Free The Whispering House by Rebecca Wade

face had gone deathly white, but sweat beaded his forehead and his hands were shaking.
    â€œPlease tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
    She didn’t reply. Instead she stared at the doll where it had fallen, the dress rucked up to its waist, the painted smile no longer demure but shameless, immodest . . . bad .
    The beginnings of realization came like a trickle of icy water. Quickly, the trickle became a flood. “Of course! It’s an image , isn’t it? Like a voodoo doll?”
    â€œI don’t see what else it can be.” Now that Sam was no longer holding the doll, he’d stopped shaking, but his face was still pale. “It’s dressed like Maisie, its eyes are like hers, and so is its hair. It’s even got her bruises. No wonder it feels evil. It’s had a curse put on it!”
    â€œBut could this be what killed her?”
    â€œI don’t know, but one thing’s for sure—it wasn’t meant to do her any good!”
    For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Then Sam pulled himself together. “You need to get rid of it,” he said roughly.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œWho cares? Burn it. Throw it in the garbage.”
    â€œI . . . I can’t do that.”
    â€œWhy not, for heaven’s sake? The kid’s dead , isn’t she? You can’t do her any more harm now!”
    Hannah swallowed. “I . . . just can’t do it, Sam,” she muttered.
    â€œOkay, then. We put it back where we found it.” Without waiting for a response, he snatched up the limp creature and went out onto the landing. The board covering the entrance to the loft hadn’t been screwed back but lay against the brown-painted door. Sam pushed it aside and walked quickly up the stairs. Hannah started to follow, but he turned around. “Go and get that toolbox.”
    When she returned, he was already back on the landing, waiting for her. In silence, she watched him take the screwdriver and replace the screws, one by one. Then he straightened up again and breathed out, hard. She knew from his face that he was thinking the same as she was. It had felt unpleasantly like sealing up a tomb.
    Sam didn’t stay long that day. The discovery had shaken them both too much for normal conversation, and he left soon after four, telling her that she should call him if she needed to.
    In the evening, her mother settled down in a chair with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Hannah sat with her geography textbook, trying to memorize facts about population density, but she still felt jittery and fidgeted, unable to concentrate.
    At last Mom looked up. “Why don’t you do some drawing?” she suggested. “I haven’t seen you take out your sketchbook for ages.”
    It was true that the last time she had tried to draw had been the day she’d gone for a walk, the day she’d discovered Maisie’s grave in the churchyard. Since then, she simply hadn’t felt like sketching, which was unusual. Maybe this was a good time to start again. It might take her mind off things. But what to draw? She needed a subject.
    Still wondering, she walked slowly upstairs to her bedroom and pulled the sketch pad out of her schoolbag. Then her eye fell on the photograph, lying just where she and Sam had left it, with the face of little Maisie Holt shining out like a bright candle from the somber darkness of the unsmiling figures surrounding her.
    Of course! She had found her subject. Just for a second she hesitated, torn between memory of the awful thing in the loft and the immediate, urgent desire to do what she loved best. Then she picked up the photograph, seized her sketch pad, and ran back downstairs.
    Mom looked up and smiled as Hannah entered the room.
    Settling herself into the chair, she took a long, searching look at the face before her. Again she was struck by its intelligence and vitality. Could she get that onto the page?
    But as soon as her pencil began