The key slid into the lock. The sun finally slid below the horizon behind them, and a breeze sprung up from nowhere, as if it had been waiting. It whirled around them, playing havoc with their hair. Hannah’s father shielded his face with his arm, and twisted the key in the lock. The door stayed shut. The wind increased, and with it came clouds, springing from nowhere and merging into a huge, dark mass that hung low overhead. Light rain became a stinging onslaught, driven by wind that had changed from mischievous to malevolent.
‘Dad!’ screamed Hannah. Her words were snatched away by the wind, and the rain stung her eyes. ‘Dad, open the door!’
‘I’m trying!’ he bellowed back, struggling against both wind and solid doors. He twisted the key, then suddenly hit it with his shoulder. He wasn’t a small man; her mother joked that if he was only a little slimmer he would be Indiana Jones. But she only said it to Hannah, and when he wasn’t around.
With a sudden slam that seemed to momentarily silence the brewing storm, the door gave. He fell through into pitch blackness. To Hannah, watching from behind him, it seemed that he had vanished. She opened her mouth to scream, and the wind whirled in, forcing its way into her lungs and choking her. It was like drowning.
And then suddenly his face was at the door, beckoning furiously. ‘Get in!’ he shouted, ‘Get in! Quickly!’
Hannah ran to him, the rain now stinging her bare legs. The wind plucked at her skirt, and she tried to tug it down, realising even as she did so that it was futile and ridiculous. Who was going to see her? Her mother and father had seen her naked, for goodness sake. Abandoning her skirt, she fell through the doorway, catching her foot on a crack in the floorboards. She slammed down heavily, putting her arms up too late to protect her from the floorboards. She managed to catch most of the momentum on her knees, but that knowledge was tainted by the insistent stinging that had started in her shins. Her mother followed her quickly, managing to step over whatever had tripped Hannah.
‘Are you alright, hun?’ she asked, looking curiously at her daughter in the gloom.
‘Yeah, fine,’ muttered Hannah, struggling up and brushing her skirt down. ‘Oh-look at this!’
‘What’s that?’
‘Ripped my skirt. Unbelievable!’ She explored the rip with her fingers. ‘There must be some sort of nail down there. Be careful, Dad.’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ replied her father, hardly paying attention. He was going through his rucksack, looking for something. He found it. A beam of white light shot across the hall, and illuminated their new home.
It was clean, that was for sure. Hannah’s mother had insisted on that, and her company had been forced to write out another large cheque; this time for the horde of cleaners who had descended upon the house. It had been worth it, though. Hannah ad seen the house before the cleaners had come. The dust had, in places, been inches thick. Dusting simply revealed another layer of dust.
The kitchen had been home to several families, none of whom got on. For example, a cat and her litter had taken over the pantry, and were keeping down the rats, which had been breeding like-well, like rats.
The counters and sink had been home to an ongoing war between several different species of fungus and hundreds of cockroaches. They were the real reason that the company eventually paid out, after Hannah’s mother offered to send them a box of the things. Each.
‘Have you only got one torch, Dad?’ asked Hannah, nervously. She knew the cleaners had been thorough, but wandering through a house only recently vacated-by both its two-legged and multi-legged inhabitants-made her skin crawl.
‘We should only need one,’ said her father, from the direction of the beam of light. ‘There should be-ah!’
There was a click in the darkness, and Hannah blinked suddenly. Well, they had electricity. That was good, at least.
Hannah looked towards the stairs. They were wide and classical, branching left and right at the top. The banisters, leafed in gold, shone in the light. She had to admit it looked pretty, and there was definitely scope for a party. If anybody would come to a party organised by her, that is.
‘Alright,’ said her father, turning off the torch and becoming business like. ‘Your room is on the right, and ours is on the left. The lorry will be along a bit later, so you can use this time to have a look around.’
‘‘Kay,’ mumbled Hannah, not particularly taken with the idea. She grabbed her rucksack and took the steps two at a time, trying to show willing. The stairs were thickly carpeted, muffling any noise that her feet made. The sheer size of the place seemed to suck away all the noise; she couldn’t have been more than one hundred yards away from her parents, but their voices were faint, barely audible. Hannah shivered; if you screamed in this house, you would be lucky if anyone heard you.
