The Ghosts of Winter: Ghosts of Winter

By Peter Knyte

Gazed upon from the valleys between,

the high mountains may seem beautiful and serene places.

The domain of wild things and of hunters, and wanderers with a little more wilderness in their blood.

 

But the mountains are also mysterious places, that hide secrets long lost to the inhabitants of the lowlands.

 

When a photograph of a remote high mountain valley comes into the hands of young wanderer, it ignites a fascination within him, that quickly grows into a compulsion to find and visit this place.

 

Only accessible in the winter, and rumoured to be a place never touched by the warmth of summer, this hidden place seems to hold traces of antiquity and dreams of what once were.

 

Like all good ghost stories, The Ghosts of Winter is a haunting tale of supernatural and ageless mystery, which can almost but not quite be rationalised, that will leave many readers pondering the implications.

The revised 2019 edition now also includes a bonus short story - Death and the Creator, which was the first attempt at writing the Ghosts of Winter.

Frequently asked questions – answered by the author.

Question:

Where did the inspiration for the The Ghosts of Winter come from?

 

Answer:

The decision to try and write a winter ghost which featured skiing came to me as a suggestion made by one of friends who composes and performs his own music. We been chatting about where we should go for our next ski and snowboarding holiday, and on a whim I suggested he should try and compose a piece of music which evoked the mountains in winter. Well he rose to the challenge, but in return he suggested I should do the same by writing a ghost story with the same backdrop.

 

Question:

What about other authors, this title is dedicated to several horror/ghost story writers including H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood and Walter de la Mare etc , but are there any more contemporary authors you consider to be an influence as well?

 

Answer:

Absolutely, I don't like anything too grisley, but Susan Hill is one name which springs immediately to mind for her Woman in Black story, Sarah Perry's Essex Serpent is another.

 

Question:

All your stories to date are set in the 1930s, is there something about this period that you find particularly interesting and will we continue to see your stories in this period?

 

Answer:

I'd like to say there's some great reason for this, but actuality I set my Flames of Time series in the 30s because of a simple plot device relating to when the narrator is telling the story. Once I'd decided on the time period and started doing my research, I realised that period was great blend of the familiar and alien that I thought would make a great setting for the low-fantasy type of stories that I like to tell.

 

Question:

Finally, who do you think would enjoy your Ghosts of Winter story?

 

Answer:

I'd like to think it would make a nice gift for anyone who enjoys winter sports in high mountains, the kind of terrain where the story is set, but aside from them I hope it will appeal to anyone who likes old fashioned style of suspense/thriller stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clandestine Books Limited
• Release date: Dec 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781912367054

Peter Knyte

Peter was born and grew up in North Staffordshire, England, but now lives a bit further north in West Yorkshire, where by day he passes himself off as a mild mannered office worker, while by night he explores whole worlds of imagination as an intrepid writer. When not tapping away at my keyboard he spends his time gardening, walking, rock climbing, snowboarding and cooking. As for his writing, his time is currently divided between three projects: - The Flames of Time trilogy - A three volume vintage styled action adventure story set in the 1930s. Featuring hidden temples, lost secrets and mysterious religious organisations. Set against the backdrop of West Africa, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, Istanbul and India - the third and final part of which is out in mid 2018. - The Glass Darkly series - A Retro science-fiction story set in a multiverse plagued by creatures form another dimension, where the characters from a world like our own, but not quite our own, explore the strange dimension between worlds in order to try and save their own world from a mysterious and potent invader. The first book 'Through Glass Darkly' and the second 'By a Blue and Crimson Light' are out now. - The Ghosts of Winter - The first tale within a period ghost story series (more H.P. Lovecraft or Algernon Blackwood than Stephen King). When the grainy photograph of a remote high-mountain valley comes into the hands of young wanderer, it ignites an inexplicable fascination within him to find the location shown in the picture, even though it is rumoured to be a dangerous place never touched by the warmth of summer, and which holds traces of antiquity and dreams of what once were. Also available for free to newsletter subscribers. For more information about me and writing visit: www.knytewrytng.com In summary Peter likes his vintage settings, from when the world was perhaps a slightly more innocent and stylish place, and writing stories that make you think. . . just a little bit.

