The beginning is the end.

He remembers her funeral, vaguely. He was too distraught to form any clear memories. But there was one thing he did remember clearly.

“Here lies Beana Hughwin,” the priest boomed at the beginning of the eulogy. He knew she was already long gone though, that this husk in front of him was not his beloved.

After Beana’s passing, Oscar Hughwin was consumed by grief. It was to be expected, of course. But with two young children to care for, he had no choice but to gather himself and carry on the best he could. He took them to school and soccer practice, made endless trips to doctors’ appointments, cooked dinners, read bedtime stories, and washed piles of clothes. Everything he had done before; now added upon with all the little things he did not notice Beana doing until she was no longer there to do them.

At first it was hard. The weight of his responsibilities seemed unbearable at times, but he soldiered on for the sake of his children. And as time went on, being a single parent became easier: never easy, but easier.

As the one-year mark of Beana’s death approached, Oscar found himself feeling increasingly anxious. He knew he needed to visit her grave, but the thought of it filled him with dread. It was located at the top of a grassy knoll in the fields behind the cow shed on her mother’s farm in Devon.

Her parents were the classic West Country Pagan types, though Beana - thankfully, Oscar thought - had not shared their views. Still, they had insisted she be buried on the exact spot she had died when the sudden and entirely unexpected aneurysm had taken her from them.

The simple wooden marker, a weathered and aging spruce post, stood tall at three feet on the top of the grassy knoll. It blended in with the surrounding landscape, almost resembling a way marker, but upon closer inspection, it bore a name and date carved into its surface. A faint glimpse of a faded flower bouquet rested at its base. Beside it sat a wooden bench, facing east over the farm.

As he approached the place in the early morning, he could see there was another mourner there. They were turned towards the rising sun, a dark silhouette against the orange sky. 

Shepherd’s warning. 

At first, he was upset that this time was to be intruded upon, but simultaneously glad that there might be someone to talk to. As he approached, they turned and Oscar stopped dead in his tracks. 

It could not be!

The woman at the top of the hill was none other than Beana. She looked much as he remembered her looking when they had first met nearly a decade and a half prior in their early twenties. She smiled, and her eyes crinkled up in the same way they always had. And when she spoke, her voice was the same.

“Oy you, pick your jaw up. I know I’m gorgeous, but you’re making a fool of yourself.” These had been her first words to him in life, and now they were her first words to him in death. She laughed; her head thrown back slightly.

“It can’t be,” he said, mostly to himself, “I must be having that long overdue breakdown.”

She just smiled.

Oscar decided that perhaps it would be best if he lay down on the bench. Clearly the exercise and the emotional toll had been too much this early in the morning. He finished his trudge to the top of the hill and sat heavily on the bench. It groaned against unfamiliar weight.

“How’s things been?” Beana said. “The children are okay I presume?”

“Having a breakdown,” Oscar declared to himself again, as though he might be able to convince himself into disbelieving what he saw. Because Beana was not some sort of ghost, pale and wan. Nor was she an ethereal being, glowing with the light of resurrection. She was simply her, standing next to him, asking about the children as though she had been on an extended holiday rather than the subject of a grief so deep he had often doubted his ability to overcome it.

“The farm looks to be in order. Dad couldn’t have been too sick after all,” she said. Her smile was still there, but now there was a flash of laughter in her eye too.

“He was faking it, you remember? He just wanted his family by his side,” Oscar answered. Beana’s father had declared he was on his last legs, moments from death, and they had raced to his side, dropping their plans for an Easter holiday in Japan and instead spending 17 hours on flights to Europe. “It was the day we arrived to find him looking fit as a fiddle that…” a clot from Beana’s deep veins had moved to her brain, as she walked off the anger at her father’s malfeasance.

“I died,” she said matter-of-factly. The smile was gone now. “I was a bit annoyed if you must know. I went to Japan, but it wasn’t the same without you.”

“No, I imagine it’s not the same if you’re dead.”

“It was a good enough time. But not the same without you. They treat their dead outstandingly well. Whole bathhouses just for spirits. And the food…” She stopped suddenly and eyed him suspiciously out one side of her face. “You always knew how to get secrets out of me, Oscar Hughwin. You’re a sly fox.”

“What is this, Beana?” Oscar asks suddenly. “Why are you here?”

“Because I want to be. Just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean I can’t be part of your life, does it?”

“I suspect it does. Otherwise, it would be happening all the time.”

Beana drew her pinched fingers across her mouth like a zip.

“Oh well, in any case I’m glad you are here. Will you sit with me?” Oscar stared out across the farm, lost in a daydream of his wife back with him once more.

“I can’t, my love, I only have a little time, and it will soon be over. But I will continue to come visit you.” He turned to look at her, but she was already gone. The bottom of the sun rose above the horizon.

A few days later, Oscar and the children flew home to Australia. He had not told his children of his vision-come-breakdown, and he was sure he would not see Beana again, so far from the place of her burial. But she was as good as her word and visited at least twice a month.

Beana moved through the world like a gentle breeze as she gracefully avoided any physical contact. Oscar and the children watched in wonder as she danced through the crowds, her form solid and tangible to them alone. Oscar couldn’t help but admire the beauty of her movements, and though they couldn’t touch her - she would never let them even try - they were grateful for her fleeting appearances in their lives.

Months turned into a year, and then longer still, and Beana’s visits continued. Oscar had grown accustomed to her presence, and the children had accepted that their mother was now a ghost who only they could see and who they could not discuss.

