To his surprise, Natasha burst out laughing. “You don’t believe in ghosts? Isn’t that a little bit of a strange thing for you to say, considering… well, everything?”
“You kind of have a point there, I guess,” Kieran said, flashing her a grin. “I guess it might seem a bit odd for me to rule it out as a possibility – I should keep an open mind.”
“Well, whatever it is, we probablydoneed to find out more,” Natasha said, a sudden determined gleam entering her eyes. “Because I donotwant to be interrupted again!”
Warmth kindled in Kieran’s belly at the words – and at the indomitable way Natasha stood up from the sofa, looking around, her mouth set in a firm line.
“Those sounds came from the attic,” she said, looking up. “I think, anyway. They were so loud they seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. Have you had a look up there yet?”
“No, not yet,” Kieran admitted, joining her in standing up. “There used to be a trapdoor in the upstairs ceiling that led up to there, but now I can’t find it – or my memory of where it is is faulty. But the first night this happened, my griffin kind of took over right away and flew me out of the house – the sounds freaked it outbad.And then the next couple of times I was here I didn’t hear it much, so I figured it was some weird, one-off thing. Clearly though, if it’s a ghost, we’re going to have to do something about that.”
“I wonder if the local exterminators deal with ghost infestations,” Natasha wondered as together, they headed for the main stairs that led up to the second floor of the house from the foyer. “Though to be honest, I’d prefer a catch and release strategy. Do you think ghosts are territorial? Would they just come back if we moved them somewhere else?”
Kieran laughed. “Well, who can say? Maybe they’ll be amenable to some kind of time-share arrangement.”
“Let’s hope so,” Natasha said, joining in with his laughter.
It seemed odd to be laughing about the possibility of ghosts, Kieran thought – but then, what else was there to do about a situation like this? And besides which, ever since he’d finally told Natasha the truth – thewholetruth – he’d felt as if a block of ice that had been sitting in his stomach had suddenly melted, leaving him feeling lighter and warmer than he had inmonths. Perhaps he’d been carrying that strange knot of cold tension around within himself for so long now that he hadn’t even noticed it was there anymore, until, finally, it was gone.
“In my memory, the trapdoor cover used to be here,” Kieran said, pointing upward at the ceiling once they’d ascended the stairs. “But clearly, I was wrong.”
“Hmm,” Natasha said, glancing around, until her eyes fell on the long row of cupboards that lined the wall.
Kieran immediately saw what she was seeing: the cupboards were obviously a later addition to the house, the wood less worn than the wood the floor was made out of, and the way they fit against the wall slightly imperfect. Not to mention, the standard of the carpentry on them also wasn’t quite as high as the rest of the house – it was a small difference, but the rest of the house, despite the disrepair, was so well-made that once he’d noticed it, Kieran couldn’t help but see all the other small faults in the way the cupboards were constructed. It was stillgoodwork, but it looked like the work of a very skilled amateur, rather than the master craftsmen who’d clearly worked on the rest of the house.
“Were those always there?” Natasha asked after a moment.
Kieran shook his head – but really, he couldn’t remember enough about these details to be sure. “Not from the look of them, but I don’t remember if they were here when I was a kid.”
Walking over to the closest one, he opened the door. The cupboard smelled musty inside, but it was empty, and there were no shelves or anything else inside that would have made it work as storage. In fact, there was nothing inside it at all – instead of being a cupboard, it looked more like a very, very small room. But there, in the ceiling, was the trapdoor that Kieran had vaguely remembered from his childhood.
“I guess it was here all along, then,” he murmured, as he reached up to grab the string to open it. It was frayed and it almost came apart in his hands as he pulled on it, but still, it held, if only just, and the trapdoor came open, the steps leading up to the attic descending as it did, stopping just at the edge of the cupboard, with barely enough room to climb them.
Kieran glanced at Natasha. “Do you really think there’s ghosts up there?”
Pursing her lips a little, Natasha shook her head. “Yesterday I would have said definitely not. But yesterday I would have said you were telling, uh, untruths when you told me you turned into a griffin, and look how that turned out. So let’s just say I’m not ruling anything out right now.”
Just as she finished speaking, another round of unbelievably loudthuds echoed through the house. Again, Kieran thought that with the strength of them, the house should have been shaking on its foundations. But no – it was still only the noise, and nothing else.
It was weird. It wasspooky. It really wasn’t any wonder the local teenagers – and diner owners – had decided this place was haunted.
“Even if itisghosts, I doubt they’re just going to appear in front of us and own up to everything,” Kieran pointed out.
“Well, if we can’t figure it out, at least we can always go back to my B&B,” Natasha said, shooting him a mildly wicked grin. “No ghosts there… well, that I’ve heard anything from, anyway.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kieran said, as, a little gingerly, he put his foot on the first step of the ladder.
The air in the attic was even mustier than the air inside the cupboard, and spiderwebs hung from the rafters, dust thick on the floor. The space was cavernous, and filled with old furniture and other indistinct shapes covered with dust cloths. Kieran knew it’d be a lot of work to sort through all of this stuff, but right now, he was focused solely on trying to figure out the mystery of the thumping sounds.
He had to admit, he didn’t know the first thing about ghosts, though – would they just appear before him? Or was the ghost actually just the sounds? Maybe it didn’t have any kind of form that he could see with his eyes at all –
Well, not that it actuallyisghosts anyway,Kieran thought, shaking his head.I’m sure there must be some completely logical explanation for all of this. And even if there isn’t, then it’s not like ghosts are just going to appear in front of us and announce that – whoa!
Kieran’s thoughts abruptly cut off as, suddenly, a shimmer of blue cut through the dusty gloom of the attic space, bright enough that he had to lift his hand to cover his eyes. Beside him, he could sense Natasha doing the same – and within him, his griffin was leaning forward curiously, eyes darting, senses on high alert.
It didn’t seemalarmed, however – nothing like the first night they had been here, when it’d insisted on getting them out of the house just as fast as it could.
Is – is it dangerous?he asked it, hoping he could trust its instincts.Do I need to get Natasha out of here?!
