from the path. Why would anyone be sitting alone in the woods shortly after sunset on a chilly October evening he wondered? He paused, considering the possibility of approaching her to see if she was all right, then shook his head as he concluded that a six-foot tall man approaching her in the woods would most likely freak her out – she’d probably think he was going to attack her or something. He was about to move on when the girl began to dance.
She stretched her hands up high above her head, and began swaying from side to side; slowly at first, but gaining intensity as Luke watched. She stood up, and he could see her feet were bare; her white shoes were placed neatly together on the ground at the edge of the clearing. She wore a long white dress with a flowing skirt, and had white-blonde wavy hair that fell halfway down her back. The girl glided across the clearing; her dress and hair both flowing with the rhythm of the dance, the music presumably all inside her mind. As she twirled around and around, the skirt twisted about her long, slender legs before untangling itself once more as she headed in the opposite direction. Strands of hair obscured her face as she tossed her head first one way then the other. The dance was undoubtedly ballet, but Luke knew nothing about dance and had no idea of the correct terms for the different steps – nor did he care as he became more and more entranced by the mesmerising dancer.
Worried that she might sense his presence somehow and he would be caught watching this private moment, he considered hurrying off, but felt so drawn to the vision of the girl that he could not pull himself away. Instead, he took a couple of steps to his left so that he stood behind an oak tree, the roughness of the bark against his hands contrasting with the beauty of the sight before his eyes.
He must have watched her for five minutes or more before she finally dropped to her knees on the ground. She put her hands up to her eyes and buried her face in the soft grass, sobbing so violently that Luke could see her whole body shaking.
He felt as though someone was wringing out his heart and knew that he had to try to comfort her. Surely she would realise that his intentions were good if he went to her when she was so obviously heartbroken?
So, leaving his hiding place behind the tree, he picked his way into the clearing, almost tripping over the girl’s shoes. He looked down briefly to make sure of his footing then looked up again towards the prone figure. He frowned and rubbed his eyes: The white of her dress – and even her pale skin – seemed to have become translucent. He wondered exactly how much had he drunk that evening. As he approached the place where the girl was kneeling, he could clearly see the grass straight through her body.
He panicked, backed off a few steps, and tripped. Twisting as he fell, Luke landed heavily, grazing the palms of both hands. Cussing under his breath, he noticed a loose lace on one trainer that had most likely been the cause of the fall.
Scrambling hurriedly back over and sitting with an ungainly thud on the damp ground near the edge of the clearing, Luke saw that the girl had gone. Her shoes had disappeared too, and he knew that there was no way she could have rushed past him, grabbed them and run off out of sight in the couple of seconds it had taken him to regain his composure. Had he imagined the whole thing? Maybe he’d really had too much to drink? But despite the fall, Luke knew that he wasn’t drunk; in fact, sitting there in the clearing by himself, he had never felt more sober.
That night, he lay awake staring at the ceiling, unable to get the vision of the girl out of his mind. It was around three-thirty in the morning by the time he finally fell into a restless sleep, only to relive the encounter in his dreams.
The next day at work, his supervisor noticed that he was distracted and took him to one side to ask if he was all right.
“Sure, I’m fine,” Luke reassured him, vowing to make an effort to keep his mind on the work at hand.
But despite his best efforts, he found his mind wandering back to the girl in the clearing, wondering - somewhat disbelievingly - if she was some kind of ghost.
In fact, for the whole of the next week he had to keep reminding himself to get on with his daily routine and not daydream. On several occasions, he’d become lost in thought and been jolted back to reality by a noise or a tap on the shoulder from a concerned colleague or friend. When this happened, he was dragged back to the present with a shudder, only to realise that ten or more minutes had passed without him being able to account for it.
In The Black Horse the next Thursday evening, Luke considered telling his best friend Rob about the girl in the clearing, but he thought better of it, deciding that Rob would either laugh at him or think he was going mad.