Book preview

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Knyte was born and grew up in North Staffordshire, England, but now lives in West Yorkshire, where by day he passes himself off as a mild-mannered office worker, while by night he explores whole worlds of imagination as an intrepid writer.

When not tapping away at his computer he spends his time slowly transforming his garden into a Japanese style tea garden, rock climbing, snowboarding and cooking.

The Ghosts of Winter is his fifth novel.

For more information about Peter and the worlds that he is exploring please visit:

www.knytewrytng.com

OTHER TITLES BY PETER KNYTE

The Flames of Time

The Embers of Time

The Ashes of Time

Through Glass Darkly

By a Blue and Crimson Light

Forthcoming titles by Peter Knyte

A Shadow on the Sky

Copyright© 2017 Peter Knyte.

Re-released 2019

Peter Knyte asserts the right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved.

First paperback edition printed 2017 in the United States and United Kingdom

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British

Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912367-04-7

Large Print Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912367-11-5

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912367-05-4

No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval

system without written permission of the publisher.

Published by Clandestine Books Limited

For more copies of this book, please contact:

[e-mail]

If you find any errors in this book please let us know so they can be corrected for other readers.

To report an error, please email: [e-mail]

Interior designed and set by Clandestine Books

www.clandestine-books.co.uk

Cover art and typesetting by Clandestine Books

The Ghosts of Winter

Clandestine Books Limited

Peter Knyte

DEDICATION

For Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Daphne du Maurier, Edgar Allan Poe and Walter de la Mare for the years of entertainment and inspiration.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With special thanks to John and Tasha Williamson, Lisa Bath and Philip Hall for the inspiration, feedback and proofreading of this title, which has enabled me to improve it in countless ways.

I hope I can return the favour sometime.

DISCLAIMER

This book is entirely a work of fiction, and while it plays fast and loose with the names of historical figures, places and events, no part of this book should be viewed or understood to be factual, or attempting to be factual in any way. This story is set on other worlds of imagination, which at best may bear a superficial similarity to our own, and in all probability, will be wholly different and bear no resemblance to any actual people, personalities, locations, circumstances or events whatsoever.

THE SMALL HOURS

IDREAMED OF THE MOUNTAIN again last night, and that hidden alpine valley which so enthralled me even before I’d visited the place. With its perpetually snow-covered slopes that summer never touched.

I had come to the mountains a little later in life, having been a rather bookish youth, content to pass my time absorbed in almost any type of book. From novels, poetry and short stories, to travel guides, histories and biographies. Virtually every subject fired my interest or imagination, leading me indirectly to my second great passion in life, a love of nature and walking.

I’d picked up a charming pocket-sized volume entitled ‘The Lays of Ancient Britain – a walker’s guide to the countryside and how it was shaped by our ancestors.’

It was generously illustrated with sketches, but I found it impossible to read more than a paragraph without wanting to pull on a pair of boots and get out into the countryside it described.

Spring, summer, autumn or winter would find me striding the field boundaries and moors, tracing the ancient drover’s trails or simply walking the old forgotten roads and pathways which had once been the only connection between quiet hamlets.

In no-time the idea of choosing between reading and walking had become as unthinkable as choosing between breathing and having a pulse. For years, they were all that mattered to me. Simple pleasures, but the things I enjoyed most in life.

It was of course my love of books and walking which led me to the valley and my undoing.

A more adventurous friend had stumbled upon a quaint leather-bound volume of poetry which she thought might appeal to me, because every poem contained therein was dedicated in one fashion or another to nature and the wonders of the natural world.

The poems within were simple yet elegant and heartfelt, and they described nature in a way I appreciated. But the real joy were a dozen or so photographic plates scattered unevenly throughout the work, including one of an isolated alpine valley, half shrouded in mist, which represented what was possibly my idea of perfection.

