There were no arguments that evening, three days before the 25th of December. The family gathered round to inspect the Virgin, her Spouse, and the Infant Jesus. Marianna remained kneeling by the wood fire and watched the inspection.

  'Remarkable,' observed Dan Brady, as he picked up an infant whose head was as large as his body, and whose expression owed more to the grinning Appelachian Mountain character who graced MAD magazine than to the serene smile of the Holy Infant. The child was - in relation to the size of its mother - practically fully grown, which no doubt explained the lopsided grimace on the Virgin Mary's face. The animals had walked out of science fiction, and one - the cow - was immediately nicknamed the C' Porker, since its features owed as much to the one animal as to the other. Wet paint rubbed off on the Bradys' fingers as the family expressed their genuine admiration of the characters.

  'What about the three wise men?' demanded Dominick.

  'I didn't have time,' said Marianna defensively.

  Brady said, 'They probably followed the wrong star. They'll be here next Christmas.'

  Dominick carried the figures across to the model theatre that had been converted into a stable, and Alison and Dan

  Brady watched in silent satisfaction as the two children played with the several characters within that miniature world.

  'Fingers crossed for a peaceful Christmas,' said Alison, stretching her feet out to the fire.

  'Some hope.'

  Later, when the children were in bed, Alison told Brady of her scary encounter in the library. She was still shaken by it, still a little on edge.

  'Is the library haunted?'

  'I don't know,' she said. 'Perhaps it is. That's the third time in a month that I've felt spooked.'

  'Anybody else encountered it?'

  Alison nestled against him, warm and sleepy. 'Don't think so. It really unnerved me, Dan. I mean, normally I'd just shake it off, put it down to a windy night, fatigue, too much adrenalin pumping through my system keeping me alert. But . . .'

  She didn't finish. Brady stroked her hair and her shoulders, trying to soothe the tension he could feel in her muscles. She wriggled slightly with pleasure.

  'It's funny,' he said. 'I had a fright today as well.'

  'What happened?'

  'The EM detectors went haywire. One scope was connected up to a female gerbil, reading bio-electrical output from its hind brain - the location of instinctive action and sensitivity. The other was just trying to pick up ES signals out of the air . . .'

  'ES? Oh, Extra Sensory. I didn't think you could do that yet?'

  'We got a minute trace today. Enough to keep Campbell happy. Anyway something spooked both animals, and the response was incredible. It had to be fear, and it got to me too. The only other time I've known something happen like that was when we were getting interference from subsonic signalling. But if this was a stray signal it must have been damned powerful. Gerbils are tough, and the female was killed by its own fright reaction . . .'

  'How horrible.' Alison straightened, stared at Dan censoriously. 'I still don't see how you can work with animals. It's grotesque.'

  'I don't dissect them.'

  'You just scare them half to death.'

  'I don't scare them a tenth as much as they get scared in the natural habitat. And they never get eaten . . .'

  'That's what you say.' Alison settled back against him. 'But I know you MOD people; can't talk about what you really do . . . I'm sure it's a lot worse.'

  Brady laughed. 'Funny, isn't it. My work is classified; all work at Hillingvale is classified; and there's absolutely nothing going on there that could be of the slightest interest to anyone.'

  'Likely story.' Alison climbed to her feet, tugged down her jumper and smiled at Dan. 'I'm ready for bed.'

  'But it's early. Not ten yet . . .'

  'I said I'm ready for bed, Dan.' She reached out her hand and Brady smiled as he took it, allowing himself to be hauled upright out of his comfortable armchair. The wood fire was burning low, and would be safe to leave, now. They kissed fondly in front of the glowing embers, then walked slowly upstairs, arms round each other.

  And they had not been in bed for more than five minutes when Marianna began to scream.

  'Oh God, not again!' Alison pushed Dan away roughly, and swung her legs out of the covers.

  'It never bloody fails, does it?' Brady was both irritable and frustrated, and he pulled on his long, winter robe before walking quickly to Marianna's room. But if frustration tainted his words with anger, both he and Alison were edgy with concern for their daughter's mental health and these nightmares were becoming ridiculously frequent.

