The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  Loren’s eyes were closed and her pale face was drenched in tears. He reached out a hand to her shoulder and she flinched away, her eyes snapping open, a wild hysteria in her glare.

  ‘Loren, it’s me, Daddy. What’s wrong, what happened?’ He pulled her close and comforted her as Eve moved round to the other side of the narrow bed to reach her.

  ‘He-he-hit-me!’ Loren cried through chest-heaving sobs. Gabe did his best to calm her.

  ‘Easy, Loren, easy now,’ he soothed. ‘You’ve had a bad dream.’

  ‘N-no, Daddy. He hit me. He hit me.’

  Eve moved nearer and when Loren felt her presence, she turned and buried her face into her mother’s chest.

  ‘There’s no one here, Loren,’ Eve told her gently. ‘There’s no one who could have hurt you.’

  Gabe grabbed Cally from her bed and held her in the crook of one arm. She stopped screeching immediately, intuitively aware that it was her sister who needed attention.

  ‘What is it, baby?’ Eve was saying quietly to Loren. ‘What frightened you? Did you see something?’

  Loren’s panted sobs went on.

  ‘It must’ve been a nightmare,’ said Gabe, his voice equally quiet. ‘There’s nothing in the room.’ Just to make sure, he ducked his head under both beds. ‘And nothing could’ve got past me in the hallway.’

  Loren gave a great shudder as if the frigid air had got into her flesh. But Gabe felt it was no longer as cold as a moment before. The room was still chilled, as was the rest of the house, but when he breathed out there was no misty vapour.

  Eve hugged Loren tight against her and began a soft rocking motion. ‘It’s okay, Loren. You’re safe now. Mummy and Daddy are here. Tell us what you dreamt.’

  Loren suddenly jerked away from her mother, although she stayed in Eve’s comforting arms. ‘It wasn’t a dream, Mummy,’ she implored, wanting to be believed. ‘Someone hit me. Hard. With a stick.’

  She buried her head back against her mother again, and Gabe and Eve’s eyes met, both thinking the same thing.

  It couldn’t be, thought Gabe. That would be crazy. He gave Eve a little shake of his head. He’d left the bamboo cane he had found earlier that day locked up in a downstairs cupboard, along with the Punishment Book.

  Eve stroked Loren’s hair. ‘But there’s no one else here, baby. Nobody could have hit you.’

  Loren yanked herself away again, her tears held for a moment. She twisted round to Gabe as if for support. ‘He hit me across the legs, Daddy. He hit me really hard.’

  ‘Who did, honey?’ he asked. ‘Who hurt you?’

  ‘The man. He was standing at the end of the bed. He was holding a stick and he hit me with it, on my legs. I think he made me bleed!’

  As one, Gabe and Eve looked down at Loren’s bare legs. There wasn’t a mark on them.

  Loren followed their gaze and searched her own skin for the wounds the long stick should have inflicted. ‘But he hit me, he did hit me! It was as if the stick was scalding hot and the pain spread out, like he was hitting me with a lot of sticks.’

  Both Gabe and Eve remembered the cane they had examined that afternoon was split several times at one end so that it would act as a flail when struck against anything.

  It was Eve who asked, ‘Does it hurt you now, Loren?’

  The twelve-year-old stifled her sobs once more as she stared at her own body. Slowly she turned to her mother, and then to Gabe.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t hurt at all any more. I’m not even sore.’

  She broke down and Eve took her back into her arms.

  35: WEDNESDAY

  They left the house just before 7.30 a.m. the next morning, Loren protesting, insisting she was all right now, she didn’t need to see a doctor. The sun was shining, but leaves were heavy with raindrops that had fallen in the night. The family crossed the bridge and climbed into the Range Rover.

  Gabe had phoned one of his new work colleagues who lived in the area, apologizing for the early-morning call before asking him the whereabouts and the phone number of the closest GP’s surgery or clinic. Then Gabe rang the latter, which was a health centre, but only got a taped message advising that the centre opened at 8 a.m.; it also gave the number of an emergency doctor if required.

