The Stone House Read online

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ Miss Quill says, shoving open the door that the police had kindly broken open for them.

  They walk through into what must once have been a grand hallway. Thin slices of light shine through the sides of heavy curtains, showing up a high ceiling and a wooden staircase sweeping up to the first floor. An ornate railing runs across the open first-floor landing. There’s a funny smell. Dust, old shoe soles, and mould.

  Miss Quill yanks back the curtains. One of them comes away from the rail, crumpling to the floor. A floorboard creaks as if in protest.

  ‘Shouldn’t we leave it as it is?’ Tanya asks. ‘Just look around?’

  ‘I need to see what I’m doing, thank you, Miss Adeola. If something is here then I do not want to be surprised. Here,’ Miss Quill says, reaching into her bag and taking out six torches. She turns hers on and hands the others around.

  ‘See,’ says April, nudging Ram. ‘It’s not just me.’

  ‘Oh, great,’ Ram says. ‘I’m dating Miss Quill Mark Two.’

  ‘That’s an insult,’ Miss Quill says, over her shoulder.

  ‘To you or me?’ April says.

  ‘To Miss Quill Mark Two,’ Miss Quill Mark 1 says. ‘She did her best, but war was not for her.’

  Charlie shakes his head, closes his eyes, and mutters something in another language that sounds a bit like prayer. Sometimes it’s best not to ask.

  Tanya shines her torch around the hallway. Sleeping bags slump in one corner, surrounded by empty cans and packets of crisps. Cobwebs cover everything apart from the floor and the banister of the staircase. Little piles of dust are dotted around, as if someone’s been sweeping and forgotten to clear up. Miss Quill takes samples of the dust and the thick cobwebs.

  They walk through into a small room with an armchair, a fireplace, and loads and loads of dolls in different national costumes. An aunt gave Tanya one of them once. She’d brought it back from a holiday in Spain, which felt very much like, ‘I get to go on holiday, you get to have a weird flamenco doll with no genitals and castanets stuck to her palms.’

  The blank-eyed plastic girls stare out from their shelves in crisp national dress. There’s a lot of man-made fabric in the room. One hot day and they’ll all catch fire.

  ‘Given how weird this place is, how about we all split up and go explore? Like in a horror film,’ Ram says, ‘that way we can get killed off in turn until one of us is left.’

  ‘That’ll be me, then,’ April says.

  ‘You’ll be the first to go,’ Tanya says. ‘I’ll be last, having worked out that it was Charlie all along.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘It’s always the gorgeous one.’

  ‘Then it should be me, obviously,’ Ram says.

  ‘Are you really arguing about which one of you is the serial killer while we’re walking round a spooky old house?’ Tanya asks.

  ‘Would you please all SHUT UP,’ April shouts, whirling around with the torch, then takes a step back as if she’s surprised even herself.

  ‘Thank you, April,’ Miss Quill calls out, already walking through into the adjoining room. ‘You saved me the trouble.’

  Torchlight crisscrosses the room. It’s a kitchen with all the usual kitchen things in it but about a hundred years old. Freestanding oven. Battered fridge freezer, empty. An old-style wide sink that plates would smash in if they slipped, next to it a draining board with a saucepan, bowl, plate, and mug in it. They were still wet. ‘Someone has been here,’ Tanya says. ‘Only one, I think, and recently.’ She puts down her bag and looks around, opening cupboards.

  ‘Probably one of the homeless people the policeman mentioned,’ April says.

  ‘Could be the girl we saw in the window,’ Tanya replies.

  ‘Come on, why would someone trapped inside and screaming for help do the washing up?’ Ram asks. His tone is scathing.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s forced to?’ Tanya says, anger rising. A strong picture of the young woman comes into her head, of her being shouted at and flinching, dodging back from an open fist.

  ‘Stop squabbling and be quiet,’ Miss Quill hisses. ‘I agreed to come along on this foolish quest of yours, Tanya, if you’d do as I say. If you don’t do as I say then I’ll make you do the washing up in the staff room for the rest of the term. Teachers get through a lot of food. There are so many jam doughnuts in there, they look like vampires at lunchtime.’ She pauses. ‘That would, in fact, explain a lot.’

