that he had sent her flying and that she was sitting on the ground nursing a blow to the head.
'Jackie, are you okay? Here let me help you and then we must get moving.' Slowly, he hauled her to her feet and with one arm around her, partially to comfort her and partially to pull her along, they set off home at a trot.
On the way back he did his best to explain to Jackie what had happened and in between panting for breath and sobbing in terror, he laboriously got his story out.
He had quickly made his way through the shrubs and could see the ball right in the middle of the lawn. He paused between the shrubs and tried to get up courage for a quick sprint across the lawn and back to retrieve the ball, but his heart was pounding in his chest and his courage was waning. Then suddenly, just as someone standing at the side of a pool, desperately trying to summon up the courage to enter the cold water, reaches a point of decision and jumps, so Ben started to run. As he reached the ball and fumbled to pick it up in his panic-stricken hands, he looked up at the house and saw at once that it wasn’t the house he knew. It appeared empty and abandoned. For some reason, this calmed him and he stepped a little closer. It must be very close to the house they were buying, maybe even next door, but he hadn’t remembered seeing any such house on the day they had come to view. At this point, Ben had almost returned to tell Jackie, but his curiosity made him go right up to the back of the house and even in the half-light it was clearly derelict. Window frames were empty of glass, a rear door was hanging from one hinge and even the bricks were loose in places. He thought of Jackie waiting and knew he mustn’t be too long, but he seemed almost compelled to enter the house. This actually proved to be quite easy, as he only had to swing the door slightly to one side and step through.
The house was in a completely dilapidated state and the floor was strewn with rubble, shattered glass and other nameless objects that lay just beyond resolution in the gloom. He felt he wouldn’t go much further, for in truth his courage was bow tight and ready to snap at any moment, but he crunched his way as carefully as he could to a door and promptly froze.
He could hear voices on the other side and a thin strip of light was visible through the cracks in the door. Then his nerve finally snapped like a twig and he half tiptoed and half ran across the room to the broken door and exited the house at a sprint, coming through the shrubs to the hole in the fence so fast that he failed to hear, or see, his sister until he collided with her.
The following day, after school, they took a walk out along the main village road to the house. It was a bright evening and the house looked as cheerful as ever. They had hoped they could wander past quickly and without being seen, but Mrs Smith was weeding the front flower beds and she called across cheerily to them. They dutifully trudged across the road to her and after a brief chat, Ben suddenly blurted out
'Are any of the houses along here empty?'
Mrs Smith didn’t give any sign that she thought it a strange question and just flicked her head left and right and said, 'No, they’re all fully occupied along here, after all, it’s such a lovely spot you wouldn’t have houses standing empty for long now, would you?'
They finally managed to escape by saying that they had to get back for their supper and as they walked, Ben scrutinised each house front carefully and just as Mrs Smith had said, each and every one looked properly cared for and lived in.
In the days that followed, the events of that night kept going round and round in Ben’s head like a nightmare that wouldn’t fade and he discussed it over and over with his sister, but she seemed to be more and more putting it down to an overactive imagination. In fact, secretly she felt that he had most likely made up the story just to try and scare her.
Then one night Ben had a vivid dream, in which he was walking along the lower lane, away from the village. In his dream there was no fence on the village side of the road, just open land, upon which sat the derelict and blackened shell of their house. He veered towards the rear of the house and could clearly see through the broken windows that the house had been gutted by fire and was dark and lifeless within. Even in his dream, it was a chilling sight. He continued his walk, looping around the far side of the house and back up towards the main village street. When he reached the front of the house he was surprised to see that it was immaculate. The front room looked warm and inviting and he had a clear impression of people moving about within.
When he awoke, he lay quite still for several minutes staring up at the ceiling and feeling a tingle of excitement. His dream was still clear in his mind and he realised that his subconscious had pieced together something, which now seemed obvious, but somehow he had missed it. Every time he had seen the house in its derelict state, it had been when he entered the garden through the gap in the fence from the lower village road and on all other occasions, when he had visited the house from the front, it had appeared quite normal. He pondered this for a while and tried to imagine any kind of an explanation. The best idea he could come up with was that there must be two different houses, somehow merged together and maybe there was some kind of time warp or overlapping dimensions or something like that. It was weird stuff, but he felt pleased that at least he had a working theory.
That morning he told Jackie of his dream and then went on to try to explain his theory to her, but somehow it seemed much less convincing when spoken out loud and his sister just pursed her lips and shrugged.
'So you had a strange dream; but all that other stuff seems really weird,’ was all that she would say and Ben traipsed back up to his room and lay morosely on his bed.
A couple more nights passed and Ben had finally had enough. Jackie clearly no longer believed him and his desperation to prove her wrong exceeded even his considerable trepidation at revisiting the scene of his terror. He managed to cajole Jackie into accompanying him, against her better judgement and so that evening they set off together.
As they walked apprehensively along the lower village road towards their goal, a fine crescent moon hung low in the evening sky and smiled down on them. This briefly cheered them up, but the harsh sound of the crows circling high in the trees a couple of fields away sent shivers through them both and when a bat flitted past their faces, they stopped altogether and almost turned back. Their well of courage was almost dry.
Jackie whispered, 'Come on, this is silly; let’s go back now. I’m really scared.' Ben wanted, with all his heart, to comply with her request but some stubbornness within him refused to give up. Perhaps it was the thought that he might never dredge up the courage to do this again and so he just had to go on with it, so he tried to console her.
'I know it’s scary Jackie, but let’s just carry on a bit. After all, we’ve come this far and we can give up anytime we want to, so let’s go on a bit further and see what we can discover.'
After some reluctance, Jackie agreed and they got to the fence with the Apple Tree behind it. It only took a few seconds for Ben to find the loose boards and they both crept through and then crouched motionless behind the shrubs at the bottom of the garden. The air about them was completely still and the garden was thick with the fragrance of flowers. The rear of the house was ahead of them in the evening gloom and Ben was quite sure that this was the very same garden that they and their parents had visited some six weeks before. The large apple tree was unmistakable and the shape and layout were just as he remembered. He whispered right into his sister’s ear 'This is the right house isn’t it?'
'Yes, I’m sure it is. Everything looks just the same.'
This time, instead of heading straight across the lawn, they skirted the borders, stopping frequently, hearts pounding, until they came close enough to see that the windows were empty of glass and the door was hanging off its hinges just as Ben remembered. Somehow this had a calming effect on him because it proved that he wasn’t mad and that Jackie would have to believe him now. For her own part, Jackie just wanted to flee back to the safety of the road on the other side of the fence, but by a collective force of
will they crept forward and peered through a window. It was just as Ben had described it and looked unbearably spooky in the almost total darkness. 'Let’s go inside' said Ben. The words struggled to make it out of his dried out mouth. Jackie just shook her head and so he whispered 'Wait there then while I go and have a look.'
She watched as he disappeared through the door and she could hear the sharp cracks of splintering glass as he crossed the room. She was certain the noise would be heard and that someone would come to investigate, so she kept her body primed to sprint straight across the lawn to safety. Through the narrow door opening she could see the silhouette of Ben and in a burst of shock, she realised that he was standing in a pool of light. He had crouched right down and was looking through the partially opened door to the front room of the house. He briefly glanced back towards her and then, keeping low to the floor he crept forward into the room and out of her sight. A few seconds passed, during which every sense in her body strained to pick up the slightest movement, or sound, from within the crumbling walls of the house. Her entire body vibrated with the tension of the moment and then she heard Ben scream.
Jackie’s