2 November: Day of the Dead

Today is the Day of the Dead. 10 things you might not know about this holiday.

1. The Day of the Dead, or Dia de Muertos is best known as a celebration which take place in Mexico, with its roots in Aztec rituals to honour the dead. However, there are also celebrations, with some regional variations, in the Philippines, Brazil, Ecuador, Belize and the USA.
2. Dia de Muertos is a public holiday in Mexico.
3. A feature of the celebrations is brightly coloured skulls made from sugar and people painting their faces. There's more to that than simply creating a riot of bright colours - the colours which are commonly used all mean something. Yellow means sun and unity, because under the sun, we are all the same. White stands for purity, purple is for grief, red is for the blood of life and Pink means happiness.
4. Skulls aren't the only symbols which crop up. Butterflies represent the soul of the departed, and marigolds are also used for decoration, because their scent is thought to lead the departed spirits back home.
5. Aztecs, Toltecs and other pre-Hispanic cultures believed that death was simply another phase in the continuum of life, and that dead people were still very much part of the community. The Day of the Dead is the day their spirits return for an annual visit. Unlike Halloween, where spirits are meant to be malevolent and scary, on the Day of the Dead they are welcomed with joy and celebration.
6. Families build altars, or ofrendas, in their homes on this day to encourage their departed relatives to drop by. The altars will contain the person's favourite foods, photos and, if the departed was a child, toys.
7. It's also a day when families visit family graves, clean and decorate them, and leave offerings.
8. A literary tradition associated with this day is Calaveras literarias (which translates as skulls literature), which consists of short poems, usually in the form of epitaphs. Alongside that, cartoons of skeletons, often dedicated to public figures, appear in newspapers.
9. The Day of the Dead is recognised by UNESCO as a part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It was added to the list in 2008.
10. Mexico City's huge Day of the Dead parade has only been happening since 2016, and was inspired by the Day of the Dead Parade featured in the James Bond film, Spectre. Large parades are also held in Chicago and Los Angeles.

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Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

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