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  A floorboard creaked and three pairs of eyes turned to the open kitchen doorway.

  “What was that?” Chris Morton said.

  Fiona peered into the gloom of the hallway.

  Behind her Granny muttered, “Your mum told me about your secret staircase.”

  “What?” She turned her attention back to the kitchen and the adults waiting there.

  “Secret passageways and the like,” Granny was murmuring, as she busied herself at the sink. “You’ll never get me cleaning in that library again, knowing what I now know, you mark my words.”

  “But you didn’t use to clean it before,” Fiona said. “Remember? You said it gave you the creeps.”

  “Aye, that’s right. And now it gives me the creeps a hundredfold worse.”

  Fiona laughed. “A hundredfold? What kind of word is that?”

  Mrs Morton laughed softly, listening to this exchange.

  Granny sniffed. “Don’t they teach you to use a dictionary at that fancy school of yours, then? Mind you don’t go poking about any more, with that friend of yours. There’s enough trouble at the moment … what with the lights going on and off and the power being so unpredictable and all, without you adding to it.”

  “How would we add to it?”

  “Creeping about,” she barked.

  “I don’t creep.”

  “Yes you do, young lady … you creep,” Granny barked crossly. “That’s how you discover things you’re not supposed to … like that secret passageway, for instance. It’s not healthy, so it isn’t.”

  “Now, now Granny, don’t take on so,” Mrs Morton interrupted, trying to keep the peace. Granny scrubbed at a pan with more ferocity than the task strictly warranted.

  “It comes from reading too many books. Too much thinking never did nobody any good.” She slammed the pan down on the draining board. “And that’s a fact.”

  Ignoring her, Fiona went back to the doorway and looked out.

  Eliza pressed herself flat, almost merging with the grandfather cock. No one saw her, but Fiona wandered out into the hall and stared hard into the shadows, right at the spot where Eliza was hiding.

  Fiona realized at once that the substance of the air around her had changed subtly. She pulled the kitchen door closed behind her so that the adults were cut off. Then she turned to face the darkness.

  Like the night before, her fingers and toes alerted her immediately to the extreme cold of Eliza’s presence.

  She could see the ghost girl now, staring at her, eyes wide and gleaming. There was something hungry about their expression.

  Eliza spoke. “Hello.”

  Fiona jumped back in alarm. With one nervous hand, she reached out to see what she felt like. But she stopped before she got there and recoiled. There was a chalky substance all over her, caked on in places, like flour.

  “Was it you I saw? Last night … outside my window?” Fiona asked.

  The ghost girl was silent.

  “Why were you looking in?”

  Eliza blinked her large eyes soulfully. “I didst not intend to scare you,” she said. “I just wanted to see your room.”

  “Who are you?” Fiona whispered, glancing nervously over her shoulder to make sure the door to the kitchen was still firmly shut, and that the adults couldn’t hear.

  “I have already spoken my name, to your brother, I believe. I am Eliza Morton.”

  Fiona stared.

  “I’m Fiona,” she stuttered.

  “Fiona,” the girl repeated softly.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Fiona asked. The girl nodded her assent. Fiona continued. “What year is it?”

  “Why, it is the year of Our Lord, 1604,” she replied, her voice as clear as a bell. Then she giggled. An eerie chuckle that unsettled Fiona. She was instantly aware of how cold the hallway had become. An icy breeze seemed to be seeping in under the floorboards. She glanced at the window at the end of the hallway, at the bottom of the stairs. It was a deep-set picturesque window, with several panes of glass. Snow was drifting down past the tower, big fluffy flakes swirling endlessly in the air.

  Eliza followed her gaze and let out a small exclamation. “Ah. It is snowing.”

  “How old are you?” Fiona persisted.

  “I am nine years of age.”

  “Only nine?”

  “So I believe,” Eliza replied, her voice prim and proper as she carefully enunciated her words in her formal language. It sounded strange on Fiona’s ears, distant, yet oddly romantic.