  Brady practically ran into the girl's room and switched on the light, blinking against the sudden brilliance. He wrinkled his nostrils at the unpleasant smell in the place. Marianna's cries had died away to a whimper, and he saw her, crouched in the corner, behind the cluttered desk. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, and she was clutching her Paddington Bear to her body, burying her face in its hat. 'All right darling,' said Brady gently, picking her up and carrying her from the room. 'It was just a dream. . .'

  Marianna was shaking, her eyes filled with tears, but not expressing her fear with any show of sobbing. She held onto her father tightly and when they were downstairs, in front of the dying fire, she curled up in his lap and allowed him to soothe her. Alison made a small glass of warm milk, then came in and sat down by her daughter, reaching out to brush stray hairs from the child's face.

  'She seems all right now,' said Brady.

  'I don't like him,' said Marianna weakly, and Brady and Alison exchanged glances. 'He frightens me. And he smells!'

  'Who does, darling?' asked Alison quietly. 'Who frightens you?'

  'The man. The Smokey Man. I don't like him.'

  She snuggled more tightly against Brady's chest. 'What did he do, lovely?' he asked. 'Did he come into the room?'

  'He looked at me, up close. I was frightened. He smells!'

  To Alison, Brady mouthed the question, 'Did you smell anything?'

  'Yes, quite powerfully, like rotting vegetation. The window was open, but it couldn't have been the pond, could it?'

  'I don't think so.' He rocked Marianna back and forth. Alison continued to stroke her, and soon the violent trembling in the girl's body died away. 'Did he touch you?'

  The girl shook her head. 'He frightens me. He just looks down at me and smiles, then he runs away.'

  Marianna's encounters with the Smokey Man were becoming bothersome. Dominick, at her age, had also suffered from a recurring nightmare, but one that involved falling. It had taken him a year to outgrow the dreaming phase. Now Marianna, almost certainly in her sleep, was regularly encountering a figure that she described as "smokey", a tenuous, drifting shape, that sometimes smelled and sometimes didn't. This was the fourth encounter, and it seemed to have been less intense and less intensely frightening than before. The first time she had dreamed of the apparition the girl had jumped from her window and floundered into the pond. It had given Brady bad dreams for weeks, and they had covered the pond with a stiff, wire grating.

  As on previous occasions, Brady was inclined to assume the figure had been a dream; but tonight because of his own discomforting experience during the day - and Alison's haunting in the library - they sat there for a long while, not willing to acknowledge that nothing had really happened.

  Could the house be haunted? It was over a hundred years old, a remote, rambling, five-bedroomed place, and presumably it had had its fair share of history. But would a haunting presence follow the house's occupants to work?

  'What the hell's happening to us?' Brady said softly, and Alison shrugged.

  'Nothing that can't be explained by overwork, too much to do on the house, and natural parental tension just before Christmas.' She smiled. 'We're on edge . . .' she simplified.

  'Yes, I guessed that's what you meant.' Brady shifted Marianna's sleepy form on his lap, and she sat up and stared at him, her gaze flickering from one eye to the other. 'Time to go back to bed,' he said.

  'I'm scared. I want to sleep in your bed tonight.'

  'Well you can't. And there's no point arguing. The Smokey Man was a bad dream, and now he's gone.'

  Marianna pinched her lips together and reached out to twist Brady's nose with her left hand. 'He might still be there . . .'

  'Then we'd better send Willy Crinkleleaf with you, to make sure. Where are you Willy?' Brady looked round. 'Ah, there you are.'

  'Where's Willy Crinkleleaf?' Marianna peered over Brady's shoulder, smiling.

  'He's right there, by the fire,' he pointed to thin air then waved. Marianna waved as well. 'Sorry to drag you out of your Oak Tree, Willy.'

  'Sorry Willy,' said Marianna. She climbed off Brady's lap, then looked at him. 'Won't you come up with me, Daddy?'

