heart flew straight out of her breast and she sagged against the crumbling wall of the house in a dead faint. The next thing she was aware of was being half dragged across the lawn while she desperately tried to fend off her attacker with feeble motions of arms and legs - the most she could manage through the paralysis of her terror. Then she was lying still, gazing into darkness and a fuzzy shape appeared before her, which slowly coalesced into the frenzied features of Ben, her brother. 'Jackie, Jackie' he sobbed, shaking her wildly. 'Please wake up, we’ve got to go.'
But his voice stuttered to a stop and he was gazing up at something. Jackie slowly turned her head and was dazzled by a piercingly bright light that was shining straight into her eyes. She partially shielded her face with her hand and with an audible gasp she finally made out the familiar shape of Mrs Smith.
Before either of them had time to react further, Mrs Smith stepped forward and walked between them, completely oblivious to their presence. They watched as the bobbing circle of light on the lawn passed away from them and then back towards the house, before disappearing altogether.
'I can’t understand how she didn’t see us,’ whispered Jackie, ‘she walked right past us and the torch was shining straight at me.'
There was no response from Ben and when Jackie turned to look at him, the sight of him shocked her. His face was bone white, his eyes wild and his lips were quivering silently. He was clearly in a worse state of shock than she was in herself and so she tugged at him and just said his name over and over 'Ben, Ben, come on we have to get home now.'
Eventually, he responded just enough that she could coax him along and slowly, together, they crawled to the fence, scrambled through the gap in the panels and started on their way home. As they walked along the lower village lane in almost total darkness, Jackie kept asking Ben what he had seen. Finally, he spoke; one word at a time and each punctuated by a shuddering intake of breath, 'I saw two bodies lying in the room.'
'What do you mean?' was all she could say, but he continued regardless of her interruption. 'I could tell they were dead. There was a young woman and she was really pretty and then there was a man holding her and his arms were wrapped right around her and they were kind of looking at each other but they were dead.' His voice choked on the final word.
'How do you know they were dead, maybe they were just…'
'I just knew they were. Anyway, when I screamed they didn’t move at all. When I saw them, I couldn’t help myself screaming and I couldn’t bear to stay there, it felt so horrible. I just ran as fast as I could. Then Mrs Smith came out but she couldn’t see us, perhaps she’s a ghost.'
'But how can she be a ghost? We saw her before and spoke to her and she seemed completely real to me.'
'I don’t know, or maybe she has really bad eyesight?'
Jackie responded, 'Yes, maybe she has bad night vision, that could be it.' But she didn’t really believe it.
Both children then trudged on in silence for a while and then Ben said, 'What are we going to do?'
Jackie replied 'Well we’ve got to talk Mum and Dad out of buying that house for one thing.'
'Yes,’ said Ben, 'but how can we tell them about it? They’ll never believe us.'
At last, they arrived home exhausted, only to find themselves in huge trouble with their parents for being out so late and no amount of protestation did any good.
As Ben lay in bed waiting impatiently for the oblivion of sleep, all he could see in his mind’s eye was the waxen face of the young girl. She was very pretty he thought, very pretty, actually even quite beautiful. Her face was turned in his direction and he could make out every little feature in exquisite detail, from the long brown eyelashes to the width and shape of her cheekbones, the fineness of her nose and the gentle arc of each eyebrow. How had he not noticed before, how dark and beguiling her eyes were and how inviting her smile? How had he missed how very much alive she was and that her smile was clearly for him and him alone?
When Ben awoke the next day, the exploits of the previous night seemed at first to be nothing more than a bad dream, but then he remembered and his heart sank. He went and woke Jackie up and each confirmed to the other the reality of what had happened, although, of course, Jackie could only take Ben’s word that he had seen dead bodies in the house.
Finally, they descended the stairs for Breakfast and found their parents sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.
'Hi Kids,’ said their mother, 'We have just had some fantastic news. The house belongs to us now and tomorrow we’re moving in. Isn’t it exciting?'