  “My brother and I were sleeping. But you woke us.”

  “How did we wake you?”

  Eliza shrugged. “You started talking about us. You saw us in the tapestry and then you tapped on our wall. You found our secret passageway. And your brother wrote a ghost story. Or made an attempt to. It was good enough to find us.”

  She giggled again.

  “Can I ask you another question?” Fiona said. “Whose house is this?”

  “Why, it is my father’s, of course. But he is no longer here,” she finished sadly.

  “Where has he gone?” Fiona asked.

  Eliza put her head on one side, quizzically, and appeared to be perplexed.

  “I know not!”

  “And your mother?” Fiona added.

  Suddenly Eliza’s face was transformed. Her eyes gleamed with pent-up fury.

  “I have no mother.”

  “Surely,” Fiona murmured. “Surely you must have a mother. Everyone does.”

  “Not I.”

  “Why not?”

  Eliza stared hard at Fiona, her eyes suddenly desperately sad.

  Then she whispered in a small voice “She left us to die.”

  At that moment the kitchen door burst open and Granny appeared, grappling with the Hoover. Fiona glanced back over her shoulder.

  “Blast this wretched thing,” Granny was muttering under her breath.

  When Fiona turned back, the girl had gone. Vanished into thin air before either of the two adults could see her. But not before Fiona had had time to ask her some essential questions. She felt as if she was getting somewhere, at last. She had to tell the others.

  She found the boys upstairs, gathered in the drawing room. Samuel could instantly tell from her expression that something was wrong.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I saw her,” Fiona burst out. “I saw Eliza. I spoke to her this time. She told me what they’re doing here. She said …” but then Fiona hesitated. She wondered exactly what Eliza had told her, wondered what to make of it exactly. It was all a bit muddled. “… she said it was 1604.”

  The boys stared at her, uncomprehending.

  “That’s what she said,” Fiona insisted. “She said … it was the year of Our Lord, 1604.”

  “She’s stuck in time,” Charles said. “In her own time.”

  “But she can see us,” Fiona finished.

  “Where does that leave us?” Sebastian said.

  “It leaves us with a very confused and troubled ghost girl. Two troubled ghost children,” Fiona added, “who feel as if they’ve been abandoned by their mother.”

  “How do you know that?” Samuel asked.

  Fiona’s brow wrinkled and she looked pensive and sad for a moment. “It was something she said, that’s all.”

  “What?” Samuel was insistent.

  Fiona hesitated a moment. “She said … she said that their mother had left them to die.”

  All four children fell silent, allowing the facts to digest.

  “How horrible,” Samuel murmured.

  “Isn’t it?” Fiona said.

  “What did she mean?” Charles added. “Their mother left them to die? How? What happened?”

  “Now that,” Fiona sighed, “we don’t know. Not yet anyway.”

  “How do we find out?” Sebastian said.

  “I know,” Samuel put in quickly, catching Fiona’s eye. “There’s an old friend we haven’t visited in a while.”

  “Mr
MacFarlane,” Fiona muttered.

  “He might know something,” Samuel said. “He knows lots about the history of Sheriffmuir. And maybe there’s another family ghost story that he hasn’t told you about.”

  Charles was sceptical. “But he can’t know everything.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “You’re only fourteen so you definitely don’t know everything. But Mr MacFarlane’s … well, he’s …”

  “Old?” Samuel supplied the word.

  “Exactly. He’s ancient.”

  “He’s not that ancient,” Sebastian put in. “He’s fit enough to look after himself, anyway.”

  “I suppose it’s worth a try,” Charles admitted finally.

  Their voices faded away into silence.

  A child sat alone in the darkness. No one knew he was there. On the floor before him was a group of clumsy-looking toy soldiers, roughly carved from wood. The red paint on them was faded and peeling, but the boy didn’t notice. He moved them around, dragging them through the dirt, pretending to march them across an imaginary battlefield. It was a way of keeping his misery at bay. He was pretending, entering a world of make-believe, where his only comfort was to be found.