  'Certainly not. Off you go, and Willy Crinkleleaf will be right behind you. And if that old Smokey Man's in the room, well, you'll kick him out the window, won't you Willy? You'll hear a big splash in the pond.'

  Marianna giggled, then ran quickly for the stairs, calling, 'Come on Willy.'

  An imaginative child, Marianna adored such friendly sprites as Willy Crinkleleaf, who lived in the oak at the end of the lawn, and Tim Tarrabob, who lived under the garden and was forever pulling weeds downwards just as Brady got to them to hoe them up. Brady's own father had used such elementals of nature to describe and teach the environment; and of course, they made great stories. Marianna, with her childish fear of the dark and her capacity to dream of more sinister supernatural forces, benefited marvellously from inhabiting her world - just peripherally - with more benign spirits. It had done Brady no psychological harm - except, perhaps, to give him a deep and abiding passion for fantasy stories - and it could only do Marianna good as well.

  With Willy Crinkleleaf as her guardian for going up the stairs, she would relax; in a few years, like Dom, she would become sceptical of these forest and earthly beasts. (Although Dominick, for all his ridiculing of stories about garden sprites, was not above setting the occasional trap for Willy Crinkleleaf. Twice Brady had found him erecting an elaborate system of string snares, and mazes formed from crushed herbs and chalk. Where he had found the details of these traps Brady had never discovered.)

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening as Marianna pattered about her room before bouncing into bed and (presumably) burying herself below the blankets.

  'What a family,' said Alison quietly, and moved across to the armchair where Brady sat. It was still warm in the lounge, the dying fire guttering as the last pieces of wood were consumed. Brady reached out and turned off the lamp behind his chair. In the glowing red fire-light Alison's skin was smooth and golden, and he leaned forward to kiss her cheeks, her nose, then her mouth. 'Where were we?' he said, and she shrugged off her thin house-robe, undid the belt of his dressing gown, and pulled herself up so that she could lie upon him.

  Brady touched her gently, stroking her back, her thighs, feeling her slim body move across him, then onto him. Her breasts, so small and firm in his hands, seemed excessively responsive tonight. Her own hands gripped his shoulders as she moved on him, her mouth on his mouth, stifling their regular, rhythmic murmurs as her passion, and his, increased.

  The next morning Dominick was up at the crack of dawn, running through the house crying the word 'Snow!' at the top of his lungs. Dan Brady had slept only fitfully, finally succumbing to unconsciousness at around four in the morning. As he forced his eyes open, and listened to the excited yelling of his son, he realized that he felt absolutely shattered.

  Alison rose silently, dressed silently, walked silently and sleepily down to the kitchen to fix some coffee. Brady lay in bed, feeling cold and unwilling to rise. When Marianna finally bounded onto the bed, and shook him to attention, he gave up the ghost of a possibility that he might lie-in and allowed himself to be dragged to the window, to witness the wonder of nature that had sprinkled the garden.

  It had been a light snow flurry, probably lasting only minutes, in that coldest part of the night just before dawn. But the garden was white, and the illusion of deep snow was at once wonderful (to the children) and horrifying (to Brady, who loathed-snow).

  Marianna's fear of the night before had vanished totally. She had slept well - as much as she ever slept - and now-bounded around her room locating boots, scarves, jumpers, and thick slacks. By seven-thirty she and Dominick were scraping snow from the high, brick wall, that surrounded the grounds on two sides, and lobbing fragile but highly effective snowballs at each other.

  Their faces glowed with colour as they sat to breakfast soon after. Their disappointment on witnessing the snow layer vanish with advancing morning was almost comical. But in any case, there was more to be done today than just playing around in the garden . . .

  All four of them drove into Uxbridge, Alison armed with one immense list of requirements for the next few days, Brady with a second. They split up, Brady taking Dom with him, and met up again two hours later, loaded down with boxes, bags and wrapped packages. Uxbridge was unbearably crowded, thousands of last minute shoppers struggling - just like the Bradys - to obtain the rapidly dwindling supplies that would carry them through to New Year.

