The Secret of Crickley Hall

we wouldn't have to go right inside.'

'No! Stop being such a wuss.'

In truth, Seraphina was a lot more nervous now they were confronted by the house itself, but she wouldn't let her dim brother know it. She was always the leader, and Quentin was always the follower. She couldn't wimp out. Besides, she wanted her revenge.

She jiggled the key in her anorak pocket and felt a thrill at its touch.

'Come on, Quenty,' she said abruptly, hyped up to do the deed.

Quentin took one last, long look up the road before following his sister. He slipped on a plank's greasy surface, but caught himself.

They crossed the wet lawn together, the tall boy close behind the heavy girl, passing by the motionless swing on the way, its wooden seat dark, sodden with rainwater. Just to be sure there was no one at home, Seraphina rang the doorbell, then used the huge gothic door knocker itself, making an attention-grabbing din. If someone did come to the door, she would say her mum had sent her to ask if they wanted any eggs delivered in the mornings. But nobody came and Seraphina grinned at Quentin, a hissed 'Yes!' steaming from the thin-lipped mouth.

•

They entered through the kitchen door, using their mother's key. Trisha Blaney had a key because Crickley Hall had been unoccupied a long time now and it was more convenient for the estate manager, who had no desire to visit the property every month just to let the cleaners in.

Seraphina carefully closed the door behind them and they both crept across the kitchen on tiptoe, even though they were certain the big old house was empty. They paused at the kitchen's inner door, which was shut. They glanced at each other for reassurance before Seraphina quietly turned the doorknob.

They sneaked through and found themselves on the threshold of the grand hall. Seraphina was not surprised by its vastness, because her mother had described it to her once.

'Hello?' she called out cautiously, ready to scoot back the way they had come if there was a response. But all was silent. As the grave.

She closed the kitchen door noiselessly, then took in their surroundings.

'Look at all them puddles,' said Quentin, pointing generally at the hall's flagstone floor.

His sister eyed the puddles in surprise. Quentin was right—small pools of water were spread all around the room, mostly in the shallow indents of the worn stone. Then she remembered. When Mum had told her about the hall she had said that sometimes, when she and Megan came in to clean the house, the floor was spotted with little pools of rainwater. She said that Mr Grainger, the estate manager, had had the roof checked out for leaks by one of the builders he regularly dealt with, but there weren't any holes in the roof that they could find. Mum and Megan would mop up, but when they came down again from doing the upstairs, the puddles would be back. It didn't happen very often, but it was a mystery how it happened at all.

Quentin strolled to the centre of the hall and spun round, arms outstretched, face lifted towards the high ceiling, the weighed-down bin-liner in one hand.

'Hyah!' he bellowed before coming to a halt and chortling at Seraphina. 'No one here, Seph. Place all to ourselves.'

As she went to join him, she noticed there was one door open in the hall. Well, half open. A musty smell drifted from it and she could feel a draught. She shivered. The house was very cold. She could see Quentin's breath coming out of his mouth, hardly there but still visible.

His shoulders suddenly hunched up to his ears as if the cold had hit him too. Her brother's mood changed.

'Don't like it here, Seph. Gives me the creeps.'

Although the sun shone brightly through the great window over the stairs, there were shadows in all the corners of the room, and the wood panelling of the walls contrived to make the hall seem darker than it really was. Millions of dust motes floated in the sunbeams.

'Let's split, Seph. Look, I'll put the rat on the floor here. They'll see it as soon as they come home.' He bent over, resting the plastic bin-liner on a wet flagstone; he poked in a hand to bring out the stiff, dead animal.

'No!' his sister said sharply, but her voice still low for some reason. 'We're going upstairs.'

Her brother moaned. 'I don't like it.' Something made him frightened and he didn't know what. He needed the toilet. 'Everyone says this place is haunted.' He had straightened, the rat remaining in the bag. He twisted his neck, looked all around, at the closed doors, at the half-open door nearby, up at the galleried landing— bloodyell, it was dark up there. 'Come on, Sephy, let's go,' he persisted.

'You can stay down here if you want, but I'm gonna find her bedroom.' Seraphina stepped towards him, splashing through a puddle as she did so. 'Gimme the bag,' she demanded, reaching out for it.

Quentin swung it behind his back, keeping it away from her. 'Don't think you should go up there.'

She huffed irritably, a white mist rolling from her mouth and quickly dissolving. 'Give it me,' she whispered fiercely.

'Okay, but I'm not staying.' He handed over the bin-liner and Seraphina was surprised at its weight. Dead rats were heavy. She wrinkled her sore nose at the stink that came from the bag. Was it stronger than before?

'You wait for me,' she ordered her brother.

'No way. I'm pissing off. You're welcome to the place.'

Quentin made as if to walk towards the kitchen door, but his sister put the flat of her hand against his chest.

'I mean it, you fucking spazzo,' she said, her mouth shaping into a snarl. 'You just fucking wait— What was that?'

Quentin gawped at her. 'What was what?'

'There was a noise.'

'Didn't hear it.'

They looked around, both silent, listening hard.

Seraphina jumped. 'There it was again.'

'Think I heard it that time,' whispered Quentin, his eyes bulging in alarm.

'Where'd it come from?'

'Dunno. Up there, I think.' He lifted his chin, indicating the stairway.

They remained motionless for a full minute. But there were no other sounds.

Seraphina finally let go of a breath that briefly clouded. 'Probably just the house,' she remarked in a murmur.

'Or ghosts.' Despite his fright, Quentin leered at her.

'Shut up, Quenty.'

'You shut up.'

Seraphina made up her mind. 'I'm gonna find her bedroom. You coming or not?'

'Not.'

Carrying the bin-liner in one hand, fingers wrapped tightly round the top to confine the smell, Seraphina strode purposefully towards the broad oak staircase. She muttered something to herself when she trod in another puddle. When she was at the first stair, her foot lifting to take it, the sound came again.

She immediately became still, her foot poised. It had been a kind of swishing noise that ended loudly.

Swish-thwack!

It was coming from upstairs.

As she craned her neck to see, a shape moved in the darkness of a doorway. It must have been the door to a windowless room, because it was completely black beyond the threshold. No, not completely black: the shape was blacker and it was still moving.

It was the next swish-thwack! that galvanized her. She hurried away from the stairs, not bothering to avoid the little pools of water but treading as softly as she could.

'Quick,' she hissed to her dumbstruck brother. 'Someone's coming!'

'Let's get out,' he whispered back, at least appreciating the need to speak quietly.