The 4th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, edited by Robert Aickman
I wrote this during my review of the 2nd book: “…the bringing of all these stories together in one volume possibly being Aickman’s most singular and dangerous achievement?!”, here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/03/25/the-2nd-fontana-book-of-great-ghost-stories/
WHEN I READ THE STORIES IN THE 4th BOOK, MY REVIEW WILL APPEAR IN THE COMMENT STREAM BELOW.
In its introduction Aickman writes:
His reference to “geist” seems to resonate with ‘gestalt.’
All my Fontana Aickman book ghost story reviews will eventually be linked here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/04/30/the-fontana-great-ghost-stories-chosen-by-robert-aickman/
My other Aickman relevant reviews: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/robert-aickman/
THE ACCIDENT by Ann Bridge
“How like guides, Dr. Allard thought, with their morbid love of horrors.”
From Bridge to the terraced ‘wall’ and/or parapet of the hotel in Zermatt overlooked by the Matterhorn and populated by climbers and their guides. Aptly Allard is professional “alienist” and today buys a book upon “praecox dementia” just before dealing with the condition of what also could have been “possession” in Phyllis Strangeways (age 20) on holiday with her brother Roger (age 17). He consistently refers to them as “children” and — following Phyllis’ supposed haunting by two male climbers recently killed by a climbing accident and now formally buried, a haunting that involves what is suspected to be the stalking by the dead climbers’ later perceived new footsteps in the snow that don’t even start anywhere as if they had been dropped by an aeroplane — Allard tucks the sister and brother up in their beds and later often peeps into their rooms. Earlier, we are told of his sweetheart Rose who had died with her own mental disorder …. a precarious bridge between the two women or has something far more salacious possessed him? The in-denial stalking of self by self?
“The sun by now had risen, and they were already high enough to look out southward over the peaks, beyond the Zermatt valley; they glowed a furious rose, beautiful to see but threatening for the future; the guides spat and muttered at the sight.”
Those guides who, later, somehow knew.