The Haunting of Tabitha Grey Read Online Free PDF Page B

a pain most of the time. Like now, when he’s trying to pinch chips off
my plate.
    ‘Stop it!’ I yell before I can help myself.
    Mum sighs and buries her head in her hands. ‘I just wanted a fresh start here,’ she says in the low voice, which I know is going to rise up into hysteria if Dad doesn’t somehow
find a way to stop it. ‘Is that too much to ask? Can’t we all just enjoy living in this house without making up stories about old ladies and yelling and making a fuss?’
    Dad offers me more sausages. ‘Nobody’s pretending anything, Rachel,’ he says. ‘And we ARE enjoying living in the manor. Aren’t we, Tabs?’
    I nod, stuffing in chips as fast as possible so that I can go upstairs and see if Jake has texted me.
    ‘Tabitha is still pretending, aren’t you, Tabitha?’ says Mum. Her voice is going all high and squeaky. Uh-oh. Danger alert.
    Dad pours her a glass of wine and gives her a long look with his eyebrows raised. The look says, ‘Don’t start this again.’
    ‘Tabitha is doing very well,’ he says. ‘She’s going to help me with some more of the inventory tomorrow. So you can practise your dancing or go shopping or clean or
whatever you want to do.’
    I know he means this in a nice way but it comes out kind of patronising and Mum’s cheeks flare into angry pink spots.
    ‘Oh, and that’s my life now, is it?’ she says. ‘Shopping, cleaning and a nice little hobby down in the damp old basement while you get obsessed with your new job, just
like always?’
    She gets up and shoves the plates into the sink, goes upstairs and slams her bedroom door.
    Ben jumps at the noise and his dark brown eyes look up at me, all serious and scared.
    I sigh. ‘I thought I was supposed to be the moody one,’ I venture but Dad glowers at me, so I shut up and eat a hard banana in silence.
    Great. Some half term this is turning out to be.
    The next day the house is open to the public by the time Dad and I leave our flat and head down the corridor. The dining room is full of light and no visitors have yet made it
to that part of the manor. I glance into the huge drawing room as we pass by and admire the heavy crystal chandeliers and the ornate gold mirrors over the two large fireplaces, one on each side of
the room. There is a large cabinet full of green and blue Wedgwood vases that I hadn’t noticed before, so I stop for a moment to look at it. Gran collects Wedgwood so I always recognise
it.
    ‘Come on,’ says Dad, already pounding through the entrance hall. ‘Morning!’ he booms to Dawn who’s selling brochures to a small group of students. He gives her his
dazzling grin.
    ‘Hi,’ she says back. Her short hair is dark and thick against the white shirt of her uniform. She watches Dad’s retreating back for a moment as he starts to bound up the grand
staircase, two steps at a time. Then she sees me and clears her throat. She gives me a wink before returning to the students.
    Dad is working upstairs in the library on the first floor today. It’s opposite Lady Eleanor’s bedroom and all the time I’m in the library I keep looking across the landing like
I’m expecting somebody to come out of there or something. But of course nobody does and instead a stream of visitors go in there, exclaiming with pleasure at the ornate bed and the beautiful
paintings and photographs on the wall.
    The library is kind of strange.
    ‘It doesn’t feel like a library,’ I say to Dad. There are loads of books on dark shelves across the entire length of one wall but it still doesn’t really look like
I’d imagine a library in a manor house to look. There’s very little furniture in the room other than a small round rosewood table in the middle and a fireplace with a fender and one or
two small ornaments above it.
    ‘That’s because it wasn’t,’ replies Dad. He’s busy noting down the titles of the books in the cabinet. ‘It used to be a guest bedroom, back in the Victorian
era. But nobody