  They visited a Santa Claus grotto of course, Marianna threatening to leave home were she denied a chance to check her theory that the man who sat there wore a false beard, and wasn't the real Santa Claus at all. Point proven, and one angry Father Christmas left adjusting his torn stage props, the Bradys went to Iver to have lunch with Dan's sister, Rosemary.

  Rosemary and Bill Suchock lived in more modest surrounds on a housing estate. Their single child was Marianna's age, a shy, unpleasant lad who sought his own company, and refused to speak to Dan and Alison at all. Dan Brady felt a shiver of apprehension at the thought of Christmas Day, when the three of them would be joining the fun at Brook's Corner. Each year it was the same: by three in the afternoon little Malcolm would be the focus of attention, agreeing to cease his tantrum only if all other activity were ceased and the present company made a fuss of him. Brady thought fondly of the woodshed that he had inherited with Brook's Corner, and the high carpenter's bench within it, and the thin, flexible lengths of alder branch that would inflict such justifiable pain on such a sullenly juvenile backside.

  Maybe this year for the first time . . . maybe . . .

  They were away from Iver by three; it grew gloomy so rapidly, and the sky lowered and became threatening, snow clouds building and a wind of such bitter chill springing up that Brady felt cold even through his heavy army surplus anorak.

  Once back home though, Alison busied herself with unpacking the day's purchases and storing them, while Brady made up the fire, then took the children with him into the garden to chop enough logs for four days, and gather some thin sticks from around the small stand of dead elms that separated Brook's Corner from the smaller house known as Ravenshead. Brady refused to cut the trees down, dead though they were. Their branches, skeletal and sinister, were a dramatic break against the skyline in both summer and winter. As long as he checked the trees regularly for dangerous branches he felt he could risk keeping the trunks standing for a few years.

  Tiny Marianna, arms loaded with green fringed sticks, marched in and out of the house in her red Wellington boots, bulkily clad in one of Dominick's old padded jackets. Her breath frosted in great clouds as she raced to and fro, gathering firewood. Dominick chopped and chopped at the heavier wood, while Brady waited patiently, then gave one mighty stroke of the axe himself to achieve the desired cut. The cats watched them curiously from the warmth of the lounge, too clever by half to go out into such a gloomy, icy afternoon.

  At one point, as dusk grew deeper, Marianna found enough snow still lurking beneath two logs to make a snowball, and she crept up behind Brady, threw it so that it exploded against the back of his head as he was bent over, stacking logs, and then scampered - pursued - across the garden, climbing onto the roof of the woodshed with a nimbleness that almost seemed impossible in view of her boots and bulkily clothed figure. Standing there, just out of reach of him, she thumbed her nose and laughed at him, only breaking from her taunting as light flashed from behind.

  Brady looked round and saw that Alison was checking the settings on his camera and smiling. He looked back up at his daughter; it was an image that would remain with him through the nightmare to come, an image of such innocence, of such childish beauty, the fun in her touching every corner of her frozen features, that he reached his arms towards her and caught her as she jumped from safety into the greater security of his grasp.

  'Get inside now,' he said, kissing her ice-cold skin. 'We've got enough wood.'

  'Oh just a while longer, Daddy,' she begged, and struggled to free herself from his arms. He let her down and watched her scamper off towards the oak where Willy Crinkleleaf lived. Dominick was there, poking around in the litter that still lay thickly on the ground.

  'Stop setting traps for Crinkleleaf!' Brady heard Marianna shout, her shrill voice touched with anger; and Dominick's deeper voice, already breaking, even though he was not yet eleven, replied, 'If anything did live in the tree it would have been caught by now in my henbane and mandrake snare.'

  Brady grimaced as he came indoors, and went across to the sink to run hot water onto his frozen hands. 'Did you hear that? Henbane, mandrake? The boy's a necromancer. He probably slips us love philtres and listens through the wall.'

  'Don't be crude,' said Alison lightly. 'They'd better come in; it's going to snow again.'

  'Leave them. It's cold, but they're a damn sight better able to cope with it than I am. I'm going to straighten the tree out. . .' By which he meant the Christmas tree and its disorderly decoration.