It’s an attractive place, Livesly Hall. I’d walked past it many times and glanced up at the tall draped windows reflecting the sky blankly, like eyes about to be closed for the last time. Not a big house, but full of it’s own importance, cream stone, solid, on three floors, with attic quarters above, so, three rows of those tall windows and then a row of smaller windows to show where servants had once been housed.

There’s a big front door, with a stained-glass window in it, and almost the whole front drive is taken up by a huge Monkey Puzzle tree.

I suppose – if I thought about it at all, back in the days when I wasn’t desperate – I’d have said I would quite like to see inside it. But not like this, being engaged as a – come on, Sally, you’re thinking it, so say it – as a servant.

It’s not that I’m a snob, or think anything’s beneath me. In fact, I was very keen to start work when I first arrived at the house. I’ve done worse jobs.

This would be just a few hours of light housework, preparing a couple of simple meals, keeping Mrs Livesly company to make sure she didn’t come to any harm. But by the end of the afternoon I was having to talk myself out of walking away fast.

Mrs Livesly was a sweet old lady, sitting all pink and white and smiling in her winged arm-chair. But the big selling point was the accommodation, the spacious room reached via the curved marble staircase, on the floor with the view over the garden, neatly painted in cream and fawn, with the big bed with scatter-cushions, TV, own bathroom. Not on the servant’s floor, either – that was up a turn of narrow stairs at the end of the corridor.

If you knew what I’d been through you’d understand how inviting it was to me. I stood in that bedroom, and I let all that comfort wash over me, and the nicest thing of all was, the room was empty.

Oh, yes, Young Mrs Livesly, the old lady’s daughter in law, was there with me, showing me around.

But there wasn’t that sense, which I’ve had in so many places, of having walked in on a party, when the air hums, and you can sense them falling silent, watching you, having the advantage because they can see you but you can’t see them, even though you know they are there. I’ve had to leave too many places, because of that.

In my last place – well, that was very bad. Let’s just say, there were a lot of us living there but I was the only one paying the rent, the only one visitors could see.

I’m a senser, not a seer, normally, although I catch glimpses, just out of the corner of my eye, of people doing something very dull over and over again – walking half-way across the room, for instance, turning the corner of the stairs, or appearing on the garden path for a few seconds.

Imagine doing that, forever, and ever, amen. It’s my idea of hell.

It’s not much of a life, the after-life, as far as I can tell, but then I’ve got a low boredom threshold. I’ve always had this horror of staying in one place or doing the same job for too long. Personally I’d prefer oblivion when the time comes, or to be set loose from my body like a balloon from a net, to drift up and away. Between now and then, though, I’d just like them to leave me alone.

Well, now you know about me and my problem.

So – to go back to that day – there we were, leaving that room I wanted so much. Young Mrs Livesly, who is actually all of 60 if she’s a day, had just offered me the job, and I’d just accepted it, and we were walking through the hall to talk to Old Mrs Livesly again. I was enjoying the total absence of them and the thought of sprawling on that bed with the wonderful view and watching films on that huge TV after a hot shower.

Old Mrs Livesly was so delighted I’d be moving in at the end of the week, she held my hand tightly in both her little hands with the big swollen knuckles from the arthritis which made it so hard for her to hold a cup.

I felt like a heroine, really proud of saving the day and all that (at least, that’s what it seemed like, from their happiness at me accepting the job) but also a bit ashamed because more than anything, I just wanted that room and to be out of the hostel.

Having secured my services, Old Mrs Livesly murmured to Young Mrs Livesly and the two left the room. I walked to a window to look at what would soon be my view, of the front drive with that huge Monkey Puzzle tree. There were vases of flowers on each windowsill. And it was as I was admiring a display of mixed daffodils glowing in the spring sunshine, that I saw her.

She was in a far corner of the big graceful drawing room, sitting at a table in front of one of those tall windows, but no sun lit her gray dress which was buttoned tightly to her throat. Dark lank hair was combed flat to her head then looped around her ears, and the plaited loops trembled as she worked busily stripping flowers from a wreath.

In her corner – in her time I suppose – it was dull and raining, I could see that; I could see, not just her but the window behind her, as if she was part of a jerky scene being shown on an old projector, silent, fading then strengthening then fading again.

The table, as monochrome as she was, was piled high with the broken wreath, a fat book from which protruded the shriveled stems of flowers, and a large framed photograph of a child, a girl no more than four or five years old, hair in fat sausage-like curls, propped in a chair on cushions.

