“Losing her child, perhaps,” Lucy said. “Catherine Catesby and her son died within days of each other. Maybe she never had time to process the grief or even realize what had happened. But if that’s so,” she added, “what is she trying to tell us? Because it feels to me that as time’s gone on it’s more than just a random haunting...”

“Do you think so?” Johnny looked intrigued. “Hmm, I don’t know the answer to that.”

“Also,” Lucy said, “if grief is the conduit through which Catherine connects with people, why didn’t she choose Finn? He would seem the most obvious candidate.”

“The most obvious candidate for what?” They hadn’t heard Finn come in and both of them jumped. Johnny, who’d been topping up his mug with tea, spilled it on the table and swore.

“How can someone as large as you move so quietly, Finn?” he grumbled.

“It’s one of my many skills,” Finn said. He didn’t take his eyes off Lucy. “The most obvious candidate for what?” he repeated.

Lucy glanced at Johnny. Geoffrey, picking up the sudden tension in the room, pressed close to her leg in apparent reassurance.

“It’s okay,” Johnny said, mopping up the tea. “Finn knows all about my history with the supernatural. He’s practically family.”

Lucy relaxed a little. “Okay,” she said. “So does he know about Catherine as well?”

“Sure,” Johnny said. “I told him I’d seen her ghost as soon as weird things started to happen here.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “So Finn knows,” she said, “and you’ve seen her and Geoffrey probably has as well,” she said. “I bet that’s why he doesn’t like the barn. And then there’s an elderly lady who saw her back in the 1940s who Verity says is still around. And I’ve been thinking I’m going mad seeing things that no one else can. How wrong I was.”

Johnny laughed. “Sorry. And it’s not that common. Not really. I can’t speak for Geoffrey, but Finn hasn’t seen her. He’s determinedly earthbound, aren’t you, Finn? I don’t think any ghost would dare appear to him.”

Finn, who had crossed to the sink to wash the dirt from his hands and arms, made a sort of huffing sound. He grabbed a towel to dry himself and reached for the kettle. “Clearly it isn’t given to everyone,” he said mildly. He looked at Lucy again. “So that’s how you saw the spiral mounds?” he said. “Through one of these dreams similar to the ones Johnny had? A sort of possession? Seeing through Catherine’s eyes?”

“Yes,” Lucy said. “It seems so.” She also took a breath. “I saw the summerhouse burning too,” she said to him. “That night we were down in the woods. But that was more like a vision than a dream.”

Finn nodded. “If I hadn’t also had that dream I’d be thinking both of you were mad,” he said bluntly. “But then there’s my Scottish granny—”

“The eldritch one,” Lucy said.

“Right,” Finn said. “And we did discover archaeological evidence suggesting that the summerhouse had burned down, so...”