The two girls walked silently down Appleford Road. They did not link arms or laugh or even look at one another. One of them looked miserable, almost frightened; the other was simply cross. No one would have taken them for best friends.

The cross one was the first to speak. She was a sturdy, freckled child, dressed with unaccustomed neatness in a cotton frock and white socks. Her hair was brushed and her fingernails clean.

“If it hurts that much to have me to tea, Charlotte,” she said, “let’s forget it.”

“Don’t be silly, Jane,” the miserable one said, smiling with an effort. “If I hadn’t wanted you to come, I wouldn’t have invited you.”

“You didn’t,” Jane pointed out. “I had to ask myself, remember?”

It still rankled. They had been best friends for several months now, and Jane had had Charlotte to tea hundreds of times. Never once had she been asked back. Her mother had begun to remark on it.

“Hello, Charlotte, you here again?” she’d said; and then to Jane when they were alone, “Hasn’t that child got a home of her own to go to?”

“She lives in Appleford Road,” Jane had said, hoping to silence her mother, for Appleford Road was very grand.

“Then you’d think they could afford to have you to tea for a change,” her mother had retorted.

Jane was a careless, generous child; it hadn’t occurred to her before to wonder why Charlotte had never invited her home. But now a small doubt, like a piece of grit in a shoe, began to prick her mind. Was Charlotte secretly ashamed of her? Was she just making use of her till she found some grander, more suitable girl to go around with?

“No! Charlotte isn’t like that!” she had told herself. “There must be some other reason.” Deciding to put it to the test, she had invited herself to tea.

So here she was at last, walking beside her unwilling friend (if friend was the word for her) going angrily to tea where she wasn’t wanted and no longer wished to go.

“This is it,” Charlotte said suddenly. She had stopped in front of a green-painted garden door in a high wall. Looking up, Jane could see the roof and chimneys of a house beyond it, showing dark against the sky. A hidden house. A shut-away, secretive house, quite unlike its ostentatious neighbors.

What have I got myself into? she wondered, suddenly uneasy.
To her surprise Charlotte did not open the garden door, but instead rang a bell set in the wall beside it and stood waiting.

“D’you always keep it locked?” Jane asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Charlotte shrugged and did not answer.

The door opened. Jane did not know what she had expected, but it was certainly not what she saw. A garden bright with flowers, a crowd of people, all laughing and talking and holding out their hands: welcoming her with every appearance of joy.

“Here’s Charlotte’s little friend at last!”

“We’ve heard so much about you.”

“Come in, come in, my dear.”

“We’ve been longing to meet you.”

She was hugged and kissed and introduced all around. To her surprise there turned out to be only four of them; Charlotte’s mother and father and two uncles. Somehow they had managed to fill the garden with so much noise and gaiety, that Jane kept looking around to see if there was anyone she had missed.

It was the same when they sat down to tea. Huge mirrors on every wall reflected the loaded table. Silver teapots glittered wherever she looked, plates of cakes, dishes of crimson and emerald jellies multiplied themselves in endless reflections, and the laughing, chattering family became a multitude.

One, two, three, four of them, Jane counted silently. And Charlotte and me makes six. The others are just in the mirrors. Why do I keep feeling there’s someone else here? Perhaps there’s a dog under the table.

She glanced down, but the long white tablecloth swept past her knees to the floor. She had no time to puzzle further, before she was drawn into the conversation. Her opinion was sought on this and that. Smiling questions were showered on her from all sides, so quick and so many she hardly had time to answer before the next one came. They flattered her, teased her gently, laughed uproariously when she ventured a joke.

I’m a success, she thought. They like me.

Glowing with pleasure, she looked across at Charlotte; and found her friend, too, was chattering and smiling. Jane had never known her so talkative before. Charlotte’s eyes were brilliant and there was a feverish flush on her cheeks.

Feverish? Why had that word come into her head? Why wouldn’t it go away again?

Suddenly, in spite of the sparkling room, Jane felt a growing uneasiness. She looked round the table and it seemed to her now that the people were as unreal as their reflections in the mirrors. There was something unnatural about them. Why did they all talk so much? Laugh so loudly? It was as if they were weaving a fence of sound to keep something out.