The scene it depicted was framed by mature but twisted trees in the foreground, which parted to reveal a snow covered alpine meadow with a long wooden building, a barn and some smaller sheds.

These buildings, and the meadow, were surrounded by a dense looking forest, which covered a steep and craggy mountain slope that climbed right to the top of the picture and beyond.

Over a few weeks I read the poems and admired the photographic plates, but as the weeks became months, while my other books and my walking continued to sustain me, I found my mind often returning to that one picture of the valley. Time and again I found myself bringing the slender leather book of poetry down from its spot on my overcrowded shelves just to enjoy that impossibly idyllic scene. Before long I simply stopped putting the book back on the shelf altogether, instead giving it a permanent place amongst my stack of current reading.

The picture in the book was infuriatingly vague in its attribution, described simply as ‘A secluded valley in the French Alps in late spring – taken by the author.’ But where in the French Alps, and how long ago it had been taken were not stated.

The publisher’s details though, I did have, and one evening toward the end of the summer I finally cracked and wrote to them, explaining how much I admired the little book, and in particular the print of the ‘Secluded valley’. So much so that I would dearly like to know where it was.

I wasn’t especially optimistic that the details would be immediately forthcoming, but I did hope the publisher might forward on my letter to the author, and from him I might eventually receive the details I sought.

A couple of weeks later and the response I’d hoped for arrived in the form of a letter from the author, who it turned out, lived not so very far away from my home in Huntingdon. Not only did he provide me with the details of where the ‘Secluded valley’ was located, and how to reach it, but he explained, if I were in earnest about travelling there, he would be happy to meet me before I left, to show me a few more photographs and discuss how the journey could be most easily made.

Now, I’d said nothing in my letter about actually travelling to where the photograph had been taken, and my instinctive response was to write back to this unusually named Mr Wendig, and correct his assumption. To explain how my enquiry had stemmed purely from an intellectual curiosity, and much lesser desire to obtain a better-quality print of the photograph in question.

But just as I was thinking this, the absurdity of my response suddenly struck me. Here I was, comparatively fit and healthy, with both the means and the leisure to be able to engage in an excursion to the continent. Not only that, but if the picture was anything to go by it was surely somewhere that I would enjoy visiting for myself, and yet now, with someone practically on my doorstep offering to provide all the directions and assistance I might want in order to get there, I was thinking of turning him down.

‘Algy,’ I said out loud to myself. ‘I think you might be in a bit of a rut here. A comfortable and familiar rut, but a rut all the same.’

Half wondering what I was letting myself in for, I wrote back to Wendig, thanking him for his kind offer of assistance, and explaining I would very much like to visit him to discuss how the trip could be made, and enquiring as to a convenient time for me to call.

Thinking nothing further of it I proceeded about my business expecting it would probably take a day or two to receive a response.

POSSESSION

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE HAUNTS in Huntingdon at the weekend was an attractive old pile of a place at one end of the town, called the Old Bridge Hotel. It was a sturdy Georgian place with ivy covered walls, some nice big airy rooms, as well as a sheltered veranda at the back overlooking the river, which remained lovely and cool in the summer. Toward the front it also had a couple of smaller, lower ceilinged snugs with big fireplaces, which made for a cosy retreat in the colder months.

There was plenty of good walking around Huntingdon, especially along the river, which naturally wound its way directly past the old bridge from which the hotel drew its name.

Wanting to test my ‘stuck in a rut’ hypothesis, I decided to sound-out a few of my closer acquaintances who also happened to frequent the Bridge Hotel, so after stretching my legs along the river for a few miles I popped in for a late bite of lunch to find out who was still around.

It had been a distinctly chilly morning for November, one of the first properly cold days we’d had, following a distinctly mellow and dry September and October, but there had been no mistaking the frosted grass verges and ice edged streams and culverts which fed into the river as I’d walked along.

True to form the veranda and big summer rooms were all but abandoned as I approached the rear of the hotel from the river, so after ensuring my boots were clean, I made my way through to one of the snugs, where I found several small groups of the regulars clustered around the warmly glowing fireplace.

