Page 108 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
Initially I jump, but then I realise this is what I’m here for. I try to think about Charlie and how he’d react to this.
‘Hi,’ I say to the empty room. ‘I felt you just then. It’s good you could join me today.’It’s good you could join me today?I repeat in my head.What was that?
But whatever or whoever is in the room with me isn’t put off by my stilted conversation, because I feel something brush against my hand again.
I couldn’t be imagining this, could I?I wonder as I stare at my hand.This has to be real.
‘Is that you, Clara?’ I venture in a tiny voice. ‘Are you really there?’
The sound of a single note on the piano begins to fill the room again. But this time it’s not me who’s pressing the key.
As I stare transfixed at the piano keyboard, I hear a distant voice.
Is it Clara? Is she speaking to me at last?
‘I’m so pleased you’re here, Clara,’ I whisper, looking around the room. ‘I have so much I need to ask you.’
Suddenly the piano stops playing and I hear another sound – the sound of the secret door sliding back on its old cranky mechanism.
I whip my head around so fast that I almost give myself whiplash.
‘Wowee!’ I hear as two small boys are revealed on the other side of the doorway. ‘That is so cool.’
‘Jamie, Luther!’ A woman’s voice now. ‘I told you not to touch anything. Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she apologises as she sees me sitting at the piano looking dazed. ‘We didn’t mean to disturb you.’
I stand up quickly. ‘No, not at all. Your boys have simply discovered the entrance to a secret room, that’s all. We sometimes have this room open to the public, but I was just . . . ’ I search desperately for inspiration. ‘I was just tuning the piano.’
‘Ah,’ the woman glances doubtfully at the piano, ‘I see. I do apologise again. We’ll leave you to it. Come along, boys.’
‘Enjoy the rest of your visit to Chesterford Castle!’ I call as they depart back into the Great Hall. I hear the boys banging on the suits of armour as they pass them, even though there’s a clear sign that says, ‘Please Do Not Touch’.
I look around the room, but the feeling I’d had a few moments ago has now disappeared, and I am in no doubt that Clara – if she’d ever really been here at all – has definitely gone.
I leave the door to the Ladies’ Chamber ajar and head back upstairs.
Am I imagining all this?I ask myself again.Have all the things that have happened really been the result of spirits roaming the halls of Chesterford? Or am I just desperate to discover the answers to several of my most pressing problems, and this is the only way I can see of solving them?
But then I think about Charlie. He couldn’t be imagining all this, could he? Although I have to admit last night he had talked about how glad he was he had a family again here at the castle. Perhaps this ghost thing is about something similar – something he lacks in his life that he needs to find answers for.
I’m just passing the Blue Bedroom when I notice the door is pulled to. That’s odd, the doors to all the state rooms are always open when visitors are in the castle.
I’m just reaching my hand towards the handle when I hear a noise coming from inside the room, and then giggling.
Is it Percy up to his old tricks?
Because I’d doubted their existence, are the ghosts showing me they are really here again?
I push open the door to enter the bedroom, expecting to see nothing as I’d done that last time I’d heard sounds on the other side of these walls. But to my surprise, and subsequent shock, I do see something, and it’s something I really don’t want to see before I’ve had my morning coffee. In fact, at any time of the day.
It’s the sight of two shapes writhing about under the bedclothes.
But these definitely aren’t celestial bodies, they are very real ones.
‘Excuse me!’ I say in a voice that sounds prim, even to me. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
The faces on the two bodies turn towards my voice, looking even more shocked than I feel.
‘Oh God!’ the young man says, grabbing at the blue silk eiderdown. ‘We didn’t think anyone would be up here this early.’
