Lost Souls

26

Back at the house everyone worked hard to install the lighting as far into the secret rooms as the cabling lengths allowed.  As the last piece of wiring was twisted into place, MacBlaine coughed gently, "I think the honour for turning these on should belong to Grace," he suggested, as he rubbed some dirt from his hair.

​Mrs. Rusk smiled despite the building tension in her back and neck. She recognised the humour in the vicar's voice. "My pleasure," she said, as she started flicking her way along the long row of plug switches.

​Amber gasped, as the rooms were engulfed with light, in all colours of the rainbow.

​"Not what I'd expected," Alex giggled, "But I like it."

​"Hmm. They must have left the Christmas panto bulbs in the boxes," MacBlaine informed them."

​"It's like a disco!" Katie joked, as she danced along to some imaginary music.

​"It's good enough for what we have to do," Mr. Rusk pointed out, as he stuck his head through the hole and frowned at the bright yellow, red and blue illumination glowing brightly inside. "Come on. Let's get started. Grab whatever you think you'll need to dig and then sift through the dirt. Remember to be careful with anything you find."

​"And be careful with yourselves," Mrs. Rusk added, as one by one she watched members of her family, MacBlaine and Christopher Scott climb through and disappear into the rainbow washed rooms.

​"I'm glad I'm not going in there," Amber stressed, squeezing a doll tightly to her chest.

​"Me too poppet. Me too. Come on, how about we go and watch a DVD, or play a game while we wait to see if daddy and the others find anything?"

​Amber tried to take a peek through the hole before she answered. "I hope they don't find any monsters," she whispered back at her mum.

​"Oh, I doubt they'll find anything scary. Probably just come out looking like coalmen, covered in soot."

​Amber laughed. "Alex will be fed up if he gets really dirty."

​"Won't he just," Mrs. Rusk agreed, as she led her youngest daughter out of the kitchen and back through to the lounge.

​Inside the underground rooms, Mr. Rusk, MacBlaine and Alex had started to search in one corner, while Katie and Christopher had been assigned to the opposite one.

​The dust on the floor was several inches deep, and with the multi- coloured lights shimmering across it, it looked like a snow scene from a Christmas card. All that was missing was a fat Santa Claus. The brickwork was damp in places, and giant cobwebs were hanging from wherever spiders had wanted to build a new home. Katie kept glancing at the web behind her head, worried the builder and his family might come back at any moment.

​Sensing her discomfort, Christopher smiled, "They won't bite you Katie."

​"I hate spiders. I always have," Katie replied nervously.

​"I should think they'd be more scared of you than the other way around," Christopher pointed out, trying to make Katie relax and concentrate on searching the room. He wanted to get out of the musky, airless rooms as quickly as possible, and escape with Katie, before anything got in the way to prevent them doing so. The vicar had told him many of the ghost stories about the house, and he'd heard several more from the village kids or scaremongers down the years. Once, during his summer holidays when he'd been about twelve, he'd even been dared to spend a night there himself. He'd only managed to stay about ten minutes, before the creaking and groaning of the old building had sent him scuttling home again.