QUOTE : Her ears are straining for the sounds of distant footsteps. When she hears the singing, from much closer, she jumps like a rabbit. “Now fetch me… my children…” The voice is so hoarse, it’s almost not a voice at all. Breath forced through a crack in a wall, driven by a broken bellows. It’s like a song that was left behind here by someone who died, and now it’s gone back to the wild. And it’s just those five words. Silence before, and silence after. For about a minute. Melanie counts under her breath, trembling. “And fetch them… at speed…” She doesn’t jump this time, but she bites her lip. She can’t imagine the mouth that would make that sound. She’s heard of ghosts–Miss Justineau told the class some ghost stories once, but she stopped when she got too close to that whole taboo subject of death–and she wonders whether it might be a ghost of someone who died here, singing a song from when he was alive. “Bid them hasten… or I shall… be dead…” She has to know. Even if it is a ghost, that won’t be as scary as not knowing. She follows the sound, out of the alcove and around a bend in the corridor. Light as red as blood comes through an open door, and it makes her scared for a moment. But as soon as she steps inside, she can see that it’s just the light of the sunset coming in through an open window. Just!