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I reach the door without making a sound.
I almost give myself away by laughing when I imagine their faces when I throw the door open and turn the tables on them. I wonder what excuse they’ll come up with to be prowling around in front of my room like two demented sisters in the middle of the night.
At the same time that I switch on the light, in one quick movement I grab the door handle and yank it open. I don’t catch the girls in the act, or have the pleasure of shocking them out of their skins.
The hallway is empty.
I step out of my room and look up and down the hallway, but there isn’t so much as a swaying curtain, or an open door anywhere to imply anyone was here. That’s impossible: the noises were going on right to the moment I pulled the door open. I frown. There must be a reasonable explanation, and I’ll get to the bottom of this.
I step back into my room, close the door, switch off the light, and walk to my bed. I am halfway across the room when I hear the footsteps again. But they are inside the room now. They seem to be so close behind me that I can’t help feeling as if at any moment an icy cold hand will reach out to me and trail its fingers over my neck. I rush to the bedside lamp, switch it on, and look back around me, and of course, there’s nothing there. No apparition reaching out to touch me. Everything is still. Except for the turmoil inside me. Every cell in my body is on high alert.
My heart is pounding in my chest. It’s pounding so hard, Alex must be able to hear it through the walls. I look towards his door. There are no sounds coming from beyond it or light coming from under it. I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. I don’t need him to tell me everything is okay. I’m ok. I’m tough. I’m just letting the ice sisters’ stupid story get into my head and imagining stuff.
No, I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t imagine the footsteps or the nails running over the walls. I’m not crazy. Maybe they are just noises that old houses make. I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never lived in such an old house before. It could be the pipes, or the floorboards creaking as the house cools down, or something. It’s what my grandmother used to call the sounds of an old house settling. She would know. She used to work as a maid in an old stately home when she was a young girl.
I get back into bed and pull the duvet back over myself. My body feels cold. I lay with my eyes wide open, waiting, listening. Finally, when nothing else happens, I turn off the light and close my eyes. There are no more noises. Perhaps I imagined them after all. I am three quarters of the way back into sleep when I hear a baby crying.
A baby crying? What the actual fuck?
Does Petra have a baby here? Maybe very rich people don’t bring their babies to dinner, but surely someone would have mentioned it if she had. The crying comes again, a soft whimpering sound, and I realize with a start it’s coming from the bathroom.
Now I know I’m letting my imagination run away with me. There’s no way there’s a baby in there. And there’s no way the ghost of a crazy old woman would be making the noise of a baby crying.
I switch on the light and jump out of bed. I rush into the bathroom and of course, there is nothing there. I look around me. It could be the wind. Sometimes the wind can sound like a howling wolf. To the best of my knowledge never like a crying child. I walk to the toilet and flush it. The sound is reassuringly normal. It’s the pipes. Of course, it’s the pipes.
I ignore the voice in my head. The one that tells me that this house truly is haunted.
Cindy
I fall back to sleep as dawn breaks over the horizon and some milky light starts to filter through the small gap in the drapes. By the time I wake up again the sun is already high in the sky even though it is only eight o’clock. I shiver as I think of last night; the scratching, the footsteps, the baby crying. In the sunny morning, it seems so ridiculous. I push the events of last night to the back of my mind. I know there must be a rational explanation and I will get to the bottom of it, but for now I’m not going to let it spoil my day.
Getting out of bed, I walk to the tall window, pull the drapes right back, and stand looking out over the beautiful gardens. The world is green for as far as I can see. It’s the most profound thing. Just looking out into such endless, unspoilt beauty.
