Free The Unquiet House by Alison Littlewood Page B

standing in her bare feet, and she did not shiver.
    Then the words rang out, clear and harsh:
You little
… and nothing more, the sentence cut off, curtailed as if with violence. Then there was a loud clatter, as if someone had crashed through a door or hammered against a window. She pictured fragile glass jumping in its frame.
    The landing was illuminated by moonlight that flooded in through uncovered windows and open doors, spilling through the banisters and down into the dark well beneath. Somehow Emma was not afraid. She went to the edge and looked over intothe hall below just as a shape moved out of vision. She had the impression it had been heading towards the front door.
    Emma froze. Dreaming or not, now she did feel cold. There was another presence in the hallway below; she could sense hostility. She could almost hear them breathe. And then the words came again, so clearly they might have been spoken next to her ear:
    Get out
.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Emma left the house early, stepping out into a thin, mean autumn morning. The sky was a pale glow of unsteady light; it looked like it might fail completely rather than grow. The car started with a dry wheeze that deepened when she pressed on the accelerator. She didn’t take off the handbrake, not yet. She pictured the journey, the country roads all the same, with endless hedges edging drab, empty fields beneath the grey shroud of the sky. Then she would reach the motorway, join the tide of dull humanity being drawn towards the city. It was all impossibly far away.
    She remembered the kiss, Charlie’s mouth against hers, the way it had sparked feelings within her she thought she’d forgotten, like something awakening.
Life
, she thought. And she smiled and she switched off the engine. She surely had a little more time. Work wasn’t as important to her as it once had been. She had a life here now.
    She sat there, her eyes half-focused, letting the world blur around her. Everything looked distant, even Mire House: a reality that lay on the other side of some transparent but indissoluble veil. When she focused again she saw Charlie. He wasstanding at the bottom of the steps, by the side of her window. His gaze looked unclear and his hair was dishevelled.
    She got out and opened her mouth, but he spoke first. ‘Changed your mind? Good. There’s something you should have a look at.’
    He opened the door for her and ushered her inside as if she were a guest. For a moment she thought she heard something behind him, a brief high sound; then it faded and Charlie turned.
    ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘This is what I think you should see.’
    The hall was empty save for some shoes lying at the foot of the stairs and a few rags discarded in the corner. Charlie’s face was full of suppressed excitement. ‘Do you see it?’
    She didn’t see. He pointed down at the floor and she looked again. The whole space was criss-crossed with muddy footprints.
    ‘
Look
.’ He took an exaggerated step across the floor, carefully placing his heel, then laying down his foot. She saw what he meant. The muddy print next to his foot was small, too small. She went closer.
    ‘Do you see it now?’ His voice was lower, almost calm.
    She looked across the tiles and saw how many prints there were: some were a little larger and some smaller, but they all belonged to children. She had a sudden image of them running around the hall and she shook her head. It didn’t mean anything; the marks could have been there for years; she simply hadn’t noticed them—
    ‘They weren’t there before,’ Charlie said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘I know they weren’t, because the first time I saw them – when I came down earlier this morning – I cleaned them all away. Now they’ve come back.’
    Emma remembered the sound she thought she’d heard when Charlie led her into the house: a child’s stifled giggle. Now she thought she could detect the lingering trace of tobacco in the air.
    She’d seen a man