Daisy and Rose…Alex narrowed her eyes. The dust swirled softly around the girl, and in the half-light of the room Alex might almost be convinced that it formed two clusters, not much bigger than Maeve herself. Almost.
‘Are they here now?’ she asked dubiously.
Maeve frowned. ‘Yes…’ She sounded wary now, as if afraid that she was in trouble. And when Nick found out about this she probably would be.
‘Maeve, did you come up here all by yourself?’
‘I walked. I was very careful. I didn’t use the roads.’
Oh, sweet Jesus, Alex thought. Anything could have happened to her. She could have got lost in the woods. She could be dead in a ditch. She was only six, for God’s sake. Patricia had to be losing her mind about now.
‘Downstairs,’ Alex said. ‘Now, while I ring your grandmother.’
Maeve looked horrified. ‘But she’ll be cross.’
‘Oh, you bet she will.’ Alex was already pulling up the number on her phone.
Maeve began to cry, loudly, miserably, a long wail of a small child who didn’t know how to get out of whatever trouble she had just landed herself in.
Patricia answered the phone on the first ring, her voice pained and panicked. ‘Alex?’
‘She’s here at the Hall. I just found?—’
A cardboard box flew off the top of one of the piles, just as if someone had hurled it right at Alex with all the strength in them.She turned just in time, and the box hit her shoulder, spinning her around, sending the papers inside flying around her like giant demented butterflies.
‘Daisy, no!’ Maeve wailed, dismayed and horrified. ‘Stop!’
‘Enough,’ Alex snapped, a voice of authority she wasn’t even aware she could produce. Not at Maeve, but at the air beside her, and a figure shimmered into view. Just for a second. A little girl, like Maeve. And then she was gone again. Another pile of boxes started to shake threateningly. ‘Daisy, Rose, just stop it. Now.’
Patricia’s voice sounded tinny on the phone still in her hand. Damn, she was still there and now she sounded pissed off.Reallypissed off.
Alex winced and put the phone back to her ear. She couldn’t afford to get into an argument right now. Better to be short and sweet. ‘Dr Neary? Sorry, something fell. She’s fine. She’s here with me. We’ll wait for you. I’ll call Nick. Let him know what’s happened.’
She hung up, aware of the ominous presences behind her even as she brought up Nick’s number and pressed the screen. ‘Maeve, let’s go downstairs,’ she said, carefully gentling her voice. The malice fizzled in the air around them. This wasn’t good. None of it.
Nick sounded out of breath when he answered, but he didn’t hide the concern in his voice at her calling him. The tone, however, said that he didn’t know. Not yet. Damn. ‘Alex? What’s wrong?’
‘Maeve’s here at the house. She just showed up on her own. We’re in the attic. I phoned Patricia but I think?—’
‘What?I-I’m on my way.’
That was all he said. The line cut off and Alex wasn’t sure if he’d hung up or the signal had just died. In this house, anything was possible.
Maeve was sobbing loudly, thoroughly miserable now. She leaned against the wall, her hands over her face.
Alex felt terrible but all she could do now was damage control. ‘Look, let’s go down to the kitchen and find out if your dad left any biscuits around.’
‘He m-makes the best b-biscuits,’ Maeve agreed, hiccoughing through the sentence. She held out her hand for Alex to take. But as Alex reached for her, she snatched it away. No, not snatched. It was more like someone hit it aside. Maeve gave a little gasp of pain and alarm. ‘No, Rose! That’s nasty. She’s my friend too.’
Another flicker of movement and this time Alex saw both the girls glimmer into view. Maeve’s age. Barely older than their portraits downstairs. Daisy was blonde with ringlets, her face a soft oval with rosy cheeks, like her portrait. Rose had dark hair in plaits, and she smiled at Alex in a slightly unsettling way. Too intently, too fixed.
Their scrutiny was powerful. As if something else was looking out through those eyes. It reminded her too keenly of Blaise Chambers.
‘I-I’m your relative,’ Alex said, because she couldn’t think of anything else, not when they looked at her like that.Like sharks, something deep inside her whispered, and she wanted to curl up and hide. ‘Sort of.’
What was she to them? She didn’t know the family tree. A cousin? Or great-great-great-niece or…something… Cousin. Cousin was easier. Quicker too.
‘I remember you,’a voice whispered, a little girl’s voice with an edge of something else.‘You were here before. Long ago. We only wanted to play. Blaise said we could. Butshewouldn’t let you play with us, the old witch…’
