The Whispering House (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sam

T
HE MOMENT SAM CLOSED
the door behind them, the sounds of the storm stopped. The air smelled damp and the house felt unexpectedly chilly.

He removed his dripping jacket and hung it over the banister post before turning to Hannah, who hadn't moved.

“Hey! What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to take your wet stuff off?”

She slowly slid her arms out of her jacket and stood as if unsure what to do with it. He grabbed it and slung it on top of his own. Then he noticed a note lying on the table next to the telephone. “Looks like your mom had to go out suddenly,” he said, glancing at the hastily scrawled script. “You'd better read what she says.”

Hannah moved toward the table and stood there, looking down at the message. “I don't understand,” she said after a few moments. “Can you explain it, please?”

“Huh?” He looked more closely.

Hannah,

Uncle David's been taken ill. He's in the hospital, so I'm driving up to Birmingham right away. Didn't have time to cook anything, I'm afraid, but there's bread and cheese in the fridge, and I've put out a can of soup. I should be back around eight thirty.

Mom. X

“What's there to understand? Your uncle's sick and she's gone to see him.”

“I don't know Uncle David.”

“Some kind of distant relative, then? Oh, well.” Sam moved away from the telephone table and walked into the living room. The smell of damp was stronger in here; the windows were shut and the curtains drawn. It couldn't be much after eight, but the room was already dark. He stared at the walls, puzzled. Surely, when he'd been here last, they'd looked lighter, paler than this? Going closer to examine them, he saw that the cream paintwork was looking patchy, as if the wall had been given a quick undercoat before being properly covered up. Beneath the uneven streaks were signs of a different color. A kind of dark brown. Yet he could have sworn that the paintwork had looked pretty solid before. “I thought you said it was just upstairs that this house was looking shabby?”

When Hannah didn't reply, he turned around to see her sitting up straight on the sofa, feet together, her hands neatly folded in her lap.

“Are you okay?”

“Okay?”

“Are you all right? You seem a bit quiet.”

She didn't reply.

“Oh, well, I guess it's that dream still bothering you, is it? Let's switch the TV on. That'll cheer you up.” But when he aimed the remote control at the screen, nothing happened. He got up and pressed the button on top of the set. Still nothing. And when he clicked the light switch by the door, the room remained in shadowy gloom.

“The storm must have brought a power line down,” he muttered. “D'you have any candles?”

“There are candles in the kitchen.”

He went out to the kitchen and started rummaging in drawers and cupboards. After a minute or so he found candles, a box of matches, and half a dozen saucers. Straightening up, he paused for a moment, looking at the wall units. Between the top of the cupboards and the ceiling was a thin line of discoloration, extending a little beyond the units and continuing downward on either side until it met the counter. It looked like the outline of some large piece of furniture—a cabinet, maybe—that had once stood there. This was an old house, after all. But it was odd that that mark hadn't been painted over when the new kitchen was put in.

He went back into the living room and got busy with the candles, applying a match to the base of each one so that the wax melted just enough to make it stick to the saucer. Hannah didn't offer to help. When he'd finished, he lit the wicks and placed the saucers at strategic spots around the room.

“What shall I do with this?” he asked her when there was only one left without a home.

“Put it on the cabinet.”

“What cabinet? Oh!” He chuckled, seeing what she was pointing at. “The TV, you mean.” He did what she suggested, then returned to the sofa and surveyed the room. The gentle, flickering light softened outlines and blurred detail, favoring some things but bathing others in deep shadow, creating an oddly ambiguous effect. He had to remind himself that what looked like a small chest of drawers was really Hannah's father's music system, that the shelf of books above contained not books but tapes and CDs, and that the dim, boxlike thing crouched on the desk in the corner was actually a computer.

He cast his eye over the shelves and eventually spotted a pile of board games. “Tell you what. How about we play Scrabble? Just till the power comes back on.”

He took the box off the shelf, opened the board, and put it on the table in front of the sofa. Then he sat down beside Hannah, placed a letter tray in front of her and another for himself, and offered her the box. She looked at it.

