time I had stood there, hand on the rounded knob, simply unable to go any further—unable to face whatever watchful darkness lay behind that door.
Now, though, I was beginning to suspect that whatever haunted Heatherbrae was very human. And I was determined that this time, I would turn the knob, open the door, and find evidence to that effect—evidence that I could show Sandra when I told her about tonight’s events.
But when I got to the landing, I found I didn’t need to open it at all. For my door . . . the door to my room, was open. And I had left it closed.
I had a clear, a crystal clear memory of standing in front of it, looking at the crack beneath it, totally unable to turn the handle.
And now it stood open.
It was very cold again, even colder than it had been that time I woke in the night, shivering, to find the thermostat turned down and the air conditioning blasting out. But this time I could feel it was more than just the chill of the room; it was an actual breeze.
For a moment I felt every part of that firm resolution shrivel down like plastic in a flame, disappearing into the core of me, melting and curling into a hard blackened core.
Where was the breeze coming from? Was it the attic door? If it was open again—in spite of the lock and the key in my pocket, and in spite of Jack lying asleep in his flat across the courtyard—I thought I would scream.
Then I got a hold of myself.
This was insane. There was no such thing as ghosts. No such thing as haunting. There was nothing in that attic but dust and the relics of bored children, fifty years dead.
I walked into the room and pressed the button on the panel.
Nothing happened. I tried a different square, one I was sure had made the lamps come on last night. Still nothing, though an unseen fan began to hum. For a long moment I stood in the dark, trying to figure out what to do. I could smell the cold dusty air that blew through the attic keyhole, and I could hear something too—not the creak, creak of before, but a low, mechanical buzzing that puzzled me.
And then, out of nowhere, a sudden wave of anger washed over me.
Whatever it was, whatever was up there, I would not let myself be scared like this. Someone, something, was trying to drive me away from Heatherbrae, and I was not giving in to it.
I don’t know if it was the remnants of the wine in my veins that gave me courage, or the knowledge that when I rang Sandra the next day, very likely I would be going home anyway, but I took my phone out of my pocket, switched on the torch, and strode across the bedroom to the attic door.
As I did so, the buzzing sounded again. It was coming from above my head. The sound was familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. It sounded like a furiously angry wasp, but there was something . . . something robotic about it, a quality that did not make me think it was a living thing.
I felt in my jeans pocket for the key, which was still there from yesterday, hard and unyielding against my leg, and I drew it out.
Softly, very softly, I put the key into the closet door, and turned it. It was stiff—but not as stiff as last time. The WD-40 had done its work, and although I felt resistance, it turned quietly, without the screech of metal on metal it had given when Jack forced the lock.
Then I set my hand to the door, and opened it.
* * *
The smell was just as I remembered from last time—dank, musty, the smell of death and abandonment.
But there was something up there, I could see that now, something casting a low white glow that illuminated the cobwebs the spiders had woven across the attic steps. Yet, no one had been up there since Jack and me, that was plain. It was not just the key in my pocket that told me that—but the thick unbroken webs across my path, painstakingly respun since my last passage. There was no way someone could have passed this way without disturbing them. As it was, I was forced to step cautiously, sweeping my hand in front of my face to try to keep the clinging