Ada took an oval hand mirror out of her bag. Its brass handle was cast in the shape of a fairy and its frame was formed by her wings curling up behind her. She didn’t look like a good fairy, though. She had narrow, catlike eyes and a gleefully malevolent grin.
The mirror itself was polished and highly reflective, but it wasn’t glass. Instead, it was totally black.
‘This is a scrying mirror,’ said Ada. ‘It’s made of obsidian, from Mexico. Obsidian allows you to see through it into the Otherland. I often use it to find out if there’s a spirit still wandering around somebody’s house.’
‘I remember you showed me that before, over at the Channings’ place,’ said Francis. ‘We didn’t see anything in it, though, did we?’
‘That’s because Mary Channing wasn’t being haunted. She was suffering from early-onset dementia, and you can’t see that in a scrying mirror. But I think there’s much more chance of seeing something in here.’
She held up the mirror and started to walk slowly around the room, angling it repeatedly from side to side.
‘Nothing so far,’ she said, as she passed the outside windows.
Rob was tempted to say, If they’re invisible, these presences, they’re going to be just as invisible in a mirror as they are in real life. But even if they couldn’t be seen, both he and Vicky had experienced how violent they could be, and how solid they felt, and if there was the slightest chance of discovering what they were, he was prepared to go along with it.
Once Ada had completed a circuit of the room she stopped still, lowering the mirror and closing her eyes. She started to murmur something under her breath, although Rob couldn’t clearly make out what it was. He thought he caught words that sounded like Evokare lemures de mortuis, but that was all.
She was silent for a few more seconds. Then, abruptly, she lifted up the mirror so that she could look over her shoulder.
‘I see them!’ she screamed. ‘I see them!’
At that instant, with a sharp crack, the obsidian in the mirror exploded, and splinters of glittering black were scattered onto the horsehair floor. Ada flung away the broken mirror as if it were red-hot and turned to Francis, her eyes wide. She pointed towards the far corner of the room, so terrified that she opened and closed her mouth several times before she could speak.
‘They’re there, Frankie! I saw three or four of them at least! Jesus Christ, they’re actually there!’
Francis gripped her arm and said, ‘Come on, steady. What do they look like?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t know! I only caught a glimpse of them before the mirror broke! They were all shadowy – but they looked like men – men, three or four men!’
‘Maybe we should get out of here,’ said Rob.
‘No, no—’ said Francis. ‘We need to find out who they are. They haven’t done anything to harm us, have they?’
‘Oh, not much. They’ve only pushed me and Vicky over and kicked me in the leg. Who knows what else they’re capable of? The one who kicked me told me that I needed to mind my own business, if I knew what was good for me.’
‘Rob – I have a strong suspicion about what’s going on here. If I’m right, this could be the answer to where your son has disappeared to.’
‘So what is it, this strong suspicion?’ Rob asked him. He couldn’t take his eyes off the corner of the room where Ada had said that she had seen three or four men. He couldn’t make out anybody there at all, not even the faintest wavering in the air. He couldn’t even see the impressions of any feet in the horsehair matting.
‘Let me test it out first,’ said Francis. ‘Ah, look – here’s your good wife now, with the matches.’
Vicky came into the room and immediately realised that something had happened.
‘What’s wrong? You haven’t felt any more of those presences, have you?’
‘Ada’s seen them,’ said Rob. ‘She had this special mirror that lets you see spirits and she saw some standing in the corner over there.’
‘Oh my God, you’re joking. They’re not still there, are they?’
‘That is what we are going to try to find out,’ said Francis. He held out his hand and she passed him the box of matches. ‘I don’t know whether this will prove my suspicion, but if it does, it will go a long way to explaining what has been going on here at Allhallows Hall. If I’m mistaken – well, we’ll have to try some more tests, such as Ada’s powder test, although I am not at all sure that will tell us anything we don’t already know.’
He took out one of the matches and struck it. It was a long kitchen match, which Herbert Russell had used to light the range. When it was burning, he wedged the end of it into a narrow split in the oak of the nearest windowsill, so that it stood upright.
‘Right, now let’s all get out of here,’ he said.
‘That’s a bit dangerous, isn’t it, leaving that there?’ asked Rob, nodding towards the match.
‘Not if I’m right about this room. Come along, let’s get out as quick as we can – chop-chop!’
They all crouched down under the dado rail and went back into the bedroom, closing the panelling to seal the room behind them. Francis took a pocket watch out of his waistcoat and held it up.
‘Let’s give it five minutes,’ he said. ‘That should prove it beyond any question.’
‘Either that or the house will start to burn down.’
‘Trust me.’
Rob said nothing, but thought, How am I going to explain this to the insurance company if the house does burn down? ‘Oh – I allowed a wizard to stick a lighted match in a wooden windowsill in a room carpeted with dry horsehair.’