“Go on then, take one.”

She picked out a tile. Then he took one. “I've got
C
. How about you?” He peered at her hand. “
P
. I'll start.” He took another six letters from the box and put them in the tray.

Hannah watched him for a moment or two, then did the same.

“Wait a minute, we need something to score with.” He got up to look for paper and a pencil, spied Hannah's schoolbag by the door, and after a few seconds' search in the dim light gave up and tipped the contents onto the floor. He picked up a pencil, unceremoniously tore a blank page from a notebook, and returned to the table. Then he frowned thoughtfully and laid out the word
HEART
vertically down the center of the board.

“Sixteen,” he said, taking five more tiles before writing their names at the top of the torn-off page and the figure below his own. “Your turn.”

Hannah picked up two tiles and laid them on either side of the first letter of Sam's
HEART
. Then she took two more from the box.

“Is that the best you can do?
THE
?” He looked at her in surprise. “Oh, well.” He wrote the number six under her name, then placed four of his own letters downward at the top of the board, above the first letter of her word, spelling
GIANT
. “Only seven, but it gives you a shot at the triple word score,” he said generously.

But Hannah didn't take advantage of his offer. Instead, she used the
R
from
HEART
to spell
ANSWER
.

“Not bad,” he conceded. “Only ten points, though. Pity.” Taking four replacement tiles from the box, he paused for a moment, listening. For a moment he could have sworn there was someone upstairs. But there couldn't be, of course.

Using the last letter of
HEART,
he added six more tiles to form
TRELLIS
. “Nine. Not exactly great scores so far!” He chuckled, but she didn't return his smile, only placing
I
and
N
horizontally above the
S
of
TRELLIS
.

“Eight. Bit of a waste of that triple word score,” he remarked. “Are you still bothered by that dream, or have you just got a lousy bunch of letters?” Without waiting for a reply, he put down
BRACE
using the first letter of
ANSWER
and wrote thirteen under his own name.

Hannah added two more letters in front of the
E
of
BRACE
.

“Hmm. Another
THE
. Fourteen points, though. Good work getting the
H
on that triple letter score,” he said encouragingly. Then his eyes lit up as he spied a golden opportunity. Grinning, he spelled
TRIFLE
using the first letter of Hannah's word, finishing on a triple word score. “Thirty!”

Then he stopped grinning and frowned. He tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Did you leave a radio on in one of the bedrooms?”

She looked at him blankly.

“Because it sounds like there are voices coming from upstairs.”

“That will be Ellen and Jane.”

“Ellen and Jane? Are they the kids from next door?” He shook his head, puzzled. The noise didn't sound as though it was coming from outside, but presumably it must be. He shrugged and took five more tiles from the box. “Just my luck, nearly all vowels,” he muttered.

Hannah laid five letters across the board next to the
F
of
TRIFLE
to spell
FLYING
.

Sam shifted each one a little way off its square to check the score. “Great! Twenty-six.” He wrote the figure under Hannah's name, then viewed his own tiles with gloom. After some time, he sighed and placed two letters under the
N
of
FLYING
to make
NIB
. “Five. That's the best I can do.”

Hannah added three tiles to the last letter of
NIB
to spell
BIRD
, taking advantage of a triple word score beneath the last letter.

“Twenty-one,” said Sam. “Not bad for a four-letter word!” He gave her a sly smile, but as before, she didn't respond. He pushed the board away, regarding her thoughtfully. “What's the matter? You've hardly said a word all evening. Are you mad at me or something?”

“Mad?” She looked puzzled. “I hope I am not mad.”

Something about the way she said the word made him feel uncomfortable. It sounded wrong. Only he couldn't quite explain why. After a few moments he got up.

“Know what I think? We need to eat something.” He was halfway across the room when her next words stopped him.

“Cook will have left us a cold supper, I daresay.”

He turned around and stared. “What did you say?”

“It is her day off, but she always prepares something before she goes out.”

“What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy? You don't have a cook!”