  ‘The oven is still hot,’ April says, placing her hand against it. ‘The gas must still be connected.’ She walks across to the tap. ‘And the water’s still on.’ She tries the light switch. Nothing happens. ‘But not the electricity. Why would the gas and water be connected if no one’s living here?’

  ‘Maybe the developers keep it on?’ Tanya says. ‘They’ll need water. Don’t know why they’d need gas but not electricity though.’

  ‘You two are actually enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Ram says, shaking his head. He picks one of the empty tin cans out of the bin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Whoever it is really likes tomato soup. Must be twenty tins of the stuff in there. Urgh.’ He washes his hand under the tap and flicks water at April.

  ‘Tinned pasta, too. And beans. And mandarin segments,’ Tanya says, pointing to a cupboard stacked with the stuff.

  ‘Orange, slippery, and tinned,’ Ram says. ‘That’s a balanced diet.’

  ‘Can we get on?’ Miss Quill says. She sounds bored. ‘We are not undertaking an inventory.’

  ‘Is anyone here?’ Tanya shouts out. ‘We’re here to help.’

  ‘Were you listening when I told you to be quiet, Tanya? Or did you just think you’d ignore me, given that I said I’d join if, and only if, you followed my lead?’ Miss Quill places her hands on her hips and stares. She doesn’t blink. She could be a staring champion.

  ‘I’m sorry, but we’re here to find her,’ Tanya says. ‘It’s no good if she doesn’t know we’re here.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean announcing yourself like a teen town crier,’ Miss Quill says.

  ‘Yes, Miss Quill,’ Tanya says, opening a door into a utility room. An old washing machine squats in the corner. Its one big eye gleams in the torch beam like a Cyclops. Pieces of rope hang from left to right across the ceiling. Two T-shirts and a huge jumper are draped across them, just about dry, although the material has a slightly damp feel.

  ‘Well, someone’s definitely here,’ Miss Quill says. Ram knocks a tin off the shelf in his hurry to get into the utility room. It rolls across the floor. ‘And I think it’s likely that she, or someone, now knows we’re here.’

  She places a finger on her lips. They listen for noises. Nothing.

  Miss Quill unlocks the door into the conservatory. ‘This is where you came in?’ she asks, looking at the draped furniture and an apple that had rolled across the floor.

  ‘Waste not, want not,’ April says, picking up the bruised apple and eating it. ‘Urgh.’ She makes a face and looks at the fruit. It’s brown and woolly inside, wrinkled up as if left on a sunbed too long.

  ‘Those apples you gave us didn’t last long, April,’ Tanya says.

  ‘I had one of them from the same pack today,’ April says, frowning. ‘It was fine.’

  ‘Come on,’ Miss Quill says, ‘there’s the rest of the house to not find anyone in. Sooner we finish, the sooner I can get back to Orange Is the New Black.’

  They walk back into the reception hall and then a small dining room on the other side. A tall shape stands in the corner. Miss Quill shoots her arm out, blocking their way. Tanya flashes her torch at it. It’s a standard lamp. Ram laughs, then covers his mouth. The shadow of the shade on the wall looks like a detective in a fedora.

  A long table takes up the centre of the room. It’s covered in comics, all laid out in double-spreads. Most are yellow and brittle. Miss Quill picks one up. One of the pages falls to the floor.

  ‘Careful,’ says Ram, ‘they could be valuab
le.’

  Miss Quill places it back down and scans the table full of old Beanos and Dandys. ‘You’re sure there were no kids here?’

  ‘We didn’t find any evidence when we looked into Alice’s history,’ Tanya says, walking around the room. ‘No birth or death certificates, no school attendance or anything else.’ There’s another stack of newspapers at the end of the table, all copies of the same paper, from June last year. Miss Quill takes one and puts it in her bag. As Tanya crouches down to read one, she notices six piles of dust at equal distance around the table, as if guests at a last supper were blasted to ashes in their chairs. Some host, this old lady.

  They move through to the hallway, aware of their footsteps echoing around the house, and into the lounge. Miss Quill opens the velvet curtains, but hardly any light comes in. The sun has ducked out of sight. They’re completely reliant on torches now.

  A huge box of an ancient television is in the corner, topped with dusty glasses and a decanter of something now evaporated. Miss Quill sniffs at the lip of the decanter.