The little face was pale and unsmiling, the lips pinched around the small teeth, the dulled eyes hollow and hooded, sunk back into the delicately-boned head as if prematurely aged.

Did you know that many bereaved Victorians had photographs taken of their dead loved ones before burying them? Grim, I know – but that’s Victorians, for you!

The woman reached her hand to stroke the image of the wizened little face, then lifted the picture from the frame in one movement, putting the photograph inside the fat book, and a few flowers from the wreath with it. She closed the book and pressed down hard on it and as she did, she looked up and past me, from across a hundred years or more.

The face of the woman was indistinct, features blurring and shifting, the framework of skull and long exposed teeth sometimes visible, sometimes hidden by a shadow of flesh.

I thought the eyes were dead and dull, huge in their sockets, until they turned to the light and I saw that far from being empty, the eyes were simply a reflection of the child in the photograph. To look into them was to see that tiny shriveled face twice over.

In a life-time of being afraid of things no-one else could sense, I had never been so terrified.

The woman in the corner seemed to shimmer and shift, and turned her head, smiling at something so that the shrunken lips lifted against the long teeth in the fleshless jaw. By her side, I saw the child from the photograph now nestled against her arm, and the contents of the table had changed.

The wreath was gone, and in it’s place was a monochrome image of the flower arrangement I had admired in the window. In the frame there was a new picture: and I recognized Old Mrs Livesly smiling out at me, the pink and white of her dulled to the same gray as the flowers.

I could hear faint sounds from the hall-way, of the Mrs Livesleys returning. As the door opened the gray woman raised those huge eyes in that skeletal face. I saw that she looked at Old Mrs Livesly with a sort of eagerness to possess, and reflected in those dark mirrored sockets, was the double image of the old lady’s face.

For a moment those eyes were all I saw then the image of the woman – the whole scene, of the table, and the child – all collapsed, as if they had been dust held in the air, and the drawing room was empty.

What I wanted to do, as the Mrs Liveslys fluttered and smiled and gave me a key to the front door, was to simply walk away, or, even better, to run.

But where to? There was nowhere left.

All my money had gone, and the few friends I’d had who would offer me a couch to sleep on had gone too. There aren’t many friendships which survive being told that the knocking and creaking and things that get moved in the night aren’t imagination after all.

The only place to run to was the hostel, and I was desperate to get out of there because there may have only been ten beds being slept in, but there were at least a hundred inhabitants playing out their suicides and fits of despair on an endless loop, sensed or glimpsed by me alone as I tried to rest or shower or read or look for work.

If the Mrs Liveslys reported that I’d turned down an offer of work and accommodation I wouldn’t be allowed back there anyway. And here – two flights of stairs and several large rooms from the flower-presser – was warmth, space, comfort, privacy, backed by a regular income.

I thought about the implications of that look, those reflected images of Old Mrs Livesly, and I suppose I realized then – as much as I was in a fit state to realize anything – that this job wouldn’t last long and should be appreciated while it lasted. I moved in three days later.

We slipped into a routine easily, Old Mrs Livesly and I. She wasn’t a demanding person at all. She was there alone – my guess is the family wanted to sell the hall when she died. A cleaner came in three times a week to do heavy work, and my housework was of the feather-duster-flicking and cushion-plumping kind.

Remembering the flower-presser I was nervous of leaving Mrs Livesly alone for long. I would hurry to complete my tidying and dusting, so I could be within ear-shot of her. The old lady loved her flowers and each day we would go into the garden at the back of the house and cut big bunches of them for her to arrange.

I would wash the vases, make tea for us both, and read to her as she carefully trimmed the stems and buds, her hand trembling, and barely able to hold the scissors. As she finished each arrangement I would put it in the place she chose, and at first I would avoid looking at the corner of the drawing room.

But as the weeks went by and I saw nothing else, I began to relax. The house seemed so wonderfully empty, there was no sense of anyone else there with us. Maybe, after all, it had been imagination – or illness, some emotional crisis, the strain of past months catching up with me.

I grew really attached to Old Mrs Livesly – or Mary as she asked me to call her. She is a completely gentle soul, and it was touching, how grateful she was for any help I gave her. I would lie in the big snug bedroom at night and be so glad I’d accepted the job. I imagined where I’d be if I hadn’t – on the streets, for sure.

As spring turned to the beginning of summer I thought I finally had a chance to get my life back on track. The only thing troubling me was the memory of those eyes, those dead eyes reflecting the little old lady, and taking her away.

