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kitchen was filled with the noise and bustle of the family. Samuel felt oddly comforted by it. It was hard to believe this was the same house as a few hours earlier, when he had run from the drawing room in a blind panic, to escape the sound of the Weeping Woman as she paced the upstairs rooms.
    “So,” Charles said, eyeing Samuel across the table as he sipped his soup. “Did he get his map finished, that’s what we’re all asking ourselves?”
    Samuel avoided his eye.
    “Charles, I wish you wouldn’t speak to Samuel like that,” Fiona cut in.
    “Like what?”
    “I didn’t manage to finish it, as a matter of fact,” Samuel said suddenly, glancing at the others.
    Charles watched him intently.
    “Why not?”
    “I was disturbed.” And he let the sentence hang on the air. The others looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t bother to elaborate. When the boys had disappeared upstairs Fiona leant across the table towards him.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “Nothing,” he mumbled.
    “Come on,” she said. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
    He swallowed. “I heard her.”
    Fiona stared at him, wide-eyed.
    “Mum said it was probably just the radiators creaking. Old houses do that, she said, make noises and things. But it wasn’t that. I heard her footsteps clearly. She walked up the stairs, through the drawing room and then into the library. And all the time I could hear her sobbing.”
    Fiona laid her soup spoon down in the bowl. “What are we going to do?” she hissed.
    “I don’t know.”
     
    Upstairs in his room, in the tower, Charles switched on thecomputer and sat down at his desk. He felt restless. The darkness outside pressed against the window pane, and he could see nothing below. He loved having a room up here. It meant that most of the time he and Seb had complete privacy. They could hear anyone on the stone staircase long before they reached the landing. It was a bit of a nuisance now that Granny Hughes and her husband were staying in the spare room for Christmas, the room that usually remained empty. Granny didn’t like staying in that room. She claimed she heard noises in the night, although nobody took much notice of her. She was always nervous, anyway. Wasn’t used to big houses. Said so herself. The rest of the time he and Sebastian had the whole tower to themselves. It felt almost medieval, although it wasn’t. It still had the original stone staircase, twisting round and round the thick stone walls. Charles kept thinking about what Samuel had said at the supper table, and about his dream of the other night, the woman with the dark eyes hissing the words “I – will – get – you,” at him. Should he tell the others? What would be the point of that? No one would believe him anyway. He barely believed it himself. He got up and went to his brother’s room.
    Sebastian was stretched out on the bed, as unconcerned as ever. Nothing seemed to worry him. Charles envied him that. He leaned against the doorpost, frowning.
    “What d’you think disturbed him?”
    Sebastian looked up, puzzled. “Who?”
    “Samuel, of course. Who d’you think?”
    His brother shrugged. “I don’t know. He looked a bit pale, though.”
    “I’d love to know what it was,” Charles said.
    “We could ask him?”
    “Not likely. He might tell Fiona about it, though,” Charles added softly, thinking out loud to himself.
    “We could ask Fiona then.”
    Charles shook his head. “She’d never tell us.”
    Sebastian watched his brother in silence for a minute.
    “Why does it bother you so much?”
    “What?”
    “Samuel, living in the cottage.”
    “It doesn’t!”
    “Yes it does. You act all the time like he’s some kind of threat.”
    Charles didn’t answer at once. He looked at his brother, and for a brief moment thought about telling him about what had been happening to him lately. But the moment didn’t last long. Charles wasn’t used to confiding in anyone, least of all some story about a