She looked shocked. “Has she given notice? Why was I not told of it?”

“Listen,” he said, trying to control the edge of fear that had crept into his voice. “If this is some kind of joke, just cut it out! I'm not in the mood. Okay? Now I'm going into the kitchen to fix us something to eat, and when I get back, I'd like to hear a bit of sense for a change!”

He left the room and began opening and closing doors in the kitchen, deliberately making a lot of noise to drown out the alarm bells in his head that were growing louder by the minute. But when he turned around, he saw that she had followed him. She was standing in the doorway, watching him.

“If you want to make yourself useful, you can spread butter on some bread,” he said curtly. He opened a can of soup and poured it into two bowls, in his agitation putting them in the microwave and closing the door before remembering that it wouldn't work.

“Why do you put food in a cage? It cannot escape, you know.”

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“The butter and milk should not be kept in a cupboard in this hot weather. Why are they not in the larder? They will turn rancid.”

“Just stop it, will you?” He turned and faced her, red faced and shaking.

A horrible thought occurred to him. She was right. Without electricity, this house had reverted to its original state. The refrigerator was just a cupboard, the microwave a cage; the stove, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, and all the rest of the carefully designed appliances were no more than useless lumber. A waste of space. He pushed past her and ran back into the living room.

The candles were low now, their feeble flames guttering, throwing nervous shadows around the darkened room. And then his blood seemed to run cold. Because now, where the TV had stood, there was a real cabinet, with a lacy cloth covering it, a potted plant sprouting fleshy leaves above. What had been the music system was a small chest of drawers. The shelf had real books, not tapes or CDs, and the computer had become a snakeskin-covered writing case, lying on an elegant polished desk.

An icy sweat broke out on his forehead; he felt dizzy and sick. Blindly he stumbled toward the stairs, the need to get to the bathroom overcoming even his fear of what might lie above. He reached the landing and turned the handle of the bathroom door. It was locked.

“Who's in there?” he shouted.

There was no answer.

“Come out, for god's sake!”

But no sound came from the other side of the door.

Trembling violently, he knelt down and pressed his eye to the keyhole. The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could just make out the shape of a narrow bed, a chair, a small cupboard with a candle burning in a plain white holder. There was no bath, no basin. And where there had once been tiles was now pale, striped wallpaper. Of an occupant there was no sign. The room was empty.

Fear turned the sweat on his forehead clammy; it even stopped the nausea in his throat. He slumped down with his back to the door, and for a few seconds, everything went black.

At last he got to his feet and walked slowly down the stairs.

When he reached the living room, she was waiting for him. He walked toward her. Then he stopped. He faced her, forcing her to look into his eyes.

“Who am I?”

She held out her hand and smiled politely. “Forgive me. I do not believe we have been introduced. My name is Maisie Holt.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Wrong Room

H
E WANTED TO RUN.
Out of the room, out of this terrible house, across the city to his own home, with his mother and father and the twins and the noise of the TV and the comforting sounds of the neighbors chatting and shouting and quarreling in the street below.

But he couldn't. Because the girl in front of him, with the blank eyes, the set smile, was his friend. She wasn't Maisie Holt. She was Hannah Price. And if he didn't help her now, no one else was going to.

“Listen, Maisie,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “We need to leave this house. I'm going to take you away from here.” He held out his hand, but she stepped back, frowning.

“Why should I go with you? I do not know who you are. Besides, if I am not here when Mama returns, how will she know where to find me?”

Although her words chilled him, they also reminded him of something. Hannah's mother. Hadn't she said she would be back by eight thirty? He glanced at the grandfather clock against the wall. Its familiarity was oddly reassuring, for this was one of the few objects in the room he recognized. Only its hands stood at nine fifteen. Where was Mrs. Price?

