Clara no longer knew what she was writing. She only knew she couldn’t stop. It was certainly not the well-argued unpicking of Reverend Fallowfield’s trickery her father had requested. There was no doubt in Clara’s mind that the exorcisms she had witnessed in her home and St Winifred’s School were as genuine as they were cruel and brutal. She wrote page after page, putting down her thoughts, trying to order them, to give them structure, to make sense of them. She wrote about her brief encounter with Lady Aysgarth’s ghost. She wrote about the ghost in the school and the list of haunted buildings that had ended up in her hands. She wrote of her frustration of having such a list when she was unable to communicate with their ghostly inhabitants.
Reverend Fallowfield was never far from her thoughts, but she had not referred to him in front of her parents since the visit to the school. Aunt Hetty had been the last person to bring up his name, during a recent visit, when she announced that although he was undoubtedly gifted, he really only ever did the same thing. Hetty had hoped he might extend his act to include, say, the summoning of the ghosts of famous historical figures, but he had dismissed this idea out of hand and Hetty had found alternative entertainment in a Spaniard who claimed to be able to eat absolutely anything. Mr Tiltman seemed reluctant to have this new person over for a dinner party, fearing that he would have to buy yet more replacement cutlery.
Clara allowed her parents to believe she too had lost interest in Reverend Fallowfield, just as they hoped she would one day drop the notion of becoming a journalist. The newspapermen who had visited after the discovery of the dead girl in the kitchen had certainly not made the profession seem any more glamorous to her. Intrusive, rude, snivelling men, who smelt of tobacco and augmented every quote with a string of sensationalist adjectives, they were more interested in the bloody details than in the reason behind the girl’s death. Still, Clara read every word of their overblown reports while her mother went to great lengths to avoid them. Since the incident, Mrs Tiltman habitually checked the doors were locked and spoke incessantly about moving away from the city, causing a number of heated rows with her husband.
Clara knew that eventually her father would give in. Her days in London were numbered. Her mother would get her own way and they would move to a boring suburb. Clara didn’t want to leave the city. Nor did she want to abandon Aysgarth House. Since the discovery of the girl the place felt different. It felt how it used to when Lady Aysgarth’s ghost had still been there.
‘It is as if the ghost of the girl has replaced that of Lady Aysgarth,’ Clara wrote.
She stopped and read the sentence back. Yes, that was exactly what it felt like. She looked at the toy theatre. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could have sworn she saw something move. She took a couple of steps towards it. She glanced at the window. There was no breeze outside and the window was shut tight, preventing any draught. Yet one of the paper actors had moved.
‘Hello?’ she said.
Nothing.
‘Hello?’ she repeated.
There was no movement.
When a bell rang Clara jumped out of her skin, but it was only Hopkins announcing dinner. She glanced at the theatre one more time before leaving the room.