Over the years I have set quite a few short stories in or around the village of Wood Forge, including What Happened to Huw Silverthorne, What Happened Next, Never Go Back, and Demon Tree, which were all published in various places. Some are inter-connected, most aren’t. They just share the same setting. A bit like Stephen King uses Castle Rock. The village is fictional, but it’s based on the place I grew up; New Tredegar in the South Wales valleys. It’s quiet and tranquil there. Mostly. Some city dwellers might even call it idyllic. But like most other places, it has a dark underbelly.

Here ’tis:

Lovely, innit?

The Widow of Wood Forge is about a boy living in the village who develops an unhealthy obsession with an old woman who recently died. Don’t worry, there’s no necrophilia involved. But he does break into her now-empty house one night, only to find it isn’t empty after all. There’s probably a lesson to be learnt there. The story was originally called Mrs Craven’s House, but I changed the title on the advice of an editor who presumably felt the new one fit the mood a bit better. If that’s the case, I have to say he was right. The alliteration is a bonus.

The Widow of Wood Forge is included in the new anthology The Black Beacon Book of Ghosts, edited by Cameron Trost, out now.