Becky tossed and turned that night. The twin room she was sharing with Alessia was freezing cold.

When the grandfather clock in the hall downstairs chimed, she checked her mobile phone. It was ten past three precisely.

She sat upright. The chiming had stopped, but it had been replaced by another, fainter noise. She hadn't noticed it before. It sounded like music.

Who'd be playing music at ten past three in the morning? Conor and Liam were weary after their all-night vigil the evening before, so they'd left the equipment recording and gone to bed at the same time as her and Alessia. Richard and his father had retired even earlier. They'd mentioned at dinner that the cook went off duty at eight o'clock and she lived in the village, so it couldn't be her. That only left Mr and Mrs Stiles. Would they get up in the middle of the night to play music? Highly doubtful.

The cold air hit Becky as she threw back the covers. Shivering, she grabbed the top blanket and drew it around herself. Then she switched on her mobile phone's flashlight to locate her Crocs beneath the bed. Pushing her feet into the cold plastic shoes, she looked across the room. Alessia was snuggled beneath her covers, curled up like a hedgehog.

Becky wondered if she should wake her, but Alessia had been absolutely exhausted when they came upstairs, so she decided against it.

Using the light from her phone to guide her, she quietly opened the door and stepped out onto the dimly lit landing. The music was coming from downstairs.

She headed for the main staircase and peered over the banister. The entrance hallway below was in complete darkness.

She shone her phone around the walls until she located the row of ancient light switches. Flicking the first brass toggle plunged her into complete darkness. She'd turned off the landing lights. With mounting fear, she fumbled around until she located it again and switched it back on.

'That was a silly thing to do,' she admonished herself.

The second toggle didn't seem to do anything at all, but the third one lit up the wall lights down in the hallway.

The music was becoming more audible as Becky warily descended the staircase. It didn't sound like the sort of music that radio stations played. There were violins, flutes, woodwind and other instruments all harmonising together, producing a most bewitching melody.

Beware the Siren's song, she thought, glancing back up the staircase. She half wanted to flee to the safety of her bed. But the music was just too enchanting.

On arriving at the foot of the stairs, Becky looked over at the portrait of Lady Jane, looking resplendent in her emerald green ballgown. She tried to imagine herself wearing such a beautiful dress.

Then, without knowing why, she started twirling around the hall in time to the hypnotic music.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been dancing, but knocking into the camera Liam had set up beside the fireplace snapped her back to reality.

Its light was blinking.

It was recording.

She gazed down at the Crocs and tatty blanket she was wearing and shook her head. What has got into me? she wondered.

But still the music called to her.

It was beguiling.

She stood in the middle of the hallway, listening intently. Three corridors led off from this central point, but the music seemed to be coming from her left.

The east wing, where the ballroom was situated.

That corridor was in complete darkness.

Unable to locate a light switch, Becky held up her phone's flashlight and headed into the gloom.

She passed a number of rooms on the way, but the music was definitely coming from behind those huge ornate doors at the far end.

She reached the ballroom entrance and bent down to look through the keyhole, but she could see nothing.

Then, without her touching them, the doors slowly opened inwards.

The ballroom was full of people.

The men were all dressed in smart period suits and the women in fabulous hoop-skirted ballgowns. Their colourful skirts whirled around as their partners guided them expertly around the dance-floor.

Becky stepped inside, gazing around in wonder. People were smiling and nodded acknowledgements at her. Nobody seemed to think it odd that she was there.

Walking past the small orchestra, she mounted the stairs that led up to the viewing balcony overlooking the dancefloor. She wasn't sure why, but felt she needed to see the spectacle from above.

Becky reached the upper floor and peered over the wooden balustrade.

She was mesmerised. The twirling skirts, the music, the atmosphere. It was everything she had imagined and more.

'Are you alright, darling?'

Becky jumped. There was a man standing right next to her. She looked around, wondering who he was talking to, but they were the only two people there.

'Only, you haven't been yourself recently,' continued the man.

He was in his early twenties and very handsome. He also looked familiar somehow.

He took Becky's hand and gazed down at her, his soft brown eyes full of concern. 'Are you unwell?'

'No, not exactly,' she found herself replying. 'I've had something on my mind, that's all.'

'Please tell me what it is that bothers you, my love.'

A nauseating wave of fear hit her. She looked at the man, but didn't feel remotely afraid of him. Something else was scaring her. But who, or what?

