The Secret of Crickley Hall

'Daddy, why didn't you bring Chester inside?' Cally looked up at him, a clutch of tablespoons held in one podgy little hand. Eve obviously had lifted her up to the kitchen window so that she could see they'd found Chester.

'Because he told me he wanted to catch some fresh air for a while. He's tired of being cooped up in the house all day long.'

'Chester can't say words, Daddy.'

'Sure he can. You just never seem to be around when he says 'em.'

'Doh,' she said meaningfully.

'You don't believe me? When I was a cowboy back in the States I had a horse that gabbed to me all the time.'

Eve and Loren rolled their eyes at each other.

'Woody hasn't got a talking horse,' Cally responded doubtfully, referring to another favourite cartoon character. Bart and Homer Simpson were not the only guys in town.

'That's because he hasn't even got a horse.'

Eve intervened. 'Gabe, you're going to be in trouble when she wises up to you. You know she believes everything you tell her.'

Gabe only grinned back at her. 'Loren seems to have adjusted well enough.'

'You weren't there, Dad, when my friends laughed at me. I'm still disappointed about Father Christmas.'

Cally's head swung round to her older sister. 'Father Christmas?'

'You're too little to understand, Cally,' Loren informed her patiently. 'Daddy makes up stories.'

Cally's head swivelled back to Gabe.

'Well, look who's all growed up all of a sudden,' he teased Loren.

Eve intervened again before Cally became disillusioned. 'But it seems you haven't,' she said to Gabe, and amazingly her smile was genuine.

Gabe stared at her. Had some of her lustre come back? He felt a lifting of his own spirit.

'You had a good morning?' he asked, probing her. When he and Loren had picked up the car, Eve had looked her usual beaten self. Had something happened while he and Loren were out? If so, was Eve saving the explanation for when she and Gabe were alone? He would just have to wait and see.

•

But Eve gave nothing away, even though the sadness that she had worn like a shroud all these months appeared to have lifted—not entirely, it was true, for there was still an unshakeable air of melancholy about her, but this was now subdued, her manner more alert, her voice a little lighter, her movement not quite so leaden. It gave him a glimpse of her real self, the woman he had loved for so many years, and he was afraid to say anything that might change the mood. The difference in her was not great, but to Gabe it seemed significant. Maybe a turning point.

He hadn't even pressed her when they were on their own, the girls off somewhere playing, Loren probably texting her friends on her brand-new cell phone, but at one point he had softly ventured, 'You okay, hon?' and she had merely turned to him and said, 'Yes.' No more than that.

So he let it be. Maybe her mind had taken all the misery—and guilt—it could handle. If so, he guessed the change probably wouldn't last long; but at least it might be a step towards her recovery. He hoped that it was.

17: THE DORMITORY

Loren and Cally were in the bathroom, Loren brushing her teeth, anxious about the first day at the new school tomorrow, while her sister sat on the toilet nearby, pyjama leggings bunched round her ankles, squeezing out the last few drops of her pee. Cally hummed a tuneless song while she waited, her eyes roving around the stark black- and-white-tiled room.

A deep porcelain bath supported by ugly clawed metal feet took up much of the length of one wall and the octagonal-shaped sink on its sturdy pedestal was set against the wall opposite beneath a tall mirrored cabinet. The light from a pearled bowl centred in the high ceiling was too harsh and made the wall and diamond-patterned floor tiles look garish and cold, the reflection of Loren in the mirror unflattering. The window above the low toilet cistern was frosted and without curtaining; the door at the room's other end was painted black, its brass doorknob tarnished with wear, no key in the lock beneath it. Even more so than most of the other rooms in Crickley Hall, the bathroom was utilitarian and charmless.

Loren had decided, with no urging from her parents, to have an early night. Perhaps it was only because her sleep had been interrupted the previous night, but she felt very tired. She was anxious to be fresh and bright for the next day. She would read for a while as Mum or Dad read Cally a bedtime story (Gabe had fixed up a lamp on the small cabinet between Loren and Cally's beds) and when Cally drifted off as she always did before the story's end, she would try to sleep herself. Perhaps she wouldn't even bother to read; sometimes she liked to listen with Cally —even though her younger sister's stories were childish, there was something very comforting about them.

Loren was also frustrated that her cell phone wasn't working; the whole point of having it was so she could keep in touch with her friends back in London while she was away. She had tried for ages to send text messages, but when she switched on the Samsung the screen just said 'Limited service' and each time she persisted in tapping out a message with her thumb and pressing send, it said 'Message failed'. In fact, she couldn't even call her friends, because 'Limited service' always came up. When she'd complained to Dad he'd tried his own cell phone with the same result. He said it was probably because they were in the ravine—'gorge', she'd corrected him yet again—and most likely there were no masts nearby. Use the land line, he advised her, but she wanted to contact her friends in private and Crickley Hall's 'ancient' phone was in the hall where just everybody could overhear everything she said. It was very annoying.

Loren exhaled a yawn as she brushed.

Cally was sure the last drop had been forced out and so she slid off the cold toilet seat. She bent to pull up her pyjama bottoms.

Then both girls stopped what they were doing and looked up at the ceiling.

•

Downstairs in the kitchen, Gabe and Eve were sharing a bottle of Chablis while their two daughters were upstairs in the bathroom preparing for bed. Gabe leaned across the table and topped up Eve's glass with the white wine and she held up a hand in protest.

'You'll get me tipsy,' she complained but with a smile.

'No bad thing,' he replied, grinning back at her and continuing to pour.

Eve had lit four candles and placed them at strategic points around the room before turning off the overhead light, which exposed the room's plainness too much for her liking. One of the candles was between her and Gabe on the table, its glow bringing a soft lustre to Eve's eyes.

'We used to do this a lot,' Gabe remarked in a soft voice, then immediately regretted having said it. They used to do this a lot before their son went missing.

But Eve did not react, even if she realized the implication. She sipped the wine.

To move on, Gabe said, 'Not like Loren to go to bed early.'

'She seemed very tired.'

'Yeah, and a little antsy about her cell phone.'

'And your mobile too. Won't you need it?'

'I'll use the regular phone.'

'That old thing.'

'At least it's digital. I'm surprised it's not Bakerlite with letters as well as numbers.'

'It looks first-generation digital.'

'It's a man's phone.'

'Yes, completely out-of-date.'

'It'll do. Eve, you seem…' He hesitated, then came right out with it. 'You, uh, you seem more relaxed than of late. You know, I've been kinda worried about you.'

She lowered her gaze. Should she tell him what occurred this afternoon, the dream that wasn't quite a