LATELY I’VE BEEN surrounded by ghosts. I’m not talking about metaphorical spirits, or even haunting thoughts swirling through my head as I try to get to sleep at night. And I’m not referring to people absentmindedly or pointedly failing to text me back.

No, I mean real ghosts, the ones that make noises, linger in the dark corners, shuffle only barely seen in the peripheral of our vision. Things that definitely do go bump in the night and question our state of mind and grasp on reality. Those are the ghosts that seem, unendingly present lately, as if summoned by a curiosity, long awakened but only recently the object of intense research and focus.

You see, I have always been fascinated by the paranormal. Some of my best memories from childhood involve searching the stacks at the library for any all ghoulish and creepy tales I could find.

I filled my break times at primary school with dramatic retellings of these stories; small, pocket-sized treasures I could share like sweets with my friends. We would return to class with open eyes, ears straining, looking over our shoulders. What if there was a story here (there was). What if the old school was just as haunted, had its own spooky tales (it did, of course).

At that age, ghost stories were about possibility, unconnected to us in a real, emotional sense, and our hunger for them a type of innocence that will always, always, be lost at some point in our lives. Many are lucky to reach adulthood without that loss, without having to manage the unmanageable, without having to face death in a real way through the loss of loved ones. And many have to face it younger than they should.

When I began writing The Waters and the Wild, I knew I would be writing a ghost story. The ten-year-old in my mind longed for a creepy, shivery tale, like those whispered beneath the trees at school all those years ago. She wanted the........

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