Phantom Silhouette by Joy Burnett

Classic Ghost Stories

Tony Walker

Fiction, Drama, Science Fiction

4.9 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A lonely farmhouse stands in a hollow of the hills—its windows dark, its doors long locked, and a story clinging to it that no one in the valley will tell aloud. When a sceptical visitor decides to spend the night within, he discovers that silence itself can harbour memory, and that the past, once woken, does not easily return to sleep. Phantom Silhouette is a tale of curiosity meeting what endures when reason has gone. First published in The Ghosts and Scholars Book of Shadows, edited by Rosemary Pardoe (Souvenir Press, London, 1971). Reprinted in later anthologies of twentieth-century supernatural fiction. Joy Burnett was an Australian-born actress who worked in theatre, film, and television after moving to England. In her spare time she wrote short stories, several of which appeared in British and American magazines; Phantom Silhouette was her first venture into the ghost-story tradition. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories www.classicghost.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Everybody dies, don't they?
0:10.4	Everybody come back, isn't that certain?
0:14.4	You tried to get into the locked drawn today, didn't you?
0:17.1	How do the dead comeback, mother?
0:20.0	What's the secrets of that they'd come back?
0:21.9	Phantom silhouette by Joy Burnett.
0:26.0	Some years ago, there stood within 30 miles of my home,
0:30.1	a farmhouse with an evil reputation.
0:33.2	Personally, I'd never visited the place,
0:35.6	but I'd heard various versions of local gossip
0:38.3	concerning it, then one day when three friends called to see me, the subject of hauntings arose.
0:45.3	Perhaps it was the wind shaking the windows and the raindrops dashing down the chimney to
0:50.3	sizzle in contact with the fire that turned our thoughts to the supernatural.
0:57.7	I mentioned the farmhouse, then suddenly, without further thinking,
0:59.8	I heard myself saying to Burns,
1:02.7	I dare you to spend the night in it with me.
1:07.8	There was a moment of silence as three pairs of eyes looked at me with surprise.
1:10.4	Are you serious? Burns asked. Of course. You say you're interested in the unknown,
1:13.6	so now's your chance to find out. It's empty, so there shouldn't be any difficulty.
1:18.6	As I spoke and enlarged on the possibilities, my enthusiasm for the adventure increased,
1:25.6	and I could see that Burns was equally excited.
1:29.7	It was arranged that we would keep notes and report our findings to Neville and Jarrett,
	...

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