Mamma said in her haughtiest voice, ‘I wish to come inside, if you please’ and the man looked at her for a moment, and then nodded. The gates opened, and they stepped through.
Latchkill was as frightening as Maud had always known it would be. It had high-up windows with jutting-out bits of stone so they looked like eyes under too thick eyebrows staring down at the people on the ground. It was a dirty-grey colour, and it had a crooked look as if the people who had built it had not measured it properly, so it had ended up twisted. If it had been a person, it would have been a hunchback, or a man limping.
Mamma seemed to know the way they must go. Holding Maud’s hand very tightly, she led the way around the side of the house. ‘This is the door we’ll use to go inside, Maud.’
‘Are we going to see somebody?’
‘Yes. Yes, we are. We’re going to see somebody we should have seen a long time ago.’
Mamma’s eyes were glittery, and although her face was pale, there were two spots of red on her cheeks as if she had painted them on.
As well as being dark, the inside of Latchkill smelt horrid as if somebody had boiled cabbage for too long, or as if the people who lived here did not wash often enough. Maud hated it, but mamma was striding along a passage, still holding firmly to Maud’s hand. If they met anyone, they must say they had been sent for because a relative was ill. Did Maud understand that?
‘Yes,’ said Maud in a very small voice.
They did not meet anyone. They went into a passageway where it was quite difficult to see the way because there were no windows, and mamma said, ‘Yes, I think this is it.’ She pointed to a notice fixed to the wall. It was in big black letters, and Maud read it carefully.
Reaper Wing.
There was no reason why she should start to feel even more frightened by these words, but she did. In a small scared voice, she said, ‘What’s Reaper Wing?’
For a moment she thought mamma was not going to answer, but then she said, ‘Reaper Wing is the place where your father lives.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The place where your father lives.
The eight-year-old Maud had not understood. Her father was at home, and on most days he went to Twygrist Mill to work. He was not here in Latchkill: he was at Toft House where they all lived.
Then mamma said, in a different voice–a voice that brought all the shivery fear back, ‘This is the place, Maud. They thought I didn’t know where he lives–George thought I didn’t know–but I do know because I listened to people talking. I’ve known for a very long time. We have to go through the black iron doors and we have to do so today because it’s your birthday. That’s the right day to do this.’
Maud saw they were standing in front of huge black doors–like the doors people put in books about giants. She wanted to shout to mamma not to open the doors because there might be something terrible beyond them–something that they must not see. But she had been too frightened to speak, and mamma had drawn back the bolt.
Maud, curled into the shrubbery of Latchkill’s grounds, waiting to slip out, could see the ghost of her eight-year-old self clearly. She could see mamma’s hands–thin, white hands because mamma had not gone out into the sun for all those years–drawing back the bolt.