Page 104 of Disturbing the Dead
We’re in the library, where I run my hands over the built-in bookcase. “These shelves are original. Back then, this one here would be for fiction. Over here is medical—”
Footsteps patter up the distant stairs, and I wheel toward them.
“Mallory?” Mom says.
“Someone’s here.” I follow the patter of those steps overhead. “Maybe the cleaners aren’t done?”
“I… don’t hear anything, Mal,” Mom says.
The footfalls have stopped now, and a door creaks.
“There,” I say, looking up. “You must have heard that.”
They exchange a look.
“No, hon,” Dad says. “What do you hear?”
Footsteps on the stairs. Someone running up in… In soft-soled boots, light-footed.
Alice running up to the next level and then opening a door.
My mind is playing tricks, replaying a sound I’ve heard so often I can barely walk through this house without imagining it. Alice scampering about. Mrs. Wallace snapping at me for something. McCreadie’s laugh, and Isla’s answering quip. And then heavy footsteps, Gray pacing about, deep in thought.
“Let’s go up to the top floor,” I say, a little too brightly. “I want to show you where my room was.”
“I think we should go to the next floor,” Dad says. “You heard something up there.”
I make a face. “My imagination. It’s Alice’s fault. She’s always scampering about. Isla bought her softer-soled indoor boots, but I swear they still echo like me with my cowboy boots. Remember those?”
“We’re going to the next floor,” Mom says, and heads that way before I can stop her.
As we climb, I keep up the tour-guide spiel, overeager now. “This is just the bedroom level. Duncan’s room first and then Isla’s across the hall, and two smaller rooms farther down. I think they use what would have been their parents’ rooms, and the others would have been the children’s quarters.”
I stride into the hall, pointing to my left first. “That’s Duncan’s and—”
The beige paint seems to shimmer, gold damask wallpaper appearing behind it. I shake my head and the wallpaper vanishes.
“Mallory?” Mom says.
“Is this entire place painted builder-beige?” I say, shaking my head as I pull open Gray’s door and—
There’s a desk beside the hearth, Gray’s papers and books scattered over it, spilling onto the floor.
I slam the door shut, my heart pounding, but the image stays burned on my retinas.
When I look up, light flickers. Gaslight, from a brass fixture down the wall.
“Mal?” It’s Dad now, his hand closing on my elbow. “Tell us what you see.”
I shake my head.
His voice lowers. “Please, Mallory.”
I hesitate. Then I do. I tell them I saw Gray’s room and that there’s gas lighting in the hall here, and wallpaper shimmers beneath that builder-beige paint.
A noise in a room down the hall has me jumping.
“Mallory?” Mom says.
