And yet for all the fear and misadventures the three of them had endured in the pursuit of truth, at least she had had her family around her. Even in the darkest moments of her life, it had been her brother and sisters who had given her strength.

Take courage: those had been Anne’s last words to her, and take courage she must, for there was no alternative but to continue. Charlotte took one more long look at Top Withens, searching for any remaining traces of the infestation of wickedness that had once thrived here, but to her relief, she could find none. These days Top Withens was a quiet house occupied by a quiet and decent family man.

But in December of 1845, things had been very different.

1

The scream ripped through the frozen air, sharp as a knife.

Liston Bradshaw sat bolt upright in bed, his quick breaths misting in the freezing air. Outside a snowstorm raged, and the wind tore around Top Withens Hall, imprisoning it in a howling, furious vortex of noise. When the dreadful cry sounded for the second time, Liston stumbled out of bed, dragging on his breeches and shoving his bare feet into his boots. Careering down the stairs into the hall, he heard his father’s violent shouts.

“Begone with you, demon, begone!” Clifton Bradshaw railed at thin air. Liston arrived to see his father swivelling this way and that, a rusty old sword from above the fireplace in his hand, as he jabbed at and threatened empty spaces. His eyes were wild with fright and red with drink. The hounds barked madly at his side, in turn cowering from and snarling at some invisible threat. “Show yourself, and let me fight you!”

“What is it, Pa?” Liston asked as the latest scream died away, and he searched out every dark corner for the phantom intruder. “Why are we cursed so?”

“I’m mortal afraid that she has come back to claim my soul,” Clifton told his son, his voice trembling.

“Who? Is there someone outside?” Liston went to the door, grabbing a poker from the fireplace.

“There’s no one outside, fool,” Bradshaw spat. “This fury comes from within the house. It comes to take revenge.”

When the wailing came again, it was heavy with a piercing, plaintive sorrow that soaked the very air in grief. His father was right. There was no mistaking it: the cries were coming from the oldest part of the house, from the rooms that his father had shut up on the day Liston’s mother died, and none had set foot in them since.

“Mary.” Bradshaw’s face crumbled as he spoke his dead wife’s name aloud, dragging the sword across the stone flags. “Mary, why do you hate me so? Please, I beg you. Tell me what you want from me!”

“Pa?” Liston called after him uncertainly.

“Are you coming, or will you be a milksop all your life?”