left it to me. I can’t decide…’ He let the sentence hang.
‘Where are we going?’ Lizzie was trying not to spill her coffee on the carpet. She was trembling so much she suspected she was leaving a trail of biscuit crumbs like Hansel and Gretel. Johnny didn’t seem to have noticed, fortunately. He was concentrating only on what he needed to do. Lizzie felt a burst of compassion for him. He was so intense, so driven to save Amelia. There was no room in his mind for anything else.
‘I thought we’d go to my room,’ Johnny said. ‘There’s something I want to show you, to try to explain…’ The sentence trailed away as he started to climb the grand stair, slowing his loping stride to match Lizzie’s shorter one. The steps were broad and shallow, and at the top the landing spread out on either side like a huge gallery. The light was multi-coloured, refracted through the panes of the stained glass windows. Lizzie paused, remembering her vision of Johnny standing there as a child on the day of Dudley and Amelia’s wedding, peering through the mahogany bannisters. It felt as though the shadow of Oakhangar Hall hung over everything, including Avery, who had warned her not to go back…
‘This way!’ Johnny called, and Lizzie hurried after him, down a side corridor. It felt colder here, even less friendly than in the gallery. Lizzie’s skin prickled a warning. She was so attuned to the house now, to its moods and its memories, that it almost felt as though she could hear it breathing. Its presence wrapped about her, cold and claustrophobic.
Johnny was waiting for her at the end of the passage. They ducked beneath a low arch that was decorated with another of the Oakhangar stone angels, went down a couple of steps and suddenly they were on a small landing. It was diamond-shaped with mullioned windows and the ubiquitous stone angel over the arch at the top of a narrow flight of stone stairs. She felt the atmosphere as soon as she stepped through the door. It felt close, stifling, a blanket of grief and misery. The sensation was so strong and repellent that she took an instinctive step back, bumping clumsily into Johnny, missing her step and dropping the coffee mug. It smashed on the flagstones, splashing everywhere, but Johnny didn’t seem to notice. He caught her arm and steadied her.
‘I like this part of the house,’ he said. ‘It feels very close to the past.’ He smiled at Lizzie. ‘Don’t worry. It can’t hurt you. It’s only the memory in the stone. I think it holds all of Amy Robsart’s grief and regret, and that’s what you are feeling.’ He ran a gentle hand over the smooth plaster of the wall. ‘This part of the house reuses the stone from Cumnor Place. Its very fabric is created from the place where Amy Robsart died.’
‘I know,’ Lizzie said. Her voice came out as a whisper. She cleared her throat. ‘Johnny,’ she said. ‘Johnny, this is the flight of stairs where Amelia died.’
Johnny was staring down into the shadows of the stair well below. ‘Just a little step back in time,’ he said, almost to himself.
‘No!’ Lizzie said. Her head was buzzing with dark shapes and patterns. She wanted to run away. ‘Johnny, you can’t bring Amelia back,’ she said. ‘I understand what you’re trying to do, but time doesn’t work like that. It can’t.’
‘I’ve got to save Amelia,’ Johnny said, as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘I couldn’t save Amy. She wouldn’t listen. You have to help me.’ He turned to Lizzie and the suddenness, the urgency, made her draw back. He looked heartbreakingly young and hopeful. ‘I knew you would work it all out,’ he said. ‘I knew you were different. I need you to call up the memories in the stone like you did at Baynard’s Castle. Then I can cross time.’
‘No,’ Lizzie said. ‘I won’t do it.’ She tried to back away from the top of the steps but the swarm of dark shadows in her mind was clamouring for attention. There was something here that was too powerful for her to contain and it was terrifying. It was so strong that it dominated everything, filling all the spaces in her head. She fought to hold on to her own thoughts so that she would not be completely subsumed. Dizzily she put out a hand to steady herself against the wall only realising when the