Shiver Page 4

  Down below the grandfather clock began to chime midnight.

  “The witching hour,” Chris Morton murmured. “Time for my beauty sleep.”

  Isabel raised her head, looking bemused.

  “Where am I?” she mumbled.

  “You’re next door, Mum.”

  “Of course. That means I’ve got to go out into the cold,” she groaned.

  “Never mind, Isabel,” Fiona said. “You’ve got your son to help you,” and she nudged Samuel playfully.

  As the great room emptied itself, eyes watched them from the shadows. Fiona was nervous, thinking about the secret staircase they’d found. She was sure she’d seen something earlier out the corner of her eye, after they’d emerged from the gloomy exit hole in the fireplace: a swift, dark shape. Where had the passageway led and why did it suddenly stop? Why had it been blocked off? What was it hiding? And who or what had broken the vase in the hallway downstairs? Was the same person responsible for wrecking Isabel’s studio?

  Fiona’s head buzzed with unanswered questions. It would be hard to get to sleep tonight.

  In the cottage next door, Samuel was thinking along similar lines. He opened his notebook and flipped through the pages. He’d been busy tonight. Sketch after sketch appeared: some of the secret staircase and the library fireplace, from all sorts of angles; one or two of Charles and Sebastian. He’d even copied some of the portraits on the walls. Last of all, he’d drawn the tower with the two children standing beside it, just as it appeared in the tapestry sewn by Catherine Morton all those years ago.

  Who were the children? he wondered, staring at his own sketch.

  What other secrets did this ancient house contain?

  Ghost Girl

  Upstairs, Charles’s room waited for him. Shiver, the ghost story, hadn’t made a great deal of progress. Someone or something kept interfering with it. Nervously, he switched the computer off at the wall to stop the intrusive buzzing that was coming out the back of it. Instantly the thing went dead. Charles passed a hand in front of the screen, experimentally. Nothing there. Then he peered into it and saw his own hazy reflection looking back at himself, his head distorted into a weird bulbous shape by the glass.

  It was late … and he was tired. He climbed into bed, thinking wearily about the strange day he’d had. What had all that nonsense been about a hidden staircase in the back of the fireplace? Was there anything in it? Or were they winding him and Sebastian up? He decided he’d have a look for himself … tomorrow.

  He rolled over onto his side and stared at the wall. He was just drifting off to sleep when a sound caught his attention. He opened his eyes. What was that?

  Something was being shifted about in the next room. There was a bang, then a muffled bump.

  But there was no room next door. Not on that side anyway.

  He sat up and pressed his ear flat against the wooden panelling. There it was again. As if someone was moving furniture about.

  He tapped on the wooden panelling with his knuckles. Once … then twice.

  Immediately the movement next door – if there was a next door – stopped.

  His eyes grew wide in the dark.

  He waited for a while, to see if the noises would start up again.

  Then he was sure he heard voices … whispering.

  “He has heard us!”

  “Sssh. Do not make a move.”

  “It is too late now. He knows that we are here.”

  “Good. I am glad of it. ‘Tis time they were made aware.”

  Two children; male and female.

  Charles rapped lightly on the wooden panelling again and the voices instantly fell silent. Not a single murmur.

  “I know you’re there,” he called out, feeling brave. “Whoever you are.”

  Absolute silence. Whoever was listening had decided to go to ground.

  I’m going to sleep now, he said to himself. He punched his pillows into softly billowing shapes and flopped down again.

  I’m going to talk to Fiona and Samuel about this. He couldn’t help thinking about their elaborate story about a hidden staircase. But surely this was just his imagination running riot. He had gone to bed extremely late, after all, and he was exhausted.

  Oh, great! he thought. I’m really losing it now … and hearing things.

  He thought fleetingly about going to wake Sebastian up, but he was just so tired … and what would he tell him anyway? In another minute or two he’d be sound asleep, noise or no noise.

  But sleep completely eluded him, despite the lateness of the hour. He lay awake, worrying. Eventually he gave up, struggled out of bed and went in search of his brother. He tapped on Sebastian’s door down the hall.

  The muffled sound of someone moving beneath a duvet reached his ears. “What is it?”

  Charles needed no further invitation. Pushing the door open, he leant against the door jamb. Sebastian looked at him, perplexed.

  “Did you hear all that noise?” Charles asked.

  Sebastian looked at him blankly.

  “What noise?”

  “You must have heard it? Through the wall … movement … and dragging.”

  Sebastian shook his head.

  “Voices?” Charles added, hopefully.

  Sebastian stared, his face impassive.

  “Charles, I think you need to get some rest. You’re seriously beginning to worry me.”

  “It’s true. Honestly. I’m not imagining it.”

  “Are you sure you’re not getting just a teeny bit carried away with your ghost story?”

  Charles glared at his brother resentfully. “Fine. Don’t believe me then!” His disappointment was evident.

  Sebastian hesitated a moment.

  “I … I don’t know what to think,” he muttered, embarrassed. “I really don’t.” Then he sighed heavily and added, “I know Fiona and Samuel believe in all this ghost nonsense but, to be honest, I don’t … not really.”