Again, and more strongly, she sensed there was someone else there. Someone she had not seen. She looked around, but there were no dark corners, no cupboards or hiding places. There was only the table, and its concealing cloth. . .

She let her napkin slide off her knees, as if by accident, and bent down to pick it up, hoping to lift the edge of the cloth at the same time. But one of the uncles bent down as quickly and their heads collided with a dull thud. In the instant of silence that followed this, Jane heard an urgent whisper, soft and plaintive, a child’s voice.

“Please, please let me in. . . .” it said.

Then they were all talking again, as loudly as ever, drowning out the small voice. Asking her if she was all right, apologizing for the mishap, feeling her head for bumps, offering her more tea, and when she refused, suggesting she and Charlotte should go and play in the park. . . .

“It’s a lovely park, isn’t it, Charlotte?”

“There’re swings and seesaws.”

“And ducks, don’t forget the ducks!”

“And a grass bank to roll down. You’ll love it there.”

They had all got up together. Charlotte took her arm and pulled her toward the front door, while the others clustered behind her, still talking.

They want to get me out of the house, Jane thought, and, suddenly angry, she said loudly, “Can’t I see your room first, Charlotte?”

Again, in the fleeting silence that followed her request, she heard the child’s whisper.

“Let me in! Let—”

Then they were all talking again. Of course she must see Charlotte’s room. They would all go and see Charlotte’s room. They would have a party there and play noisy games. Wouldn’t that be fun? Then they’d all go to the park.

As they trooped upstairs, Jane managed to get next to Charlotte. She whispered fiercely in her ear, “Who’s that child?”

But Charlotte did not seem to hear her. She was smiling and talking. Talking, talking. They were all talking together as if they would never stop. The sound of their voices pounded in Jane’s head, until she longed to shout “SHUT UP!”

What would happen if she did? Would there be a shocked silence? Would she hear again the child whisper pleadingly, “Let me in. Please, let me in!”

She wished she had the courage to try it. Then a better idea occurred to her. One of the doors on the landing was half open, and on the wall she saw a roll of lavatory paper, its end swinging gently in the draft

“Excuse me,” she said, and before they could stop her, darted in, and shut and locked the door.

Silence. And then the whisper again, pleading, “Let me in! I promise I’ll be good. Please let me in.”

She looked around, puzzled, a little afraid.

“Where are you?” she asked. Outside the door she could hear the muffled sound of voices, still talking as if they hoped to drown out the small voice. But the door was too thick.

“Let me in! Won’t you let me in?” a child whispered. Jane put down the seat and, kneeling on it, looked out of the window. The garden below was empty. There was no one perched in the branches of the nearby trees. A small wind, like a sigh, blew through the open window, and she shivered.
Still the voice pleaded, “Let me in! Let me in!”

* * * * *

When Jane came out, Charlotte was waiting for her on the landing. She was alone. The false animation had left her face. She looked pale and tired.

“So now you know,” she said.

Close by, a child whispered incessantly, “Let me in! Let me in!”

“Where is it?” Jane asked nervously.

Charlotte shrugged. “In the house. In the garden. Not outside the walls, thank heavens! It doesn’t do anything. Just whispers. On and on and on till we could scream. We turn the radio up loud, or the TV — the whole house shakes with noise and our heads ache, and still we know
it’s there. Even in my sleep I hear it, knocking softly on my head, asking to be let in. I hate it!”

“Why don’t you move out of the house?” Jane asked.

“You don’t understand,” Charlotte said. “We didn’t find it here. We brought it with us. It’s ours.”

“Let me in. Please let me in,” the child whispered. “I want to play with you.”

* * * * *

They went to the park after all, running all the way there, racing away from the sound of a radio turned up too loud and a child’s whisper. It was quiet in the park. There were not many people about. Most of the children had already gone home to supper. An old lady was throwing slices of bread from a wrapped loaf into the pond. The ducks pecked at it half-heartedly.

“They used to take her to feed the ducks,” Charlotte said. “It wasn’t as if they were horrid to her.”

“Who?”

“My father’s little sister. Mary. She’d have been my aunt if she’d lived. I don’t know if you can be an aunt if you’re already dead, do you?”