Luke clock-watched his way through the evening and, at ten-fifteen made a muttered excuse about having to get up early the next day and left a bemused Rob standing alone at the bar. It had been the same time the week before when he had left the pub and had then seen the girl in the clearing on his way home, so he hurried off along the footpath, hoping that he might see her again.
Slowing his pace as he approached the clearing, Luke saw that she was indeed there, sitting with her back to the path, her shoes at the edge of the clearing as before. As she began her dance, Luke watched again in silence, unable to uproot himself from his spot behind the tree. When she flopped to the ground, her dance complete, he bravely stepped out from behind the tree and called out, “Hello there!”
But there was no response from the girl. She continued to sob on the ground, her face hidden under her long, blonde wavy hair.
Tentatively, he started to walk towards her, keeping an eye on his footing this time. But as he got closer she became more and more transparent, disappearing before he could reach the spot where she had been sitting.
At least he now knew for certain that she hadn’t simply managed to slip away while he recovered himself from his fall the week before.
He stood there for another ten minutes or so, hoping that she would reappear, eventually heaving a sigh and heading back to the path and from there back to his flat.
As he lay in bed, his hands behind his head as he stared blankly at the ceiling, he wondered if the vision of the girl was somehow like a recorded message from the past. Perhaps she had experienced some kind of tragedy in her life and the extreme emotion he sensed in her as he watched her entrancing dance had somehow caused the event to ‘record’ and replay in the exact place where it had happened. That’s why she didn’t respond when he called out – it would be like expecting a DVD to interact with you.
Over the next week, Luke spent all his free time on the internet looking for any story about a local girl and a tragedy, a missing person matching her description, or a talented ballet dancer from that area, all to no avail. Her clothing had looked like a modern style – not that he was exactly an expert on fashion ‒ so he concluded that she wasn’t some thousand-year-old ghost haunting the site of a house that had once stood on the clearing where he’d seen her.
Then, one lunchtime when he went into the town centre to buy himself a sandwich, his heart skipped a beat. There, sitting alone on one of the benches dotted around the pedestrian precinct, was a girl with long, wavy blonde hair. She was tall and slim, just like the girl Luke had seen in the woods and although her head was bowed slightly as though she was sad or tired, she sat with the poise and elegance of a dancer. She was wearing jeans and a long grey jumper, but he was sure it was the same girl.
Luke stared at her for a few moments, trying to understand how his ‘ghost dancer’ could be here – right here – in the flesh. He shook his head. It couldn’t be her. The figure in the woods was some sort of apparition, but this girl was flesh and blood. Ghosts were dead people; they were not living, breathing, beautiful, delicate girls.
Get a grip, you’re really losing it! She’s just a girl – and well out of your league, Luke Peterson.
At that moment, she looked up straight into Luke’s eyes and he felt his face redden.
“I’m sorry – am I taking up too much space?” she asked softly, shuffling along the short bench to make room for Lu
ke to sit down.
“Er, no… er, yes. I mean thank you,” stuttered Luke, smiling awkwardly and sitting next to her. He had intended to take his sandwiches back to work and eat them there but, since he felt he had to have a reason for stopping next to her, he sat down and tore open the plastic packet containing his chicken salad sandwiches.
“Would you like a sandwich?” he asked, stupidly. Why would she want one of your sandwiches, you idiot?
She shook her head.
“Do you come here often?” he heard himself ask. Oh, God, great pick-up line, Luke! he thought. Now she’ll know you’re a loser, even if she wasn’t sure before.
She raised her eyebrows. “No, I’ve never been here before. I’ve just moved here from Hereford.”
“Because of work?” he asked, desperate to redeem himself and put the ridiculous pick-up line behind him.
“Yes. I’m a dance teacher, and I’ve been offered a position teaching children at Norcross Academy – the dance school up on Dover Road: Do you know it?”
“No. Not my thing really – dancing,” he admitted with a smile.
“Oh. No, of course not,” she replied, returning his smile.
“How long have you been here in Tonbridge?” he asked.
“Oh, not long. I arrived on the 21st, and started