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Looking at recent pictures and comparing them to photographs from ninety or more years ago, it became apparent that the population of Briar Speckles had somewhat dwindled. The older parades showed gruesome costumes—perhaps made more grotesque by their depiction in sepia tones or black and white—numbering in the hundreds as they crowded down a still-recognisable main street towards the crossroads opposite which the Howling Gail still stood.

In contrast, pictures from the last fifteen or twenty years showed line-ups of no more than twenty or thirty people in far more lacklustre costumes: handmade ghosts, bedsheet spectres, toilet-paper mummies, bin-liner bats, and old-clothes zombies, among a few costumes that had clearly been shop-bought.

One thing that did seem apparent, however, was the size of the crowds.

In the older photographs, there appeared to be very few people lining the streets, whereas the newer ones were packed with phone-wielding, shorts-wearing tourists, still carrying their backpacks as though they had just stepped off the local bus. As the parade’s participation had declined, its popularity had grown.

She looked at some of the clippings, finding one relating to the second-ever parade, written by a journalist for The Times newspaper.

Today’s Halloween parade at Briar Speckles in Devon went off without a hitch and, sadly, no visits were made by the village’s litany of ghostly residents. Although, had one listened carefully, it was possible to hear a howling of the wind that could be attributed to the local inn’s famous Howling Gail Blakely. The parade was a wonderfully garish affair, some four hundred revellers donning all manner of elaborate and terrifying costumes as they danced and chanted down the high street from the bridge all the way to the inn and then back to the church, where festivities carried on late into the night in the square outside, as though to mock the very bastion of Christianity which stood before it.

Similar reports came from other newspapers. Although, as time went on, they became shorter and shorter, reduced to a couple of lines in a side column before eventually, judging by the displays, fading away altogether.

Intrigued by such a decline, Kelly picked up a couple of books from a nearby shelf—picture galleries of the parades through the years—and began to flick through them.

‘You can borrow those if you like,’ came an old woman’s voice, startling Kelly and making her spin around.

An elderly lady, leaning on a cane and wearing a floral dress beneath a cardigan, stood nearby. What appeared at first glance to be a scarf was, upon closer inspection, simply frizzy waves of grey hair pressed down against her head and tied beneath her chin.

‘Borrow those if you like,’ she repeated.

‘Would that be okay?’ Kelly asked.

‘Sure it would,’ the woman said. ‘We don’t get many in here these days. And those that do come in buzz through in a couple of minutes as though they’re desperate to get to the gift shop at the end. Haven’t seen anyone pick one of those books up in years.’

‘Thank you so much,’ Kelly said.

The old woman, still leaning on her cane, nodded thoughtfully.

‘You’re not local, are you?’ she asked.

Kelly shook her head. ‘Not really. I mean, I’m from Brentwell, which isn’t that far away, but I’ve never been to Briar Speckles before. I’m staying at the Howling Gail.’

The old woman laughed.

‘Has Gail made an appearance yet?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ Kelly answered.

The old woman cackled.

‘She will before you leave, mark my words,’ she said. Then, winking, she added, ‘Old Martin will make sure of it.’

‘I have to wonder,’ Kelly said, ‘because there have certainly been some strange things going on.’

‘More of a theme park than a pub, that inn is,’ the woman replied. ‘You ask him to show you the secret underground passage. If you haven’t been scared yet, that’ll put the fear of God into you.’

Kelly made a mental note to ask Martin about the supposed underground passage when she returned to the inn later.

The woman continued to stand and stare at her, as though she didn’t get the opportunity to talk to people very often.

Eventually, Kelly felt compelled to say, ‘I’m a journalist with The Brentwell Daily. I was sent here to do a series of articles on the village and the parade.’

‘Were you now?’ the woman said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Kelly,’ Kelly replied. ‘Kelly Tunwick.’

The old woman looked a little taken aback.