I go over and stand in the middle of the small room. “So, are you coming out or not?” I try to sound like this is what I want, but the wobble in my voice gives me away. I clear my throat. “You don’t scare me. Come out and talk to me properly. Stop lurking in the walls, spying on me and get out here.”

  At first there’s nothing. But then there’s a stillness. An airlessness. Even more so than before. Time slows. And then the wall directly in front of me, beside the window, begins to shift and move. With a ripple, it begins to push outwards. A face slowly swells.

  Madame LeNoir.

  I recoil as the mottled grey wall warps to reveal that pinched, downturned mouth, the deep-set eyes and the little round glasses. Those eyes stare at me, unblinking, seeing all.

  I go to take a step back and then force myself not to. No. I have to stand my ground.

  I can do this.

  “Well?” I say.

  The mouth twists into a smirk. “I thought you might never get here. So much running away like a skittish jack rabbit.”

  I can’t let her get to me. “I’m here for the object.”

  “Oh? Which object might that be?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know. I mean the object you bound Clara’s soul to so she can’t leave.”

  “Ah, that object. I suppose she’s made you feel sorry for her with her pretty ways and darling curls. Don’t forget she has trapped me here in this wretched place in exactly the same manner. I am in gaol just as much as she. And now she’s caught your old friend up in it all too. She can’t leave until Clara leaves. That was a mistake.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Elsie knew what would happen. But she wanted to help anyway. It was her choice to offer to stay. To bind herself to Clara and help her find the object.”

  “Well, now she’ll be helping forever.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. If you tell me where the object is, I can destroy it and you can all be free.”

  The face thrusts forward. Not properly formed, it is like melted, dripping wax. “No!” she screeches, lips stretching horribly. “She will never leave this place! I took that girl in out of the goodness of my heart. I fed her. Clothed her. Made something of her. I made it possible that she could give readings to the Queen herself!”

  I take a step closer. “You didn’t take her in out of the goodness of your heart. You took Clara in so you could use her. And then you did just that. You might have bought her some clothes. But you also starved her. And you made her lie to the Queen. And to lots of other people too. People who were lonely and sad and missed their loved ones who’d died. And Clara didn’t run away. You forced her to leave because of how you treated her. I saw what you did to her. Felt it. She was so weak. If she’d stayed here she would have died of starvation.”

  A sneer forms. “Think what you like of me. The girl owed me. And now she pays for it. Do you know what happened after she left? Everyone assumed I’d done away with her! And she did nothing about that. She just let them believe it was true. She ruined me. That stupid girl ruined me when she left that locket. The maid saw it and tattled and that was the end of it.”

  “But don’t you see that none of that matters now? You can leave. You can leave and be happy. You can finally be free of each other.”

  “I’d rather stay and make her pay. It’s as I said. She will never leave this place. I made sure of it. And I’ll continue to make sure of it.”

  This isn’t going well. She honestly doesn’t seem to care if she’s stuck here forever, so long as Clara is miserable. I think for a moment. “I know the object is up here.” I try. I don’t, of course, it’s just a guess. A hunch. But it’s worth a try. “Is it the locket? Is that what you bound her soul to? You were holding it in the vision she showed me.”

  The beady eyes stare at me. “Was I now?”

  “You know you were.”

  Her cloudy eyes flick away. “And so what if I was? Go home, girl. Go home and leave us all be.”

  “No. I won’t.” There’s something about how she doesn’t want to discuss the locket. Something that makes me believe more than ever that it’s the object I need to find. And if she’d hidden it away all those years ago, where else would she hide it, but the one place she spent almost all her time?

  It has to be here.

  It just has to be.

  “Where’s the locket?” I take my chances. “Where did you hide it?”

  Keeping one eye on her, I begin to move about the room once more. I run my hands over every surface I can see. I must have missed something.

  I open the trunk and feel the lining on the top and bottom. Check each wall again for the slightest bump, or crack.

  The eyes watch me as I go.

  “And what would you do, girl, if you found it?”

  “I’d destroy it. That’s what Clara says we have to do.” I’m surprised she’s asking this. Surely she knows that’s our plan? She would have heard us talking.

  She takes her time in responding, her gaze resting on something just behind me. When she sees me looking, her eyes dart away.

  Ever so slowly, I turn. But there’s nothing there. Nothing I could have missed. Just the blank wall and the bed, standing before it.

  And then I see it.

  I have missed something.

  The bed has four posts on the corners, each topped with a brass knob.

  And one of the knobs is ever so slightly shinier than the others.

  I hesitate and then lunge for it. I grasp the knob and twist.

  It loosens.

  “No! Stop!” Madame LeNoir screeches, the wall throbbing. “Get away from there, girl. Get! Go!”

  I keep twisting. The knob is stiff, but it turns. I grab it with both hands and force it.

  It falls off and clatters to the floor.

  Along with something else . . .

  A tarnished silver locket.

  The wall heaves and surges as I run from the attic room, the locket clasped tightly in my hand.

  “Give it to me, girl! Give it back!”

  I ignore her and run.

  I’m out the attic door in a second, bolting down the wooden steps at breakneck speed. I grab the newel post and throw myself around the corner. Jada is on the landing, her mouth open with surprise at all the noise I’m making.

