The Whispering House (12 page)

“Of course I'm right.” She patted his knee. “Now pay attention. The parade's about to start.”

While they had been talking, the children had assembled themselves into a long, straggly line, and now they began to slowly file past the panel of judges. There were princes and princesses, knights in armor, Cinderellas with brooms, witches with cauldrons, wizards with tall pointed hats, fairies with flashing wands and tinsel wings. The twins were shuffling along beside a boy dressed in green with an enormous potted plant (presumably Jack and his beanstalk) and another boy on stilts (presumably the giant), wielding a rubber ax. There was even a dragon, played by two children in a lumpy blue suit with red spots, which was having difficulty keeping its sense of direction and had to be shepherded back by a helpful member of the crowd when it strayed out of line. Traditionally, the parade had had a fairy-tale theme, but over the years this had come to be loosely interpreted, and there were also Batmen, Supermen, Spider-Men (and -Women), vampires and vampire slayers, a couple of werewolves, and several Harry Potter look-alikes with jagged scars painted on their foreheads.

The bishop, having apparently recovered from his disappointment at not being allowed on the bumper cars, joined in vociferously with the crowd as it cheered the heroes and booed the villains.

Hannah smiled and stretched out on the grass. In spite of the noise going on around her (Sam, Emily, and even Miss Murdoch were heckling cheerfully), she felt curiously detached—even drowsy. It was such a pleasant, timeless scene, one that must have been enacted in this field year after year, with different children, different costumes, but all with the same theme—the great struggle between good and evil. Victim and predator, innocent and knowing, captive and deliverer. Had the world always been so simple? Was it still?

The glare from the sun had entirely vanished now, and a light wind had sprung up. Hannah closed her eyes, thinking of Millie's impassioned little speech. Did the earth really pause, the way she said, as it sensed the approach of the solstice? And if so, would it be possible to know when the exact moment arrived?

Then she heard it. At first the sound was faint, seeming to come from some way off. But as she listened it intensified, separating itself from the noise of the crowd like a distant siren: not loud so much as urgent. Insistent. It was the sound of a weeping child.

She sat up, shading her eyes with her hand in an effort to see where the child was. And then her heart seemed to stand still, because there, less than fifty yards away, was a little girl. A slender little girl with long dark hair, loose on her shoulders, wearing a knee-length white dress with a deep-frilled hem and a light-blue sash.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Midsummer Nightmare

H
ANNAH BLINKED, PRAYING THAT
when she opened her eyes again, the little girl would have disappeared or been gathered up by a comforting parent and led back into the parade. But no one came to claim her. No one even appeared to notice that she was there, though she was still crying quite audibly.

Hannah tried to get Sam's attention, but he didn't respond to her shaking his arm, or to her frantic pointing, and it was clear from the smiling faces of the bishop, his wife, Emily, and Miss Murdoch that none of them had the faintest idea what was going on.

She covered her ears with her hands and made herself look away, still desperately hoping that if she pretended not to have noticed, the vision might simply evaporate. But when she turned back, the child was still there.

It was no good. There was no ignoring the miserable certainty that if she didn't help that little girl, no one else was going to.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up and began to move quickly through the seated spectators. She clambered over feet, dogs, and the remains of picnics, dodging crawling babies and toddling toddlers, occasionally tripping over blankets and buggies, but nobody seemed to mind. In fact, nobody seemed to notice her. At last she reached the narrow strip of roped-off ground between the edge of the crowd and the stalls of the fair; from there it was a clear run to the spot where she had last seen Maisie. Or possibly—she still clung to a faint hope—not Maisie.

Except that she wasn't there now. Minutes ago, Hannah had more than anything wanted the child to disappear. Now her only terror was that it seemed her wish had been granted. Had she sent Maisie away, back to some dark place where she might remain weeping forever? Feverishly she scanned the line of children, still shuffling slowly along. There were several little girls dressed as fairies and princesses—even a couple of Alice in Wonderlands similarly dressed—but none of them was a child who looked quite like Maisie Holt.

Then her eye caught a flash of something white. It was some way off, near the arcade games, and when she looked again it had vanished. But it had been Maisie, Hannah was certain.

Hannah began to run. Past the plant stall, the hot-dog stand, around the back of the Punch and Judy tent, through a little group of people watching an acrobatic display, until she reached the brightly lit, flashing arcade. But here there were only three or four teenage boys, and a couple of older men wordlessly pushing coins into slots. There was no sign of a little girl in a white dress.

