Chapter 2

Tilly’s spine tingled. She uncurled her legs from under the blanket, slid off the sofa, and went to the window to look out. What had made that horrible noise? But it was dark outside; all she could see was her own reflection in the glass, staring back at her.

“Tilly?” Dad called from upstairs. “Time to get ready for bed. I’ll come and say good night later.”

Tilly opened the living room door. The hall was dark. A tiny bit of yellowy light shone in from the streetlight outside, through the pane of glass above the front door, just enough to fill the hall with shadowy creatures. The stairs seemed to lead up into a yawning, black nothing.

Tilly waited, in case that scary screaming sound came again. It was so quiet in the house she could hear the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the kitchen wall. She took a deep breath. She made herself step into the shadowy dark. She dashed to the bottom of the stairs, reached up to the light switch, and flicked it on.

There! Now she could see it was just the hallway, with coats hanging on pegs, cold tiles on the floor, and a staircase with a strip of green carpet going up the middle, held tight by gold metal rods on each step.

Everything in this house was old-fashioned and strange and smelled funny. The ceilings were high up and there were plaster flowers in the middle where the lights hung from. It was much bigger than their old house. It was almost big enough, Tilly thought, to get lost in. The furniture was big and dark too—wardrobes and cupboards and tables and chairs and pictures in heavy gold frames that had belonged to the old lady who had lived in the house before she died. The walls had old-fashioned wallpaper, with patterns of flowers and birds.

They would change all that, Dad said. Paint the whole house, top to bottom, to freshen it up. Get rid of some of the furniture that the old lady had left behind and make the house more theirs. Eventually.

It would be a good house for playing hide-and-seek in, Tilly thought. But she didn’t know anyone around here to play with. Not yet. In her old neighborhood, where the houses were all joined together and went in steps down the hill, all the children dashed in and out of each other’s houses every day after school and all day on the weekend. Her best friend, Ally, lived in the house two doors down. And now they were all miles and miles away.

Tilly went up the bit of stairs that turned the corner, and then along the hallway. The carpet was soft, like moss under her feet. It went in a strip, with bare brown boards on either side. She was careful to stay in the middle. The dark wood on either side was shiny, like water. She was on a moss bridge, going over a river, and if she fell…

Tilly stopped outside Mom’s bedroom door. She listened. Not a sound. There was no strip of light shining out from under the door. Mom must be asleep. For a moment, Tilly thought about pushing open the heavy door, tiptoeing in to kiss Mom good night…

But she mustn’t wake Mom up. Mom wasn’t very well. Just as they’d unpacked the very last boxes, Mom’s head started hurting so much she had to go and lie down. And then it got much worse, and the doctor came, and all Tilly’s excitement about moving to the new house got swallowed up in worrying about Mom.

The doctor said Mom needed to sleep so she could get better faster, and so that the baby would be all right. The baby was growing inside Mom; it needed to grow a lot more before it was ready to be born in early spring.

“So, please be extra quiet and helpful, Tilly,” Dad said when the doctor had gone, “because I’ve got enough on my plate already.”

Tilly padded on past the shut door, along to her own room. She stretched her hand up through the open gap and switched on the light. What was that scuttling under the bed? She shivered again.

She knew what Dad would say. “Old houses are full of noises. It’s the radiator clunking and gurgling, water running along old pipes. It’s only the draft from the window making the curtain twitch. You’ve such a vivid imagination, Tilly!”

Tilly turned on the night-light next to the bed. She picked up her neatly folded pajamas from her pillow and took them with her to the bathroom next door. It was a small room, so you could see into all its corners right away, and it was bright with white tiles and shiny faucets and the towels hanging on a warm rod. Tilly washed her hands and face, and brushed her teeth. She put on her pink rose-patterned pajamas and slippers. She padded back to the bedroom and closed the door and turned off the big light and climbed into bed to wait for Dad to finish his work and come upstairs to say good night.

The night-light on the bedside table glowed like a moon. Little Fox was waiting for her, tucked under the blanket where no one else could see him. She knew she was too old, really, for night-lights and stuffed animals. But Little Fox was different. Tilly stroked his furry red-brown head against her cheek. His nose and eyes were shiny bright, and his ears and paws had black tips, but the tip of his tail and his chest were white. Little Fox had been with Tilly forever and ever. She had stroked and loved him so much he had a bald patch on the back of his head.

She waited for ages, but still Dad didn’t come.

The fox called again. Its eerie cry echoed into the night.

The sound wove in and out of the night garden and into Tilly’s dreams.