The Secret of Crickley Hall

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She hurt her hands taking her weight, and her knees would have been grazed had she not been wearing a coat and skirt that covered them. Picking herself up and grimacing at the sharp sting in both hands, Lili hurried towards the house, crouching against the rain. Something caught her shoulder, a hard knock as if someone had punched her, and she wheeled round, expecting to be attacked. She saw movement in the darkness of the night, something small and rectangular falling away from her. The swing was lit up by another flash of lightning and it was coming back towards her at speed. But this time she was able to step backwards off the path so that it missed her. She sensed its heaviness as the wooden seat reached its highest point a foot or so above her head.

Although the psychic knew its motion was caused by the gale-force wind, she could not help but feel that the swing had hit her deliberately, conspiring somehow with the lightning-felled tree and the unstable bridge to keep her away from Crickley Hall.

Chiding herself for being melodramatic and almost letting her imagination run away with her, Lili continued her difficult journey to the house.

She got to the big front door and pressed hard on the bell button by its side. The storm was too loud for her to hear anything from inside and she pushed the bell once again, then banged on the wood with the heel of her fist.

'Eve!' she called out. 'It's Lili Peel. Please come to the door!'

Certain it wouldn't work but trying it anyway, she turned the old painted-black doorknob and was surprised when the wind blew the door inwards.

•

Her matted hair flat against her head, its ends dripping raindrops onto the floor, Lili entered Crickley Hall. The wind blustered in behind her, bringing rain with it. She quickly pushed the front door shut, fighting the wind to do so.

With the door closed and the noise of the storm muffled, the psychic turned to face the grand hall again. She had half expected to be overwhelmed by invisible presences like the first time she had arrived here, but there was nothing—she sensed no overwrought spirits, nor anything bad oppressing the atmosphere. The vast, stone-flagged room that felt like some self-aggrandizing billionaire's mausoleum was devoid of unearthly energies. But there were puddles of water, some as big as pools, scattered around the floor. Lili regarded them curiously, then movement caught her eye.

'Lili?' she heard a surprised voice say.

Looking up, the psychic saw Eve Caleigh peering down at her from the hall's balcony. She had obviously emerged from a room along the landing. Lili heard Eve draw in a sharp breath when she saw the puddles that lay around the ground floor. Eve quickly went to the stairs and hurried down them, her face showing concern. She avoided the water as she came towards Lili.

'It must be the rain,' Eve said quietly, as if to herself rather than to the psychic.

Lili saw the usual aura of sadness round Eve, but now its greyness was deeper and more lifeless.

'Sony, Lili,' Eve apologized as she drew near. 'I heard the doorbell, but I was settling Cally into her bed. I'm hoping she'll drift off to sleep soon.'

Lili looked at the other woman with pity. 'Eve… your son. I'm so sorry.'

Eve stammered. 'You—you know? You sensed that?'

'He's at rest now. Nothing more can ever harm him.'

She thought that Eve might crumble, might break down in tears, but the bereaved mother was strong and regained her composure. Lili was relieved.

'What brought you here tonight?' Eve asked detachedly. 'The weather…'

'I couldn't let the storm prevent me from coming. It's important that I'm here. I think you'll need me.'

'I don't understand.' Eve gave a small shake of her head.

'I can feel it now. The house felt empty a few moments ago, but now I sense something coming through, as if they've been waiting for me.'

'The children?' Eve stared intently into Lili's green eyes. 'I felt something impending all morning, but I thought it was because of Cam.'

'No. I told you, your little boy is at peace. What's going to happen tonight is nothing to do with him.'

That's why you came here? The children brought you here?'

'They called me. I had to come.'

A week ago, she might have thought the psychic's words were self-delusional, but everything had changed for Eve now. Eve believed Crickley Hall was being haunted by the ghosts of children who had once lived in the house. But they were not alone; there was a darker entity here also. Eve herself sensed this.

Her question was in earnest. 'Why do you think they've called you, Lili? There has to be a reason, doesn't there? The hauntings must have a purpose.'

But in answer, the psychic merely closed her eyes and mentally reached out to the orphans who had died in Crickley Hall. Nothing happened. She could not visualize them. Yet the first time she had entered the house she had almost been overwhelmed by a great pressure, an emotional barrage that had made her feel faint. She knew there was contact between herself and the spirits here—she sensed their unhappiness, their pleadings—but they had not come through clearly. Something or someone was holding them back. Something or someone they feared. And now she could sense it herself.

Lili's eyes snapped open as if she had been physically stunned. Whatever it was, it was feeding off the psychic energy of the house's occupants, including her own. She could feel strength draining from her.

'It's more powerful than them,' she murmured, more to herself than Eve.

Eve touched her arm. 'Lili, are you all right?'

But the psychic looked puzzled rather than weakened.

'There's something very wrong.' Lili looked around, her eyes wide. She looked at the cellar door, which was ajar; she looked up at the L-shaped landing, which was empty. She looked at the broad, imposing staircase and she shuddered.

'Sometimes stairways act like a vortex for spirits,' she told Eve. 'It's because there's so much energy there with people using it all the time, and the spirits are drawn to that energy. There's something there but I can't tell what it is.'

Lightning flashed outside the tall window over the stairs, blanching each separate pane of glass. Thunder seemed to roll along the roof itself.

'Eve!' Lili suddenly said, making the other woman start. 'D'you have anything that belonged to the children? The children who died here, I mean. Anything that might have been left behind years ago.'

Eve shook her head and was about to say no, when she remembered the items Gabe had found hidden behind the landing cupboard. The Punishment Book, the thin, supple cane—the photograph of the Cribbens with the children!

'Wait here,' she told the psychic and dashed into the kitchen, leaving Lili alone in the cavernous hall.

Lili took a moment to study the pools that spread across the floor. There were no drips from the high ceiling that she could see, and how could the water seep through the floor if there was a cellar below? Maybe there was a layer of earth or a cavity between floor and cellar ceiling that rainwater could have soaked into from underneath the property's solid walls.

Eve hurried back from the kitchen clutching a photograph in one hand and a child's colourful toy, an old- fashioned spinning top, in the other. She showed Lili the spinning top first.

'It's a toy Gabe and I found in a locked storeroom next to the children's dormitory. There was a lot of stuff in there—more toys and school things. All the toys were old but looked new. We think they'd never been used.' Eve eyed the spinning top nervously. 'Once we'd wiped off the dust, it came up like this. When I was alone last Monday, I spun it and saw the ghosts of the children.'

'You mean you saw their images in the top?' Lili pointed to the graphics printed on the spinning top's metal shell.

'No. I saw real children here, in the hall. Except they weren't real, they were ghosts. They were dancing in a