The Blackberry Tales 8 - The Haunting

I see him out the corner of my eye, I say him, but actually there is little definition it is more of a shape or a blur that just moves as I turn my head to look.
There are three possibilities that spring to mind every time this happens.  Firstly I think of the writings of Terry Pratchett and his characterisation of Death, who says that when people see things out of the corner of their eye they dismiss them as not being there as what they are seeing does not fit with their world view, but in reality they are there, that is why no one sees Death as they don’t believe in him.  I am not saying that I am seeing Death lurking in the corners, but I keep seeing something/someone. He wanders around the garden a lot.  As I am weeding I catch a glimpse and turn around quickly to find nothing there, not even a wandering cat.  It can be quite disturbing; I wonder if it a previous owner and does he approve of how the garden looks now? (though in reality I do not really care as it is my garden now).  Is it an M R James moment where I have mistakenly dug something up that was meant to stay buried?  So many possibilities.    The second option is to me more of a worry.  My maternal grandmother’s family came from a small Nottinghamshire village http://www.calvertonvillage.com/ghosts.html  that has many ghost stories associated with it.  My grandmother did not believe in ghosts, but she could tell a good ghost story and one of the best (worst?) was about the shape.  The shape is an old ghost and often talked about in the village.  It is known to frequent various areas.  One day when my grandmother was a child (so we are talking earlyish last century) she went to the shop at the bottom end of the village with her sister.  As they walked along they became aware that the shape was ‘walking’ alongside of them.  It kept pace with them but both of them were too terrified to actually turn their heads and look at it.  They arrived at the shop and were so scared they just stayed there.  There were no telephones at this time so they just waited until someone got worried enough to come and find them.  It is not just my family that has seen this shape, it is well documented.  To me, however, the scariest thing of all about the shape is when in modern times it has been known to sit in the back seat of a car traveling down Georges Hill – now that’s just not fair is it?  It makes checking the rear view mirror slightly more interesting then you would normally think. Of course there is a third option, that I have an over-active  imagination and there is something wrong with my eyesight, but that’s just being ridiculous.