The Whispers of Wilderwood Hall Read Online Free PDF

Wilderwood isn’t some wonderland. Just look at the garden directly in front of the terrace; it must have been very grand once upon a time, laid out in four squares of planting. But now the ornamental hedges are overgrown and snarly, and the squares are empty of elegant roses and lilies and rampant with enthusiastic weeds instead.
    Beyond that, a vast apron of long grass – dotted with trees and shrubs – extends to the perimeter stone wall. And beyond
that
, endless fir trees stand shoulder to shoulder, like a dense, living fence.
    With a shudder, I decide to move on, to walk around the outside of the house and get my bearings. So I let the moss-covered paving stones take me along the front of the house, past more long, dirty, sometimes broken windows. Finally, I come to the corner of the building, the corner of the L. And it’s here that I notice a large, lumpen tangle of ivy in the garden, way taller than me and spread wide. What’s it covering? Has it grown over years – decades? – and ended up smothering some shrubs growing there? Or covered an old garden shed, maybe?
    More interestingly, beyond the ivy jungle I can now see part of the driveway, snaking down to meet the tiny single-track road that leads to the village.
    The village! If I’m facing in the direction of Glenmill, that means the windows I saw from the Cairn Café – they
have
to be directly above me, in the East Wing; the shorter part of the L. I flip around and look up at the rooms above the kitchens – but I’m too close to the building to see properly.
    Taking a step back, and another, and another, I scan the upper floor.
    And now I get a better view. Just like you’d expect, the roof of the servants’ quarters is pretty plain, except for one pair of windows that have a decorative triangle of stone above them, echoing the style of the main house frontage.
    Yes;
they’re
the windows that seemed like eerily staring eyes yesterday. But today, from this angle, they’re plain and blank. Simple glass in old wooden frames, letting light into a dusty, musty room.
    Reassured, and feeling a bit silly, I take
another
step back, and—
    Ow!
    I’ve just been kicked,
hard
, in the back of both knees.
    I’m crumpling, tumbling, balance shot and arms flailing to catch hold of something, anything.
    And in that split second of sinking, I feel like Alice tumbling into the rabbit hole, bottle-green ivy closing in over me…

My wrists still ache from being wrenched. Mr Fraser sees me rubbing them and apologizes again.
    â€œSorry, sweetheart,” he says, embarrassment reddening his already ruddy cheeks. “Didn’t mean to be so rough.”
    Mum hands him a mug of tea and quickly sets him straight. “Oh, please don’t apologize! If you hadn’t grabbed Ellis when you did, she could’ve cracked her head really badly.”
    â€œYes, thanks,” I mumble shyly, and hide my red wrists behind my back. “I didn’t know the fountain was there, hidden under all that ivy.”
    I’m especially shy because Mr Fraser isn’t alone. His son has come with him. His scruffy-haired, bird- eyed teenage son who saw me faint in the café yesterday, and stagger backwards – like a Mr Bean wannabe – into a disused pond this morning. Great. I’m so used to being known as an awkward, clumsy “beanpole” at school in London, and now it seems like I’ll be known for that here too, once I start at Glenmill High…
    â€œFunny the secrets you come across around an old place like this,” says Mr Fraser, shuffling his work boots on the floorboards of what was, once upon a time, the grand dining room of Wilderwood Hall. “Just glad me and Cameron came around the corner when we did.”
    â€œCam.” His son mumbles a correction to his name.
    While I’d stood brushing ivy leaves out of my hair and off of my jumper, Mr Fraser and his son