  All the noise I promised Freya I wouldn’t make.

  “Lolli, shhh!” she says. “There’s a group in the dining room.”

  “I’ve got it!” I call out, as I pass her by. “I’ve got the locket!” I can’t stop to explain. There’s no time. I’ve got to get to the hearth before Madame LeNoir catches me. Before she can stop me somehow.

  “You what?” Jada says.

  Another turn and I’m down the next set of stairs. I take them two at a time, jumping down the last three. I see the backs of two visitors entering the dining room and they turn to look at what all the noise is about.

  Freya steps from a room and throws her hands up. “Lolli!” she mouths, her eyes wide.

  “Sorry!” I mouth back, again not stopping to explain. I sprint as silently as I can along the hall.

  I don’t care about upsetting visitors.

  All that matters is getting to the kitchen.

  Getting to the hearth. Destroying the locket. Saving Elsie and Clara.

  I’m down that last set of stairs in a heartbeat. As I cross the slate floor, I can hear footsteps thumping above me – Freya, Jada.

  I snatch at an iron poker next to the hearth.

  I throw the locket into the fire and ram the poker down into it.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Over and over I stab at it, oblivious to anything else.

  Over and over and over. Slam, slam, slam.

  “Lolli!”

  “Lolli! Stop!”

  I hear my name as if from far away, but it isn’t until the poker is wrenched from my hand that I’m able to pay any attention.

  I watch silent, panting, as Freya pries the poker from my fingers. She steps forward and fishes about with it in the fire, pulling something out of the glowing coals.

  She drops the item on the slate floor.

  We all stare at it.

  The locket is horribly warped and twisted, dented and bashed.

  Freya gasps, seeming to recognise the piece of jewellery. “Oh, my.” She drops onto her hands and knees to inspect the item more closely, Jada hovering behind her. “Oh. Oh, no.” Her gaze lifts to meet mine. “The locket. Clara’s locket! Lolli. Lolli, how could you?”

  And that’s when the laughing starts.

  Freya can’t hear it.

  Jada can’t hear it.

  But I can hear it.

  The terrible, evil cackle fills my head just as I begin to realise that I can still feel Elsie and Clara.

  They are still here.

  “You stupid girl.” The cackling stops and Madame LeNoir’s voice fills my head. “You walked right into my trap. And now you’ll go. Swiftly ferried away to your foreign land once and for all. So, go now. Go and leave me in peace. It’s as I told you so many times over. Clara will never leave this place. Never. Never. Never.”

  What happens next is so awful I never want to think about it again, but I know it will keep me up night after night as I replay it in my head. Freya gets Jada to fetch Tanice. She has to be told the story twice before she’ll believe what’s happened. Tanice turns on Jada, thinking she’s involved in the locating and destroying of the locket. Through rivers of tears, I tell both Tanice and Freya time and time again that Jada had nothing to do with it. That it was all me.

  Through my pleading, Madame LeNoir keeps laughing at me, lapping up every minute of the show. She couldn’t be happier that I’ve played right into her hands. I wonder if this was her plan all along – right from the moment I stepped into the house – and she just took her time in executing it.

  However long she’s been planning this, her idea to get rid of me has worked perfectly. I doubt I’ll ever be allowed to set foot in this place ever again. Freya won’t let me. And after what’s happened, Freya won’t want to turn it into something new like her cabinet of curiosities. She won’t want to have anything to do with it now I’ve made it a place full of bad memories for her. She’ll probably want to sell it and everything in it. And both Clara and Elsie will be stuck here forever.

  Stuck here with Madame LeNoir.

  Tanice offers to take over the last viewing of the day so Freya can take me back to the apartment.

  “That would probably be for the best,” Freya says through gritted teeth. “I don’t think Lolli should be here one minute longer.”

  We walk back to the apartment in silence. On the way, she begins texting someone. Suzie, I think.

  When we get to the apartment, Freya lets me in. “Just go to your room for a bit while I calm down. And then we’ll talk.”

  I do exactly as I’m told. I slink into my room and lie facedown on the bed. I don’t even take my coat or shoes off. I don’t think I have the energy.

  In the lounge room, Freya makes a phone call. Every so often, I hear snippets of what she’s saying. I don’t understand . . . I thought she wasn’t scared of the house anymore . . . to destroy something so precious . . . really concerned . . . so unlike her . . . think we should just go . . . Eventually she must move to another part of the room, because I can’t hear her anymore.

  I lie on the bed for what feels like hours before I get up the courage to creep out to the lounge room. Freya is sitting at the kitchen bench, just staring at it. When she notices me, she looks over. Her eyes are red.

  “Hungry?” she says.

  I shake my head.

  “Me neither.”

  I remember how we were finally supposed to go to Borough Market. I guess that’s another thing I’ve wrecked.

  Freya sighs, swivelling on her seat. “I don’t know what to say, Lolli. I know you didn’t want to come here. I know you’re upset about Elsie. And that you’ve always had feelings about the house. But I didn’t know you were this angry.”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “You seem angry. What you were doing with that poker – you were furious.”