The comfortable armchairs to one side of the fireplace were the most hotly contested seats on days like this, tucked away as they were beside the steps which led down into the snug, but with the high wing-backed chairs to protect the occupant against any chance of a draught from the rear, and the blazing fire to the fore, these were colloquially known as the ‘basking’ chairs.

On stepping down into the snug I noticed with a smile that the Williamsons had once again laid claim to the basking chairs, and that Mrs Williamson, was practically reclining in her chair before the fire, her half-lidded hazel eyes staring languidly into the depths of the embers, while her husband was stood over by the bar retrieving some drinks.

‘Hello, Algy,’ Natasha, Mrs Williamson purred from her cat like repose. ‘We were just wondering whether we might see you today.

‘Hello, Tash,’ I replied, pleased to see them both. ‘Mind if I join you for a bit?’

The Williamsons were exactly the folks I’d hoped I might run into. She was an émigré from South Africa, who’d moved to England after meeting and marrying Jonathan her husband, who was something or other in the Civil Service.

Despite being well settled in Huntingdon, they both travelled extensively, and while they were often to be found in The Bridge, it was unusual for a year to go by without them popping off to visit some far flung and exotic corner of the world.

With John returned from the bar we settled into the usual banter, during which I broached the topic of my possible visit to the French alps.

‘You, Algy?’ John voiced, a little more surprised than I would’ve liked. ‘I thought you preferred pastures a little closer to home.’

‘Well, I must admit, until I received this reply from Wendig, I’d have agreed with you. But for some reason, it made me stop and wonder whether I’ve allowed myself to settle into a rut,’ I explained. ‘I mean, it’s not like some of the high adventures which you two disappear off to enjoy, it’s only over the channel to France.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being a home bird,’ offered Tasha, exchanging an all too knowing glance with her husband as she said this. ‘The real question is why do you suddenly feel like changing your routine?’

I’d explained about the book of poetry and how I quite liked some of the photographs it contained, but I hadn’t been entirely honest with them about the fact that it was one particular plate that had entranced me.

‘Well…’ I began.

As soon as I hesitated they both knew I’d been holding back.

‘Come on, Algy, you may as well come clean now the Memsahib has you under her paw,’ John commented, with a twinkle in his eye as he referred to his wife using one of his favourite pet names.

‘Alright,’ I conceded. ‘But you must promise not to laugh at my foolishness!

‘What I told you about the book of poetry was true, but while all the pictures are well framed and interesting, there’s one in particular that absolutely fascinates me.

‘I can’t explain it. I’ve had the book off the shelf dozens of times just to look at that one picture, and for the life of me I’m not sure why.’

‘Oh, Algy,’ Tasha purred sympathetically. ‘I’m afraid you’ve got a touch of the fever.’

‘Yes, Tasha is right I’m afraid, old chap,’ John agreed. ‘Something in that picture has clearly infected you.’

I didn’t understand what they were talking about to begin with, so tried to re-assure them that I was feeling fine, but after humouring me for a minute or two they eventually explained.

‘We’re not talking about a cold or a bout of the flu, Algy,’ John continued. ‘Let me get you another drink and I’ll try to explain.’

I strolled over to the bar with him at the other end of the snug, while his wife continued to bask in the heat from the fire, and as we ordered our drinks he began.

‘It’s almost impossible to explain the fever, as we call it, to someone who’s never experienced it, though it’s fairly obvious to anyone who has,’ he began, in unusually sombre terms for Jon, whose eyes always glinted with a trace of humour, even on the worst of days.

‘Now I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or bad, but the vast majority of people will never experience it, and their lives will often be all the happier as a consequence.

‘I know you’re probably thinking I must’ve already had a few too many drinks, to be talking like this, but bear with me a while before you make your mind up.

‘I don’t know why this picture has affected you as it has, but what I can tell you, is that whatever the reason, that picture will stay with you for the rest of your life. You’re still in