Clare’s mind was in full shutdown but her body thrashed
wildly, arms out, head rocking hard forward to connect with her chest, then
back. Her legs bowed, the knees smacked back together. She froze utterly rigid,
shoulders raised, muscles locked tight, held the rigidity for perhaps seven
seconds then all the stiffness vanished and she toppled forward, knocking into
the table and pushing it out of position as she collapsed at an angle to the
floor.
Ralph came close to where she lay and snapped up at the empty
space above her, teeth bared fully, roaring in terrified but angry protection
of his mistress. The invisible thing, blithely indifferent, hovered silently in
the space Clare had occupied before she pitched forward. It remained there as
it had done in the downstairs toilet above Henry, then it rose serenely to the
kitchen ceiling and passed through, emerging from the darkness beneath the
upstairs floorboards into Clare’s empty double bedroom.
As soon as it was gone the temperature in the kitchen
started to drop.
Upstairs, the bed was unmade, the covers curiously
undisturbed on the side closest to the window. The door to the en-suite stood
ajar. Around the floor were piles of clothes and other detritus that hadn’t
been cleared away. Clare was highly polished when it came to the public areas,
making sure everything was neat for her guests, but deplorably bad within the
confines of her personal chamber.
The invisible thing, whatever it was, didn’t tarry. It
passed through the wardrobe on the inside wall into the empty bathroom, glided
over the bath and kept going, passing again through the wall. In each room it
passed the temperature jumped, climbing fast, then dropped again as it
vanished, moving onward.
Beyond the bathroom was an empty bedroom, as yet not let out
to any guests. The bed was made, ready for a visitor to take up residence
without prior notice. There were empty shelves on the wall next to the window
and a cheap cloth wardrobe, its hanging cover tied up in a narrow curl to
reveal empty coat hangers on the internal rail.
The room beyond was at the front of the house: the large
room belonging to Henry Court with its bay window mirroring the lounge below.
Again the invisible visitor passed through the room but didn’t linger. The
physical objects collected across a lifetime of living and crammed now, where
possible, into one room were of no interest to it.
Drawing close to the left hand wall it slowed, sensing
perhaps what was beyond: the final first floor room and the only room in the
house now that was inhabited.
