The Whispers of Wilderwood Hall Read Online Free Page A

at my watch. Ten thirty? I’ve been asleep for hours and hours and
hours
… I mean, I remember Mum making me lie down for a nap on her bed as soon as the removal guys had set it up and she’d put the sheet and duvet and stuff on it.
    Obviously, I must’ve slept through the rest of Day One at Wilderwood Hall. I slept though the furniture being clanked and thunked up the back stairs and shifted into the various rooms of the first-floor servants’ quarters. So that means I also slept my way through the Tesco grocery delivery, the planned evening explore of the house and gardens with Mum, the whole, long night, in fact.
    Swinging my legs out of the bed, I realize I’m still in yesterday’s leggings and T-shirt. I spot my kicked-off trainers on the floor and shove my feet into them, since the bare floor’s bound to be a girl trap of rubble, nails and splinters.
    Up next: eat the Tunnock’s Teacake (I’m starving), and go see what Day Two in Wilderwood Hall has in store. Of course, the first thing to do is search out my mother. And to find her, all I have to do is follow the sound of singing.
    Mum’s voice is faint, but I easily recognize the tune: White Star Line’s “Turn the Corner”
.
Even though he wrote it, RJ told Mum he thinks of it as “their” song. First, because the video shoot Mum and RJ met on was for that particular single. Second, ’cause RJ claims that the track was like some supernatural happening – he says it’s as if he wrote the lyrics for Mum, before they’d ever set eyes on each other…
    Pulling on a baggy old jumper I find on the floor, I peek out of the bedroom and find myself in a long corridor, peppered with doors. Looking left, towards one the end of the corridor, I can see a large doorway opening on to a set of plain stone stairs. That must lead down to the back door we came in through yesterday afternoon. The servants’ entrance. And if I turn my head right – towards the other end of the corridor and the distant sound of singing – I can see a heavy, panelled door propped open with a cardboard packing box.
    I walk towards it, knowing it must take me through into the main house. Downstairs, I remember from the floor plans, there’s a passage that links the kitchens to the grand reception rooms, but
this
has to be the route the servants would have taken if they’d been needed by the master or mistress upstairs.
    â€œâ€¦
And when your world isn’t turning, and your path leads nowhere
…”
    Following Mum’s lilting, carefree voice, I step through the doorway, and find myself on the wide, sun-filled, first-floor landing of Wilderwood Hall proper. Flutters of curiosity fill my chest, even though this strange house feels so far from home. So little like
my
home.
    â€œâ€¦
Don’t be scared, keep on walking
…”
    And I
am
walking, walking quickly past six huge empty bedrooms, plaster fallen from walls, patches of ceiling languishing on floors, all their vast windows gazing out on to the wild Wilderwood grounds. More doors, closed doors, are on the opposite side of the landing from them. Cupboards? Bathrooms? I’ll investigate later; I’m at the top of the yawningly wide, sweeping set of stairs now and want to find Mum.
    â€œâ€¦
Turn the corner, I’ll be there
…”
    Quickly, I trot down the steps towards an entrance hall – the “vestibule”, obviously – that’s so vast our entire flat back in London could fit in it. And the double front door; it looks wide enough to drive our new
car
through, if it was open.
    â€œâ€¦
Turn the corner
…”
    I hurry across the echoing space, across the chipped cream-and-black tiles of the floor, singing the echoing part to the chorus, the part White Star Line’s drummer usually takes.
    â€œâ€¦
There I’ll stand
…”
    â€œHa!” Mum laughs delightedly as I