Read Online The Sound of a Scream by John Manning - Free Book Online

music suggested it emanated from a set of headphones, plugged into the boy’s ears. With that cacophony blasting into his ears, Christopher wouldn’t be able to hear her knock.
    She was about to forget seeing him this night and head back to her own room, when suddenly Ben’s advice came back into head. She shouldn’t barge into the boy’s room, but she felt she ought to confront the situation right then and there. She was his governess after all; Mr. Witherspoon’s letter to Mother Angela had said she would have charge over both the boy’s studies and his domestic chores. And tonight he’d stated clearly that she was to be the authority in his life. She figured she’d start now.
    She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned.
    Suddenly a cold shiver went down her back.
    That awful clown might be standing behind that door.
    No, she told herself, that was one of Christopher’s elaborate pranks. And she would ask him about it, right now.
    She opened the door.
    As she had suspected, the eight-year-old was lying on his bed, earbuds tucked snugly in his ear, as he tapped, tapped, tapped on an iPad. He looked up at her in sudden surprise—a look of stunned horror—big round brown eyes staring out from white sockets in the shadows of his room.
    “Christopher, I wanted to come in and introduce myself,” Daphne said, loudly.
    The boy, eyes still wide, removed his earbuds.
    “I’m Daphne. I’m your new governess.”
    “And that’s the last time you’ll ever just walk into my room without knocking,” he said, furious.
    “Oh, but I have knocked. You just couldn’t hear me.”
    He moved forward on the bed and Daphne got a better look at him. He was a fat little kid, with a mass of brown curls and freckled, pudgy cheeks.
    “Doesn’t matter,” he spit. “If I don’t answer the door, then I want to be left alone.”
    “Nope,” Daphne replied. “That’s not how it’s going to work. If you want to be left alone, I’ll respect that. But you’ve got to tell me so when I knock.”
    “But if I’m listening to my music I won’t be able to hear you.”
    “Then listen to it at a slightly lower volume.”
    Daphne stood at the end of his bed, facing him. She was pleased with herself that she didn’t tremble or hesitate. The boy saw that she was serious. He groaned.
    She figured she’d won the first battle of wills. But she suspected there many more to come.
    “We can get more acquainted in the morning, but I wanted to come in tonight and at least say hello.” She smiled as her eyes narrowed at him. “Since, after all, when you called to me earlier this evening we never actually got a chance to meet.”
    He made a face at her. “I never called to you.”
    “Come on, Christopher. I heard you. Your door was ajar, you heard me walk by in the corridor, you called to me, I came in here... .”
    “I was out at the stables.”
    “Then who was calling my name from your room?”
    A crooked smile suddenly made its way across the boy’s chubby face like an eel swimming through water. “Maybe it was the ghost,” he suggested.
    Daphne smirked. “You’ll have to think up a better excuse than that.”
    Christopher lay back on his bed, seeming to enjoy the conversation now. “No, it’s not an excuse. You mean no one’s told you about the ghost that haunts Witherswood?”
    “No, but I expect you’re about to.”
    He laughed. “I wouldn’t want to scare you on your first night here!”
    “Of course you wouldn’t.”
    “But there really is a ghost. I’ve seen it many times. And I know who it is, too.”
    Daphne sighed. “Who is it, Christopher?”
    “My grandfather.”
    Daphne didn’t reply right away. After what she’d just learned about the boy’s grandfather, Pete Witherspoon Senior, she felt a little unnerved taking the conversation in that direction.
    “I think you’re a very imaginative, clever boy. Too clever for your own good.” She turned to leave. “So long as we understand each other,