‘Jennet will have your heart and your fear in equal measure’

‘Through Jennet we see how cruelty can drive even the most ordinary people to hatred and, in Jennet’s case, evil’

Yorkshire is in the grip of a heatwave, and Thruscross Reservoir has dried up to reveal the remains of the drowned village of Thores-Cross beneath.

Playing in the peaty mud which coats the valley floor, four-year-old Clare Wainwright finds an old inkpot, and can’t wait to show it to her best friend, Louise. But when Emma sees it, her reaction is shocking, and both families are plunged into their worst nightmares.

Emma knows what the inkpot portends:

Jennet has woken.

Now she wants the children.

This is not a gore-ridden, jump-scare horror story. This is more real than that. Jennet is a story about the horrific things that people do to each other, and the way we react to that maltreatment - which does not always end with death.

Jennet’s story is a horror story because it’s not necessarily fiction. It reflects the way women were treated in the time that Jennet lived. It reflects the psychology of the abuse cycle. And it reflects real life. All of it.

If, as I believe, the spirit does not die when the physical body dies, then how many spirits are looking for vengeance today?

What wrongs will you want to right when you pass through that veil? What will I?

This is the conclusion of Jennet’s story, which began in The Haunting of Thores-Cross. I hope she finds peace. I really do.