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pushed herself into a sitting position and leaned back against the curved wooden headboard. Rain outside pattered against the room's windows.
    She shook Gabe's shoulder again, this time more fiercely. 'Gabe, can't you hear him?'
    Reluctantly, he dragged himself from sleep and raised his head. 'Hear who?' he said.
    'Listen.'
    Now he heard it. Chester's howl drifted across the hall and up the stairs from the kitchen.
    'He's frightened,' said Eve.
    Gabe rested on one elbow and briskly wiped weariness from his face with the flat of his hand. It had been a long, hard day and this he could do without.
    'He'll be okay,' he assured Eve. 'Just needs to get used to the place.'
    Eve was staring at the dark opening of the doorway, the door left ajar so that they could hear either of the girls should they wake up in their strange room and be frightened. Their bedroom door had been left open too.
    'Gabe!' she said sharply. Something pale had moved into the opening, but it was too dark to see what: so cloudy was the night that the window offered little light. 'There's someone out there.'
    Gabe felt the back of his neck go cold, short hairs there stiffening. He sat up in the bed and stared at the doorway and drew in an involuntary breath.
    'Mummy? Daddy?'
    Both Eve and Gabe felt their bodies relax when they realized Loren had come to their room. The door swung even wider open and the howling below grew more mournful.
    'Chester's upset,' Loren said from the doorway.
    'It's all right,' Eve soothed. 'He just doesn't like being alone in a new place.'
    'He'll settle down soon,' Gabe added.
    'But he's crying, Daddy.' In the cold darkness of night he had become 'Daddy' once more.
    He pushed the bed's heavy duvet aside, giving in only a tad reluctantly. He was concerned for the mutt too. That afternoon he'd had to venture out in the rain to Chester, who had refused to leave his spot by the oak tree, heedless of their calls and coaxing. He had picked the mongrel up bodily and carried him back into the house; once inside, Chester had shivered in the corner of the kitchen next to the door while Loren wiped him down with an old towel, his eyes bulging so hard that the whites at the sides were visible. Eventually, and with Loren stroking his wiry fur, Chester had fallen into a troubled sleep.
    'You go back to bed, Loren, and I'll go down and see to Chester,' Gabe said as he padded over to the door.
    'Can't he sleep on my bed?' Loren implored.
    'Uh-huh, kid. He's gotta get through the night on his own. We can't have him sleeping upstairs.'
    'Just this once, Daddy. He won't disturb me if he's on the end of my bed. I promise he'll be good.'
    'Let me see how he is first.'
    'Thank you, Daddy.'
    'I didn't say I'd bring him up, I said I'll see how he is. And if he does come up, he'll be in this room, not with you. Now get yourself back to bed before you catch cold.'
    She disappeared into her own room, but before he could go to the stairs, her head popped out again.
    'You won't be cross with him, will you?' she said plaintively.
    'Bed.' He used his no-nonsense tone and she disappeared.
    He remembered there was a light switch somewhere on the landing and his hand scrabbled against the wall beside the bedroom door. There, found it. He clicked on the landing light, which was dim, hardly strong enough to spill into the hall below. The switch to the iron chandelier was inconveniently somewhere by the front door.
    Gabe usually slept in T-shirt and boxers, but because the house was cold, tonight he wore dark pyjama leggings below the T-shirt. The landing's bare floorboards, which had been varnished some time ago, were cool under his bare feet and for once he wished he was the kind of guy who wore slippers. Hand using the wide rail for guidance, he went down the stairs into the hall's shadowy darkness, old boards creaking beneath his tread. Pausing on the small square landing at the turn of the stairs, even the tall window behind him affording scant light, rain