went on. Effie walked a few steps further along the corridor and opened the first door that she came to. It was swollen with damp, and she had to push it with her shoulder. It juddered on its hinges, and then stuck fast. Inside was an empty, unfurnished bedroom, with a pale blue carpet that still showed the rusted imprints of bed castors and the rectangular impressions of a nightstand and a large chest-of-drawers. The carpet was blotched with a large brownish stain close to where the bed must have stood: a stain in the shape of a goat's head, with asymmetric horns.
There was a small rusted fireplace. Its grate was filled with damp ashes and some unpleasant-looking rags, some of them singed.
Out of the dusty, grease-smeared windows, Effie could see the sloping roof of the house, and a cluster of tall earthenware chimney pots, and the treeline in the distance.
The room gave her a feeling which she didn't like at all. It wasn't the coldness, or the damp, although the room was very draughty and the rain had soaked down behind the wallpaper and left it peeling and colourless and foxed with brown spots. It was a feeling of terrible closeness, a feeling of unsolicited and unwanted intimacy, as if somebody very unpleasant were following her around, staying so near to her that she could almost feel their breath on her cheek.
She stepped back towards the door, her movements stiff, trying to suppress her alarm. She had never believed that houses could be haunted, but the atmosphere in this empty bedroom was deeply unsettling. It was even worse than being followed, it was like being touched, like having to submit to prurient caresses from somebody she couldn't bear.
She opened and closed her mouth, trying to speak, but she had lost the breath for it.
Then she jolted in fright, because suddenly she heard the sobbing again, and it sounded more agonised than ever. She was sure that she could make out a miserable plea of, 'Don't- please don't- please don't.' But it could have been the wind, distorting the weeping into words, or it could have been her own imagination.
The worst thing was, though, that it seemed to be coming from here, from right inside this bedroom with nobody in it.
She heard a noise on the staircase. 'Craig!' she managed to call out. 'Craig, can you hear me? I'm up here, on the top floor!'
There was no reply. She hesitated, her fist clenched, her heart palpitating more furiously than ever. She had never felt so ridiculous in her life; but then she had never felt so frightened, either - at least of something, or somebody, not even there. There was no such thing as ghosts. She simply didn't believe in them. People died and when they were dead they were gone for ever. The sobbing was more muted now, and when she listened to it more intently she realised that it could be the wind, it must be the wind. It had freshened up in the wake of the storm, and it was probably sobbing down the clogged-up fireplace.
All the same, she still felt deeply unnerved. The bedroom with the pale blue carpet and the smeary windows disturbed her more than any room that she had ever been in before. It felt like a sickroom, a room which its occupant would never leave alive; a room in which there was nothing to do but watch the long days go by, the shadows on the chimney stacks; rain, fog, winter sunshine. It was a room of unbearable pain and utter desperation.
Effie started to go back to find Craig, to bring him up here. Craig could show her for sure that she was imagining things. But after only two or three steps, she stopped. Don't. Don't call him up here, whatever you do.
She frowned. Why did she think that? What was wrong with calling him up here?
Just don't.
She turned back and stared at the half-open door. All she could see was the fireplace and the mark on the carpet where the chest-of-drawers had once stood.
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