  They were primitive-looking toys, scarred and marked by their great age. The boy’s loving hands had worn them smooth with handling. They were all he had: the only souvenirs from a life long since faded away. Everything the boy had once known had crumbled into disrepair, leaving nothing but this forlorn little corner of the building, where he and his sister had slept for so many hundreds of years, like children in a fairy tale, waiting to be woken. And now that they were awake … what now? Were they to be forever haunted by their own dreadful memories?

  He let go of his toy soldiers so that they fell, unsupported, to the ground. Even the world of make-believe could let us down, sometimes.

  Eliza found her brother in the dusty room they inhabited together. He was still crying. With a rare touch of compassion, Eliza put her arm around him.

  “Cease that noise. I have returned.”

  “But you will leave me again,” he whispered. “I know you will.”

  Lynns Farm

  “I really don’t see how he can help,” Sebastian was saying, as they crunched their way through the deepening snow towards the waterfall.

  “He was helpful last time,” Fiona reminded the others.

  “I don’t think he’ll take kindly to us just turning up, though,” Charles said uneasily. “It’s only you and Samuel he knows properly.”

  “He won’t mind,” Fiona reassured her brother. “Anyway, it’s always good to see Mr MacFarlane. Granny Hughes said we should check up on him in this weather. Make sure he’s alright. We’ll be doing a neighbourly turn.”

  Her brothers followed her and Samuel past the waterfall, through the trees to the lonely little farmhouse set in its isolated grounds. The sunlight rarely penetrated this low-lying piece of ground where Lynns Farmhouse stood, sheltered on all sides by trees and high ridges of land.

  Patrick MacFarlane lived here alone, with his dog and his memories. He was not an unhappy man, despite his solitude and eccentricity, and he’d been delighted by Samuel and Fiona’s attempts to make friends with him. It had opened up a little window in his lonely life. They didn’t visit him often, but when they did, he always found it entertaining.

  He was not expecting them, however, and they had no way of knowing if he was actually in. They approached the door nervously, peering at the windows to see if there was any life behind them.

  “Mr MacFarlane!” Samuel knocked on the door and called out his name.

  Silence. An eerie uncomfortable silence. They couldn’t even hear the dog barking. A blanket of disappointment drifted down like the snow and landed on their shoulders. It was unsettling.

  “Oh,” Samuel said. “Where would he be in this weather?”

  “See?” Charles snapped tetchily. “I told you.”

  “What did you tell us?” Fiona replied.

  “That there was no point. That he wouldn’t be in!”

  “No you didn’t,” Samuel corrected him. “You just said you didn’t want to bother, that was all.”

  “I did not,” he cried, rounding on Samuel.

  “Ach, for goodness sake!” A voice broke in. “Stop that bickering. I can hear you a mile off.”

  They turned to see Patrick MacFarlane making his way towards them through the snow, his arms full of chopped firewood, the dog at his heels.

  Fiona’s face lit up. “How are you Mr MacFarlane?” she beamed.

  “Och, I’m not so bad. And yourselves?”

  “We’re good,” Samuel said.

  “I see you’ve brought your big brothers this time?” he observed, looking at Charles and Sebastian keenly.

  “That’s right,” Fiona said.

  “So … what brings you to my door?”

  “Questions …” she blurted out, looking at him desperately. “We were wondering if you knew any stories about other ghosts up at the house?”

  He looked at her shrewdly. “More research?”

  “That’s right,” Fiona said.

  “And what kind of ghosts would these be?”

  “Two children,” she said. “A brother and sister. Very young. The girl is about nine, we think.”

  “Two children?” He looked perplexed and shook his head.

  “From 1604?” Fiona added hopefully.

  “Now … that doesn’t ring any bells, I’m afraid. Not this time, it doesn’t.”

