My brain simply would not rest. On my second night in New York I lay in bed in my white nightie and stared at the ceiling, thinking, thinking, thinking . . .

How can Celia be my great-aunt and look so young?

Celia sure seemed like the glamorous 1940s designer she was supposed to be, but it seemed impossible to me that she could be over eighty, or even fifty years old. I didn’t know much about big cities, of course, but I didn’t think there was anything in the water in Manhattan that could have that kind of effect. I couldn’t ask my mother, and I sure didn’t want to share my questions with Aunt Georgia, who had been reluctant to let me go. She had only agreed because Great-Aunt Celia was my only other living blood relative, and would probably benefit from having someone to help her around the house. There was no way I could risk being summoned back to Gretchenville, even if my initial impressions of New York were a little less than fairytale. As I drifted off my increasingly tired mind wrestled with the conundrums of Celia’s appearance, my strange and exciting surrounds, and my first terrible day of rejection.

It was sometime later that I realised I had not come to bed at all.

I was still sitting up with my Great-Aunt Celia in the lounge room, bravely asking her outright if she was an impostor. ‘Are you the real Celia? Why are you so much younger than you are supposed to be?’ I probed.

Celia had her veil off again, and her exposed skin was luminous and beautiful. She was alluring in a way I had never been witness to before. I actually wanted to reach out and feel her cheekbones. The urge to touch her was almost irresistible. I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. And despite our conversation, despite my questions and this bizarre trance I was in, Celia seemed forgiving and kind and gentle. She was unruffled by my interrogation.

‘Darling . . .’ she began. Celia held my hand as we conversed, her gloves off and her hands icy cold and soft as silk. She gave my hand a little squeeze. ‘Darling, everyone’s doing it. It’s no big deal,’ she explained patiently, and when she smiled I saw she had enormous ivory fangs. As she continued to smile, her eyes began to glow red and she transformed before me – her forehead became monstrously bat-like, her hands turned to claws. ‘Come on, Pandora, give it a try,’ she growled, turning more beast-like by the minute. She snatched me by the throat with her clawed hands, and held me still. ‘Join me!’ she cackled triumphantly.

‘Nooooo!’ I screamed and struggled to break free from her grasp. ‘No, Celia! Don’t!’ I fought her off desperately, barely able to breathe.

My cries were muffled and when I opened my eyes again, predictably, I was in bed. One of my hands was clutching my own throat – both protecting it from my nightmarish vision of Celia and making it rather hard for me to breathe. My other hand was clawing my pillow quite uselessly. (I told you I have active dreams.)

‘Psssst . . . Is everything okay?’

What?

‘Do you need assistance?’ came the voice again.

I sat up and looked around.

Am I awake this time?

My heart was pounding pretty fast, so yes, I decided, I was very much awake if not exactly fully lucid. It was night. I was in my room in Celia’s penthouse, and the lights were out. The shades over the tall, narrow windows were not quite closed, and small shafts of streetlight illuminated the darkness. I could see Celia’s clothes hanging from the wardrobe, the fancy Chanel jacket ready for me to wear. Where had the voice come from? My eyes lit upon a white shape near the door. It resembled a man, just as I had seen the night before, and again, as my eyes adjusted his features became clear; the tailored uniform and cap, the masculine jaw and bright blue eyes. This time the man held his cap in his hands, head bowed slightly as if he were addressing someone respectfully. He was tanned and clean-shaven, and his sandy blond hair sat in glossy waves, worn a little long over the ears.

This time I didn’t bother calling for Celia.

‘Miss Pandora?’ the figure asked. He knew my name now.

‘Yes,’ I answered, more or less convinced that I was dreaming again. Still, dreaming the handsome soldier dream was an improvement on being sucked dry by Countess Celia, vampire-at-large. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘Second Lieutenant Luke Thomas, ma’am.’

‘Second Lieutenant Luke Thomas. Of course,’ I grumbled and leaned back on my elbows. He looked young for such a rank. ‘Well, Lieutenant Luke, I’ve just been having a ridiculous nightmare, and I’m not talking to you because you don’t exist. Good night.’

I slipped back under the covers and closed my eyes. After a few beats I opened them again. He was still there.

‘Do you wish for me to take my leave?’ the young man asked, sounding a little uncertain. He still held his cap in his hands. The sight of it was sort of heartbreaking for some reason. ‘You sounded like you needed assistance. You screamed,’ he informed me.

I sat up on one elbow and frowned. ‘Am I dreaming?’ I asked the room.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Luke replied. ‘You can see me?’ This seemed to be a particular point of interest, if our last ‘conversation’ was anything to go by.

