A Phantom Whisper

Chapter One

1.

Lulah Delrose flipped through the channels finding nothing to take away the boredom of having to look after her two sleeping cousins. She knew that it was all part of the deal but that didn't make things any easier. Moving to England to study was supposed to have been the beginning of her big adventure, yet all she had done since arriving from Melbourne a week ago was act as an unpaid, live-in nanny to her two young cousins, seven-year-old Reece and Libby, aged five.

She took a quick glance at her watch.

10:22pm.

Katie, Jude and the others are probably heading out on the town right now, she thought. The truth of the matter was that at that moment they were probably more to likely to have been sleeping off the hangover on Sunday morning due to the time difference.

Maybe mum was right. What the hell was I thinking, coming all the way over here to go to university?

Was that it? Could it be that she was homesick?

"Not bloody likely!" she smiled to herself as she clicked to the next channel.

This was her chance to prove her mother wrong once and for all.

Click!

She always seemed to come off second best to her brother, Jason, in her parents' eyes as far as she concerned.

Click!

He had graduated with a 2-1 degree in Business Studies and was now working for some big-wig computer company based somewhere in Sidney.

Click!

Nothing she seemed to do was ever good enough for her mother.

Click!

This was her chance to finally climb from the shadow of her big brother and stand on her own two feet, all be it with the help of her aunt and uncle.

Click!

It was strange. The channel she was now on showed nothing but static. Lulah was about to click to the next when something seemed to come through the fog of interference.

Hold on! Is that a face?

The grainy features flickered through the haze and she found herself drawn to the two dark spots on the screen that looked like large black eyes. Lulah wanted to look away as the noseless, mouthless face became clearer but she couldn't. The fuzzy interference slowly came into focus before fading out again.

A sound came from somewhere behind her and she turned around to see a tired looking, little girl standing in the doorway of the living room and clutching a little doll in her left hand. Her copper coloured curls and half closed, green eyes brought a smile to Lulah's lips.

"Hey, little Munchie, what are you doing out of bed?"

"I can't get to sleep," she said, looking past the young woman to the screen behind her.

"Have you tried?

The little girl nodded, rubbing her eyes before popping her thumb into her mouth.

"Really hard?"

"Yes! I tried really, very hard but I can't sleep!" the girl replied in a tired tone, the words slightly distorted by her thumb. "What's that on the telly?" she asked, removing her thumb from her mouth, rubbing her eyes and staring back at the screen again.

Lulah remembered the strange, black-eyed face and turned to see the television presenter rounding up the day's news. Had she imagined it? Maybe there had just been a problem with the digital signal.