House of Echoes
When Joss, an adopted child, discovers that her real mother has left the beautiful family home, Belheddon Hall, to her, she is thrilled, until she discovers that the Hall is haunted by a presence which will not tolerate husbands or sons living in the house.Joss Grant is eager to begin a new life when she inherits Belheddon Hall. She brings her husband, Luke, and their small son, Tom, to the dilapidated house, and sets about discovering her family roots.But not long after they move in, Tom wakes screaming at night. Joss hears echoing voices and senses an invisible presence watching her from the shadows. Are they spirits from the past? As she learns, with mounting horror, of Belheddon’s tragic history, she realises that both her family and her own sanity are at the mercy of a violent and powerful energy that seems beyond anyone’s control.
Читать House of Echoes онлайн беплатно
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1996 This edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Barbara Erskine 1996
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photographs © PhotoAlto/Frederic Cirou/Getty Images (leaves); Colin New/Trevillion Images (woman & trees).
Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007280780
Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780007320943
Version: 2017-09-07
Joss Grant’s family tree
A beam of cold sunshine finds its way through a knot hole in the wood of the shutters and strays across the dusty boards. Laser like, it creeps from right to left until it reaches the flower lying in its path. One by one, in the spotlight, the petals fall open, their thin creamy whiteness already edged with brown.
In the silence the skirt skimming over the boards makes no sound; the footsteps from the past are quiet.
With no ear there to hear them the echoes in the house are silent.
Had she really not wanted to know?
Joss put her foot down and accelerated into a bend. Or had she been afraid of the truth?
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ Before she left home her husband Luke reached in through the open window and put his hand over hers as it rested on the wheel. On the seat beside her was the gazetteer and the file with the copy of her birth and adoption certificates and the note of the address. Belheddon Hall. She had glanced up at him and shaken her head. ‘I must do this alone, Luke. Just this first time.’
The gate, hidden behind the yews and laurels, had not been opened for a long while. The wood was damp and swollen and slimy with lichen. It caught on the untrimmed grass as she pushed it back and it hung open behind her as she stepped out onto an overgrown path which appeared to lead into an area of woodland. Pushing her hands down into her pockets she walked cautiously forward, feeling half guilty, half exhilarated as the wind whipped her hair into her eyes. The woods around her smelled of rotting leaves and beech mast, bitter and sharp with early autumn.
Somewhere near her a pheasant crashed out of the undergrowth with an explosion of alarm calls and she stopped, her heart thundering under her ribs, staring round. As the frightened bird flew low through the trees and out of sight the silence returned. Even the cheerful rustling of the leaves overhead died away as the wind dropped. She stared round, straining her ears for some kind of sound. Ahead, the path curved out of sight around a stand of holly trees, their glossy leaves almost black in the dull afternoon light, their berries shocking in their abundant redness.
The holly bears a berry as red as any blood.
The line from the carol floated through her head. She gazed at the trees for a moment, strangely reluctant to walk any further, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling as she became aware suddenly that eyes were watching her from the thicket on her left. Holding her breath she turned her head.
For several seconds she and the fox stared at each other, then he was gone. He made no sound but the space he had filled beneath the old hawthorn bush was empty. She was so relieved she almost laughed out loud. Whatever thoughts had raced through her head at that moment they had not included a fox.