He tried to think clearly. If Hannah's mother was delayed for some reason, she couldn't call the landline because it wasn't working. Was it possible that she had tried Hannah's cell phone and they hadn't heard it? He had to find it. Still keeping his eyes on Hannah, he backed out of the room. In the hall, he searched feverishly for the bag she'd been wearing on her shoulder that afternoon. At last he found it—or what looked like it in the murky light—lying on the floor where she must have dropped it when they'd first come in. He groped inside until his hand met something cold and hard and oblong.

Withdrawing it, he felt eagerly for the keypad. Then suddenly his fingers lost their grip and the object fell to the floor with a light clatter. For the thing he'd been holding wasn't a cell phone. It was like something he'd seen once before, on a visit to the city museum—a Victorian metal spectacle case.

He leaned heavily against the banister rail, his knees trembling. The house was very still. The only sound came from the grandfather clock, quietly measuring out the seconds.

The open door to the living room showed only a single candle burning now, low and erratic. But he didn't want to go in there. Slowly he groped his way toward the kitchen. Then, in the doorway, he stopped, rigid with shock.

The dwindling light was just enough to define the outline of a room he no longer recognized. Where the refrigerator had stood was now a tall, brown-painted cupboard. There was no gleaming white oven—only a soot-blackened range. The dishwasher, the cabinets, the counter had all vanished, and in their place was a deep square sink with a rough board beside it, a scrubbed wooden table, and a tall cabinet hung with patterned cups.

A few seconds later, the light from across the hall finally died. The last candle had gone out.

It was utterly dark in the room now. And with the darkness came silence, thick and heavy. He strained his ears for sounds from outside but could hear no voices, no hum of distant traffic. A new terror seized him. What if it wasn't only this house that had changed? Supposing they were both trapped in some freak time warp, forced to spend the rest of their lives in an alien century? He tried to look out the window, but he could see nothing beyond the misty glass. If the real world existed out there, the house had shut it out. Sealed itself off. It seemed to hold its breath. Waiting.

A low whining noise almost made him jump out of his skin. Simultaneously, the kitchen leaped into light. The dresser, the range, the brown-painted cupboard, the scrubbed table had all vanished. The cabinets and counter were back, the electric clock was ticking on the wall, the refrigerator was humming, and from the living room came the sound of a man's voice announcing a news item. It was a little while before he realized that in addition to all this, the phone was ringing in the hall.

He stumbled toward it and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Sam? Is that you?” Mrs. Price sounded anxious. “I've been trying to reach Hannah all evening. Do you know where she is?”

A sound from behind made him look around to see a bewildered-looking Hannah standing in the doorway of the living room, rubbing her eyes. “Who's that?” The voice sounded sleepy, but it was hers.

Weak with relief, he turned back to the phone. “She's right here,” he breathed. “I'll hand you over.”

After giving her the receiver, Sam stayed in the hall for a few moments listening to her talk—not because he needed to know what she said, just for the comfort of hearing her voice. Hannah Price's voice. Then, after switching off the noise from the TV in the living room, he ran quickly up the stairs.

The bathroom door was ajar now, revealing the room's plain white interior. Only a very faint blue stripe where there was a missing tile gave a disturbing reminder of that terrifying glimpse through the keyhole. He crossed the landing and pushed open the door of the empty room. The walls were still damaged, discolored, but no worse than before. Nothing had changed. He glanced in through the door to Hannah's parents' room. Here again, all seemed normal, so far as he could tell.

He was about to check on Hannah's bedroom when a noise from above stopped him. A light, uneven tapping sound. Looking up, he noticed that in a corner of the ceiling just outside her room, there was a bulge underneath the plaster, where water had collected and was dripping onto the floor below. He had forgotten all about the rain, but now he remembered the smell of damp when they'd first come in. Somewhere there must be a hole in the roof. He went back into the bathroom, found an enamel bowl on a shelf, and placed it on the floor of the landing to catch the drips.

When he got back downstairs, Hannah was putting the phone down. “Uncle David's not well.”

“I know. That's what it said in the note.”

“What note?”

Sam swallowed. This was going to need careful handling. He decided to play for time. “Is he . . . seriously sick?”

