'I mean it, you fucking spazzo,' she said, her mouth shaping into a snarl. 'You just fucking wait—What was that?'
Quentin gawped at her. 'What was what?'
'There was a noise.'
'Didn't hear it.'
They looked around, both silent, listening hard.
Seraphina jumped. 'There it was again.'
'Think I heard it that time,' whispered Quentin, his eyes bulging in alarm.
'Where'd it come from?'
'Dunno. Up there, I think.' He lifted his chin, indicating the stairway.
They remained motionless for a full minute. But there were no other sounds.
Seraphina finally let go of a breath that briefly clouded. 'Probably just the house,' she remarked in a murmur.
'Or ghosts.' Despite his fright, Quentin leered at her.
'Shut up, Quenty.'
'You shut up.'
Seraphina made up her mind. 'I'm gonna find her bedroom. You coming or not?'
'Not.'
Carrying the bin-liner in one hand, fingers wrapped tightly round the top to confine the smell, Seraphina strode purposefully towards the broad oak staircase. She muttered something to herself when she trod in another puddle. When she was at the first stair, her foot lifting to take it, the sound came again.
She immediately became still, her foot poised. It had been a kind of swishing noise that ended loudly.
Swish-thwack!
It was coming from upstairs.
As she craned her neck to see, a shape moved in the darkness of a doorway. It must have been the door to a windowless room, because it was completely black beyond the threshold. No, not completely black: the shape was blacker and it was still moving.
It was the next swish-thwack! that galvanized her. She hurried away from the stairs, not bothering to avoid the little pools of water but treading as softly as she could.
'Quick,' she hissed to her dumbstruck brother. 'Someone's coming!'
'Let's get out,' he whispered back, at least appreciating the need to speak quietly.
'No time. Look, in there.' Seraphina was pointing at the open door she had noticed earlier. It was the nearest exit to them, somewhere to hide. She just hoped the person upstairs hadn't seen them yet.
She pushed her brother towards the opening, both of them treading carefully even though in haste. The sound from the landing above was getting louder.
Swish-thwack!
Every few seconds now.
They scuttled through the gap, as quietly as possible, Seraphina tight behind Quentin as though they were playing spoons. By the light that stretched across the hall from the tall window, they could see a stairway leading down to a basement area. Quentin had to descend two steps so that his sister could squeeze in after him.
Swish-thwack!
Almost one sound.
Footsteps now. Soft footsteps that made the boards of the stairs under the window creak.
Seraphina pulled the door they hid behind closed; mercifully the hinges did not squeak. She was very careful not to make a noise when the door shut completely. They were in darkness. When their eyes adjusted, they could only make out a line of light from beneath the door. They waited, trying to control their panicky breaths in case they were overheard.
A pungent, musty, dank smell and a soft rushing sound came from below. Seraphina soon realized its source. Her mother had also told her of the well in Crickley Hall's cellar; it dropped to the underground river that eventually joined the Bay River before reaching the sea. Mum and Megan never went down there, not even out of curiosity. Neither of them liked the idea, but couldn't say why exactly.
Cold draughts came up the cellar steps to chill the girl and her brother even more. Seraphina felt Quentin shivering next to her as they crouched in the darkness and she became aware that she was shivering too. And it wasn't because of the cold.
'Can you hear it any more?' Quentin whispered close to her ear.
She thought she could, but the background sound of rushing water and the closed door itself muted it.
Swish-thwack!
Distant.
And then there was a noise behind them. They turned their heads and stared into the pitch-black below, straining their eyes to see and their ears to listen.
It was faint. At first. But it grew slightly louder. A shuffling. Like a shoe scraping stone, underneath the noise of the underground river but audible nevertheless.
'Oh fuck, there's someone down there!' Quentin blurted out, his voice shrill, but still a whisper. A very frightened whisper.
'Can't be,' Seraphina hissed back. She had caught Quentin's fear. 'The house is supposed to be empty. You saw them leave. We rang the bell and knocked on the door. No one came. There can't be anyone at home.' She was rambling, trying to calm herself with her own logic.
Swish-thwack!
That sounded louder, as if someone were coming down the hall's stairway.
But again, that thud-scraping noise from the cellar behind them.
Quentin was scrabbling around for something in the dark; his elbow kept prodding her. He was looking for something in his anorak pockets.
The boy bit his lower lip. It wasn't in the right-hand pocket. It had to be in the left. A gasp of relief as his shaky fingers closed around the mini-torch he always kept in his anorak. The mornings were growing gloomier as winter approached and he carried the little plastic torch with him on the egg round so that he wouldn't trip over anything in the dark. He brought the torch out now, but his sister caught his attention by swearing under her breath.
'What?' he demanded, keeping his voice low.
'There's water coming in,' she replied.
Seraphina had been kneeling on the top step, her ear pressed against the door. But she had jerked away when water from the hall oozed under it like slick oil. It had soaked the knees of her blue joggers and was beginning to trickle down the stairs. She stood, careful not to lose her balance and topple backwards. Quentin startled her by switching on the torch.
Its beam was poor, the batteries weak, but a circle of light appeared on the door they hid behind. He lowered the angle so the light went to the bottom of the door.
They saw a broad stream of water seeping through the gap at the bottom, spreading and slowly flowing over onto the first step. The water crept forward until it overflowed onto the second step.
Swish-thwack!
Louder than before, but still muffled by the constant flow of the underground river.
Thud. Followed by the scraping.
That came from downstairs, from the pitch-black cellar.
His hand trembling wildly, Quentin turned the torch so that its limited beam shone down the steps. They heard the thud again. Followed by the scraping on stone, like something being dragged. A leg perhaps, the first sound a heavy footstep.
They barely noticed that the water from outside had reached the third step and was beginning to flow like spring water.
Although the torchlight was feeble, Seraphina and Quentin could make out a small area of the cellar. Something was coming into view.
'Seph!' Quentin screeched when he saw what that something was. Most of it was in shadow, but the sight was enough to loosen his bladder so that pee ran down his leg and joined the stream of water that was now flowing like a brook over stones.
Seraphina also screeched at the umbrageous form that stood near the foot of the steps. The shadows emphasized its undefined horror rather than concealed it.