The Piper by Danny Weston Page A

dancing to that tune. And now that he thought about it, the music was louder than ever. The girls had their arms up and their heads back and they were lurching joyfully around to the sound, as though transported by it. There was something about their gangling arms and legs that didn’t seem quite right, but they were too distant for him to make out much detail. And then, further off, at the top of the garden, Peter caught a glimpse of another figure, a man, perhaps, though in the mist it was hard to be sure. His arms were up in front of him and something in his hands glinted in the moonlight, but even as Peter registered this, the figure began to move away, heading along an avenue of shrubs at the top of the garden, still playing his tune and the children wheeled around to follow him, dancing along in his wake, as though the music was summoning them, compelling them to follow.
    ‘Let’s go,’ whispered Daisy. ‘Let’s go and dance with them!’
    ‘No,’ hissed Peter. ‘We mustn’t.’ He didn’t know exactly what was happening out there, but he knew in his heart that it wasn’t something he wanted to be involved with, not for one moment.
    ‘But it looks such
fun
!’ cried Daisy.
    ‘No it doesn’t,’ he told her. ‘And you heard what Adam said. It’s dangerous out there. There’s water…’
    ‘They look like they know where they’re going,’ observed Daisy. ‘Come on, let’s just join in for a minute.
Please
.’
    He shook his head. He caught a last glimpse of the girls as they danced away into the mist. The music was finally diminishing in volume. Peter closed the window, then took Daisy’s hand and helped her off the seat. As she stepped down, a couple of the dolls fell onto the floor.
    She looked down at them in dismay. ‘Did I do that?’ she gasped. ‘Mrs Beesley will be angry.’
    ‘It’ll be all right,’ he assured her. He set down the candle for a moment and picking up the fallen dolls one-by-one, he sat them carefully back on the ledge where Daisy had been kneeling. None of them seemed to be damaged. ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked. ‘You know they’re worth a lot of money.’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Daisy had the look of somebody who’d just woken from a deep sleep. ‘I don’t even remember getting out of bed,’ she said. ‘I think I was having a bad dream …’
    You too? thought Peter, but he said nothing. ‘Well, never mind about that, let’s get you back into bed before you freeze to death.’ He led her over to the big four-poster and saw that the small doll she’d been holding the other day was propped up against the pillows, gazing intently up at him. ‘Where’s Eva?’ he asked.
    ‘I threw her away,’ said Daisy, as though it was of no account. ‘She was broken anyway.’
    Peter looked at her in disbelief. ‘We could have tried mending her,’ he said.
    ‘Tillie told me not to bother.’
    ‘Tillie? Who’s Tillie?’ he asked her, but somehow he already knew the answer, even before she pointed to the little doll on the bed. And he thought he remembered Mrs Beesley mentioning the name before. Wasn’t that the doll that Miss Sally used to talk to?
    ‘She’s my new doll,’ said Daisy.
    ‘She’s not your doll,’ Peter reminded her. ‘And besides, a doll can’t tell you to do anything.’
    Daisy gave him a smug look. ‘That’s what you think,’ she said.
    The expression on her face disturbed him. It was the look of someone who had a secret and wasn’t prepared to share it.
    ‘Why did you call her Tillie?’ asked Peter. ‘Did Mrs Beesley tell you to call her that?’
    Daisy shook her head. ‘I call her that because it’s her name,’ she said.
    ‘Well, anyway, back into bed,’ he told her, and he helped her to climb up onto it and settled her under the covers. He picked up Tillie, meaning to put her with the others on the window ledge, but Daisy grabbed his wrist and the strength in her little hand shocked and surprised him.
    ‘Leave her