'I'll move heaven and earth to put it right for you,' he continued.

'I know you would, Edmund and I love you for it, but this is something that I need to work out for myself.' Becky had absolutely no control of her own words. Without meaning to, she turned to face him. Then she caught sight of herself in the wall mirror and froze.

Her reflection wasn't her own. The face staring back at her belonged to someone else.

It was Lady Jane.

'Darling, you look like you've seen a ghost.' The man dragged a heavy chair towards her and gently guided her onto it. 'Wait here. I'll go and fetch you some water.'

He headed downstairs and called back, 'Then you must tell me what the matter is. As your husband, it is my duty to protect you.'

Husband? Becky's head was spinning. As she stood up to look in the mirror again, she realised she was no longer wearing the raggedy blanket. She was dressed in a beautiful green ballgown. The same ballgown that Lady Jane wore in the painting above the hallway fireplace. She could feel the weight of the heavy emerald necklace around her neck and for some reason felt the urge to rip it off, but she refrained from doing so. Instead she reached up and eased the tiara from her glossy brown hair. It was small, dainty and exquisite. The three central emeralds were surrounded by glistening diamonds. As she turned it over in her hands, her fingers brushed against something on the inside. On closer examination, she could see it was a tiny clasp. She pressed on it and a small circular section to the rear of the middle emerald popped open, like a locket. The tiny compartment was empty, so she pushed it shut again.

Becky felt a sense of urgency. There was something that she had to do, but what?

She gasped as the room was plunged into darkness.

The music had stopped too.

She was no longer holding the tiara in her hand. In its place was her mobile phone. She switched on its flashlight and could see that she was once again wearing the blanket and Crocs.

She shone her torch over the balcony. The ballroom was deserted.

The chair was real though and it was exactly where the man had moved it to. The rest of the chairs were still lined up along the back wall of the balcony, just as they'd all been when she first arrived.

If I imagined all that, then how did this chair move over here? she wondered.

There was a creaking noise coming from the other end of the gallery. She shone her torch towards it, but the light wasn't bright enough to permeate that far into the darkness.

'Hello?' She held her breath and waited for a response, but none came.

There it was again another wooden board creaking. A bit closer this time.

It's an old house, she reasoned. Old houses are very creaky.

But she couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling. She felt like she was being watched. 'Is someone there?'

There was a pause and then the heavy footsteps started.

They were coming in her direction and she had a feeling they weren't friendly footsteps.

Holding up her phone's flashlight, she turned away and started down the stairs.

The footsteps were gathering pace.

They were chasing after her.

Becky started running too. She had to get away.

Icy fingers came from behind and grabbed onto her shoulder with a powerful, pincer-like grip.

Becky cried out in pain and then she missed her footing and was pulled free as she plunged perilously down the wooden stairs.

'Becky? Becky, wake up.'

Her eyes fluttered open to see a worried face looking down at her. Alessia had no makeup on, so it took a few moments for Becky to realise who she was. She sat upright and grabbed her friend's arm. 'Where is he?'

'Where's who?'

'The man. Someone was chasing me. I couldn't see him, but I'm certain it was a man.'

'Becky, you were having a nightmare. You were screaming in your sleep.'

'What? No, I was in the ballroom and,' Becky paused, realising she was back in bed and dripping with sweat. 'How did I get here?'

'You've been here all night.'

'But I can't have been. It was so real.'

The door flew open and her cousins burst in.

'Is everything alright?' Conor looked worried. 'We heard someone screaming.'

'Are you sure nothing's been recorded?'

Conor looked up from his screen and nodded at his cousin. 'I'm certain. I ran both the hallway and east wing recordings for a couple of hours before and after ten past three. I even checked them twice. There was zilch.'

'Believe me, Becks, if we had a video of you dancing round the hallway in the middle of the night like an idiot, I'd have already sold it to 'You've been framed' or one of those other telly shows.

She frowned at Liam, then seated herself in front of the big book on the reading desk. 'I don't understand. It all felt so real.'

'Dreams can be like that.' Richard pulled a face. 'I have some humdingers sometimes. Proper scary stuff too.'

Becky rubbed her shoulder and, realising it was sore, pulled the neck of her t-shirt aside to take a look.

'Blimey.' Liam stared at the claw-shaped bruise. 'What did that?'

'That was where he grabbed me,' she replied. 'The man in the dark. The one who was chasing me in my dream.'

