“Mysteries of the Old Quarter” by Paul Park will be appearing in Prime’s forthcoming Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2012 edited by Paula Guran. Jennifer Konieczny interviews Park on the story. 

To borrow Dr. Delorme’s question, do you think “it possible that we are haunted in dreams by our beloved dead, not just in metaphor but in actual fact?”

I do think it’s possible. I think it would be foolish to be sure, one way or the other. I’m of an age now when I’ve lost some people who were precious to me, and when they appear suddenly in memory, or else unbidden in the mind’s eye, as clearly as if they had walked into a room where I was sitting, I must wonder if I am the only one who is responsible. How strange it is that we can see people so clearly, and not just in dreams, and not because there is some reason we have summoned them, or some chain of cause and effect that leads back to them. But in the midst of some other activity we can turn around and see them, and feel their presence, as if they’d put their hand upon our arm.

MORE: Read the whole story here!