The Secret of Crickley Hall

Gabe, whose gentle snoring could not drown out the sound coming from the landing.

After last night, the landing light had been left on so that the girls would be able to see should they stir from their sleep and become disorientated. But it was a dim glow, the lightbulb weak, hardly strong enough to govern the area it was supposed to; instead it seemed to create even deeper shadows, shadows that were impenetrable.

The bedroom became almost darker again as the moon was concealed behind another cloud, but there was just enough light from the landing to see the small figure that suddenly appeared in the doorway.

Eve drew in a sharp, startled breath.

'Mummy,' Loren said from the bedroom's threshold, 'I can hear someone knocking.'

Eve let her breath go and relaxed her tensed shoulders.

'I think it's coming from the cupboard again,' Loren said.

'I can hear it, darling.'

They both listened as if for reaffirmation. Loren took a step into the room. 'Mummy?'

The fear in her daughter's voice caused Eve to tense again. She nudged Gabe's shoulder with her elbow.

'Gabe, wake up,' she said in a harsh whisper. 'Gabe.'

Loren was standing by the bottom of the bed now, a hand on one of the corner posts. 'Daddy!' Although urgent, she spoke in a whisper as if she didn't want to be heard by anything outside the room.

Flat on his back, Gabe roused. He lifted his head from the pillow.

'S'going on?' he murmured, not quite awake.

'Listen,' Eve urged him, her voice low.

Gabe listened.

'What the hell is it?' he said after a few moments.

'Loren says it's coming from a cupboard.'

'Which one?' There were more than a few in the big house.

'Somewhere along the landing, Daddy.'

Gabe pulled the duvet aside and his feet touched the cold wood flooring. Fortunately, he was wearing his grey T-shirt and dark boxers, so there was no embarrassment before his daughter. He sat on the edge of the bed to listen again. Although muted, it sounded like knuckles on wood.

Eve left her side of the bed, the hem of her wrinkled nightie falling to her knees. She went to her daughter, putting a comforting arm round her shoulders.

Loren clung to her. 'What is it, Mummy?' she asked in a scared half-moan.

'We'll find out,' Eve assured her. 'Is Cally asleep?'

'Yes, I checked on her.'

Gabe was by the bedroom door and he peeked out cautiously as if expecting a surprise. The knocking came from his right, somewhere past his daughters' open bedroom door. He squinted into the general gloom.

One hand holding the doorframe as if to pull himself back from harm's way, Gabe took a step out onto the landing. Below, the hall looked like a great dark pit, the poor light from above barely touching the flagstones. Even the big window over the stairway failed to offer any light.

Behind him, Eve scrabbled for the bedroom light switch, then flicked it on. A little more light graced the landing.

The knocking became louder, although still muffled, and it wasn't because he was closer to it. Someone or something was beating even louder against the cupboard door.

Gabe cocked his head as if it would help him hear more clearly. The noise seemed to emanate from a cupboard along the landing as Loren had said; it was the same one he'd investigated for her only yesterday. With a puzzled glance back at Eve and Loren, he moved quietly towards the sound, placing each footstep carefully as if trying not to make a sound himself, which was crazy: he should be stomping and hollering to frighten any intruder off. Instead he continued to tread cautiously.

Eve, with Loren clutching her arm, followed, both of them holding their breath.

There was a key in the lock of the cupboard door, as there seemed to be in all the cupboards in Crickley Hall, but Gabe could not remember if he had left it unlocked. As he stood directly outside the cupboard, the knocking became more intense, as though whatever was inside was becoming desperate. Eve and Loren crowded him from behind, and Eve placed a hand on his shoulder.

'What is it?' she almost hissed.

'I got no idea,' he whispered back. Feeling foolish for keeping so quiet he raised his voice. 'Hey!' he said sharply, expecting the noise to stop.

It didn't. It increased in both volume and rapidity.

'Goddam—' Gabe cursed and he felt Eve's fingers dig into his shoulder in sudden fright. Loren gave out a sharp squeal.

Now Gabe felt his temper rise. Enough was enough. He reached forward to the small brass doorknob just above the key, ready to yank the cupboard door open. But the knocking became a pounding before his fingers could grasp it and the door itself seemed to strain against its frame.

As one, Gabe, Eve and Loren jumped back and Loren gave out a terrified scream. Eve held on to her, squeezing her hard out of her own fear. Still shocked by the loudness of both the pounding and the now frantic clattering of the door, Gabe steeled himself and grabbed at the brass doorknob, determined to put an end to the disturbance.

And, as his fingertips touched metal, the lights went out.

And the knocking stopped.

And a scream came from the nearby bedroom.

13: DARKNESS

Total darkness. Impenetrable blackness.

They stood there in shock for several heavy heartbeats, unable to move until parental instinct kicked in. Cally continued to scream.

Although disorientated, Gabe and Eve moved towards their daughters' bedroom together and, because Loren was still clutching at her mother's nightdress, she went with them.

Gabe felt the wall with his hands, working his way along the landing, Eve following his sound. Dim shapes were slowly beginning to reveal themselves—the balcony railings, the tall window below a slightly paler blackness, the doorway to Loren and Cally's bedroom the same.

Gabe had just felt the emptiness of that doorway when the imperfect moon fought clear of the roiling clouds below it and suddenly they could see more clearly. Moonlight flooded through the hall's tall window, brightening a long segment of the flagstone floor, and Eve was able to discern her husband's silhouette in the opening.

'It's all right, Cally,' she heard him say. 'We're here, you're okay, baby.'

Eve pushed into the room behind him, dragging a terrified Loren in her wake. Cally was kneeling on her bed, the duvet bunched up before her.

'Cally, what is it?' Eve made straight for her, arms outstretched.

Cally had stopped screaming, but her shoulders heaved with her sobbing.

'In the corner, Mummy,' she wailed, throwing herself into her mother's arms.

Eve, Gabe and Loren all looked towards the corner that Cally's trembling finger was pointing at. In the semi- darkness they could see it was empty.

'There's nothing there, darling,' Eve soothed as Cally clung to her. 'You've just had a bad dream.'

'No, Mummy, there was someone standing there, all black.'

'No, you just had a fright when the lights went out. We probably disturbed you when we were out on the landing.'

'The banging woke me up,' Cally complained as she cried against Eve's shoulder, the words coming out between sob spasms. 'I sat up and saw someone in the corner. He was—he was looking at me.'

How could she tell if whatever she had imagined watching her was all black? Eve wondered, but quickly dismissed the thought: logic wasn't going to calm Cally down.

Gabe, who had found his way over to the empty corner, turned back towards the bed. 'It was just a bad