Liam looked at Conor. 'I think we should check the camera footage again, bro.'

Alessia sat beside Becky. 'Are you OK? Other than the bruise I mean.'

'Yes, I think so.' She pointed at the photograph in the book. 'That was the man who was talking to me last night, or rather, talking to her. It's Richard's great-great-great-great grandfather, Sir Edmund.'

She looked over at Richard and smiled. 'He seemed really nice. Even if it was just a dream.'

'I think the bruise proves that there's more to it than that.' Alessia stood up and walked over to the window. 'We just need to figure out what.'

Becky ran her finger over the man's handsome face and sighed. Then she turned the big yellowing page. There was a full page sepia photograph overleaf too. It was of the painting of Lady Jane that hung above the fireplace in the entrance hallway. Becky gazed down at the ballgown. She felt sure she'd been wearing it the night before. She could still feel the fine material brushing her skin and the weight of that emerald necklace. Then she recalled the urge she'd felt to rip the jewel off her neck. What was that about?

'So what happens if you still don't find any footage of what happened last night?' enquired Richard. 'Or more to the point, what happens if you do?'

Conor shrugged. 'I'm running one final check, but if there was anything to find I'm pretty sure I'd have found it by now. The only thing I can suggest is that Becky is monitored when she's asleep from now on.'

His cousin let out a startled yelp. A small arrowlike object had just whizzed downwards in front of her face.

'What is that?' Liam gazed upwards to check no more missiles were about to be fired from the ceiling. 'Are you alright, Becks?'

'Yes, I think so.' She stared at the wooden object that had impaled the book in front of her.

'It looks like a pencil,' observed Alessia.

'It is a pencil.' Conor's eyes widened. 'It's my pencil.'

'What do you think you're doing, bro? You could have injured someone with that.'

He frowned at his brother. 'I didn't throw it, stupid. It went missing when we were in here yesterday and that's the first time I've seen it since.'

'It would take more force than merely throwing it for it to become so deeply embedded into a great big book like that.' Richard looked shaken. 'Do you think Lady Jane did it?'

Becky lifted "The history of Beaufort Hall" and angled the heavy book so that everyone could see. It was still open on the portrait of Lady Jane. 'If it was her, then why would she stab a pencil through her own neck?'

'It doesn't make sense,' agreed Liam. 'Alessia, you said there are lots of ghosts here. Maybe one of the others did this?'

Alessia looked uncertain. 'I don't feel another presence here at the moment, but it's possible that my senses are being blocked, I suppose.'

'Can ghosts do that?' enquired Becky.

'Theoretically, yes, provided the spirit is self-aware and powerful enough.'

Conor sighed. 'Great.'

Alessia faced Becky across the desk and reached over to touch the pencil. 'Nope. All I'm getting is Lady Jane.'

'Any idea what this could mean?' Becky tapped on Lady Jane's skewered image.

Alessia shook her head. 'No. Sorry.'

There was a sharp knock on the door and Mrs Stiles peered into the room. She didn't look very happy. 'Which one of you is responsible?'

'Responsible for what?' enquired Conor.

'For the mess.'

Liam and Becky glanced at each other, puzzled.

Alessia met the woman's stern gaze. 'What mess?'

Mrs Stiles pushed the door wide open. There was torn sheets of paper all over the floor of the corridor. 'This mess.'

'I was the last one to come into this room.' Alessia was defiant. 'And that wasn't there when I did. Nobody has left here since.'

'You told me that none of you made the mess with the cornflakes earlier and now you expect me to believe this lot wasn't anything to do with you either?'

Richard stood up. 'I expect you to believe it Mrs Stiles. Alessia is telling the truth. I was with her when we arrived here. There were no papers on the floor then.'

'Oh, Master Richard, I didn't see you there.'

'I'm sure you didn't.' Richard brushed past her and stooped to look at yellowing papers around her feet.

'Take a look at this, if you don't believe us.' Conor turned his laptop to face the housekeeper. 'This was caught by the camera outside here. You can see the book clearly. It's floating around the corridor all by itself. Oh and there it goes. It shredded itself.'

Mrs Stiles looked taken aback by the evidence she'd just viewed.

'Oh no.' Richard picked up several torn pages, examined them and groaned.

'What's wrong?' enquired Alessia.

'This is was one of our rare first editions. Father is not going to be happy.'

