Page 58 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘We’ll have to speed down them,’ said Esme. ‘One, they’re too cold to linger, and two, there’s about two hours of light left. And I think, even before that, more snow will be here.’
‘It’s practically the shortest night of the year,’ mused Mirren. ‘The wolves are running.’
‘Well, quite,’ said Esme, gulping down the last of her tea and pushing back her wobbly chair, which scraped across the flagstoned floor. ‘I’ll take west,’ she said. ‘Any last dribbles of sun, I’ll get them. Plus, you know. Sunset is literally in the poem, so . . . ’
Jamie rolled his eyes.
‘I’ll take east, then,’ said Mirren. ‘I like looking at the sea.’
‘Okay,’ said Esme. ‘Try not to get lost again and end up in a quarry somewhere.’
‘Right,’ said Jamie. ‘Quick as you can, every room, tear through and meet back here before it gets too dark. Take candles and matches. Good luck, everyone.’
30
Mirren had orientated herself properly now. East was always the sea, so at least she knew where to go. That meant the turret that led down to the cave must be at the northeastern corner, and her room on the opposite side. They were on a high floor, which meant, thinking logically – although nothing about this ridiculous house was remotely logical, so that wasn’t necessarily a lot of use – but if she could assume the servants’ rooms were on the top floor, and the guest rooms where she and Theo were billeted were on the third, and the public rooms on the first floor, particularly facing the front, then it made sense that the family rooms would be on the second floor. She would have asked the others, but they had all dashed off, gung ho.
It was so odd to be so isolated; to not be just a quick text away from joining up or figuring something out. They needed walkie-talkies really, but that, Esme had observed, would require a certain amount of foresight the family wasn’t known for. She had also then announced that she was going to go out and hit the Landie with a spade till the snow fell off and she could charge her phone from the cigarette lighter, but, just as she’d said that, they’d looked out of the window at the lowering cloud turning the world into a black and white film and Jamie had said if she did she’d get trapped in her car and suffocate and die, so that had rather put the kibosh on that.
As they’d prepared to split up, Mirren had pulled on the heavy overcoat again, forgoing the waders, and Jamie had disappeared to grab her an extra jumper. Theo had looked slightly concerned. ‘There definitely aren’t any ghosts really, right?’ he’d said, and Esme had snorted.
‘The only person who looks supernatural around these parts is you, Wraith Boy.’
Theo had tried to look insulted, but failed.
‘He does it on purpose,’ said Mirren. ‘He thinks he’s inBuffy the Vampire Slayer.’
‘I donot,’ said Theo, smiling. ‘I think I am inInterview with the Vampire.’
‘I thought you were the count fromSesame Street,’ said Esme.
‘Okay, enough of this,’ Theo had said, pulling his cloak around himself, which had the effect of making both girls burst out laughing at the same time. ‘I’m out of here.’
‘BAT FORM!’ shouted Esme, which convulsed them even more. By the time Jamie got back with the jumper, they were still giggling. It smelled of him, Mirren had realised, putting it on: woody and rather comforting. She liked it. She’d jammed a woollen cap on her head.
‘Okay,’ Jamie had said, glancing at his watch. ‘Come back when it’s dark, I guess. Fast as we can.’ He’d glanced at Esme worriedly. ‘Good luck.’
They had left the haven of the warm kitchen together, its candles a soft pool of light in the gloom of the corridors, the dull windows at the end letting in a grey light that only proved that the snow had started falling again. As they walked up the stairs together Mirren had been fine, but then they’d gone their separate ways, and their footsteps faded down the long-softened rugs, and Mirren had finally felt herself, completely alone.
From somewhere she could hear an ancient clock tick. Who wound it? she wondered. Bonnie, she supposed, nipping here and there on silent feet, treading in her own ancestors’ footsteps just as surely as Jamie trod in his. It seemed a strange life. Mind you, being a quantity surveyor in London probably seemed odd to these people. It seemed odd even to Mirren now, the idea of a normal life with Starbucks and Korean chicken and the Overground and Wordle and Snapchat. As if the snow were a heavy curtain that had been drawn across her life, cutting off all that had been before. She stood on a floorboard which creaked heavily. Only the ghosts creak, Esme had said. Mirren felt, fleetingly, as if she had always been here, as if she was the ghost.
She shivered. She was scaring herself, and that stupid clock wasn’t helping.
She should have checked to make sure there weren’t any more taxidermy rooms. No, surely there weren’t. Steeling herself, she opened the first door.
The smell of dust was overwhelming. Nobody had been in here for a long time; this wasn’t one of Bonnie’s project rooms, that was for sure.
Her hand automatically tried the light switch before she remembered, and she blinked so she could see in the gloom. Big dim shapes covered in cloth: furniture, of course, packed away for some future use, as yet undecided.
She pulled off the cloth from one thing that looked as if it might be a bookshelf – and let out the most almighty scream, as a figure loomed up out of the shadows, heading straight for her.
31
It was several moments before Mirren’s brain caught up with her terrified racing heart, her anguished scream caught in her throat, to realise what she was looking at was of course her own reflection, on the door of a wardrobe. ‘Bloody hell,’ she found herself swearing gently under her breath, then she looked up, ready to apologise to the others when they came running to help her. Of course nobody did, and she realised with a shiver that no one could hear you scream here, with the thick stone walls and miles of passageway between them all. No wonder Agatha Christie had murdered so many people in places like these.
She looked at herself in the old, spotted wardrobe mirror. Her hair was wild and dark; the large jumper gave her a bulkier look. She looked like a terrifying stranger. She shivered again, just a tremor. A goose walking over my grave, she thought, then told herself to stop being an idiot. This was a quick rush-through.
But this was not somebody’s bedroom, it was just ‘a’ bedroom. Nothing personal in it at all; there was tapestry-style flock wallpaper that in a normal house would have been terribly naff but which here was magnificent; ancient dried flowers in the grate; a bed. She bravely opened the wardrobe; there was nothing but a dead bluebottle. She realised suddenly that she was disappointed. If there was ever a magical wardrobe, surely it would be in a room like this, in a world of snow.
