The Secret of Crickley Hall

Eve's eyes stayed fixed on Lili, who lay in the armchair as limp as a rag doll.

And the room was dark not just because it was a late-October evening, but because something more had weakened the already fading light. Shadows grew, seemed to live.

Opposite Eve, Lili Peel lay loosely in the armchair until her left arm twitched once, twice, then once again. Finally it fell slack against her thigh.

Her head slowly rose from her chest and even her light green eyes looked dark in the room's poor light. Perhaps it was because her pupils had dilated, the irises no more than thin rings round them.

At first, Eve thought the psychic was staring at her. But then she realized that Lili's horrified eyes were looking at something over Eve's shoulder.

42: DARKNESS

Gabe pulled up behind the people-carrier that served as Merrymiddle's school bus. Because of the narrowness of the lane, it was blocking his access to the short parking space on the right-hand side. As he waited for the bus to move on, he glanced up at the clouded evening sky. Dusk was always early this time of year, but the heavily laden clouds easily smothered any last rays the dying sun could throw out.

Loren alighted from the left side of the bus and Gabe watched her wave goodbye to a friend as the vehicle moved away, heading downhill to the harbour village. He steered towards his parking spot and was surprised to see a small blue two-door Citroen had taken up much of the space in the short lay-by. Wondering who owned the car, and if whoever did was visiting Crickley Hall, he squeezed in behind it, a rear corner of the Range Rover protruding slightly into the roadway.

Loren waved to him as she crossed the lane and Gabe climbed from his vehicle, retrieving the large slim portfolio that carried his design drawings and sketches from the back seat as he did so.

'Hey, Slugger,' he greeted Loren as she skipped the last steps towards him. She kissed his proffered cheek and gave him a smile that told him all had gone well at school today.

''Lo, Dad.'

'You been okay?' Her nightmare last night and her pain, imaginary or not, that came with it had been on his mind all day long.

'Fine, Dad.'

'Really?'

'Honest. It was a dream, that's all.'

'Well, I know the doc thought that, but you were in a pretty bad way last night.' He threw an arm round her shoulders as they strolled to the bridge. Kids get over things so fast, he thought. Let's see how she faces bedtime.

'How was the injured party today?' His tone was light, but he kept the smile off his face.

Loren was happy to shake her head. Seraphina had to come to school eventually and Loren wondered if the bad feelings would continue. She hoped not, because she doubted she could punch the big girl again, and certainly not as effectively as the first time when surprise was on her side. She didn't think she could summon up the courage or the anger to do it again. However, despite the trepidation, she was enjoying Merrymiddle; she seemed to be making new friends every day and Tessa had definitely become one of her best.

The dull square shape of the house loomed up across the river and her mood changed. 'Dad, I don't like Crickley Hall,' she said, looking up at him.

He noted that she hadn't said 'I don't like it here at Crickley Hall'; she'd implied that she didn't like the house itself. He felt the same.

'S'why I left work early,' he told her. 'We gotta talk about this place. It's got bad vibes.' If someone else had said that to him just a few days ago, he would have laughed in their face. How could a house have vibes of any kind?

'Are we leaving?' Loren's eyes searched his in the gloom.

'Let's say it's a strong possibility. We'll see what your ma has to say.' After last night and all the trouble that morning, he felt sure that Eve would want to pack up and go as quickly as possible. And as much as he hated the idea of a mere house defeating him, he would happily do the packing.

They crossed the bridge, the rushing waters gurgling beneath them. Loren almost slipped on the wet boards, but Gabe held her tight against him.

'Why are there no lights on, Dad?'

He followed her gaze and saw that she was right. The building ahead was in darkness, not a single window lit, despite the early-evening dusk. It gave Gabe a bad feeling.

To reassure Loren he said: 'Maybe Mummy joined Cally for her afternoon nap and they've both overslept. None of us got much sleep last night.'

They hurried their pace, Loren moving slightly ahead of her father, passing by the front door—the family generally used the kitchen door for exit and entry now, because the front-door key was too long and cumbersome to carry comfortably. By the time Gabe turned the corner of the house, she was inserting her key into the lock. She waited for him before pushing the door open.

From behind her, Gabe reached in and flicked on the light switch. They blinked at the sudden brightness, then both headed for the open doorway into the hall, Gabe leaving the portfolio propped up against a kitchen table leg.

'Mum!' Loren called out from the hall's threshold. There was no answer.

Quickly becoming aware of the vast room's deep coolness, they stopped in their tracks.

'Hell,' Gabe muttered, perplexed. By now, he was used to the house's chill despite the working radiators and the fires he lit in various rooms, but this was something else. This was like stepping into a deep-freeze again.

'Daddy, look.' Loren was standing perfectly still in front of him, but her head was upturned as she looked at the galleried landing above. He caught sight of them, but oddly he couldn't focus on any.

They sped along the landing, fleeting wisps of—of what? Small stringy smoke clouds, hazy drifts of fog? White shadows? On their first day here, Loren had claimed to have seen what she called a white shadow outside her bedroom door—was this what she meant? But now there were several, streaking, gliding along the landing, separate entities like—like spectres— in a rush. As Gabe and Loren's eyes grew accustomed to the poor light and the depthless shadows it seemed to induce, they saw more of these vaporous moving shrouds on the broad stairway, so faint they were scarcely visible. They darted down to the hall itself to scatter this way and that as if confused.

It was an impossible sight, all the more implausible because of the vagueness of the shapes; nevertheless, Gabe felt the skin at the back of his neck stiffen, the iciness there sharp, almost stinging.

He moved in front of Loren as if to shield her, but incredibly there was no fear on her face, only a kind of astonished awe. Without further thought, he took a step back to the side of the kitchen doorway, where a row of brown light switches was situated, and pushed all three of them down with the edge of his hand.

The light—mainly from the ironwork chandelier high overhead, but also from two single, shaded hanging lights along the L-shaped landing—was ungenerous, but it at least cleared the air of the phantasms. Gabe was relieved, but still mystified.

'Eve!' he called out. 'Eve, where are you?'

He and Loren heard the low cry at the same time and both looked towards the open sitting-room door. Despite the overhead illumination, the darkness beyond the doorway was hardly softened; it was almost as if a solid black barrier barred entry. Gabe and Loren hurried towards it, passing the open cellar door on the way, and they reached the room together.

Without thought, Gabe leaned in, his fingers scrabbling round for the wall light switch, and it was like dipping his hand into thick ink so intense was the blackness there. He nearly pulled back from the awful stench that seemed to saturate the air, but he resisted the impulse, guessing his wife was somewhere there in the darkness.

Even as he sought the switch, which was at least a foot further along than he remembered, he heard Loren gasp beside him. Then he saw it too, by the dismal glow thrown out by the almost extinguished fire in the hearth. There were two figures sitting there in the dark, one in the room's armchair, the other—he knew by instinct this was Eve—on the couch, face half-turned towards something—something even blacker than the room's dense umbra—that stooped over her.