  ‘Amontillado,’ she says.

  Two armchairs are placed on either side of a fire. Grey ash covers the grate. April sits down. Dust rises, making her cough. ‘If there are ghosts in the house,’ she says, looking around the room, ‘then they’re really quiet, well-behaved ones.’

  ‘The kind of ghosts you can take home to your mum,’ Ram replies.

  Tanya says nothing, embarrassment growing. Looks like she’s brought everyone here for nothing. Perhaps she imagined the girl. Maybe Ram is going along with it to set her up. Any minute now he’ll turn round and laugh at her.

  Ram lifts the lid off a ginger jar on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Are you in there, Faceless Alice?’ he says, in a séance-spooky voice. ‘Speak to us.’ Not the actions of a boy who wants to placate.

  ‘If there is nothing here,’ April says, ‘and that looks likely, then we’re trespassing for no reason.’

  ‘Bet we saw one of the homeless people,’ Ram says. Tanya knows he’s speaking to her but doesn’t meet his gaze. ‘She probably ran when the police came.’

  ‘Or when you and Tanya paid a visit,’ Miss Quill says. ‘I’d run away from you two if I had the chance. From all of you.’ She looks around the room. ‘Where’s Charlie? And Matteusz?’

  ‘Haven’t seen them,’ Tanya says.

  Miss Quill mutters to herself and strides out of the lounge into the hallway and stops so abruptly at the entrance to the dining room that Tanya bumps into her.

  Charlie and Matteusz are snogging. Charlie is sitting on the dining room table with Matteusz standing between his knees. Charlie wraps his legs around Matteusz’s and draws him nearer.

  Miss Quill opens her mouth to speak but Tanya digs her in the ribs. She shakes her head. If Charlie and Matteusz notice them, they either don’t show it or don’t care. Tanya and Miss Quill move back into the hall.

  ‘Well, isn’t this a fun way to spend an evening?’ Miss Quill says.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tanya says.

  ‘I would say it’s not your fault, but . . .’

  A crash comes from the next floor. Charlie and Matteusz run out, meeting the rest of them in the hallway. ‘Stay there, all of you,’ Miss Quill says, sprinting up the stairs.

  None of them stays there.

  THIRTEEN

  DON’T LOOK

  I am on the first floor when they come in. I crouch, staying close to the railings. Their torches don’t find me. They’re so busy looking that they can’t see.

  Now they’re running up the stairs, led here by the house. What’s it doing? What does it want?

  This is a game to them. If they’ve come to search out horrors, they will find them. Only not the ones they think. They’ll find their own nightmares staring and asking questions they’d buried. At this moment, Ummi sits next to me. She’s lost her headscarf and her hair is wet. She refuses to look at me. If I speak to her, she turns her head away. I’ve said I’m sorry, again and again.

  The girl who saw me is the only one here to help, the others don’t believe. If she does, and I can get out of the house, I won’t see my mother’s drowned face anymore, but then I also won’t see her happy face, the one I catch a glimpse of in corridors.

  I crawl under the bed so that I’m doubly hidden. Part of me wills her to find me. Another part wants her to go away and never come back, for her sake and mine.

  FOURTEEN

  LEAVE NOW

  Miss Quill stops on the first floor. ‘One time,’ she says when they all reach the landing, ‘you’ll do exactly what I say.’ She’s not even slightly out of breath. She looks round, calculating. Several doors lead off the landing. Another set of stairs leads up to the next floor.

  Tanya can hear her own breathing. Is it normally that loud? And her heart. If she can just stop it thumping so loudly then maybe no one else will know how scared she is.

  A second crash comes from above them. Miss Quill is off up the next set of stairs to the top floor. The ceilings are lower up here and the corridors tighter. It feels as if the walls are pressing in.

  The loudest crash yet.

  ‘It’s in the end room,’ Miss Quill whispers.

  Charlie swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as if in a Halloween barrel.

  Miss Quill gestures for them to walk behind her down the corridor. The carpet is old and worn, its pattern swirling like vortices in the torchlight.

  ‘No, please,’ a woman’s voice pleads behind the door. Miss Quill tries to open the door but it’s locked. She takes out her skeleton key and raises an eyebrow at us. The door clicks open.