  The children’s hearts sank in disappointment. They had been hoping he would be able to point them immediately in the right direction. He always seemed so knowledgeable about the history of Sheriffmuir. They had hoped that maybe they could glean another tiny piece of information from him: a missing piece of the jigsaw which would help to solve the riddle of the mystery children.

  “Well, come in anyway,” he commanded, “out of the cold.”

  They followed him into the kitchen, which was rather dusty, but comfortable all the same. There were books and magazines piled up on chairs. An open fire dominated the room, with a large old-fashioned hearth that had been an original feature of the house when it was first built four hundred years ago. Little had changed since, in many ways. The house had not really been modernized since the fifties, so much of it was in need of attention, but Patrick MacFarlane liked it exactly the way it was and so did Samuel and Fiona.

  “So,” he said, dropping the logs into a basket next to the fireplace and bending down to light a match. The kindling took immediately and a bright fire blazed up the chimney.

  Patrick MacFarlane leant on the wide wooden mantelpiece with his elbow and regarded his guests for a moment.

  “What’s bin happening up at Dunadd then?”

  Fiona gave a huge sigh. “Where do I begin?”

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Mr MacFarlane said. “You’d better have a seat then. And you two boys as well,” he added, glancing at Charles and Sebastian, who were lurking in the background, looking rather awkward.

  Chair legs scraped against the tiles as they made themselves comfortable.

  “1604 you said?” Mr MacFarlane pondered, regarding Fiona thoughtfully. “I know I’m ancient, but my memory doesn’t stretch that far back, I’m afraid. And why that year precisely?”

  The children looked at each other warily.

  “Because it’s what she said,” Fiona admitted.

  “Who?” Mr MacFarlane said, piercingly, his eyes on Fiona.

  “The ghost girl … child spirit … whatever you want to call her.”

  “She spoke to you?”

  Fiona nodded. “And to Charles as well.”

  “Really?” Mr MacFarlane looked at her older brother for confirmation. Charles nodded.

  “What did she say?” the old man asked, trying to stifle his alarm.

  “She said her name’s Eliza,” Fiona burst out. “When I asked her what year it was, she said it was 1604. She claims that we�
�ve woken her and her brother.”

  “It was my fault really,” Samuel cut in. “Because it was me who found the secret staircase in the library.”

  “A secret staircase?” Mr MacFarlane repeated, his amazement showing on his face.

  “That’s right. Behind the fireplace.”

  “I didn’t know about that,” he said quietly.

  “Neither did we,” Fiona added. “Mum didn’t either.”

  “So your mother knows about this then?” Mr MacFarlane sighed.

  Fiona nodded.

  “And what did she have to say about it?”

  “Nothing much, really,” Fiona began.

  The old man raised his eyebrows and looked at her in disbelief.

  “Well …” Fiona qualified her meaning “… she thought it might be a priest hole or something like that, even though there was no little room or cubby-hole behind the fireplace. Just the staircase and the passageway beyond it.”

  “We didn’t tell her about the noises we’d heard … nor about the ghost girl,” Samuel added.

  “Why not?” Mr MacFarlane asked, although he could guess their reasons.

  “We don’t want her getting any ideas about moving,” Fiona cried. “You have to understand … we don’t want to move house. We want to stay put.”

  “And you think she might entertain the idea if she knew what else has been happening?”

  “That’s right.” Fiona hung her head, staring at her feet.

  “You could be right,” he muttered softly, almost to himself. “Eliza, you said her name was?”

  All four children nodded vigorously. “I don’t know anything about an Eliza,” Mr MacFarlane muttered quietly, almost to himself.

  “She and her brother have been in the house all this time,” Fiona said.

  “And you have no idea what they’re doing there, or why they’ve suddenly appeared?”

  “Not really,” Fiona murmured.

  “I think she’s angry,” Samuel added. “She broke things, in my mum’s studio …”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Fiona cut in.

  “And we think she smashed a vase in the house.”

  Fiona looked thoughtful for a moment. “She said their mother had left them to die.”