Nearby, some boys were kicking a ball about on the grass. They had put some sweaters down to mark a goal, and they cheered as the ball went sailing through. As it bounced off the ground, a little girl ran forward to catch it, and missed. It slipped through her fingers and hit her cheek. She began to cry.

“It’s yer own fault,” an older boy said roughly. “Why didn’t yer stay at ‘ome like I told yer to?”

“I wanna play,” the little girl whined. “I wanna play with yer, Mike.”

“It must have been like that,” Charlotte said, watching the little girl. “I wonder if her name is Mary too. If so, those boys had better watch out.”

“What happened?” Jane asked.

“Nothing much! That’s what’s so unfair,” Charlotte said angrily. “She was too young, that’s all. Dad was eight when she was born, and Uncle Peter and Uncle Mark even older. There’d just been the three of them before, you see.”

“Didn’t they want a baby sister?”

“I don’t know. I don’t suppose they minded,” Charlotte said, shrugging. “Dad said they quite liked her when she was in her pram. Or tucked up in her cot with her teddy bear. It was when she could walk, that’s when the trouble started. She was always tagging after them, wanting to play.”

The little girl in the park was sitting on the ground now, sucking her thumb. Her eyes followed the ball longingly.

“Didn’t they let her? I mean, not ever?” Jane asked.

“Yes! Sometimes. They weren’t horrid to her. But—well, Dad said Mary was so clumsy. She always fell down and hurt herself, and they’d be blamed. She couldn’t climb trees. She couldn’t play cricket. Three of her front teeth were knocked out once. Dad said she just stood there, watching the ball coming, and didn’t even have the sense to duck. It was only her baby teeth, but they got into a terrible row.”

“Did they begin to hate her then?” Jane asked.

“No! They never hated her! They just didn’t want her around all the time. When they were in their room, they’d bolt the door. They’d hear her outside, wailing, ‘Let me in! Please let me in!’ and they’d shout at her to go away. You can’t blame them. She always broke their things. She didn’t mean to, and she’d be sorry and cry.”

“Poor Mary,” Jane said, remembering the forlorn whisper. “I expect she was lonely.”

“Don’t take her side!” Charlotte said sharply. “Suppose she was sorry? Tears don’t mean anything, do they? How’d you like her hanging around you all the time?” She gestured toward the little girl in front of them. “Would you like her following us everywhere, butting in, breaking our things?”

The little girl was standing up again, scratching her leg and sniffing. Then she started running after the ball. A boy charged into her, knocking her over.

“Mike, ‘e ‘urt me! Mike!” she wailed, but her brother took no notice.

“She shouldn’t have got in the way,” Charlotte said, and Jane did not know which child she meant, the living or the dead.

“What happened in the end?” she asked.

“There was a terrible quarrel. My father had been making a model airplane, a big one. He’d spent weeks on it, and it was nearly finished. It was a beauty, he said. He was very proud of it. He couldn’t lock his door. The key was lost. But he’d warned Mary that she must never, never go into his room when he was out, or something horrible would happen to her. . .”

“And she did?”

“Yes. He came back from school one day and found her sitting on the floor, crying, with all the broken pieces around her. ‘I’m mending it for you, Johnny,’ she said, looking frightened. ‘I’m putting it together again.’ He lost his temper. You can’t blame him. Anyone would have. He pushed her from the room, shouting on top of his voice, ‘Get out and stay out! Don’t come near me again as long as you live! I hate you!'” Charlott was silent for a moment; then she said stubbornly, “You can’t blame him.”

“No,” Jane agreed.

“She was taken ill that night, and rushed to the hospital. He never saw her again. They said she was too weak for visitors. And she died. She just seemed to fade away. It had nothing to do with him. But he thought it was his fault. It was then the whispering started.”

* * * * *

It was still quite early when they came back from the park, only half past six. The warm evening sunlight polished the green door till it shone like an emerald.

“Don’t go yet,” Charlotte begged. “Stay a bit longer.”

Jane hesitated. The atmosphere of the hidden house, the overloud voices, and the frantic laughter remained in her mind like a bad taste. And the small voice whispering . . . poor little girl, she thought, and shivered.