Hannah turned away and peered in each direction. She blinked. Was that Maisie? Over there by the waltzer? Threading her way through the maddeningly slow-moving crowd, she got within twenty yards of the raised platform and scanned the figures standing by the edge. But if it had been Maisie she had seen earlier, she wasn't there now.

And then Hannah spotted her. All the way over on the other side of the field, high up on the sky skimmer, sat a little girl in white, her long dark hair streaming in the wind. Without pausing to wonder how she could have gotten there so quickly, Hannah sped off, dodging clowns and jugglers, skirting around the fire eater, almost colliding with a motionless, white-faced mime, but never once daring to take her eyes off the small figure as it circled high above the field.

By the time she reached the sky skimmer, it was already slowing down, and a long line of people stood waiting for the next ride. Ignoring good manners, Hannah pushed her way to the front and watched impatiently as the ride at last came to a standstill and the people began to get off. Eagerly she scrutinized each figure as it descended. There were giggling girls, swaggering boys, whimpering children, and dazed-looking parents, but not one of them was Maisie Holt.

In desperation, Hannah tugged at the sleeve of the man taking money. “Did you see that little girl? The one in the white dress? She was up there just now! You must have seen her get on. Where did she go?”

But the man didn't reply and went on taking money as if he hadn't heard her.

Then her eye fell on a group of three life-size, faceless cutout figures, about fifty yards away. One was a policeman with a truncheon, another a cowboy brandishing a gun; the third was a ballet dancer in a tutu, standing en pointe. Behind each figure stood a real person whose grinning face filled the empty hole, while parents and friends took photos. But it wasn't the faces that Hannah was staring at. Just for a second, from behind the policeman, she had spied a wisp of long dark hair, and beneath, the edge of a white dress.

She tried to run forward, but the crowd was thicker now, and wherever she moved, someone blocked her way. By dodging and peering, she managed to keep sight of the crudely painted caricatures, until, when she was still twenty yards away, a figure stepped out from behind the policeman. For a second, Hannah stood quite still, not daring to move. And then a wave of disappointment broke over her, for it wasn't Maisie at all but a middle-aged woman with dyed black hair, wearing a skimpy white sundress.

Hannah was moving again now, not because there was anywhere to go, but because the crowd, relentlessly pressing in on her from all sides, carried her with it. From time to time she thought she could see a glimpse of a white dress, a head of dark hair like Maisie's, but without a hope of being able to reach it. She started to panic. Why were there so many people suddenly? And why did they jostle and push her like this? Dimly, she knew that she should get back to the costume parade, because Sam and the bishop and Miss Murdoch would be wondering where she'd gone. But for some reason, she'd lost her sense of direction and couldn't remember where the parade was being held, and even if she could, there was no way of getting there unless the ever-growing throng of people chose to go there too.

Suddenly she became aware that the crowd had stopped moving. It had apparently reached an obstruction. But it wasn't until people began slowly shuffling to the left or right, with Hannah being helplessly drawn to the left, that she realized what the obstruction was, and by that time, she was standing right in front of it.

It was the merry-go-round. A ride must have just finished, because children were scrambling off and new ones getting on. Very soon, nearly all the horses were taken, and the man was going around taking money from outstretched hands. He was about halfway when Hannah saw Maisie.

She was sitting no more than ten yards off, astride a little cream-colored horse with a red-and-gold harness. She was facing away, but there was no mistaking the white dress with its frilled hem and blue sash. And even if there had been a fragment of doubt in Hannah's mind, it would have vanished when she saw that the man taking money passed right by Maisie, just as though the horse had no rider.

This time she wasn't taking any chances. Eagerly, she jumped onto the platform and began threading her way through the ranks of painted horses, her eyes fixed resolutely on the girl in the white dress. But she hadn't gone more than a couple of yards when the wooden slats beneath gave a sudden jerk, music started, and the ride began. Although the platform wasn't moving particularly fast, it was surprisingly difficult to stay upright. She stumbled and would have fallen if the nearest horse, which luckily had no rider, hadn't been there to steady her. Keeping one hand on its back, she edged to the front of the platform, preparing to jump off, but by the time she got there, the ride had picked up just enough speed to make it unsafe. There was nothing to do but mount the horse and sit it out.

As soon as she was in the saddle, she looked anxiously to make sure that Maisie hadn't escaped, but the girl was still there, her dark hair fluttering in the wind. Having made sure of this, Hannah relaxed slightly and began to enjoy the quiet, leisurely pace.