  The night before, Gabe had wanted to rush Loren to the A and E department of the nearest hospital, but she had pleaded with him, she was okay, she didn’t want doctors and nurses poking her and asking questions. Surprisingly, Eve had agreed with her daughter. There were no marks or weals on Loren’s body, no signs at all that she had been beaten with a stick. Wait ’til morning, she had suggested, see how Loren felt then. Their daughter certainly wasn’t suffering any pain now.

  Gabe had argued that there had to be something wrong. Loren’s screams were not just because she was frightened, but because she was being hurt too. Even if it was only a terrible nightmare, there had to be something not right because dreams couldn’t cause genuine pain. If she’d imagined the whole thing, that also meant something was wrong with her. Dreamt or imagined, it had been real to Loren. She needed to be medically examined in case there really was something physically wrong inside her body, even if it was only severe night cramps.

  In the end, they had agreed on a compromise: Loren would see a doctor first thing in the morning. They had left for the health centre early so that they would arrive before the first scheduled patients, giving Loren a better chance to be seen right away.

  Gabe was angry and frustrated, a father who had no answers for his distraught daughter. Loren maintained that there had been a man in the bedroom, a man holding a stick. Like the stick – the cane – he had found hidden away behind the false wall in the closet? he wondered. She hadn’t been able to describe the intruder because he was in shadow, the light coming from behind. It must have been imagined! Or dreamt! It was this goddamn house. There was something peculiar going on inside Crickley Hall, something that caused hallucinations. Some houses had personalities, didn’t they? That’s what some people believed and maybe they were right. A house that fucked with the mind. Eve had been affected by it, become a little weird, wanting to stay whereas before she couldn’t wait to get out of there. Now Loren had been touched by it. And Cally. Could they have been sunspots he’d seen floating round her yesterday? Or something else, something unreal?

  They had to leave, find a different place to rent. It would take a day or two to arrange – no, it would take at least a week, probably more – to organize. But he’d get on with it. They were moving out.

  Gabe switched on ignition, shifted into gear, and three-point-turned the Range Rover so that it was pointing uphill. They headed for Merrybridge.

  36: INTRUDERS

  The sister and brother with the impossibly ambitious names tramped along the road. Although the sun shone brightly enough, the air was damp and their anoraks, one blue, the other red, were zipped up to their chins.

  A green van passed them heading uphill, as were they, the driver giving a short blast of the horn as he went by. Neither the girl nor the boy bothered to wave back.

  ‘You sure?’ Seraphina asked of Quentin.

  Her swollen nose was a different colour to the rest of her podgy face: red and sore-looking, its yellowish bridge merging with the purple-yellow at the inner corners of her deepset eyes.

  Quentin, tall and stocky, looked back at her – his sister had a hard job keeping up with him on the steep road. ‘Course I’m sure. I saw them driving off when I was doing my egg round.’

  His hardworking mother, besides cleaning other people’s homes for a living, kept a chicken hutch in their backyard. It was her son’s job to collect eggs in the morning before school (from which he was temporarily suspended) and deliver them to various customers in the area. Fresh eggs for breakfast brought a good price and Trisha Blaney needed the extra money. Cleaning did not pay particularly well, despite all the hours she put in with her friend and neighbour Megan, and since Trisha’s husband Roy had walked
out on her and the kids six years ago, any money she did earn was already spent. Not that her estranged husband had ever done much to bring home the bread when he was around. Idle and dim-witted he was – their son Quentin was of the same mould, had to be pushed into doing anything – and if truth be told, she had been glad to see the back of him.

  Seraphina, not being one for climbing, nor even for walking far, puffed and wheezed as she straggled behind.

  ‘Yeah, but you sure they won’t come back?’ she said to her brother.

  Quentin slowed his pace to let her catch up. He was used to the hill road because of his morning rounds. ‘Won’t take a minute to leave it on the doorstep.’ He held up the plastic bin-liner he carried, something heavy bulging at the bottom of it, and waggled it in the air. ‘Be a nice surprise for ’em.’ Noice sorproise for ’em.

  Seraphina drew level with him. ‘No,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I don’t wanta leave this one outside like the pigeon. This present is going inside the house. Right into her bed.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, you can’t do that. What if they catch us?’

