The Secret of Crickley Hall (30 page)

Soon they reached the bridge leading across the river to their destination.

Crickley Hall.

•

Seraphina didn't like the way the water tumbled over itself to reach the bay. It frothed with impatience.

At least the rain had stopped. Mum said a lot of local folk were anxious about the rainfall lately. It might bring another flood like the big one sixty-odd years ago, some said. The big flood of '43 was a major part of Hollow Bay history and there were even a few in the village who remembered it first-hand. If the high moors could not soak up all the extra rain, then a tragedy might well happen again. That's what some predicted, but Mum had told her it would never be like last time. Higher bridges had been built to prevent blockages, and the river had been widened where it entered the bay, so don't you worry, my pet, the village could never be flooded like before. That's what Mum told her, and Seraphina believed her. Still, she was glad it had stopped raining today.

She stared across the river at the horrible old building. Who would want to live in a house like that? She felt spooked just looking at it. So did Quentin.

'Let's just leave the rat on the doorstep. Like the bird,' he whined.

Seraphina scowled at him. 'I already told you, it's going in her bed.'

'I don't like this place. It gives me the creeps. What if we put it in the kitchen? That wouldn't take a sec, and 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.

'No time. Look, in there.'
Seraphina was pointing at the open door she had noticed earlier. It was the nearest exit to them, somewhere to hide. She just hoped the person upstairs hadn't seen them yet.

She pushed her brother towards the opening, both of them treading carefully even though in haste. The sound from the landing above was getting louder.

Swish-thwack!

Every few seconds now.

They scuttled through the gap, as quietly as possible, Seraphina tight behind Quentin as though they were playing spoons. By the light that stretched across the hall from the tall window, they could see a stairway leading down to a basement area. Quentin had to descend two steps so that his sister could squeeze in after him.

Swish-thwack!

Almost one sound.

Footsteps now. Soft footsteps that made the boards of the stairs under the window creak.

Seraphina pulled the door they hid behind closed; mercifully the hinges did not squeak. She was very careful not to make a noise when the door shut completely. They were in darkness. When their eyes adjusted, they could only make out a line of light from beneath the door. They waited, trying to control their panicky breaths in case they were overheard.

A pungent, musty, dank smell and a soft rushing sound came from below. Seraphina soon realized its source. Her mother had also told her of the well in Crickley Hall's cellar; it dropped to the underground river that eventually joined the Bay River before reaching the sea. Mum and Megan never went down there, not even out of curiosity. Neither of them liked the idea, but couldn't say why exactly.

Cold draughts came up the cellar steps to chill the girl and her brother even more. Seraphina felt Quentin shivering next to her as they crouched in the darkness and she became aware that she was shivering too. And it wasn't because of the cold.

'Can you hear it any more?' Quentin whispered close to her ear.

She thought she could, but the background sound of rushing water and the closed door itself muted it.

Swish-thwack!

Distant.

And then there was a noise behind them. They turned their heads and stared into the pitch-black below, straining their eyes to see and their ears to listen.

It was faint. At first. But it grew slightly louder. A shuffling. Like a shoe scraping stone, underneath the noise of the underground river but audible nevertheless.

'Oh fuck, there's someone down there!'
Quentin blurted out, his voice shrill, but still a whisper. A very frightened whisper.

'Can't be,'
Seraphina hissed back. She had caught Quentin's fear.
'The house is supposed to be empty. You saw them leave. We rang the bell and knocked on the door. No one came. There can't be anyone at home.'
She was rambling, trying to calm herself with her own logic.

Swish-thwack!

That sounded louder, as if someone were coming down the hall's stairway.

But again, that
thud-scraping
noise from the cellar behind them.

Quentin was scrabbling around for something in the dark; his elbow kept prodding her. He was looking for something in his anorak pockets.

The boy bit his lower lip. It wasn't in the right-hand pocket. It had to be in the left. A gasp of relief as his shaky fingers closed around the mini-torch he always kept in his anorak. The mornings were growing gloomier as winter approached and he carried the little plastic torch with him on the egg round so that he wouldn't trip over anything in the dark. He brought the torch out now, but his sister caught his attention by swearing under her breath.

'What?'
he demanded, keeping his voice low.

'There's water coming in,'
she replied.

Seraphina had been kneeling on the top step, her ear pressed against the door. But she had jerked away when water from the hall oozed under it like slick oil. It had soaked the knees of her blue joggers and was beginning to trickle down the stairs. She stood, careful not to lose her balance and topple backwards. Quentin startled her by switching on the torch.

Its beam was poor, the batteries weak, but a circle of light appeared on the door they hid behind. He lowered the angle so the light went to the bottom of the door.

They saw a broad stream of water seeping through the gap at the bottom, spreading and slowly flowing over onto the first step. The water crept forward until it overflowed onto the second step.

Swish-thwack!

Louder than before, but still muffled by the constant flow of the underground river.

Thud.
Followed by the scraping.

That came from downstairs, from the pitch-black cellar.

His hand trembling wildly, Quentin turned the torch so that its limited beam shone down the steps. They heard the
thud
again. Followed by the scraping on stone, like something being dragged. A leg perhaps, the first sound a heavy footstep.

They barely noticed that the water from outside had reached the third step and was beginning to flow like spring water.