‘Yes,’ I replied. And I could. Luke was in the same uniform, the dark blue single-breasted coat – an old-style frock coat – worn almost to the knee and decorated with nine polished buttons from the high collar at the neck to the narrow, nipped waist. The uniform was neatly tailored across his broad shoulders and trim physique. His dark blue felt cap had crossed sabres embroidered on it, and was decorated with two feathers. His pants were sky blue, with a stripe up the side, and he wore handsome leather riding boots, I now noticed. The overall effect was somehow romantic. ‘I really am seeing you, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, I believe so,’ he replied, his head still bowed a little.

‘And you are a ghost?’ I ventured.

‘I am deceased.’

Goodness. I sat up fully, and rubbed my eyes. This wasn’t a dream/nightmare that was going to go away any time soon, it seemed. ‘I guess I’d better put something on,’ I decided. ‘Would you look the other way please, Lieutenant?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

I giggled a little at his formal reply – considering the circumstance of the bedroom and all – and grabbed my grey suit jacket from next to the bed. It didn’t exactly look right over my nightie – well – it didn’t look right anywhere it seemed – but I felt less exposed. ‘It’s okay. You can turn around now,’ I said.

My uniformed visitor turned back around to see that I was sitting on the end of my bed, arms crossed, wearing my polyester suit jacket over the white linen nightie. I tried to think of something intelligent to say to him, while still accepting that I was probably dreaming and would be sure in the morning that I’d been talking in my sleep.

Talking to a dead military guy in my sleep. Such a typical ‘me’ way to spend a night, really.

‘You said last night that you’ve been here for a while,’ I recalled. This felt like a variation of So, do you come here often?

‘I live here, yes. Well, I exist in the building.’

‘Do you usually “visit” the visitors, then?’

‘There aren’t many here. There haven’t been for a while,’ he told me. ‘Not, um . . .’ he hesitated. ‘Like you. Living.’

Creepy. Boy, I know how to give myself creepy dreams.

‘And my Great-Aunt Celia?’

He must have seen the question on my face. ‘Oh, no. No, not that I have any problem with Ms Celia, it’s just that we don’t . . . Um, she doesn’t see me, I don’t think. We’ve never spoken.’

This is a weird conversation. Very, very weird.

To the best of my memory and to the best of my knowledge I hadn’t spoken to any ghosts since I was little, and those ‘imagined friends’ had got me in a lot of trouble. My mother, who was quite big on total honesty in parenting, had calmly explained to me that the ‘Butcher Incident’ nearly ended up with her and my dad getting divorced. My father was apparently stuck on the idea of having a normal child, and of course science and reason were all he had room for. My mother was more accepting, I think, and she had subtle ways of letting me know that it was okay if I was different. Over the years she decorated my room with ancient masks from all the countries she travelled to, and she explained that we could be anything we desired, depending on our will. Many nights I drifted off to sleep under the hollow eyes of the noble Sumatran chieftain mask, the Kwakiutl wild woman, and the African Pende mask for communicating with spirits, wondering who I would be.

Now, at age nineteen, I was a woman, not a child, and this conversation I was having with a dead man named ‘Lieutenant Luke’ might not be happening, but at least it was harmless. My father couldn’t be offended. It wasn’t going to break anyone up. And at least I’d dreamed up a handsome ghost, even if he appeared to have died some decades before I was born and probably wouldn’t be a wealth of knowledge on pop culture or the things I needed to learn about fashion. (Fortunately I had a freakishly young great-aunt for that.)

‘So, just to clarify, my great-aunt can’t see you, but I can. And you are deceased,’ I said.

Luke nodded. ‘Yes. Since the Civil War,’ he confirmed, quite deadpan, so to speak.

The Civil War. Of course.

I was no expert on the Civil War, but I knew that it had to do with the North and the South fighting, and it had to do largely with a dispute over slavery. It lasted for a few bloody years in the 1860s and the Confederate Southern states were eventually overcome, and slavery was abolished. I’d seen lousy re-enactments in video presentations at school when I was very young. But the subject was not exactly at the forefront of my mind, so I couldn’t imagine why I would conjure a soldier from the war here, now, in New York. Why couldn’t I imagine Alexander McQueen, or Gianni Versace, or someone else more helpful to my current predicament?

‘And what have you been up to since the Civil War?’ I asked casually.

He clutched his felt cap, his tone turning serious. ‘I was a second lieutenant in the Lincoln Cavalry,’ he said. Well, that explained the riding boots, and the frock coat. Abraham Lincoln was the President at the time, so I guessed that the Lincoln Calvary would have consisted of soldiers on horseback fighting for the Union army, against the Southern Confederate slave states. The Union colours were blue. ‘I was in the Army of the Potomac in the Eastern Theatre,’ Lieutenant Luke went on, but when he saw my blank expression he paused. ‘I forget that was a long time ago. I am sorry. There have been other wars since. There are other wars now. These things would not interest you.’

‘Please go on,’ I encouraged him. ‘Don’t you be sorry. I’m sorry for my ignorance.’ I should have paid more attention in history class. But then how could I have known I’d have a conversation like this in a dream so many years later?

