A Girl, a Murder, and Twelve Dreadful Children

Chapter XVIII: The Madwoman in the Attic

Don't stick your nose where someone can pull it off and eat it. -- Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

"What was that?"

It was a question that had been asked millions of times all over the world. There was usually an answer. It wasn't always the answer the questioner wanted. But sometimes no one had an answer, and they dismissed the question with vague guesses. It's just the wind. It's just the drains. It's nothing to worry about.

This time the question was asked by Samantha, Courtney's former housemate. It was prompted by a mysterious shuffling noise upstairs, like someone creeping down the landing on their hands and knees.

Her other housemates listened without much interest.

"It's only the curtains rustling," Jane said. "Do you think this soup is ready yet?"

"It was not just the curtains rustling," Sam insisted. "It sounded like someone's upstairs."

The other two gave her disbelieving looks. Ever since... what happened, Sam had become more and more paranoid. Some nights she woke up screaming. Some days she was sure she'd heard the radio playing Courtney's favourite song. When someone checked they inevitably found the radio was turned off and often unplugged.

And now she had become convinced there was something else -- or someone else -- in the house. A reminder of a doctor's appointment fell off the fridge? Something pulled it off. A stack of books fell over? Someone pushed them. Her phone's battery was unexpectedly low? Someone had used it without her knowledge. It was ridiculous. And it was driving her friends to distraction.

"No one else is in the house," Rachel said, slowly and distinctly. "No one can get in without us knowing."

There were locks on all the doors and windows, locks that would set off alarms if they were forced. It was a precaution they had decided to take after the murder. Better safe than sorry, as Sam herself had said. Her housemates just wished she wasn't carrying that advice to such extremes.

"I can hear them!" Sam insisted. "Listen."

Everyone listened. But now there wasn't a sound to be heard anywhere in the house. Not even the faintest rustle or whisper.

"Well," Sam said after an awkward pause. "I heard them earlier."

Jane and Rachel rolled their eyes in unison.

~~~~

Upstairs, Claire sat on the floor of Sam's bedroom. In her hands she held Sam's diary. She flicked through the pages until she found the entries written around the time of the murder.

~~~~

Click. Click. Click.

The sound forced its way into Dani's dreams. It was a clock ticking loudly that suddenly turned into a dripping tap, then became the clatter of a typewriter's keys. Slowly it dragged her out of sleep.

"Come in," she said sleepily, her eyes still closed.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

Finally she realised it wasn't someone knocking at the door. She struggled to sit up, tangled up in her quilt so she looked like an Egyptian mummy rather than a living woman. Her bleary eyes and not-yet-awake shambling made her resemble a hung-over Egyptian mummy as, still clutching her quilt, she staggered across the room.

"Urr?" she said intelligently, turning on the light and opening the door.

The landing was empty. In the square patch of light that shone through her door she could see there was nothing in sight anywhere.