“People never want to come again,” Charlotte said bitterly. “They’re interested, they want to hear all about it, but suddenly they don’t want to know us anymore. It’s as if we had the plague.”

“I’m not scared,” Jane said untruthfully. “I’ll come in. I don’t have to be back yet.”

Charlotte’s face brightened. She opened the door with a key, saying slyly, “No need to warn them now, since you’ve found out. Let’s stay out in the garden and talk. I’ll just tell them we’re back.” And she ran off into the house, leaving Jane alone.

Jane walked idly over the lawn, looking unseeingly at the flowers, her mind full of what she’d heard. She stepped on something that rolled beneath her foot, nearly unbalancing her. Looking down, she saw it was an old tennis ball, nearly as green as the grass. She picked it up and began tossing it into the air and catching it again. . .

“Let me in,” the child whispered. “Please let me in.”

Jane swung around, her heart racing. She had thought she was safe in the garden. Slowly she began backing toward the wall.

“Go away!” she said fiercely.

“Let me in,” the child implored. “I’ll be good. I promise I’ll be good.” It was such a piteous sound, the voice of a child who had been crying in the dark too long, that it touched Jane’s heart. She could not send it away.

“I want to play with you,” the child whispered. “Please let me play with you.”

“Where are you?”

“Here.”

“Catch!” Jane threw the tennis ball in the air. It fell unchecked and bounced across the grass. I’ve gone mad, she thought, watching it. But then there was a sound of quick, excited breathing, and the voice said, “I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”

Jane saw the ball rise up from the ground and hang in the air like a stained moon. Then it came sailing toward her, a feeble throw that would have fallen short, had she not raced forward and scooped it up, her knuckles grazing the grass.

“Where are you?” she asked again.

“Here.”

She tossed the ball to where the voice had seemed to come from, and saw it stop suddenly, caught in invisible hands.

“Well done!” she cried, and heard the child laugh gleefully.

Jane was suddenly filled with wild excitement. All her fear was gone, replaced by a strange joy. “Throw it again!” she called. “Let’s have a game!”

The ball flew toward her, a high, arching shot. Before she could jump for it, a hand reached over her head and caught it. Startled, she looked around.

Three tall men stood behind her, Charlotte’s father and her two uncles. Behind them Jane saw her friend, coming slowly over the grass, her eyes wide and nervous. It was Charlotte’s father who had caught the ball. Jane noticed for the first time, now that he was no longer talking and laughing, how tired he looked. There were deep lines on his forehead and around his mouth.

“Hello, Mary,” he said softly, looking over Jane’s head to the empty grass, as if he longed to see someone standing there. His face seemed to waver, as if it were a reflection in disturbed water. The lines of age became bars through which a boy’s face looked out pleadingly.

“Can we play too?” he asked, almost timidly, and tossed the ball gently in the air. It came back so fast that he missed it, and the invisible child squealed with laughter, calling out, “Butter fingers! Who’s butterfingers now?”

A strange game began on the sunlit lawn, three men and two girls running and leaping and shouting, playing with a ghost child they could hear, but could not see. Her cries rang out in the evening air, sweet as a bird.

“Here I am! Not there, silly! Missed again!”

And the three middle-aged men ran about like boys, shouting, “Over here! Jump for it! Oh, well done, Mary! Did you see that catch?”

At last, out of breath, they stopped. The ball fell to the grass and rolled slowly away.

The child said, “I’ve got to go now. Time for bed. You’re not cross with me anymore, are you, Johnny?”

Charlotte’s father said gently, “No, Mary. I’m not cross, little sister. Go to your sleep.”

The voice was farther away when it spoke again. Very soft, very joyful.

“Good night,” it said. “Good night, good night!”

Then there was silence. Nobody spoke. Jane and Charlotte and the three men stood still as statues. Leaves shifted in the wind above their heads. A bird called from a tree. Some gardens away, someone was pushing a lawn mower backward and forward. It was a beautiful summer evening, washed by a golden sun.

“I’d forgotten,” Charlotte’s father said, and though his voice was unsteady, he was smiling. “Poor little monkey-face, she never could go to sleep till we’d made it up. I’d forgotten that.”