The following day the removal van turned up bright and early and soon a constant procession of boxes and furniture were being ferried from house to van. To keep them out of the way, the children were stationed in their bedrooms and charged with boxing up the last remnants of their possessions. They carried out this duty with a palpable lack of enthusiasm. Most of the time they couldn’t even bring themselves to talk and so the hours passed in virtual silence, with just the odd coded glance at each other from time to time. Their parents were far too preoccupied to notice any of this and if they read anything into the children’s behaviour it was that they were tired and maybe feeling a little unsettled. It was, after all, quite understandable for children to take a little time to adapt to a change of circumstance.
Eventually, all the rooms were empty and they took a final ceremonial walk around the place which had been their home for the past few months. Then they left and slammed the front door shut behind them for the final time, climbed into their car and followed the removal van up the road to their new house.
It looked just as fine as ever in the late afternoon light and the slanting rays of the sun lent to it a warm glow, whilst the well-manicured flower beds set the house off to perfection.
'Well, children, here we are at last,’ said their mother, ‘we won’t fully unpack today. We’ll just get everything into the house and then we’ll all get an early night and sort it all out tomorrow.'
The removal van was emptied surprisingly quickly and at last, they were alone in their new residence with heaps of labelled boxes and stacks of disarrayed furniture for company. They sat at the kitchen table and ate soup and bread in a silence that spoke of mental and physical exhaustion, for it had indeed been a long day.
'Ok, children, you look absolutely done in.' said their mother finally. 'Ben, I’m afraid you won’t be able to sleep in your bedroom tonight because we have had to use it as a temporary dumping ground for all the boxes that will be going up into the loft.'
'So where am I to sleep then?'
'Don’t worry; you’ll be perfectly comfortable. I’ve made you up a camp bed in the front room.' Ben just stared back at her, slack-jawed and on the verge of tears.
'But Mum, I can’t; I just can’t sleep in there, it’s….’
But his mother was too tired to argue. 'It’s only for one night Ben, now stop making such a fuss. We’re all going to have to make sacrifices until we get settled in.' That was the end of the matter as far as she was concerned.
Later that evening the parents sat up talking, for although they were tired, they were not yet quite ready for bed either.
Mrs Marigold suddenly exclaimed, 'You know darling, I had a little chat with the woman down at the village shop today when I went to pick up the bread and milk and she told me a fascinating story about this house. She said that about twenty years ago there was a fire and the house almost completely burnt down. It was quite tragic at the time because apparently the daughter of the owners was about to be married and it was only a few days before the wedding that the fire broke out. The young woman was alone in the house at the time and the fire brigade was desperately trying to tackle the fire when the young woman’s fiancé arrived at the house. The blaze was too intense for anyone to enter the house but, when he realised that she was still inside, he screamed her name and dashed inside before anybody could stop him. It was several hours before the fire was finally put out and anybody
could enter the house, but when they did, they found two bodies charred beyond recognition, lying side by side on the floor.'
Mr Marigold’s expression had grown ever more horrified as the tale went on.
'Well, that’s a bit of a grisly tale to be going to sleep on,' he said, 'anyway, it’s probably not true. You know what they are like in villages like this. Stories get passed around and distorted and embellished with each retelling.'
'Maybe,’ said his wife, 'maybe, but I wouldn’t say anything to the children about it, I wouldn’t want to frighten them, and in any case, I haven’t finished yet. It seems that the house was eventually rebuilt and the young girl’s parents moved back in and lived in it for a number of years and it seemed that they had got their lives back together when suddenly, out of the blue, one night the woman took an overdose of sleeping pills and killed herself. When her husband discovered what she had done he was so distraught that he hanged himself in the apple tree, of all places.'
'Ok, ok,' laughed Mr Marigold, 'you’d better stop now before you give us both nightmares. Let’s go upstairs and try to get some sleep.'
As he lay on his camp bed in the gloomy darkness of the front room, Ben could just make out the sound of his parent’s voices droning away in the kitchen. It was comforting to know