  ‘Look, I got the key from Mum’s drawer so we could do it. I’m not gonna waste the chance.’

  ‘She’ll go demented if she finds out.’

  ‘Mum only cleans the place once a month. She don’t need the key for a coupla weeks yet. She won’t notice it’s gone.’

  ‘I dunno, Seph. It’s dodgy.’

  ‘Don’t be such a minger. We’ll be in and out, no problem.’

  ‘You don’t know where her bedroom is.’

  ‘We’ll easy find it. She’ll have Barbie Dolls and things, little girly stuff.’

  ‘You only wanta get your own back, just ’cause she punched your lights out.’

  ‘Shut up, Quenty. You weren’t there, you don’t know what happened. I wasn’t looking and I fell over.’

  ‘She decked you, you mean. Anyway, it got you a few days off school.’

  ‘I weren’t going in and letting everybody see what she done.’

  ‘You’re lucky Mum’s so soft on you. She’da packed me off to school all right if I come home with a busted snout.’

  ‘It ain’t busted.’

  ‘Good as.’

  ‘No it’s not. It’s just swelled up a bit.’

  ‘And red. Like one of them baboon’s bottoms.’

  ‘Shut up or I’ll make you go into the house on your own.’

  Quentin stayed silent. His younger sister could bully him because she was a lot smarter. And she knew things about him that she could tell. Mum wouldn’t like him stealing. Or smoking. Or throwing stones through windows when no one else was around. A lot of the time, Sephy put him up to it – she was always winding him up – but Mum wouldn’t believe that Sephy could be cruel; much better to do what she said and keep her sweet.

  ‘Let me have another look at it,’ his sister called out as she lagged behind again.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘’Cause I like looking at it. She won’t, though. She’ll throw a hissy fit. She’ll go to bed tonight, all nice and innocent like, and she’ll pull back the blankets and she’ll see a bloody great rat lying there. Wish I could be around to see it!’

  Seraphina gave a little snigger, an unpleasant sound. Her brother joined in and ran a hand through his spiky hair.

  ‘Why don’t you shove it right down in the bed so she don’t see it at first? She’d jump in, put her feet down and feel something furry and sticky.’

  The stickiness would be the rat’s blood. He had cornered it in the chicken hutch, where it was after the feed, and Quentin had thrown the loose brick at it, the brick that helped keep the wire door shut. It had stunned the rat, stopped it getting away, and he had bashed it until it squealed like a baby, and then was dead.

  He held the top of the bin-liner for his sister, and she peered in. Like Quentin, she also enjoyed seeing the blood.

  ‘It stinks!’ she complained.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a rat,’ said Quentin drily.

  Seraphina raised her head and smirked. ‘Fancy-knickers is gonna wet herself.’

  Her brother smirked back.

  They resumed walking, and though the exercise puffed her out, Seraphina could not stop smiling.

  Soon they reached the bridge leading across the river to their destination.

  Crickley Hall.

  Seraphina didn’t like the way the water tumbled over itself to reach the bay. It frothed with impatience.

  At least the rain had stopped. Mum said a lot of local folk were anxious about the rainfall lately. It might bring another flood like the big one sixty-odd years ago, some said. The big flood of ’43 was a major part of Hollow Bay history and there were even a few in the village who remembered it first-hand. If the high moors could not soak up all the extra rain, then a tragedy might well happen again. That’s what some predicted, but Mum had told her it would never be like last time. Higher bridges had been built to prevent blockages, and the river had been widened where it entered the bay, so don’t you worry, my pet, the village could never be flooded like before. That’s what Mum told her, and Seraphina believed her. Still, she was glad it had stopped raining today.

  She stared across the river at the horrible old building. Who would want to live in a house like that? She felt spooked just looking at it. So did Quentin.

  ‘Let’s just leave the rat on the doorstep. Like the bird,’ he whined.

  Seraphina scowled at him. ‘I already told you, it’s going in her bed.’

  ‘I don’t like this place. It gives me the creeps. What if we put it in the kitchen? That wouldn’t take a sec, and we wouldn’t have to go right inside.’

