Ghostwriting In the Limbo of Luxury V It was the cold that woke her. An icy film prevented her eyelids from opening and only with a concerted effort did they part to a squint. The sun was up and its light reflected off the surrounding thick, white blanket with blinding intensity. The windscreen was shattered and snow from the rockface she’d careered into had cascaded down on to the smashed bonnet of her vehicle. The build-up of ice had piled in through the void in the shattered glass and was tumbling into her lap. Fortunately, the rockface had held firm on impact - she could have had worse than ice piled in her lap. ‘Oh Christ... I’m alive,’ Riane mumbled, as flashes of the accident replayed themselves with disturbing clarity. It had been her fault. She shouldn’t have had those drinks with lunch, or at the least she could have considered staying the night at the little hotel, instead of pushing on into the highlands as evening fell, and in such dreadful weather. Listening to the locals tell ghost stories, time had got away with her. Intent on sticking to her holiday schedule, Riane wanted to make it to the coast this night and that meant braving the winding highland road. ‘Young women go missing on that road at night,’ the barman had told her, straight-faced and sombre. ‘And have done since before this village even existed.’ The local historian added his two cents’ worth. ‘Some bodies have been found in pieces at the base of mountain cliffs, or frozen stiff at ruins and sacred sites... others have never been found at all.’ ‘And men have never gone missing, I suppose?’ Riane had scoffed at their obvious attempt to frighten her into taking a room for the night. When all the old blokes at the bar shook their heads in unison, perplexed by the mystery, Riane had been forced to restrain her laughter. ‘There are ghosts a-plenty wandering about out there and the mist plays tricks in the dark.’ The barman took a final stab at a night’s rental, and although his claim had, admittedly, sent a shiver up Riane’s spine, she had decided to press on. The old men had been more creepy than any old road at night, in her opinion. If she had not allowed herself to be so drawn into their yarn spinning, she probably wouldn’t have imagined herself into this mess. Riane had been fiddling around trying to light a cigarette, when she’d glanced up to see the oncoming headlights. She’d swerved and got into this dire predicament to avoid hitting the oncoming car, which had swerved off into the rockface on the other side of the road and burst into flames. ‘What friggin’ car?’ she cursed, pushing down on the handle of her door, and with a great shove, it creaked open. There was no debris on the other side of the road. Had she imagined the whole thing? Or had she crossed paths with one of the local ghosts?