A SECRET ATTIC

DID YOU HAVE AN ATTIC IN YOUR LIFE?

When I was a child I lived in a house with an attic that 

 stretched all the way from front to back of the house. It had a little dormer window with a casement that opened, in some areas the ceiling was so low you had to crawl beneath it. There was no electric light. A narrow twisting unlit staircase led to its solitary door.

And although my family knew about it, no one else came up those twisting stairs. It was mine. My secret attic, with all my possessions, some old pillows and blankets, a torch, and lots of books.

It's still vivid in my memory, which is probably why I include attics in so many of my novels. The book I'm writing just now will be called THE GIRL IN THE ATTIC. It's for young adults and is about Helen, a teenage girl who was killed in 1948 by her father and whose ghost lives on alone in the attic of his abandoned house.

In the meantime, here's an excerpt from THE MYSTERY OF CRAVEN MANOR, where Matt is taken by Sam to her secret attic:

The attics at Craven Manor were very different. Dark except for the odd chink of light from between the roof tiles, they were crammed with old furniture, pictures and ornaments, chests, toys, and dozens of other objects Matt could only guess at in the darkness. The dust-laden air smelled of musty clothes, damp and mothballs.

“There’s no electricity up here,” whispered Sam, “but I’ve got lots of torches hidden away. Stay there while I collect a couple.”

As she shuffled away he heard other noises. Mice, he guessed. Or even rats. He wasn’t really scared, but all the same he curled his toes. He didn’t fancy being bitten in the dark.

Then Sam clicked on two torches and came back to him. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s have some fun!”

Each attic led to another, and another and another, some quite small, others enormous. Matt lost count of how many he had passed through. His torchlight flashed on a dressmaker’s dummy swathed in cobwebbed shawls. In the next attic a battered rocking horse, minus its mane and tail, lay on its side. There were travelling trunks covered with faded labels, rolled up carpets and rugs, things that sent human-like shadows in the light of the torch.

Matt had no idea where they were in relation to the rooms below.

“We’re over Great Aunt Dorothy’s bedroom,” Sam whispered. “Better tiptoe!”

“Who’s Great Aunt Dorothy?” he whispered back.

“She’s another of them,” said Sam. “Honestly, you don’t want to meet her!”

They passed through another three attics .

“We’re coming to my favourite place,” said Sam.

As far as Matt could see, they had reached a blank wall with just a low chest of drawers against it, but Sam bent down and moved it easily out of the way. “It’s empty,” she said. “I threw all the stuff out.”

Behind the chest was a low opening. “You’ll have to crawl,” whispered Sam. Once through, she quietly pulled the chest back into place and hooked a piece of heavy tapestry curtaining across the opening. “Now we can light the candles.”

There were a dozen or more of them, shoved into candlesticks of every shape and size, and Matt shone his torch as Sam produced a box of matches and shuffled between them.

As the candlelight increased, he saw they were in another large space but this one glowed with colour and gleamed with the silver and copper of the candlesticks. Sam had strewn the bare boards with rugs and old bedspreads in a rainbow of colours, crimson, emerald, purple and gold. Silk and velvet curtains were pinned to the walls with drawing pins, and an inviting tumble of cushions filled the centre of the floor. Carved and painted masks decorated the walls,. A huge dried snake hung between two beams.

Sam flung herself on to the cushions. “This is my secret nest,” she said. “I’ve got my I-Pad and all my favourite books and games up here, and nobody except me knows about it!”

Matt’s mouth fell open with astonishment. It was Aladdin’s cave, the Arabian Nights. All they needed was a genie with a magic lamp. God, she was lucky!

“Well?” she asked. “What d’you think?”

She didn’t deserve it, the way she behaved. He turned away. “You want to be careful, with all these candles. You could set the whole house on fire.”