  It’s a large room with a low ceiling, slanted on the side that looks out over the garden. A sliver of moon picks out a wooden chest of drawers, fallen onto its front. Its drawers are scattered and shattered across the room.

  Their torches flash onto two made-up beds, a trunk, and a wardrobe. Tanya gets down on her hands and knees by the beds. She lifts up the drapes that hang over the first one. Her heart is too loud again. If someone’s under there, they’ll hear it. The torchlight shines right through to the other side. Under the bedstead lies one of the national costume dolls. She wears a gold headdress.

  Something scuttles above them. Plaster flakes from the ceiling.

  ‘There’s an attic,’ April whispers, pointing to a hatch. ‘Whoever it is must have gone up there just before we came in.’

  ‘But how? There’s no ladder in here,’ Ram says. He checks in the wardrobe to make sure. It’s full of musty-smelling dresses. A moth flies out, heading for his torch.

  ‘It’s probably up there and can be pulled down when you need it,’ April says.

  Charlie hauls the chest of drawers upright and drags it across the floor, placing it underneath the hatch. Using Matteusz for support, he steps up and pushes at the board.

  ‘It won’t move,’ he says.

  The scuttling pauses, then moves quickly across the floorboards.

  ‘It’s going this way,’ April says, following the sound. She walks out of the door into the hallway.

  It slams shut.

  ‘April!’ Ram shouts, pulling at the handle. It doesn’t move. Charlie joins in but it’s not going anywhere.

  ‘I can’t get in,’ April shouts through the door.

  Miss Quill uses the key again but it’s fixed in place. Something is stopping it from turning.

  ‘We can’t get out,’ Ram shouts.

  ‘Something is holding it on the other side,’ Matteusz says.

  ‘It’s not me,’ April shouts, then suddenly screams.

  There’s a thud, then a dragging sound.

  ‘April. APRIL!’ Ram shouts.

  No answer.

  He crashes into the door with his shoulder. ‘It won’t move.’

  ‘We’d better hope someone is on the other side,’ Tanya replies. ‘Otherwise—’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ Charlie interrupts.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Leave it, Ta
nya,’ Miss Quill says. Tanya leaves it.

  ‘So now I’m trapped in a room with you lot,’ Ram says. ‘Great. Thanks, Tanya.’

  ‘So now I’m blamed when something does happen as well as when it doesn’t?’

  ‘We shouldn’t have been here in the first place,’ Charlie says.

  ‘You were the one who said that it’s our duty to check out abnormalities,’ Tanya says. ‘And looks like I was right to be worried.’

  ‘This isn’t the time for “I told you so”,’ Miss Quill says. Her ear is close to the wall, as if listening to it.

  A screeching sound comes from down the landing. The door opens, slowly, as if it had never been locked. Closes after them.

  They run into the hallway, torches held out. Ram pushes past until he gets to the top of the staircase. April lies at the top. Not moving.

  ‘Don’t touch her,’ Miss Quill says. ‘She could be injured.’ She checks her pulse, listens to her chest, and opens her eyelid.

  ‘Is she okay?’ Ram asks. His voice breaks in the middle.

  ‘She’s been knocked out but she’s breathing.’

  The wind careens down the hall, knocking pictures off the wall.

  April murmurs and tries to move her head. She winces.

  ‘Don’t move too quickly,’ Miss Quill says. ‘You may have a concussion.’ She looks up. ‘Someone phone for an ambulance.’

  Ram crouches next to April and holds her hand while Matteusz takes out his phone and, moving closer to the stairs, calls 999. Charlie looks over to him, worry sharp on his face. It’s as if they are linked. Tanya can’t imagine being linked like that. She’d like to. Longs to. It’s like the front of her chest is pulling her towards someone but she doesn’t know who or how they’ll be found. It’s always there, that longing, for someone who’d know her properly, not as the smart arse in the wrong year, the girl with the answer to everything, but as the girl who doesn’t know what to do.

  Someone who wants to be next to her. Someone to learn with, and not just the prame numbers of the Renyalin series.

  And then it starts. The howling.

  It’s in the room they’ve just come from, sounding like a wounded animal slamming against the walls of a cage. Flashes come from under the door.