I looked desperately both ways, gazed up to the garret and to the gloom of the main staircase. It had to be Greer. The creak of a foot sounded again on the attic treads and I moved closer and stared upwards. I yearned then to see Greer, but the stairwell remained empty. Then slowly from the coiling shadows a shape began to form, clotted in the blackness, and from its darkness something began to emerge. I could not take my gaze from it nor quell the way it gripped my fears in a vice. I wanted to shout, to call, but I was trapped by the horror of it.

‘Stop it,’ I managed to gasp at last, and the feet stilled. There was a shift in atmosphere and with slow deliberation, I felt the other consciousness turn to me and rest its eye upon mine. I could neither move nor scream.

I tried to draw away when something crept from its mass and pressed itself to my skin, the palest of touches, and with it, something else twined and bloomed in the air – a pitiless rage and hatred that left me breathless.

I stumbled back. The cadence of the hummed lullaby began again and wove around me, and its step began once more, up and up until it reached Hettie’s door. I was unable to unglue my feet because finally I knew: it had never been Greer who had walked the corridor at night. It had never been Greer who sang at my door. It had been Hettie. Always Hettie, from the very first night. And taking a key, I locked my room from the inside and lay on the covers, unable to stop the violent shaking while some note of stale perfume still hung in the air about me.

27

As I dressed, the shivering truth found a home in the very bones of me. Skelthsea was unbearable. Buttoning Mary’s dress, I caught my reflection in the mirror – my eyes wide as though still receiving the horror of Hettie’s night-time visit. My fingers were clumsy, and twice I had to undo and re-braid Mary’s hair. It seemed to me that I was more girl than woman as if, at some point, I had tricked myself into believing in my own adulthood.

After breakfast, wrapping her warmly, I took Mary and we walked towards the north beaches. Idly, we picked over shell and stone although neither of us was enthusiastic. It was when we reached the woods that I beckoned her and we climbed to a sheltered spot between the pines. Our feet sifted the scent of needles. Laying down my scarf upon a trunk, I took her hands in mine.

‘I need to talk to you, Mary,’ I said. ‘I know that you can speak. You must use your voice now.’

Her eyes recoiled.

‘You have no need to hide the truth from me. I know that you see them – William and Hettie.’