Mary gave her cousin a sideways look. “I . . . I saw your mother and mine,” she admitted. His eyes shot to hers. “Just now, when you fell. They were leaning over you as you lay on the floor. I think I’ve seen their ghosts before. I thought I was imagining it, but now I’m sure I’m not.” She shot him a warning look. “If you tell me I’m lying—”

“I won’t,” he interrupted. “Because I don’t think you are. I’ve . . . I’ve never told anyone this, Mary, but when the soldiers were here, and I could hear them crying out, I used to see my mother’s ghost. She would appear and stand beside me. I always felt she came to comfort me because she knew I was scared.”

“And now my mother has joined her,” said Mary wonderingly.

Colin hesitated and took hold of her hand, and they glanced around the secret room together. A room full of memories. Memories of twins who had meant the world to each other and memories of a house that had once been very different.

Filled with light, laughter, happiness, Mary thought, remembering Martha’s words. And now it’s just a prison filled with secrets.

As she spoke, a cloud passed over the moon, and Mary saw the ghostly figures of her mother and aunt standing at the window together, gazing out in the direction of the garden. They turned and looked at her with a wordless appeal in their eyes. This time she felt no fear, just curiosity. “What do you want?” she whispered to them. “What do you want me to do?”

And then the moon shone out again and the figures vanished, leaving just pale silver moonbeams tracing across the clothes on the floor.

14

The Robin’s Secret

When Mary was heading outside the next day, she passed the library and saw her uncle in front of the paintings of his wife. His face was rigid.

“No point keeping them,” she heard him mutter.

Mary crept past, but as she slipped outside, she thought about her uncle. He was a very strange man. Why didn’t he want to keep the pictures of his wife, and why did he keep Colin locked away, not letting him outside, and why did he tell him he had a hunchback?

Does he hate Colin? she wondered. After all, he didn’t go to him when he was sobbing with pain and he makes him take the medicine that he hates.

But even as the thoughts crossed her mind, Mary remembered the expression on her uncle’s face as he had hesitated outside Colin’s door. He had looked tortured. She shook her head. Why would her uncle look like that, but not go in to try to comfort Colin? It just didn’t make sense. This house has too many secrets, she thought.