‘The Civil War broke out shortly after my wedding, and I was called to battle. My wife Edna was with child,’ he said. ‘A daughter, she believed.’

At that I got a little shiver. The smile was wiped from my face.

‘It was bloody. Much bloodier than we had anticipated, and we were ill prepared.’ The regret in his voice was palpable. I saw the pain flicker behind his eyes and wondered what horrors he was recalling. The men who volunteered would have been especially young and inexperienced. I recalled stories of unprepared troops. Starvation. Lack of organisation. ‘I’ve always thought that was the reason I did not pass over – because I did not get to meet our daughter while I was alive. Somehow, after the pain of dying, I just ended up here wearing my dress uniform. I don’t know what happened to the other men, or where my body was taken. I don’t know what this building is. I don’t know what happened to my family . . . my child.’

Gulp.

I realised my eyes had welled up. I kept them open so tears wouldn’t cascade down my cheeks. I believed this could possibly be the saddest story I had ever heard. This was not what I wanted of hunky soldier dreams. Hunky soldier dreams were not supposed to involve sad stories. Hunky soldier dreams were supposed to involve the kind of lovemaking I read about in my novels – the kind of lovemaking I hoped to one day experience.

‘My wife was around your age when we married,’ he observed, smiling gently. ‘She was very lovely, like you.’

I bit my lip. ‘How old are you?’

‘I am twenty-five years of age. That is, I was twenty-five in 1861.’

1861. I tried to take that in.

‘Are you unwed?’ he asked.

I blushed. ‘Um, yes.’ I looked at my hands.

‘Oh, I am sorry. I have embarrassed you.’

‘Oh no, it’s fine. Yes, I am unwed.’

‘I am sorry for my question. I sometimes only think in the old ways. I don’t have much experience in the new world. In fact, I can’t pass outside the walls of this building.’

I tried to imagine what that must be like.

‘That was all a long time ago and I have been here, just . . . waiting. For what, I don’t know. For many years I expected to find my wife and daughter here, but they never arrived. I am alone.’

Wow. This illusion of mine was beginning to sound quite convincing. I pondered that. And I pondered why a ghost like Luke – if that’s what he was, a ghost – couldn’t escape these walls, couldn’t get free even after all of his family must have passed over. What was it that held him here?

‘It must get very lonely for you,’ I said.

‘Yes. In one sense. But there are sometimes others to talk to.’

I felt another shiver. ‘There are?’

‘Oh, I don’t mean to alarm you, but yes, from time to time there are others. And I do see some of what goes on outside these walls, even though I can’t be part of it. I can ‘see’ things, as it were. I can see the world changing around me. I experience things much differently to how I did before this.’

Before you were dead.

Interesting. This, at least, was something we had in common. I sometimes knew about things I couldn’t rightly know about, and because I had no good reason to know these things, and no rational or scientific explanation for why I knew them, I was as good as a ghost. No one would believe me. My father had taught me to distrust my gift, and my mother, whether she intended to or not, had taught me the trouble it could cause. Those were the lessons of my strange youth.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Lieutenant Luke said, and paused.

I nodded, and watched him through eyes that were a touch blurry from fighting back tears.

‘It is true, isn’t it? That we won?’ he asked, and seemed to hold his breath in anticipation of my answer.

I found I had been doing the same, and when I realised what he was asking, I exhaled. ‘Yes. Your side won,’ I told him.

Lieutenant Luke closed his eyes and nodded. After perhaps a minute he opened his eyes and smiled gently at me. ‘I had heard, but . . . I wasn’t sure.’

‘The war lasted a few years, but yes, the Union side won,’ I said. ‘Of course, that was one hundred and fifty years ago now.’

Lieutenant Luke stiffened. ‘Did you say that was one hundred and fifty years ago?’

I hoped I hadn’t said anything wrong. Had he not known? Was this bad news for him? Had he believed it still possible that he would find his living daughter or wife?

‘Yes. The Civil War ended about one hundred and fifty years ago,’ I explained more cautiously.

At this apparently new piece of information, the young man appeared lost in thought. ‘These are interesting times, then,’ he said at last. ‘Very interesting times.’ When he looked up his bright eyes searched my face with new curiosity. Had I said something significant?

‘Thank you, Miss Pandora,’ Lieutenant Luke said. ‘Thank you for listening to me. I’m sorry if I saddened you. It was not my intention.’

I shook my head and a tear fell down my cheek. My guest ghost gently wiped it away with a hand that looked as real and human as any I’d seen, but felt like a cool, soft cloud.

‘May I visit you again?’ the handsome visitor asked.

I nodded, and at that he kissed my hand. His lips felt like a cool tingle against my skin and my body responded with a flush of warmth.

Oh boy.

‘If you ever need me, just call for me. Good night, Miss Pandora.’

And he vanished.