The ghost in my house is called Henry.

I only found this out after naming my cat Henry, at which point one of my kids said, “Oh, like the ghost”, as though this was knowledge we all shared.

“Like the what?” I went, ordering sage sticks on the internet.

“It’s OK,” they said. “He’s a friendly ghost.”

Friendly ghosts are fake, obviously. I’ve read enough Stephen King books to understand that a ghost is only ever a malevolent force luring people to their deaths or perpetually re-enacting the horrifying circumstances of their own untimely demise. As an 80s kid, I know to be terrified of pottery wheel ghosts, ghosts trapped in paintings, baseball ghosts hiding in cornfields and Devon Sawa. Also, like every other kid born before the www, I spent my childhood scaring myself on purpose with “101 true ghost stories” books and then sleeping with the lights on.

Ghosts are restless, angry and set on revenge. They’re mean. Henry’s hobbies include breaking all the doorknobs in our house and locking us variously in and out of the toilet. Sometimes he leaves a cold patch of air outside my bedroom........

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