The Grey Girl by Eleanor Hawken Page B

glaze from my eyes and looked up to see Nell smiling at me fondly. ‘Who owned this house before my aunt’s husband?’ I had no idea where the question came from – I’d never really thought about it before – but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, the answer suddenly seemed important.
    Nell stared me straight in the eye and said, ‘After the Dudley family fell into debt and sold off the house in the 1800s it became a school. A school for orphaned young ladies run by a charity. The school closed in the 1950s and the building stood empty for decades after that. The charitable trust that once ran the school still owned the building, and your uncle Richard bought it from them.’
    â€˜Why did the school close?’
    Nell shrugged. ‘I guess there weren’t enough orphaned young girls in the country to keep it going.’
    â€˜Seems sad,’ I said quietly, ‘for a building to stand empty for so long. How do you know so much about the house?’
    â€˜My sister and I grew up in the village; in fact, our mother was one of the girls who went to Dudley Hall School. She used to hate us coming up here as children and playing in the grounds. She used to tell us that a building can hold more than just dust and furniture.’
    My heart rate spiked at Nell’s words. No one knew that to be true as much as me – sometimes there was so much more to buildings than what we could see. There were stories and darkness and spirits that lingered and haunted. ‘What did she mean?’ I asked in a whisper. ‘What’s here?’
    â€˜Bad memories. Mum didn’t like to talk about the years she spent here. It’s hard to imagine this place as a school, isn’t it? Your room would have once been a dormitory with four or five girls in it.’
    The reminder that the house had once been a school and that my bedroom had once been a dormitory made me feel sick. The walls of Dudley Hall had witnessed stories and lives that I could never know about. Ghosts that were somehow still trapped here.
    â€˜Nate’s been asking after you,’ Nell said, looking back down at the cards. I looked at her blankly, suddenly forgetting who Nate was and why he would ask about me. ‘My nephew,’ she reminded me.
    â€˜Of course,’ I muttered, remembering exactly who Nate was and the fact that he thought I was some kind of lunatic.
    Nell smiled. ‘I told him you’re fine, and keeping yourself busy doing lots of writing. He gets so bored during the college holidays,’ she said without me asking how he was. ‘His mum’s got him working hard around the house to try and keep him busy. I feel sorry for him if truth be told. Dudley-on-Water is a lousy place to be a teenager, nothing to do here. Meredith did wonder if the two of you might become friends, but I guess you can lead a horse to water …’
    â€˜I’m sure Nate can make his own friends,’ I muttered. ‘He doesn’t need me.’
    â€˜You should come over for dinner some time,’ she said.
    â€˜You live with him?’ I asked, surprised.
    â€˜And my sister, his mother. They moved in with me when Nate’s father left them.’
    I hadn’t given Nate’s family much thought. I’d tried not to think about Nate at all since my run-in with him in the village over a week ago. I knew Nell was his aunt but I hadn’t even wondered about his mother and father. ‘Does Nate have any brothers and sisters?’
    Nell shook her head. ‘No, it’s just him. So will you come then, to dinner?’
    The thought of sitting around a dinner table with Nate, the boy who’d called me ‘mental’, was the last thing I wanted to do. He’d made assumptions about me and he didn’t even know me. But then again, maybe I’d done the same to him. Both times I’d met him he’d seemed arrogant and rude, but I’d never really