Read Online An English Ghost Story by Kim Newman - Free Book Online Page A

Dad–son things with tools. When the home front was at its worst, the only cause that united him with Kirsty was worrying about Jordan. As a trio, they had been through several, hideous sessions, more like an encounter group than a family argument.
    That was another life.
    He stopped spinning.
    ‘Dad,’ Jordan said, ‘has Mum heard from Veronica?’
    The name still turned him cold.
    ‘Not since we moved,’ he said. (She hadn’t, had she? The new Kirsty would have said something.)
    ‘Good,’ she replied, kissing his forehead. ‘Veronica used to frighten me.’
    ‘Me too,’ he confessed. ‘But she was Kirst’s friend. Your Mum needed a friend.’
    (Veronica called herself a healer.)
    ‘She wasn’t anyone’s friend, not really.’
    Jordan was sharp about people. It was one of her problems, actually. When she was in her darkest self, she always knew the worst thing to say. The truth.
    ‘I think you’re right,’ he said.
    This bright, sunny, funny girl was a delight and a wonder. One of the great discoveries of the Hollow. He had to think hard to remember the old Jordan.
    ‘There’s something wrong with Veronica, isn’t there?’
    ‘Yes, Jord,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t know what it is or how she gets her hold over people, but she’s not like us. Not like the way we are now.’
    ‘Does Mum miss her?’
    Steven thought hard. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘Mum has us. It was the choice she made. The choice we all made. To come here, and be a family.’
    (What did the witch think about Kirsty’s choice?)
    ‘I’m glad,’ Jordan said. ‘I can’t imagine how it would have been if we hadn’t found the Hollow.’
    ‘What makes you think the Hollow didn’t find us?’
    He had to say that. It had been in his mind from the first sight of the place.
    Jordan sat in a window-nook, sunlight on her hair, and got comfortable. Steven was impressed at how relaxed his daughter was. She had always been intensely self-conscious, but that was gone.
    ‘Dad, have you noticed?’
    She was looking at him, light behind her. He knew what she meant, what she wanted to talk about. He was excited but a little anxious. It was enormous, when he thought about it. He had a sense of privilege that Jordan had chosen to raise it with him, not Kirsty.
    ‘Little things,’ she said. ‘When you go into a room, it’s as if someone has just stepped out. I keep thinking it’s Mum or you, but it can’t be. There’s a rocking chair in my room. Sometimes, it rocks by itself.’
    ‘Does it frighten you?’
    She shook her head. ‘Not at all. I don’t think it should.’
    ‘It’s a mystery,’ he said. ‘I’ve come across them too. Things change when you’re not looking, rearrange themselves. Always for the better. I was thinking of opening those boxes, and letting the fairies do the unpacking but I think that’s not in the programme. We have to make an effort, or it doesn’t count. But let’s start a mystery collection. Mum and Tim can join in. In the end, we’ll get to the bottom of it.’
    ‘I suppose,’ she said, doubtful.
    ‘The fun of mysteries isn’t the explanation,’ he said, tweaking her nose. ‘It’s the wondering.’
    His computer came on, by itself. Startled, he pantomimed fear, with ridiculously exaggerated face-pulling and contorted limbs.
    ‘Spooo-ooooky,’ he said.
    Jordan laughed and launched a cushion at him.
    ‘One for the collection,’ he said, glancing at his screen.
    HH, it flashed at him. HH HH HH, filling the screen. Then his file manager was there, neat as it could be.
    ‘Did you see that?’ he asked Jordan.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing. It was for me.’
    * * *
    A fter supper, Jordan sat in her rocking chair, examining the book. It was something she had found, or which – to pick up on Dad’s thinking – had found her. Running her fingers along a row of shelved spines, this was where she had stopped.
The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange
was a hardback with an unfaded jacket. The cover showed a