Prologue

Too young for the Great War, convalescing after what he's told was scarlet fever and recuperating in a West Country castle, Jack's the object of intense female interest. He's a good-looking lad who has a way with women anyway, but he is also the only male around.
He isn't worried about the castle's ghosts, because he can't see them as they spy on him. He does wonder about the white figures he can see lurching under the trees at night. He's a bit concerned the voice in his head isn't his, but the knife in his bag...that's the thing that really worries him. How come he has a surgeon's knowledge of how to use it? And nightmares of having killed a woman with it?