Read Online MAGDALENA'S GHOST: THE HAUNTING OF THE HOUSE IN GALLOWS LANE by PEPPI HILTON - Free Book Online Page B

convinced there was no-one else in the room apart from herself and the cat, she made her way back upstairs and into bed. She buried her head under the bedclothes and tried to settle, but once again she heard the eerie sound of the piano playing. This time she knew for certain that it was that same haunting tune which Billy had first learnt to play, and the sound seemed to magnify in the hollowness of the building. She began to tremble with fear, and shiver with cold at the same time, and her whole body began to shake from the aftermath, her bones aching with the strain. She buried herself more and more under the bedding in order to shut out the noise. But when the floorboards began to creak and stop right outside her door, she began to shake uncontrollably. Silence followed for one arduous minute after another. And then the horror began again.
    “Are we having a cup of tea?” echoed the eerie voice; the sound gaining momentum as Beryl’s heart-rate gained speed.
    Convinced she was having a heart attack when a sharp pain tugged at her chest, she clutched at it in desperation. Her breathing was becoming difficult and she began to gasp for air. She rolled out of the makeshift bed and onto the floor, the cold penetrating her arthritic bones and causing unimaginable pain as she lay there in the darkness paralysed with fear and unable to move.
    “Are we having a cup of tea?”
    “Go away!” Beryl managed to call out, the pain in her chest becoming more severe and her breathing becoming more intolerable.
    The cat screeched alarmingly from somewhere in the empty rooms on the top floor. She heard a door open and close, followed by a loud thud and then the creaking of the floorboards.
    She was mortified!
    The build-up of dread and anxiety in her mind, and the tension in her body made the pain more unbearable, and she had now come to the conclusion that these were her final moments. She was convinced that her mother had come to get her; a meeting she didn’t want to have to face. But within a few seconds the sound of the music stopped, and at the same time her chest pains disappeared as well as the pain from her aching bones. Everything was silent until she heard her cat mewing outside the door. She dragged herself up from the floor and lit the candle. She waited for the flame to light up the room before going to the door and opening it fearfully. The cat was sitting there waiting patiently for her to let it in. Everything felt normal and there was neither sight nor sound of anyone else. She made her way downstairs and rejuvenated the dying embers of the fire so that she could make herself a cup of tea. She didn’t feel like going back to bed, she’d had a terrible fright and one which would be hard to erase from her mind.
    Several weeks passed by and there was no further unexplained activity going on in the house, and so Beryl soon settled back into her life of solitude. The incidents of that evening had been completely erased from her memory once more and she carried on as normal as if nothing had ever happened.
    But it wasn’t long before further events took over her mind, and her sanity was beginning to be questionable.
    Beryl had gone to bed early because the evening had grown cold and her bones ached. She had taken a hot water bottle with her and wrapped her arms around it in bed, and soon she was sound asleep. But before long she was wakened from her slumber by the sound of haunting music. She lay there in the darkness listening to the mournful tune. The floorboards began to creak one by one, and she could hear the sound of doors opening and closing upstairs. Footsteps could be heard walking along the empty corridors, and the noises were amplified in the open spaces of the large and soulless house. Beryl clung onto the hot water bottle and hid under the bedclothes hoping she could blank out the sounds. Moments later the old, familiar voice spoke in a low, frail tone outside her door:
    “Are we having a cup of