Although she was only five, and the youngest of the Bradbury children, Melissa had very sharp eyes and it wasn’t really surprising that she was the first to discover something strange had happened to the house on Maple Street while the Bradbury family was summering in England. She ran and found her older brother, Brian, and told him something was wrong upstairs, on the third floor. She said she would show him, but not until he swore not to tell anyone what she had found. Brian swore, knowing it was their stepfather Lissa was afraid of; Daddy Lew didn’t like it when any of the Bradbury children ‘got up to foolishness’ (that was how he always put it), and he had decided that Melissa was the prime offender in that area. Lissa, who was stupid no more than she was blind, was aware of Lew’s prejudices, and had become wary of them. In fact, all of the Bradbury children had become rather wary of their mother’s second husband. It would probably turn out to be nothing, anyway, but Brian was delighted to be back home and willing enough to humor his baby sister (Brian was two full years her senior), at least for awhile; he followed her down the third-floor hallway without so much as a murmur of argument, and he only pulled her braids – he called these braid-pulls ‘emergency stops’ – once. They had to tiptoe past Lew’s study, which was the only finished-off room up here, because Lew was inside, unpacking his notebooks and papers and muttering in an ill-tempered way. Brian’s thoughts had actually turned to what might be on TV tonight – he was looking forward to a pig-out on good old American cable after three months of BBC and ITV – when they reached the end of the hall.

What he saw beyond the tip of his little sister’s pointing finger drove all thoughts of television from Brian Bradbury’s mind.

‘Now swear again!’ Lissa whispered. ‘Never tell anyone, Daddy Lew or anyone, or hope to die!’