She stood and gently shushed Millie in her arms, using the soft glow of the landing light to watch as Millie slowly succumbed to sleep. After a while, she carefully laid her little girl back down and returned to her own room. A loud, insistent ticking kept time with her footsteps. She had forgotten about the damn grandfather clock. The last time she had been here the ticking and chiming had begun to drive her crazy, though Adam had reassured her that she would get used to it. ‘It’s been with the family for generations, it’s got to be valuable,’ he’d said, opening the oak casing at the front and beginning to wind it. ‘My grandfather used to call it the heartbeat of the cottage.’
Now, Grace attempted to ignore it, as she lay under the bedclothes and tried to drift off. But suddenly her eyelids were aglow, and the deep crackle of tyres outside made her jump. She padded out of bed again and eased one curtain back a little, resting her hand on the cool windowpane.
A black Land Rover was parked a short distance up the sloping lane, just visible by the faint moonlight that cut through the clouds. It had stopped outside the redbrick house that crested the hill. The Land Rover’s headlights were now off and the interior light was on, but Grace was too far away to see anything more than a moving shadow inside. The light disappeared, the driver climbed out into a darkness her vision could not penetrate, she heard the slight creaking of a gate, and then all was silent.
She could feel her heart thudding beneath her nightshirt, but tried to calm herself, realising how silly she was being. It was perfectly reasonable for people to arrive home in the middle of the night. She must stop letting her imagination play games with her.
She settled back into bed again, but sleep wanted nothing to do with her now. She remembered the first night she’d ever spent here, when Adam had pulled her to him and wrapped her tight within his arms. He had been wearing a thick jumper – in fact they’d both been semi-dressed, having under-anticipated the biting cold of the northern winter. She could still feel the fleece soft against her skin, warming the cheek that had lain against it while the rest of her face stung with cold. ‘I’m scared too,’ he’d said, holding her close. ‘But I know we’ve done the right thing, Grace. I promise it will be all right.’
Grace remembered how she had relaxed at his words, so much so that she had slept soon after. But a week later he had gone out and never come home.
Now, she did her best to ignore the empty space next to her, and wrapped her arms around a pillow, trying to pretend she could bring Adam back for a moment, make believe that he’d kept his promise after all. But sleep kept its distance.
She tossed and turned for a while in an effort to get comfortable, then was disturbed again by what sounded like a bird screeching. Sitting up in frustration, she switched on the bedside lamp. She cast a glance around the room, at the old furniture, the sepia photo of Adam’s grandparents on their wedding day, which hung above her half-unpacked case. Then she remembered the small bookshelf on the landing. At least living out here without much else to do would mean plenty of time to read. She threw back the bedclothes and tiptoed across the carpet, hoping she wouldn’t wake Millie. The bookshelf was right outside her door, barely visible in the light cast by the bedside lamp, but she could just make out the spines on the top shelf. They were all classics. Wuthering Heights. The Turn of the Screw. Jane Eyre. Great Expectations. She’d read a few of them at school. Then her eye fell on a book she had always wanted to read, but never got to. Rebecca. She plucked the tattered copy from among the others and took it back to bed with her. She pulled the bedclothes over her, opened it and read the first few lines of a long-ago dream. And soon, her grip loosened on the book, her eyes closed, and she found herself lost amid thick over-growth, gazing towards the mullioned windows of a dark, abandoned house.