'Then you explain the paranormal activity that's been going on since you got here,' Lili came back at him, 'all the things Eve has told me about.'
At last Lili was showing some defiance, thought Eve, secretly glad. Before, Lili had seemed a little cowed by Gabe's verbal disdain. Now she delivered her words with the same brittle coldness that she'd used when Eve had visited the shop yesterday.
'I can't,' said Gabe, shaking his head in frustration. 'I don't know. But I don't want it to be my family's problem.'
'You can't just walk away from it.'
'Watch us.'
'There are young children involved, lost children.'
'But not real kids.'
'They need our help.'
'Your help. We don't have that psychic thing.' The last two words were derisory.
'And if I can find your missing son at the same time?'
Gabe's mouth shut tight. His fists clenched.
'Lili spoke to Cam,' Eve said as if daring her husband to disbelieve. 'He knows we're here.'
Lili faltered. 'I… I didn't speak to him. Somehow our minds connected, that was all. It was as if he was searching and had finally found what he was looking for. It wasn't very clear, I couldn't be certain it was him. But I can try again. Not now—I feel as if I've been drained dry—but soon, maybe even tomorrow?'
'Forgive my cynicism'—he didn't sound in the least bit sorry—'but is that how you get your kicks, stringing gullible people along with your talk of contacting lost souls by mind-power?'
Eve was almost out of her seat. 'That's unfair! I went to Lili, not the other way round.'
'Okay, okay.' He held up a penitent hand. 'I'm just saying maybe she's even deluding herself, thinking she can talk to dead people or that she has telepathic powers. Look, I don't know how or why, but I think this house musters up hallucinations, even in sceptics like me.'
Eve shook her head in dismay. 'You think all this is our imagination? The footsteps in the attic, the knocking behind the empty cupboard doors? Gabe, I saw the spirits of those poor little children myself out there in the hall only two days ago. You think it's all self-delusion?'
'I've never been into this kinda stuff, so I don't know what it is. But something's going on here and we're not hanging around to find out what. It's none of our business, right?'
'How can you be—' Eve stopped in mid-sentence. Both Lili and Gabe had turned their attention to the open doorway behind her. She twisted round on the couch to see for herself, Loren following suit.
Cally stood in the opening, spongy Bart Simpson cuddled in one arm, the knuckles of her other hand rubbing at her sleepy eyes. With everything that had happened, Eve had completely forgotten about her youngest daughter napping upstairs. Cally had slept for a long time, far longer than usual.
'Mummy,' the five-year-old said plaintively. 'Why are the children so frightened?'
Outside, the clouds began to shed their load and rain drummed against the windows.
44: SIXTH NIGHT
It had been a difficult evening, Gabe and Eve barely speaking to one another for much of it. There was no shouting match (although in some ways that might have been better—it would have at least cleared the air), there was just a brooding awkwardness left between them following a brief argument after Lili Peel had departed. Even this was kept low-level, for they hadn't wanted to upset Loren and Cally any further with talk of ghosts, real or otherwise. But when their daughters had gone to bed, Eve had told him of the incident with the garden swing that morning, how some invisible force had pushed the swing too high, terrifying Cally and frightening herself, how she, Eve, had been knocked to the ground, showing Gabe the small mark on her chin where she'd been hit by the wooden seat. She also spoke of the children's spirits that she—and Cally—had seen dancing in the hall. He had been dumbfounded and only made more determined to get his family away from Crickley Hall. Although he wouldn't admit it to them, he was becoming afraid for his wife and daughters. But Eve wouldn't listen, she just wouldn't hear him out. Frustrated, Gabe had retreated into a cool silence, the way he always did when events and emotions seemed to spin out of his control. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, in the new light of day, he'd get Eve to change her mind.
•
Gabe turned in his sleep and his eyes suddenly opened. He stared up at the ceiling where the glow from the landing light outside spread through the open doorway, and he wondered what had awakened him.
He was in Loren's bed; the girls had planted themselves in his and Eve's four-poster without seeking permission and both were sound asleep when he and Eve had turned in for the night. They hadn't the heart to disturb their daughters and Gabe, mindful of the previous uncomfortable nights in the crowded bed, had elected to sleep alone next door. Eve had not tried to dissuade him.
Rain lashed the window and he thought a sudden gust of wind might have rattled the frame hard enough to disturb him. He lay there for a full minute listening for any sounds but, despite the heavy bullets of rain that continued to punish the glass, the window itself was still.
Yet something had roused him, he was sure. A noise? A movement? He peered into the room's shadows, into the dark corners, seeking an answer, his imagination held in check for the moment. Nothing there, as far as he could tell.
Lifting his head from the pillow, he looked through the open doorway. There was nothing to see.
Gabe rested his head again, his eyes remaining wide open, and listened to the ceaseless rain. He had become used to England's general dampness whatever the season, but this was beyond usual. Apart from an occasional break, the rain had hardly let up for weeks now. He had a mental image of the river beneath the house, coursing through its subterranean channel, fed by the waters from the high moors. What damage had been done to Crickley Hall's foundations over the decades? How long could stone and cement withstand constant pressure? It was a discomforting thought.
He closed his eyes, wanting to sleep, needing to sleep. Crickley Hall had not offered the respite he'd hoped for. There was no peace here for his family, no let-up from their anguish.
His eyes blinked open.
There was no one else in the room, but suddenly it didn't feel that way. He searched the shadowy corners again and still there was nothing to cause concern. Yet… yet he could feel eyes watching him. It was an uncanny sensation, but it felt very real. Eerie. As if something malevolent were observing—no, scrutinizing—him from somewhere in the room.
He looked towards the open doorway again. Rain, driven by a sudden wind clattered against the window, causing him to start. A hell of a night out there. But it was a minor distraction, for the sense of being watched was impossible to ignore. The muscles in his neck became taut as he stretched them.
Then he saw it.
But it was only in the periphery of his vision, for his attention had been elsewhere.
He thought a small ragged mist had passed by on the landing outside. Like a shadow. Like a white shadow. Now he felt the skin of his entire body tighten as a deep chill enwrapped him. Gabe realized he was very scared.
Of course he had known fear before, but never quite like this. This fear was filled with a dread that almost immobilized him. He had to force himself to sit up in the bed.