Oscar and Beana would have long conversations, deciding together how to deal with the way Sarah was misbehaving, or what comfort to give to young William the first time a girl broke up with him. Beana’s advice was always clear, and always worked.

Her visits were random, and she was clearly experiencing time differently to its passage on Earth. William once said that he felt as though she was always showing up on her days off, breaking some rule about no contact. Oscar agreed that she always seemed a bit skittish at first, until they really started talking and she settled into a comfortable being there. She never spoke of what she was doing now she was dead, other than odd euphemisms and impossible riddles. But occasionally she let things slip: a mention of a crusade or a sigh about a roommate whose name her family had never heard before. She clearly had a full ‘life’.

One day, years after her death, they were sitting opposite each other in a trendy coffee shop by the river’s edge.

“When you die, you take nothing with you,” she told Oscar, in conspiratorial whispers. “You have nothing to lose. But there’s work that needs doing, and to keep you at it they give you a contract: Your labour for something you never want to give up.” She looked up at some invisible thing and sighed. “It might be something there and then. It might be a promise. Or a bond to something. That’s why nobody ever comes back.”

“You’ve come back,” Oscar said, “several times.”

“No Oscar, I’m not really coming back. I’m not Reanimating. I visit and I make myself known to you because I’ve earned that privilege. But I’m not, for lack of a better way of putting it, real. Sure sometimes some of the Host reincarnate, but that’s not the same. It’s not like you remember anything after you pass through that final veil.”

Beana pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time. The device was not quite what Oscar expected but simultaneously absolutely was, and the mapping app was up on the screen showing a cached view from an area of central London. Oscar gave her a quizzical look although she only smiled. “Someday,” she said.

“I really wish you would tell me what you’ve been doing all this time,” he shouted at her, forgetting that no-one else could see her and that to everyone he appeared to be shouting at the clouds, florist’s carts or the air itself. “Flitting back and forth from this new life of yours. New adventures you won’t tell me about but are all too happy to tease.”

“Come on, you know I can’t say anything” she pleaded back to him.

“Can’t or won’t,” he said. “Afraid I might top myself and come and ruin your wonderful afterlife, are you?”

Her jaw dropped. “I… I can’t… Believe you would say that. I want you to live, yes. But not for me; for you; for the kids.”

“Will is 18 and going to Uni. The nest is finally empty,” he spits. He stopped and walked out to a quiet corner of the street so that his fight with an invisible person would be less conspicuous.

“You have to stop coming,” he said his voice lowered, “and I have to move on. It’s been nearly a decade, and the kids are all grown. It hurts not to have them there, but it doesn’t hurt as much as having your only companion be your dead spouse.”

“I need someone in my life. Someone with a heartbeat.”

She sighed, and tells him he already has moved on, he just needs to recognise it. Instantly he regrets what he has said. He looked back towards her, and she was gone, the corner of her dress flitting around the corner of an alleyway.

Oscar raced after her, turning into the alley, expecting to find her waiting there with that familiar mischievous smile. But the narrow passage was empty, save for some old crates and overflowing rubbish bins.

“Beana!” he called out, his voice echoing off the brick walls. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Please come back!”

There was only silence in return. Dejected, Oscar trudged on into the alleys, hoping she had just gone out of earshot. He knew he had pushed her too far this time with his bitter accusations. Part of him had meant what he said - but the thought that he might have driven her away for good filled him with anguish.

As he rounded the corner, he froze in shock at the sight before him. Beana was trapped within a shimmering, ethereal glow that seemed to pulse and undulate like a living thing.

Standing before her was a mysterious figure, shrouded in a dark cloak that seemed to absorb the very light around it. The figure’s hands were raised, fingers splayed, as they chanted in a language Oscar couldn’t understand.

She let out a silent scream, her face contorted in agony as the glow around her began to constrict; her essence compressed and distorted. Oscar watched in horror as Beana’s form grew smaller and more translucent with each passing second.

Suddenly, with a final, triumphant shout, the mysterious figure thrust their hands forward, and Beana’s reduced form was flung through the air like a projectile. It streaked towards the far end of the road, where the lifeless body of an alley cat lay crumpled against a dumpster.

As Beana’s essence collided with the cat’s corpse, there was a blinding flash of light that forced Oscar to shield his eyes. When he blinked away the spots dancing in his vision, he saw the cat stirring, its limbs twitching as life flooded back into its body. It let out a confused meow and staggered to its feet, shaking its head as if to clear away the cobwebs.

In his shock and disbelief, Oscar stumbled forward, his foot scuffing against the pavement with a scraping noise that echoed loudly in the narrow alley. The mysterious figure whirled around, their dark eyes locking onto Oscar’s with an intensity that made his blood run cold.

The figure raised a bony, gnarled finger, pointing it directly at Oscar’s chest. Their lips curled into a sneer as they spoke, their voice a rasping whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“You dare to interfere?” the figure hissed, their eyes glinting with malice. “You meddle in affairs beyond your comprehension, and now you shall pay the price.”

The cat’s rotten maw gapes wide open as it approaches him menacingly. “I’m sorry. Tell the ticket office there’s a necromancer on the loose,” it growls gutturally, with the struggle of something not fully in charge of its.

Oscar’s last mortal thoughts are of his conversation with Beana.

“The afterlife is not what most people imagine,” she began slowly. “It’s not fluffy clouds and pearly gates. Nor is it fire and brimstone. It’s… a place of purpose. Of…” she struggles wordlessly before changing tack.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you and the children completely. Not when you were suffering so much from losing me. So, I made a deal.”

“A deal?”

“When you die, you take nothing with you…”