“No, thank goodness. They thought it might be viral pneumonia, but it turns out it's just a bad chest infection. Mom was going to come back after seeing him, but she called to say she'll stay with my aunt tonight because she doesn't like driving in bad weather. She said she didn't mind leaving me here if you could stay. You can stay, can't you?”

“Yes. Listen. Do you . . . um . . . remember anything about what happened this evening?”

“I remember the storm, and getting back here. Then I guess I must have fallen asleep on the sofa. The phone woke me. Why? Was there a problem?”

Since a truthful answer to this was quite likely to give her nightmares for the next ten years, if not for the rest of her life, he didn't reply. The trouble was, if she hadn't been mentally traumatized by what had happened that night, he had. He still couldn't get rid of the sense that, just before the power was restored, the house had been on the point of some revelation. What if that revelation was still to come? Hannah was going to have to find out sooner or later.

She solved the immediate problem by suggesting they have something to eat.

This time it was she who prepared the meal while he stood in the doorway and watched her heating the soup in the microwave and making sandwiches. Glancing around the kitchen, rechecking its contents, Sam's eye fell on the little wooden box.

“Is this where you found the locket?”

She nodded.

He raised the lid, peered inside, and then pulled open the little papier-mâché box. “Ugh! These are teeth? That's gross! Who'd want to keep disgusting things like that?”

“A mother. Mom says she kept some of my first teeth, and”—she gave him a sly glance—“I wouldn't mind betting yours did too.”

“You think so?” He shook his head in disbelief. Then he unfolded the handkerchief, with its carefully sewn message:

To Dearest Mama

From your Loving

Daughter Maisie

Aged 9 years and 2 months

He regarded it thoughtfully for a few moments. “Did you say the box was found in your parents' room?”

“Yes. Under the floorboards.”

“And they're sleeping in the smaller room at the front? The one with a single window?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Hannah looked at him, puzzled. “You know why. It's because we can't use the big room. Otherwise they'd have chosen that one. Obviously. It's by far the nicer of the two.”

“I don't mean why are they sleeping there. I mean why, when that room's so much better, did you find the box in the
other
one?”

Hannah paused in the act of spreading butter, suddenly realizing the significance of this. Mrs. Holt would presumably have been able to choose any room she liked, so it seemed odd that she'd been prepared to settle for that one, while giving the larger room to her sister-in-law, whom she clearly didn't like much. Then Hannah shrugged and went back to making the sandwich. “Maybe she didn't like being woken early. The big room probably gets more light in the mornings. Come on. Let's eat.”

They had their meal sitting at the kitchen table. Sam said little, seeming preoccupied. Every so often he stole a glance at the box. “Those initials on the lid,” he said after a little while. “L.H. Presumably they're Mrs. Holt's?”

“They must be.”

“Do you know what her first name was?”

“No . . . I don't think anyone mentioned a first name.”

A few minutes later he pushed his plate away, though there was still half a sandwich left. “What did you do with that photograph?”

Hannah screwed up her eyes in an effort to remember. “I think I put it on the telephone table. It's probably gotten covered by a whole lot of other things since, though. Why?”

But Sam was already out of the room. She heard him shifting papers around; then a small grunt of satisfaction told her he'd found the photo. After that came silence.

“Sam?” she called, when half a minute had gone by and he still hadn't returned. “Are you okay?”

Slowly he walked back into the kitchen, carrying the photograph. Only it wasn't the front he was looking at. It was the back. He laid it facedown on the table and pointed to something written there in pencil. It was very faint, which must have been why she hadn't noticed it before, but it was still just legible. It said:

Mrs. Caroline Holt, Miss Laetitia Holt,

Maisie Holt, with staff at Cowleigh Lodge.

September 1875.

Hannah stared at the names, trying somehow to make the neat, faded lettering fit into the pattern they'd so carefully worked out. But it was no good. There seemed to be only one possible interpretation of the evidence in front of them. And that was that the little box of treasures had belonged not to Maisie's mother, but to her aunt. The woman who had apparently hated her niece so much that she was prepared to kill her.