  “That was different . . . I . . .” There’s no way to explain. I can’t make her understand. She won’t understand. And, to be honest, I don’t blame her. How could she possibly understand? Anything I told her would just sound like rantings from someone who’d lost their mind. Spirits that can only be seen as a reflection and faces in walls and hidden lockets with souls bound to them.

  Or without souls bound to them, as it turns out.

  Freya runs her hands through her hair. “Oh, I wish Elsie was here. She would know what to say. What to do.”

  I want to scream when she says this. To yell. Of course she would! I want to shout from the rooftops. It was Elsie who asked me to destroy the locket! What I end up doing is shrugging. “You just don’t understand.”

  “Then help me to understand. Try to explain. I’m listening.”

  I stare at Freya for a moment or two. Is there a way? Can there be a way? I guess I have to try.

  I take a deep breath. “I thought something would happen. If I destroyed the locket.”

  “Wait. Like what? Like you thought I’d take you back to Singapore?”

  I shake my head quickly. “No. Not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I thought . . .” I stop myself again. I can’t. I’m going to sound insane. It will only lead to more trouble.

  But Freya presses on. “Did you think that Elsie might come back? Something like that?”

  Another shake of my head. “I can’t. I can’t say.”

  “Is someone asking you to keep secrets from me? To do things?”

  “No!” Well, sort of. But not in the way that she means.

  “And Jada really, truly didn’t know?”

  “She honestly didn’t know I was up there.” This is true.

  We stare at each other, at an impasse.

  When she sees we’re clearly going nowhere, Freya crosses her arms.

  “I wish you could tell me what’s going on, Lolli, I really do. I’m not sure what to do now. I need to be at the house tomorrow for the Christmas Eve viewings and I don’t think that’s a good place for you to be.”

  “I can stay here. I won’t do anything . . . weird. I promise.”

  Freya sighs. “I’d just told Tanice we’d go to her place for Christmas Day too. You and Jada were getting on so well. Now I’m not sure about that either.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I thought . . . I thought things would be different.” But now I say this, I wonder if they really would have been? My plan had only ever been to find the object and destroy it. What did I think was going to happen afterwards? I suppose I’d hoped to destroy the locket in secret and that Freya would never find out and Clara and Elsie (and Madame LeNoir) would be released and it would all be over.

  “I thought things would be different too,” Freya replies.

  I spend Christmas Eve in the apartment, reading Tanice’s book over and over again. I search for anything I might have missed. Any hint of what object in the house Clara might be bound to.

  I find nothing.

  I still can’t believe how I fell for Madame LeNoir’s trap. Looking back, I see that it had all been far too easy. For a start, she’d allowed me to enter the attic room. She could have tried to stop me. But she didn’t. That should have been my first clue that something was up. And then she’d let me have a big old hunt around. Made me think I’d outwitted her. That it was me who’d spotted the shiny bed knob. That I’d worked out her secret hiding place myself. Not only this, she hadn’t really tried to stop me from twisting the bed knob off, had she? I can’t remember her exact words, but it had been something along the lines of . . . oh, no. Stop. Don’t. Give it back. She hadn’t even chased me down.

  She was controlling everything the whole time.

  And, like a fool, I hadn’t noticed any of this, because I’d been so pleased with myself. Desperate to run straight to the hearth to destroy the locket.

  Just like Madame LeNoir wanted.

  The only thing in all of this that makes me feel slightly better is that I know Madame LeNoir thinks I’m a threat. Why else would she have wanted me to do something that would make Freya take me away once and for all? In life, she was so proud of that locket. I doubt she truly wanted to see it destroyed. But she was willing to give up her hoarding of it to get rid of me.

  Why?

  Because she was scared of me.

  Madame LeNoir was – is – scared of me.

  She knows I have the ability to find whatever it is that’s holding Clara hostage.

  In a way, she believes in me just as much as Elsie and Clara do.

  I like the thought of this very much. Because it means releasing Clara and Elsie is a real possibility. Madame LeNoir knows I can do it.

  I just have to work out how.

  With renewed energy, I begin to brainstorm. I find some paper and a pen and begin to do a mind map like we’ve done at school, trying to get all my rambling thoughts out of my head and down on paper. Maybe the answer has been right under my nose the whole time. Maybe it’s completely obvious. The mind map ends up a scribbled mess of headings and bubbles and off-shoots, but it feels good to untangle my thoughts from the snarled mess in my mind.

  When I can’t think of anything else to write, I lie down on the carpet and try something different – I do a walk-through of the house in my mind. Room by room I go, pretending I’m there, hoping that something might stand out. That a clue might be delivered to me.

  Sadly, nothing does.

  After this, I try Tanice’s book again, concentrating on the photos this time. There are a few of Madame and Monsieur LeNoir with their spiritualist groups, posing inside the house. I look at those particularly closely, but I can’t see anything unusual in them.

  I hunt and hunt and hunt.

  What’s the object?

  What could it be?

  I spend all day on these questions and come up with a Big. Fat. Nothing.

  I know the last viewing of the day is at 4 pm, so I’m surprised when Freya arrives back at the apartment just before 5 pm, laden with shopping bags.