  “Well how can you explain what I just heard?”

  “I can’t,” Sebastian said.

  “Exactly. And it wasn’t you who heard it. It was me. And I know I’m not lying.”

  “What you thought you heard …” Sebastian corrected him, sleepily. ‘It’s late. Talk to Fiona and Samuel about it in the morning.’

  “Yeah, right,” Charles scoffed bitterly, turning his back on his brother.

  Sebastian rolled over and within minutes was asleep again, his dreams undisturbed.

  Charles shook his head, wishing he could sleep as soundly.

  Outside, tiny snowflakes floated down in the darkness, landing on the outstretched branches of the trees. Chris Morton and Isabel had done the shopping just in time. An eerie silence descended over Dunadd. Fiona lay sleeping in her big four poster; Mrs Morton, propped up against mountainous pillows, read a book until her eyelids drooped; and Sebastian lay sleeping, untroubled by the day’s events. Even Charles fell asleep eventually, unable to keep his eyelids open a second longer.

  “Hello!”

  He leapt up, sitting bolt upright in bed.

  A voice had spoken to him in the darkness, as clear as a bell, right beside his ear.

  “What the …?” Was this some kind of trick?

  He groped around for the light switch. In his panic a pile of books and magazines slid off his bedside table, landing in a chaotic heap on the floor.

  When he finally found the lamp, he realized it wasn’t going to oblige; the electricity obviously wasn’t working … or the bulb had gone again. It was always playing up, but its timing was abysmal. He stared around him fearfully.

  Gradually his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he could make out the dim shape of a figure sitting on the end of his bed, staring at him.

  He froze. The hair on his scalp stood on end and his blood seemed to stop moving around his body.

  It was a child. She was dressed simply in a stained, grey shift; her hands and face were very pale, and her hair and eyes were as black as coal. She was i
nspecting him as if he were an object of curiosity. There were huge shadows under her eyes.

  He stared at her for a long time before summoning the courage to speak.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Eliza.” Her voice was tinkling and clear, but there was a hint of mischief behind the dulcet tones. She giggled.

  “Eliza?” he repeated stupidly.

  She nodded. “That is so. I live here.”

  “You … live here?” Again he found himself repeating her words, as if to arrange them in his own head.

  She giggled again: a wicked laugh that sent shivers down his spine.

  “It has been a long time. We have been sleeping.”

  “Sleeping?”

  “My brother and I,” she murmured, leaning forward slightly. “But now you have woken us. You and your friends.”

  “My friends?”

  “The boy and the girl who were in the library earlier, looking at us in the tapestry. They who found the secret place at the back of the fireplace. They are your friends, are they not?”

  “Sort of,” Charles mumbled. He was still in shock and was finding it difficult to form a coherent sentence. “She’s my sister.”

  “And the boy?”

  “That’s Samuel. He lives in the cottage next door.”

  But why am I telling you this? he thought. You’re not real. You’re a figment of my imagination. This is definitely a dream. You’re…

  The child peered at him curiously. “I wish to thank you for waking us.”

  Charles leant as far back from her as he possibly could. She smelt funny. There was something musty and decrepit about her and there were traces of some powdery substance on her body, as if she’d been doused with something.

  “My brother will not come out,” she said, shaking her head slightly as if in despair. She was very neat and trim and held her little hands folded in front of her, like a doll. But a doll with haunted eyes and a look of neglect about her hair and clothing.

  “He is afeart,” she finished sadly.

  Charles screwed his eyes up anxiously. “Afraid? What of?”

  “Oh, everything,” she sighed.

  He’s afraid, Charles felt like blurting out. How does she think I feel?

  “And your name is?” she asked.

  Charles stared at her. “Charles,” he whispered, in a hoarse voice. “Charles Morton.”

  She opened her eyes wide. “We share the same name, you and I. We shall be seeing more of each other, I believe.”

  Then, incredibly, she held out her narrow little hand to be shaken. Charles backed away. Her fingers looked so brittle, almost skeletal, and he recoiled from the very idea of touching her. It was too creepy to even consider.

  “You will not shake hands with me,” she stated, as if it was a fact. “How very rude of you.”

  She put her head on one side, studying him in the gloom, as if he had offended her. Then he stared in horror as she picked herself up and walked sedately towards the wall, vanishing through the wooden panels, as if made of nothing more substantial than air and smoke.

  Charles leapt from the bed, and pressed himself flat against the panelling, listening for any sound.

  “Come back,” he shouted.

  But she had gone. And all the distant sounds of furniture being shifted about, the muffled bumps and thuds and the whispered voices of before had disappeared as well.

  Just wait till I tell the others about this in the morning, he thought. Then he wondered how on earth he would begin to describe what had just taken place, without making himself sound like a raving lunatic, especially as Sebastian seemed disinclined to believe him.

  Charles’s Problem

  It had snowed during the night, but not quite enough to make the moor inaccessible. The trees were heavy with it and it had gathered against the outbuildings and the barn. Charles looked out and blinked his eyes.