And then, after a moment or two, she began to be anxious again. Little by little, the ride was getting faster. That was odd, because merry-go-rounds weren't like the other rides—they were sedate affairs, usually—yet she could hear no protests from the other children, who all seemed to be sitting quite still on their small mounts. She peered around to see if the watching parents showed signs of concern, and that was when she noticed that the platform suddenly seemed higher than she remembered it. Alarmed, she turned back and saw that Maisie's hair no longer fluttered gently but streamed out behind her.

The ride had now gathered enough speed to prevent her from seeing the fairground clearly, and as the horses went faster, so did the music. She began to feel giddy, disoriented. Soon the tents and stalls started to merge together. Before long they were a single, seamless belt of color, and still the pace increased relentlessly. The music was getting louder as well as faster. Too loud, surely? She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears, but she didn't dare let go of the horse's neck, so she clung on tightly and tried not to look down at the ground, which seemed to be getting farther away by the minute.

Now Hannah needed all her strength just to stay on. She could no longer sit upright but lay flat against the horse's back, her arms tight around its neck while the jangling, discordant music filled her ears until she thought her head must burst.

It was from this position that she noticed the child directly in front of her.

The sight chilled her. Not a hair on his head was moving. He sat perfectly still, as if he were made of the same wood as the horse beneath.

Staring in terror, she saw that the other children were all equally motionless, their hair and clothes quite undisturbed by the wind that rushed past, and when she forced her gaze out to the watching crowd, she could see that the people there were no more real than the children but simply cutout figures with grinning faces, and all the time the horses hurtled around, faster and faster, and the fairground was no longer a fairground but a confused, dizzying blur, and just as she thought she could bear it no longer, there was a terrible jolting and grinding, and the ride came to an abrupt halt.

Hannah buried her face in the horse's neck. Gradually she became aware that someone was shaking her. “Wake up!” said a voice. “Wake up! Ride's over! Time to get off!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Gathering Storm Clouds

“W
AKE UP! HANNAH! WAKE
up, for goodness' sake! What's the matter with you?” She opened her eyes to find Sam bending over her, shaking her shoulder.

She stared up at him, then down at the ground, which was where she was lying.

“Did I . . . fall off?”

“Fall off what?”

“The horse.”

“Horse?” He looked startled. “What are you talking about? There's no horse here.”

“Yes, there is! I was on it, on the merry-go-round, and Maisie was there too, I was just behind her, but she was going too fast! I couldn't catch her, and . . . and now I've lost her and I'll never be able to find her again in all this—” She stopped. Sam was grinning at her.

“Don't be dumb! You haven't been anywhere. You were asleep right here, all the time the parade was going on. You must have been dreaming.”

She sat up stiffly and peered around her. There was the field with the striped tent directly in front, and the bandstand behind, just as it had been—how long ago? Then she noticed that that there was no sign of the costume parade, and Miss Murdoch, the bishop and his wife, and Emily had gone. In fact, there were very few people about, and those who were left were running.

Sam had grabbed hold of her hand and was pulling her up. “Come on. We need to get moving. Fast.”

“Where are we going?” She swayed, trying to regain a sense of balance. Not just physical balance—her brain was still struggling to reconcile the opposing forces of fantasy and reality, which for the moment seemed to be having a pitched battle inside her head.

“Back to your place. It's closer than mine. Look at the sky.”

She looked up and suddenly realized why everyone was running. The afternoon's haze had disappeared. In its place were sullen black clouds that, as she watched, seemed to draw themselves together, shoulder to shoulder, in preparation for their assault upon the evening. A flash of lightning lit the sky, followed a few seconds later by an ominous rumble, then a deafening crack.

“Don't just stand there, come
on
!” urged Sam as the first fat, heavy drops started to fall.

She shivered and began to run.

Within minutes the rain was falling in torrents, turning litter to pulp and the field to a sea of mud, slowing their progress as they dodged ruts and puddles with plastic ice-cream cups floating like little boats. By the time they were back on the street, shopkeepers were struggling to wind up awnings, and café staff were hurriedly dragging chairs and tables off the sidewalk. Small groups huddled together in doorways, while from behind shop windows steamy with condensation peered faces vague and distorted in the murky light. Those still out and about moved quickly, furtively, flinching every so often as a new flash was followed by another calamitous crack. Umbrellas poked forward over bent heads, like grim shields in some watery battle.

To Hannah, stumbling along blindly, the scene had a nightmarish unreality, as though she hadn't properly woken from one dream before being plunged into the next.

When they reached Cowleigh Lodge, the front door was locked. “D'you have a key?” demanded Sam.

She fumbled in her bag and found the key but for some reason had difficulty fitting it into the lock.

“Give it to me,” he muttered, snatching it impatiently and giving it a quick turn.

The door swung open, and they stepped inside.