I woke in the night to the sound of laughter. Somewhere someone was playing a waltz on the piano. It made no sense. Who could be playing music in the middle of the night?

I sat up, the blankets falling off me. ‘Olivia? Marian?’

Nobody replied.

I struggled out of bed, tripping over the rag rug in the dark. The room was freezing. Pulling my wrapper down off the back of the door I slid back the lock and stumbled out into the corridor.

I could see light spilling from the mezzanine landing as the waltz echoed around the house.

I’d reached the main landing when I felt the strange stillness take me.

Was it darker here? Colder?

The music stopped abruptly. All was quiet.

Why had I imagined there’d been light? Everything was in shadow, with only a shaft of pale moonlight drifting through the windows.

You fool, I thought, taking a step back. You were dreaming.

I was turning to go back to my room when I heard a soft sound, almost like a sigh.

A chill crept down my spine.

I turned to look again but nothing was there. Only the darkness, watching me.

But no. I was wrong. Something moved on the other side of the mezzanine. There was a small shadow there, deeper than the others.

‘Who is there?’

It came out as a choked whisper, too hoarse and low for anyone to hear.

Again, came that breathy sound.

My heart stopped.

There was a face in the gloom.

Olivia was standing on the gallery level opposite me, the opening to the hallway below in between us. I could have sworn she had not been there a moment ago but the white of her skin seemed to soak up the moonlight, making her face and hands starkly visible against the gloom.

She stood, as still and poised as a statue, her dust-coloured eyelashes resting gently against her cheeks.

She was sleepwalking.

‘Miss Olivia?’ I whispered.

She made no move.

I started to make my way along the hallway, ready to guide her back to bed. ‘Miss Olivia – it is time that you went to your room.’

I froze, mid-step.

Behind Olivia, two shadows moved. Their bulk tensed and shifted and suddenly I realised that they were not shadows but figures. Dark figures, obscured in the gloom, flanking Olivia. Towering over her.

My breathing stopped. My arms broke into goosebumps so urgent that they were almost painful. All sound died except the pounding of my own heart in my ears.

Olivia, seemingly unaware, turned and started to make her slow, methodical way down the hall towards Captain Richmond’s room. The figures followed, echoing her rocking gait. I stood, transfixed, until they passed through the arched doorway and were disappearing down the corridor. She was leading them to her grandfather’s room.

‘Miss Pearlie?’

The voice startled me so completely I gave a cry and almost sank to the floor but managed to steady myself on the handrail.

The lamps were lit. The eerie darkness of the house was gone. Olivia was nowhere to be seen. In her place stood Mrs Hayes in her nightclothes, hands on her hips. She stared at me as though I were an animal at the botanical gardens who had begun to worry at itself.

‘Are you unwell?’

‘I… I saw… I thought that I…’ I couldn’t seem to find my words. I tried to look composed but I still gripped the railing and I could feel a fine needling of sweat on my brow.

‘I thought I heard something. Music,’ I said, finally. ‘But possibly not. Was it you playing that music? I did not know you played.’

‘Miss Pearlie, you are unwell,’ announced Mrs Hayes.

‘I am fine,’ I insisted.

‘Poor thing,’ said a voice. I turned to my left and saw her in a corner.

The Soho witch-child, a dark ribbon of blood unfurling from her nose.

She had never had that before, had she?

Maybe in my nightmares but not really. Not really.

‘Poor thing,’ she wheedled again. ‘She’s imagining things.’

‘I think she might be mad,’ agreed Mrs Hayes.

I turned from one to the other. No… surely they could not see each other?

‘Yes, quite, quite mad,’ said the witch-child and grinned, exposing irregular rows of rotting teeth covered in a dark, slick film of blood.

‘I would also advise against meetings with Dr Richmond at improper times,’ continued Mrs Hayes, as if there was no bleeding child in the corner. ‘Possibly it was not a cause for concern in previous positions.’

‘Not for you,’ giggled the witch-child, slurping at her teeth.

‘But Dr Richmond has a reputation to uphold and it would not do for people to hear of him hosting the lady’s maid.’

‘Companion,’ I heard myself say.

‘Whatever you are. It is improper for you to be alone with him in your bedroom. People talk.’

‘But I haven’t done anything,’ I said.

‘No?’ said Mrs Hayes and suddenly there was the smell of the pond in the air.

‘Juja…’

I looked down. Something was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

A small wet figure.

Plip…

I bolted upright in bed, my scream unformed as the nightmare drained away, shaking and sweating with the force of it.

Around me, the house sighed.