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By Root 753 0

said. 'How should I know what it meant?' She looked towards the yew tree and the track which led to the cemetery gates. She could see most of it in the bright moonlight. There was nothing. Not even a suspicious shadow. But could she go there now without panicking and running like she had in the wood?

'Why do you keep looking over there?' Ralph asked. 'Is there something over there?' He craned round in the direction she was looking and shone the torch.

Not that I can see,' Chloe said. Is there a caretaker or security or someone that patrols this place?' By an effort of will she had managed not to tremble, but there was a quiver in her voice that she did not seem able to control.

Are you all right?' Meg asked. 'You're not having another funny turn are you? Not that I'd blame you under the circumstances. I'm due for one myself.' She moved away from the grave and took several steps down the narrow grass path towards the track. It was as though she was trying to distance herself from what had happened. What the hell are we doing here? This is insane. Joan kills herself and we end up playing with her Ouija board in a cemetery in the middle of the night.'

Tommy picked up her sports bag and put the board and planchette back into it. 'Some ideas are better than others,' he said. 'This was one of the others.'

Josh said, 'I still think the Ouija board thing is a bunch of crap.'

'You've seen it work twice,' Meg snapped. 'What's it going to take to convince you there's something odd going on?'

'Oh I'm convinced of that already,' he said. 'I'm just not as easily fooled as somebody round here thinks I am.'

What was it, Chloe?' Ralph asked. What was the problem, did you think you saw someone over there?'

Chloe shook her head. She took a deep breath. 'Trick of the light,' she said firmly, dusting off the knees of her jeans. She straightened up and stood waiting to leave. 'For a moment I thought we might be in trouble.' This time, she had made up her mind, this time she was not going to run no matter what happened.

'Nothing to do with your pet demon then?'Josh suggested.

'Nothing at all,' Chloe said.

'That's a relief.'

Ralph was still holding the torch, so he led the way back through the graves to the cemetery track. Meg was behind him, Tommy behind her, then Chloe with Josh bringing up the rear.

'Clarry?'Josh whispered as they picked their way along the grass path.

'Clarry?'

'What?' Chloe said without turning round.

'You're not Clarry, you're Chloe,' Josh said. 'I wasn't talking to you.'

'I thought you were talking to me.' Chloe kept her eyes fixed on the path.

'Why were you whispering?'

'I was talking to myself, do you mind?'

'Yes I mind.'

'I don't like coincidences,' he said."The name on that grave was a coincidence.'

'Was it?'

By the time "they reached the track Chloe could see there was no hooded figure between them and the cemetery entrance. There was nowhere it could be hiding, nowhere obvious it could leap out from, howling and gibbering. She could feel herself calming down. She could feel the tension draining away. She was suggestible that was all it was, she thought. It wasn't the same as being hysterical and girly. They were in a moonlit graveyard. You expected to see hooded figures in moonlit graveyards. So sometimes you saw them.

They walked as a group towards the gates. Chloe thought about looking back at the grave of Clarissa and Jeremiah but at the last minute she decided not to risk it. There was no hooded figure, but it was better not to look just in case there might be another trick of the light. To make up for her feebleness and to keep faith with her determination not to run, she slowed down and let the others draw slightly ahead. She deliberately hung back as far as she could without drawing attention to herself. But as she reached the yew tree she realised Josh must have noticed because he had stopped and was waiting for her. He fell into step beside her.

'Why don't you want to look back?' he asked. Are you scared of it?'

Of what?'

'Of