At the end of June, the weather, which had been hot and bright, turned suddenly chilly and damp. The skies were so clouded that it was almost as if the nights were drawing in again. Deprived of her daily walk in the garden, Mary began to droop – I could almost see her fading, like a toy with the battery running down, and I was really worried about her.

I mentioned it to Young Mrs Livesly one evening, when she was visiting.

“She needs an interest,” she said. “Don’t worry. Leave it with me.”

And she turned on her smart heel and went into Mary’s bedroom. I heard their soft conversation, and went up the marble stairs to my room.

In the morning, Mary was smiling again, although the rain was still pouring down the windows.

“I’ve decided what I’ll do until the weather improves,” she said, “but I’ll need your help. I want you to go up to the attic and look in the first room you come to. There’s a big cupboard, and inside, it is full of photographs. I want you to bring them down. We’ll organize them, you and I.” And she smiled and gave me a key.

Call it premonition, but as I felt that key, cold in my hand, I felt as miserable and gray as the rain that streaked the tall windows. Mary sat down in her winged chair and looked up at me expectantly and I wanted to refuse to go. But what could I say?

“Well, go on, then, Sally,” Mary said. “Off you go.” The house was so very quiet, that morning. The cleaner had come and gone, there were no deliveries due, and even the traffic outside seemed slow and muffled. I could hear my own soft footsteps on the marble stairway.

At the top of the stairs, on the first floor where Mary had her room, I looked along the corridor, which was dark because all the doors to the bedrooms were closed, shutting out the gray light from their windows. My back felt naked and exposed, vulnerable as I climbed to the next floor.

My room was the last in this corridor, and at the end there was a door which led to the attic. Again the daylight had been shut out, and here I could feel a hum of expectancy, the lift of hair at the back of my neck which meant I wasn’t alone. From the perfect peace of the past weeks, now something was waiting, watching. I reached for the light-switch which should turn on the ceiling lights all along the corridor, but nothing happened.

The little key was damp in my hand, and the door it would open was only a vague outline in the gray gloom. My heart was pumping hard with fear and the knowledge that I was not alone. I thought of those eyes, the mirrored eyes which had terrified me.

With a small clicking sound, the light directly above my head came on. And as I walked, each light turned on above me until the corridor was brightly lit.

At the door to the attic I fumbled with the key, my hand shaking so it wouldn’t slot easily into the keyhole. As it finally slipped in and turned, and the door opened with a slow, soft creak of age, every light in the corridor turned out.

The stairs to the attic were narrow and wooden, covered only with old matting. I hurried up to the tiny landing, sensing all the time that someone or something was just behind me, and opened the first door there as Mary had told me. The room was small and square, empty except for one wall which was lined with cupboards.

A waxed blind covered the small window and let in a filtered, sepia light. Everywhere was a furring of dust; obviously the room hadn’t been disturbed for a very long time.

A soft sound came from the cupboard nearest the door, something collapsing with a sigh of paper on paper: the door slowly opened, and an album with an embossed cardboard cover slid onto the floor.

Flower stems had dried to fragile sticks and were protruding from the covers. I picked it up automatically, but recognizing it I was filled with revulsion. In my hands the cover opened, and there she was – the first picture, the flower-presser, the gray lady – a death pose, propped against the winged arm-chair Mary loved, dark, lank hair in plaited loops around her ears, dress buttoned to her throat.

I heard a thin call and thought of Mary, helpless and alone, three flights of stairs away. I wouldn’t leave the album behind; ahead of me I caught the flick of a gray skirt, not hurrying, but always just out of reach, and I hurried, almost falling on the stairs: not afraid of long dead people now, or things I couldn’t see, but only afraid for Mary, small and frail and unprotected.

At the bottom of the stairs, the hem of the skirt again, disappearing through the door onto the second floor landing, but when I was through the door there was nothing there.

All the lights were on, all along the corridor – and as I passed, they went out, so by the time I reached the staircase, I was in darkness again. There was no sign of the flower-presser again until I reached the bottom of the curved marble stair-case and saw something gray pass through the closed door of the drawing room.

I ran the last few paces, and found Mary in the winged arm chair, her pink and white face greyish under her fine white hair. Taking her hand in mine I could feel her pulse fluttering under my fingers. She opened her eyes and looked at me with trust. With my free hand I felt in the pocket of my jeans for my ‘phone, and dialed for an ambulance, trying to give details calmly, wanting to panic. Mary’s pulse grew fainter under my fingers, blood dancing delicately in her veins like a moth.

