"Hey, Sweetie"

"Hey, sweetie!"

It has a girl's voice, one that sounds about the same age as you. The grinding has stopped. For a moment your fear subsides and you concentrate on the figure in front of your computer. It IS a girl. Dressed in terrible, soaking wet rags - but definitely a girl. She pulls her dripping black hair out of her face. She's beautiful.

"Ugh, 300 years can give you such a crick in the neck! Look at my hair, I've got split ends for days. I tell you, where's a barber-surgeon when you need one? You boy, where am I?"

She's looking at you. You can't speak.

"Speak up now! It's not every day you're visited by a lady."

"Who are you?"

"I am Elizabeth Fortescue, heiress to the Fortescue Estates. Or I was... It has been some time."

That name rings a bell. Your whole neighbourhood used to be part of some rich landowning family's property. But that was hundreds of years ago.

"Are you a ghost?"

"Of sorts..."

She's floating around your room, inspecting your belongings with great interest.

"I was sealed away in that wretched well. Tossed in and left to drown, really. My younger sister wanted to inherit all the family's property. So she exposed my secret shame." Elizabeth put one hand to her neck and the other below her belly. "She had to have it all... Ugh, such a wicked girl. Then when some brave soul finally unsealed the well, I was captured in some god-forsaken contraption of theirs. I've been waiting so long to be freed. And now you've done it. By the by, where am I? I've asked you once already."

"You're in Fort Green."

"What? 'Fort Green?' Is that what they're calling my precious Fortescue Gardens? How beastly. Honestly, the habits of the common folk... You are a farmer's son, I presume?"

"What? No, I... This is my house. I live here with my mother."

"Goodness. Supporting the family at such a young age. I don't envy you."

"Look, I think there's been a misunderstanding here. Things have changed since your time. It's the 21st century now."

"Some things have certainly changed," she says, staring at your computer and video game collection. Then she looks back at you. "Others have not. I have decided. I shall be staying with you."

"What? This is my house!"

"And this is my land!" She stamps her feet mid-air. "I'll not have it be snatched away from me again by some virile peasant boy!"

Peasant boy? ... Virile?

You don't bother responding. This is all nuts. She goes back to inspecting your room. You try a few impromptu incantations under your breath to exorcise her spirit. "Our Father who art in Heaven ... uh ... Deliver us from Evil." Nope, nothing. You try making a cross with your fingers. You pick up a silver-plated lighter and a shaker of garlic salt and throw both of them at her. But they phase harmlessly through her ghostly form.

"What the devil are you doing, boy?" she inquires. "Don't make a mess."

You raise your hands to the ceiling and groan in exasperation. Then you flop yourself into bed, face-first. You're done with this madness.