The stairs went up to the second floor then levelled out, doubling back with doors leading off to her left. To her right was the banister rail, gleaming. Looking up, she saw that the rain had increased, the drops seeming almost to throw themselves at the glass roof. Lightning flashed suddenly overhead, and a moment later thunder crashed. The panes of glass seemed to jump in their frames. Hannah tried to control a shiver. Girls of seventeen don’t get spooked by storms. Right. Yeah.
The lights went out.
In the dark and the silence, Hannah opened her mouth to scream. Then she blinked; there was a light in the hallway below. Her father must be down there! She hadn’t heard him, but the carpet would surely have muffled his steps. He must have run very quickly, all the same. Hannah had never seen her father run, but she had never imagined it would be silent. She hadn’t even heard him breathing. She leaned over the banister, and immediately noticed that whilst it was definitely torchlight, the figure holding it certainly wasn’t her father. For a start, it was a woman.
She was pointing the torch out into the night, and Hannah could hear voices out there. They were high-pitched, and sounded scared. The woman was beckoning them in, and Hannah saw a stream of children flood through the doors. They looked soaked through; hair was plastered to pale faces, and several were holding stuffed toys which looked sad and damp. They gathered in the hallway, dripping and whispering nervously. One pointed upwards, and the rest followed his finger. Hannah saw little mouths drop open in little ‘o’s of awe and wonder. Then one of them pointed at her, and she suddenly found herself the centre of attention. One of them shouted, and the lady looked up sharply. Her mouth opened and shut, and then she shouted. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Someone did, though.
The door opposite Hannah’s room swung open, the light spilling into the hall. A man stepped out, dragging his left leg behind him. He was elegantly dressed, but the beauty of his clothes only emphasised the ugliness of the man himself. He leaned heavily on a cane, and his breathing seemed to be laboured. He saw her, and his face mirrored that of his wife’s, surprise etched into the lines surrounding his small eyes and thick-lipped mouth. Then he began to move along the corridor, heading towards the stairs. The cane made a definite click, click noise on floorboards that had, only seconds ago, been covered with thick carpet. His leg dragged behind him, and his breath rasped in his throat. Hannah watched as he reached the top of the stairs, curiously removed from the fear which should have been choking her.
There was another flash, and Hannah shut her eyes instinctively. When she re-opened them, she saw her father coming out of the same door that the other man had emerged from.
‘What happened?’ called her father. His voice was muffled once again by the carpet that had appeared out of nowhere, as quickly as it had vanished.
‘Lights fused, I think,’ said Hannah.
‘Well, they seem to be working now. I’ll ring an electrician tomorrow; don’t want to get anyone out in this weather if they don’t have to be.’ He vanished back into his room.
Hannah knew that this was just her father being kind-hearted, but all the same, she still wanted the lights fixed. There was a chandelier a couple of meters above her, the candles replaced by bulbs at some point. Hannah thought they looked awful, but was grateful that she could see. She looked down into the hallway; and as she had suspected, there was nothing there. What had she expected?
She turned and walked into her room. The door opened soundlessly, and closed with a click.
Had she actually gone down to the hall and looked carefully at the floor, she would have been slightly more reluctant to wait until the next day for the electrician. The dark carpet disguised it well, but dotted here and there were darker patches. As though a group of people had stood there for a little while, so soaked that they had dripped.
 The next day dawned bright and fresh, all signs of the storm gone. Looking out of her windows and seeing the blue skies which stretched as far as she could see, the darkness and ghosts of the previous night seemed ridiculous. She was tired and spooked by the storm, and had seen things. That was the obvious-and only-explanation.
The removals people had called yesterday evening, to say that there was no chance of them being able to get to the house before Friday. Today was Wednesday. Her mother had questioned this furiously, but had been forced to admit defeat when the driver had coolly suggested that she could drive the eighteen-ton, high-sided lorry up the steep hill in the pouring rain and driving wind. In the dark. Hannah hadn’t heard a word of this conversation; shattered from the stress and long drive, she had been asleep the moment she fell into her impressive four-poster. She turned now and examined it, admiring it from several angles. Red mahogany wood made up the posts, and the mattress was impressively deep.