'It must have been something else, darling,' said Eve gently. 'Perhaps the wind, a draught whistling through.'
'No, it was a voice. Please believe me, Mummy.'
'I do. It's just that you may have been mistaken.'
'C'mon, Loren, we'll take a look together.' Gabe came towards her, reaching out a hand as he approached.
'I already looked, Dad. There was nothing in the cupboard. It was just…
'Well, we'll take a proper look. I'll bring the flashlight. You okay for a minute, Percy?'
The gardener had already risen to his feet and was adjusting the cap on his head. 'That's all right, mister. You best be goin' with your daughter.'
'Gabe. Call me Gabe. My wife is Eve, and now you've met Cally and Loren.'
Loren pulled at her father's hand, impatient to take him upstairs.
'I'll be on my way.' Percy headed for the kitchen's outer door as if keen to be gone. 'I'll see yer Tuesday afternoon 'less yer wants me sooner. Phone number's on this.' He placed a small crinkled piece of brown paper on a worktop as he passed. 'Anythin' at all, just give me a holler.'
With that he was through the door, pulling the hood over his cap as he went. Rain dampened the welcome mat before he closed the door behind him.
'Okay, Slim,' Gabe said to Loren, 'let's see what all the fuss is about.'
•
'Not much to see,' Gabe announced, shining the light into the deep cupboard. 'Just some cardboard boxes, a mop and a broom, and what looks like a rolled-up rug at the back, nothing much else.'
He had snatched up the flashlight from the narrow chiffonier against the wall in the hall where he'd left it after leaving the cellar earlier, and all four of them, Gabe, Eve and the two girls, had climbed the broad wooden staircase to the first-floor landing.
'It was just dark before,' Loren insisted, looking over his shoulder. 'There was nothing there.' Gabe was crouched so that he could look through the cupboard doorway; the opening itself was about five feet high and three feet wide.
'Sure, but now we got the flashlight. And hey, look back there. The board at the end of the closet is painted black. No wonder it looked so dark in here when you looked before.' The smell of dust wafted from the opening.
'But I heard someone, Dad. I definitely heard someone crying. I thought it was Cally.'
Eve, also crouched, turned to Loren. 'Cally has been with us all the time,' she said softly so that Loren would not feel she was being disbelieved, only mistaken. 'You couldn't have heard her.'
'I know. I mean it sounded like her. A child was crying.'
Gabe moved into the cupboard, going down on one knee. He shifted boxes aside, raising dust. 'Might've been a small animal. Probably a mouse.'
'It wasn't a mouse! Why don't you believe me?'
Eve touched her daughter's shoulder: Loren became distressed all too easily these days. 'We're only saying you might have been mistaken,' she said soothingly.
'But I saw something too. Something went past the door.'
Gabe had moved further into the shadowy space and was pushing more cardboard boxes aside. 'Well, there's nobody in here now,' he said over his shoulder as he began to pull back. 'Coulda been a breeze blowing through the house, as Mummy said. Wind through a crack in the wall can make all kinds of spooky noises.'
'It wasn't the wind,' Loren told him firmly.
Eve could feel no draught or breeze coming from the cupboard. She looked around the landing, then over the balustrade at the hall below.
Gabe backed out and straightened. 'Nothing there, Loren. Guess you imagined it. No big deal.'
Loren turned on her heels and stomped away, disappearing into her new bedroom and closing the door after her.
Gabe and Eve looked at each other and Gabe raised his eyebrows. 'Hormones,' he said.
Eve remained silent.
7: FIRST NIGHT
'Gabe.'
'Uh?'
'Gabe, wake up.'
Eve shook his shoulder. Gabe was a heavy sleeper.
'What…?' He stirred, opened his eyes, eyelids sluggish with sleep.
Eve pushed herself into a sitting position and leaned back against the curved wooden headboard. Rain outside pattered against the room's windows.
She shook Gabe's shoulder again, this time more fiercely. 'Gabe, can't you hear him?'
Reluctantly, he dragged himself from sleep and raised his head. 'Hear who?' he said.
'Listen.'
Now he heard it. Chester's howl drifted across the hall and up the stairs from the kitchen.
'He's frightened,' said Eve.
Gabe rested on one elbow and briskly wiped weariness from his face with the flat of his hand. It had been a long, hard day and this he could do without.
'He'll be okay,' he assured Eve. 'Just needs to get used to the place.'
Eve was staring at the dark opening of the doorway, the door left ajar so that they could hear either of the girls should they wake up in their strange room and be frightened. Their bedroom door had been left open too.
'Gabe!' she said sharply. Something pale had moved into the opening, but it was too dark to see what: so cloudy was the night that the window offered little light. 'There's someone out there.'
Gabe felt the back of his neck go cold, short hairs there stiffening. He sat up in the bed and stared at the doorway and drew in an involuntary breath.
'Mummy? Daddy?'
Both Eve and Gabe felt their bodies relax when they realized Loren had come to their room. The door swung even wider open and the howling below grew more mournful.
'Chester's upset,' Loren said from the doorway.
'It's all right,' Eve soothed. 'He just doesn't like being alone in a new place.'
'He'll settle down soon,' Gabe added.
'But he's crying, Daddy.' In the cold darkness of night he had become 'Daddy' once more.
He pushed the bed's heavy duvet aside, giving in only a tad reluctantly. He was concerned for the mutt too. That afternoon he'd had to venture out in the rain to Chester, who had refused to leave his spot by the oak tree, heedless of their calls and coaxing. He had picked the mongrel up bodily and carried him back into the house; once inside, Chester had shivered in the corner of the kitchen next to the door while Loren wiped him down with an old towel, his eyes bulging so hard that the whites at the sides were visible. Eventually, and with Loren stroking his wiry fur, Chester had fallen into a troubled sleep.
'You go back to bed, Loren, and I'll go down and see to Chester,' Gabe said as he padded over to the door.
'Can't he sleep on my bed?' Loren implored.
'Uh-huh, kid. He's gotta get through the night on his own. We can't have him sleeping upstairs.'
'Just this once, Daddy. He won't disturb me if he's on the end of my bed. I promise he'll be good.'
'Let me see how he is first.'
'Thank you, Daddy.'
'I didn't say I'd bring him up, I said I'll see how he is. And if he does come up, he'll be in this room, not with you. Now get yourself back to bed before you catch cold.'
She disappeared into her own room, but before he could go to the stairs, her head popped out again.