  ‘No! Stop being such a wuss.’

  In truth, Seraphina was a lot more nervous now they were confronted by the house itself, but she wouldn’t let her dim brother know it. She was always the leader, and Quentin was always the follower. She couldn’t wimp out. Besides, she wanted her revenge.

  She jiggled the key in her anorak pocket and felt a thrill at its touch.

  ‘Come on, Quenty,’ she said abruptly, hyped up to do the deed.

  Quentin took one last, long look up the road before following his sister. He slipped on a plank’s greasy surface, but caught himself.

  They crossed the wet lawn together, the tall boy close behind the heavy girl, passing by the motionless swing on the way, its wooden seat dark, sodden with rainwater. Just to be sure there was no one at home, Seraphina rang the doorbell, then used the huge gothic door knocker itself, making an attention-grabbing din. If someone did come to the door, she would say her mum had sent her to ask if they wanted any eggs delivered in the mornings. But nobody came and Seraphina grinned at Quentin, a hissed ‘Yes!’ steaming from the thin-lipped mouth.

  They entered through the kitchen door, using their mother’s key. Trisha Blaney had a key because Crickley Hall had been unoccupied a long time now and it was more convenient for the estate manager, who had no desire to visit the property every month just to let the cleaners in.

  Seraphina carefully closed the door behind them and they both crept across the kitchen on tiptoe, even though they were certain the big old house was empty. They paused at the kitchen’s inner door, which was shut. They glanced at each other for reassurance before Seraphina quietly turned the doorknob.

  They sneaked through and found themselves on the threshold of the grand hall. Seraphina was not surprised by its vastness, because her mother had described it to her once.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out cautiously, ready to scoot back the way they had come if there was a response. But all was silent. As the grave.

  She closed the kitchen door noiselessly, then took in their surroundings.

  ‘Look at all them puddles,’ said Quentin, pointing generally at the hall’s flagstone floor.

  His sister eyed the puddles in surprise. Quentin was right – small pools of water were spread all around the room, mostly in the shallow indents of the worn stone. Then she remembered.
When Mum had told her about the hall she had said that sometimes, when she and Megan came in to clean the house, the floor was spotted with little pools of rainwater. She said that Mr Grainger, the estate manager, had had the roof checked out for leaks by one of the builders he regularly dealt with, but there weren’t any holes in the roof that they could find. Mum and Megan would mop up, but when they came down again from doing the upstairs, the puddles would be back. It didn’t happen very often, but it was a mystery how it happened at all.

  Quentin strolled to the centre of the hall and spun round, arms outstretched, face lifted towards the high ceiling, the weighed-down bin-liner in one hand.

  ‘Hyah!’ he bellowed before coming to a halt and chortling at Seraphina. ‘No one here, Seph. Place all to ourselves.’

  As she went to join him, she noticed there was one door open in the hall. Well, half open. A musty smell drifted from it and she could feel a draught. She shivered. The house was very cold. She could see Quentin’s breath coming out of his mouth, hardly there but still visible.

  His shoulders suddenly hunched up to his ears as if the cold had hit him too. Her brother’s mood changed.

  ‘Don’t like it here, Seph. Gives me the creeps.’

  Although the sun shone brightly through the great window over the stairs, there were shadows in all the corners of the room, and the wood panelling of the walls contrived to make the hall seem darker than it really was. Millions of dust motes floated in the sunbeams.

  ‘Let’s split, Seph. Look, I’ll put the rat on the floor here. They’ll see it as soon as they come home.’ He bent over, resting the plastic bin-liner on a wet flagstone; he poked in a hand to bring out the stiff, dead animal.

  ‘No!’ his sister said sharply, but her voice still low for some reason. ‘We’re going upstairs.’

  Her brother moaned. ‘I don’t like it.’ Something made him frightened and he didn’t know what. He needed the toilet. ‘Everyone says this place is haunted.’ He had straightened, the rat remaining in the bag. He twisted his neck, looked all around, at the closed doors, at the half-open door nearby, up at the galleried landing – bloodyell, it was dark up there. ‘Come on, Sephy, let’s go,’ he persisted.