I knew what I would see if I took my attention from Mary’s face; I could see the shimmer of the scene – window, table, flower-presser, child, flowers – from the corner of my eye. Only when Mary’s pulse stopped flickering, and I knew she was gone, did I look. And there she was, sitting at the table with the gray woman, the child between them, the book open on the table, the empty photograph frame and a vase of her favorite flowers there, too, and the flower-presser took a stem of blooms from the vase and put them into the book.

There was a hammering on the front door and lights through the rain as the ambulance arrived and, as before, the scene with the flower-presser, and the child – and Mary – dropped again like dust and was gone, and it was just me, crying with shock, and Mary, blue eyes wide and vacant, waiting to be closed.

Young Mrs Livesly – the only Mrs Livesly when Mary had gone – told me it was all right for me to stay on for a little while; she said it would be a help to the family, too, to have someone in the house until it was sold. I stayed because I had nowhere else to go, but every moment of every day, I wanted to leave.

I’d saved every penny I earned, but realized, it was no good having the deposit for a flat, if I had no job again. And so I stayed; but I went for long walks every morning, spending hours every day walking the streets so I didn’t have to be in Livesly Hall. At night I would go back and the tall blank windows watched me as I crossed the drive under the Monkey Puzzle tree and I knew I was not alone as I climbed the curved marble staircase and went to my room.

But the hours I spent outside the house simply made whatever resided there more confident; that’s how it is, with a haunted house. You have to outface them, dominate them. Left empty, a house is soon taken over. From being sensed, soon, noises began; footsteps in the empty corridor above my room; doors softly opening and closing; lights turning on and off, playfully.

I would lie, head covered in fear like a child, while they enjoyed the night; and eventually I would fall asleep through sheer exhaustion.

And then, after a month of this I woke, just as it was getting light, to a sensation of heat, and the sound of rushing water. The taps of my bath had been turned on full, the bathroom was full of steam, and water had already soaked the soft bedroom carpet and spread out into the corridor.

I turned the taps off, but as soon as I stepped away from the bath, they turned slowly again, and the flood continued.

All I wanted now was to get away – to run as I’ve run so often – back to the hostel if need be, and they would have to take me in again, now my employer was dead. But even if they wouldn’t, I would have rather slept on a park bench than stay a moment longer in Livesly Hall.

I threw everything that was mine in the old wheeled case I’d brought with me, left the water running, and hurried down the stairs to the corridor leading to what had been Mary’s room. At the top of the marble stairs I paused. The sun was just rising, and the stained-glass panes in the big front door threw red and green patterns on the walls. It really was a beautiful house, and I knew, within seconds, I would be out of it and never see it again.

“Goodbye, Mary,” I said, wondering if she would hear me – and as I spoke the words out loud there was a sudden calm, a hush, as if everyone who had clamored to frighten me had suddenly left.

Only the rush of water carried on, and now it dripped through the ceiling a little. I would have to explain somehow, why I had left in the early dawn, and left such damage behind me.

But for now, I was free. I would deal with tomorrow when it came. Free. I imagined walking out of the door. Free.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and lifted my suitcase to carry it downstairs. The glowing stained-glass door and the future lay ahead. I reached for the curving stair-rail to support myself. Then something moved, below me in the hallway, and before I could stop myself I looked: into dark, mirrored eyes in a skeletal face, eyes full of possessiveness, and a reflection of me. Shocked, I flinched in horror and my hand missed the stair-rail.

I felt myself fall, clutch at air, my suitcase tumbling and striking the back of my legs, so my knees buckled and I fell down the cold, curving marble stairs, and as my head struck the broad step at the bottom I could see through the drawing-room door the flower-presser at her table with the child, and Mary.

There was the photo-frame again, and a picture in the frame, of a woman with long brown hair and I screamed because it was me, and because of a terrible pain, but I heard no sound, not even the water rushing and dripping on the stairs.

The pain went quite quickly, and they don’t trouble me now, Mary, and the flower-presser, and the child. Our paths hardly cross.

After all, I am a servant, so I don’t sit at their table. Every day, every hour, every moment, I am walking down the stairs to freedom. I haven’t reached the bottom step yet – somehow I always find myself back at the top again.

But I keep on trying, I keep on walking down the marble steps, and I never give up.

And one day, I know I will be able to get out of that door, that big, glowing door with the stained glass windows.