 Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantell, narrated by Jane Weimark. The author begins with the following extract from Shea Cropper's Grave by Judy Jordan. Small holes, secret graves, children scattered around the iron fence, not even a scratched stone. The wind rises, clouds cover the moon, a dog's bark, and those owls alone and no end. My children who won't hear, the night full of cries they will never make. And now, giving up the ghost. Part 1 A Second Home. It is a Saturday, late July 2000, we're in Reefam, Norfolk, at Owl Cottage. There's something we have to do today, but we are trying to postpone it. We need to go across the road to see Mr Ewing. We need to ask for evaluation and see what they think of our chances of selling. Ewing's are the local firm, and it was they who sold us the house seven years ago. As the morning wears on, we move around each other silently, avoiding conversation. The decisions made, there's no more to discuss. At eleven o'clock, I see a flickering on the staircase. The air is still. Then it moves. I raise my head. The air is still again. I know it is my stepfather's ghost coming down, or, to put it in a way acceptable to most people, I know it is my stepfather's ghost. I'm not perturbed. I am used to seeing things that aren't there, or to put it in a way more acceptable to me. I am used to seeing things that aren't there. It was in this house that I last saw my stepfather Jack in the early months of 1995, alive in his garments of human flesh. Many times since then I have acknowledged him on the stairs. It may be, of course, that the flicker against the banister was nothing more than the warning of a migraine attack. It's at the left-hand side of my body that visions manifest. It's my left eye that is peeled. I don't know whether, at such vulnerable times, I see more than is there, or if things are there, that normally I don't see. Over the years the premonitionary symptoms of migraine headaches have become more than the dangerous puzzle that they were earlier in my life, and more than a warning to take the drugs that might ward off a full-blown attack. They have become a psychic adornment or flourish, an art form, a secret talent I have never managed to make money from. Sample complete. Ready to continue?