  Then he turned to stare at his bedroom wall. Had he dreamt that visit from the ghost girl last night? Eliza Morton. Who was she? And why was she here? He couldn’t wait a moment longer. He threw on his clothes and knocked on Sebastian’s door.

  His brother looked sleepy.

  “Conference. Downstairs,” Charles announced.

  “What?”

  “Five minutes,” Charles added. “I’ve got something to tell you all.”

  “Has this got anything to do with last night?” But Charles didn’t answer him.

  Sebastian shrugged and rolled his eyes. As far as he was concerned, it was too early in the morning to get worked up about anything. He fell back lazily against the pillows. Another five minutes wouldn’t hurt …

  “Are you feeling alright?” Fiona asked about an hour later, looking at her brother with concern.

  “No, I’m not,” he said. “You’re not going to believe what I’ve got to tell you. That secret staircase you were on about yesterday …?”

  Fiona and Samuel stared at him, wondering what he was about to say next.

  “I think we should take another look at the fireplace,” he announced.

  “Why?” Samuel said.

  “What do you mean why?” Charles repeated, flabbergasted.

  “I mean, it’s a good idea and all that. But why now? You didn’t want to know yesterday.”

  Charles took a deep breath. He had to try and describe the events of last night, even if they laughed in his face.

  “Last night … in my room,” he began, “I heard all these strange noises through the wall.” He could see Sebastian looking at him sceptically, but he blundered on, undeterred.

  “First of all, it was just like things being moved about, and then I heard voices. Two children … a boy and a girl.”

  Fiona glanced at Samuel.

  “Then it stopped and I fell asleep,” he went on, beginning to lose the thread a little, “but later I woke up and there was this girl sitting on the end of my bed. She was really small … for her age I mean.”

  “How d’you know how old she was?” his brother asked, quizzically.

  “I don’t … but she was much younger than us … and she didn’t look at all well.”

  Sebastian let out a short, sharp laugh.

  “I know it sounds a bit crazy …”

  “You can say that again,” his brother said, releasing a slow whistle. “Your ghost story is really freaking you out!”

  “… but it’s true. I’m not making this up!”

  “Sebastian, be quiet and listen to what he’s got to say,” Fiona snapped.

  “She said her name was Eliza,” Charles went on. The others gave him their full attention now, their faces rapt.

  “She thanked me for waking them,” he finished. “She said that we’d woken them up … Or something like that.”

  There was a long silence.

  “How did we do that?” Fiona said softly.

  “By finding that secret staircase?” Samuel wondered aloud.

  “But how?”

  No one knew the answer to that. Even Sebastian had grown quiet. He was looking less blasé about it all. It was beginning to seem as if his brother Charles was telling the truth. Strange things had been known to happen in this house before. Why not again?

  “So, what are we going to do about it?” Fiona said.

  “First up, we’re going to find that secret passage,” Charles said. “I bet she’ll be back. She practically promised she’d come again.”

  “Oh, that’ll be nice,” Sebastian quipped. “Did she say when?”

  “Sebastian, stop being stupid and help us look,” Fiona ordered, marching off in the direction of the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” the others called.

  “Back up to the library. There must be a way to make that passage open up again.”

  In the library the Morton ancestors stared down from their elaborate frames, watching the passing of history once again. They watched everything from their lofty position and made no comment. What was there to say? Another adventure
was occupying the children: another mystery in need of a resolution. The house would only give up its secrets reluctantly. The Morton ancestors knew this.

  The marble bust of Plato sat on the shelf, its blank eyeballs offering up no wisdom. Fiona and Samuel immediately began feeling around at the back of the stone fireplace, knowing beforehand that it was hopeless.

  “It’s stuck,” Fiona breathed. “It just … won’t … budge …”

  Charles joined them, but Sebastian stood aloof from the proceedings, shaking his head. He leant slightly against the wall, accidentally pressing the old servants’ bell. No answering bell jangled in the bowels of the building, however. Instead, something else happened. One of the stone slabs at the back of the fireplace began to move aside … just like last time … with a heavy grating noise.

  “What did you do?” Fiona cried.

  “Nothing,” Sebastian said. “I just …” he looked dumbfounded and pointed to the servants’ bell on the wall.

  “So that’s it,” Samuel laughed. “One of us must have knocked it last time without realizing. Well, we’ll know next time.”

  “Well, I like to do my bit,” Sebastian murmured.

  “Come on … don’t just stand there,” Charles instructed everyone. He disappeared inside the passage and began to climb the staircase. They used the torch again, running its beam over the old stone walls. It smelt so dank and fetid. No fresh air had reached this place for what seemed like centuries.

  “I wonder what they used it for?” Fiona said. “In the old days, I mean.”

  “A priest hole?” Charles suggested.

  “What’s that?”

  “You know, when Catholics were persecuted and run to ground. Some old houses had a secret place to hide in. They called it a priest hole.”

  “Or it could be for other reasons,” Samuel added. “In any house as old and isolated as this, you’d want to have somewhere to hide from your enemies, just in case.”