

The Deputy wanted to say something more but decided against it. Instead, he got behind the wheel of his car and drove off.

Ash sighed. It was never a good thing when ordinary people clashed with the paranormal. It was the one thing for the Deputy to have met her, but an entirely different thing for him to know what walked among them. She'd have to watch him. Braver men than Elijah Odugu had been driven to despair once the veil had been drawn back for them.

Ash slid behind the wheel of her borrowed red car. Jess sat shaking in the seat next to her, gripping the necklace as if it were the only thing holding her together.

'Are they still there?' she whispered.

'Take it off and see for yourself,' Ash urged, starting up the car.

Jess looked at her sister like she was crazy. Or maybe she was the crazy one.

She drew the necklace over her head and watched as three ghosts floated into being at the cemetery gates. It was the man with the musket, and the two women.

'What are they doing?' Ash asked.

'Just watching us.'

Ash threw the car into reverse and drove away.

Jess placed the necklace back and watched the ghost disappear in the rearview window.

'What the fuck is happening to me?' whispered Jess.

'The same thing that happened to me and Nana...and Mom,' Ash added.