Becky's chair rolled backwards as she stood up. 'Was it very valuable?'

'Well, I don't exactly know what first editions cost, but I imagine Bram Stoker's Dracula would be a fairly expensive one.'

Liam spun to look at the bookshelf. He pointed at the gap where the book had been. 'We were looking at that book earlier. It was just there.'

'We both saw it,' agreed Becky, 'and nobody touched it after we put it back on the shelf.'

Richard scratched his head. 'I don't understand.'

'You're not the only one,' concurred Conor.

Alessia slipped past the housekeeper and peered along the corridor. Then she beckoned to the others and together they followed the route marked by the torn pages.

'It looks like they lead to the entrance hallway.' Becky glanced at her cousins. 'Just like the cornflakes did.'

'Like a trail of breadcrumbs.' Alessia followed the path of papers until it ended, in front of the fireplace in the hallway. Gazing up at the portrait above the intricately carved stone mantlepiece, she whispered. 'I think someone is trying to tell us something about Lady Jane.'

'But who?' Richard sounded frustrated. 'And what are they trying to say?'

'That's what we'd like to know.' Conor looked up from the EMF meter. 'This thing goes crazy whenever we're in this area. That's why Liam moved one of our cameras here yesterday.'

Alessia continued to stare at the portrait. 'Becky, can you remember exactly where the pencil pierced the photo of this painting in the book, please?'

'I think so.' Becky dragged one of the heavy chairs towards the fireplace, kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the threadbare seat. Then she reached up and pointed just beneath Lady Jane's throat. 'There.'

'Are you sure?'

Becky nodded. 'Yes, I'm positive. It went right through the jewel in the necklace that she's wearing.'

All the candles in the room spontaneously lit up.

Becky almost toppled off the chair as she snatched back her outstretched hand to avoid being burnt by the candles on the mantlepiece.

'The EMF is off the scale.' Conor held up the device as confirmation of this.

'It's her.' Alessia took in a deep breath of air, as though surfacing from an underwater dive. 'It's Lady Jane.'

Liam looked around warily. 'She's not going to throw something at us again, is she?'

'I don't think so. I sense that she's pleased about something, but I'm not sure what.'

Becky looked back at the portrait, the flickering flames reflecting in her eyes. 'I think it's something to do with that necklace.'

The candles flared again.

'I think you're right,' agreed Alessia. 'We need to find out more about it.'

Conor turned to Richard. 'Where is the necklace now?'

'I have no idea, I've never even seen it,' he replied. 'What do you know about it, Mrs Stiles.'

'I've not laid eyes on it either,' she admitted, 'aside from in the painting that is. Mr Stiles has served here longer than I, maybe he will be able to tell you more?'

'There's only one thing for it.' Becky hopped down off the chair. 'Let's go and see what we can find out about it in the library.'

Richard started to follow them, but paused to address the housekeeper. 'Can you ask Stiles to come and see us when he gets a minute, please?'

'Well?' Liam was pacing back and forth.

Becky looked up from the large book and frowned. 'There are other books in this library. It wouldn't hurt if you grabbed one and helped us search for the information.

'Nah. I don't enjoy reading.' He slumped down in a chair and started browsing the internet on his mobile phone.

'I've found a reference to a valuable necklace.' Conor peered over the book in his hand. 'It was gifted to Lady Jane before she was married.'

Alessia placed a bookmark in between the pages of her book and set it down on the couch beside her. 'Tell us more.'

Conor switched on the lamp beside him. It was rapidly getting dark and he was struggling to see the words on the page. 'Well, it says here that it was given to her by the duke to mark their engagement.'

'The duke?' Richard shook his head. 'None of my ancestors have ever held that title. Lady Jane's husband, my great-great-great-great grandfather, was a baronet.'

'How curious.' Alessia looked perplexed. 'Maybe she was engaged to someone else before she married Sir Edmund?'

Richard shrugged. 'Not that I'm aware of.'

'Oh, hang on, I'd skipped a sentence. It says the duke had long been a suitor of Lady Jane's. He was heartbroken when she declined to marry him, but in order to remain on good terms and to prove that there was no ill feeling when she chose Sir Edmund, the necklace was given to her by the duke to mark their engagement.'

The lamp next to Becky flickered.

'I think we're on the right track,' encouraged Alessia.

'Or maybe not.' Conor sighed and held his finger on the sentence he'd just read. 'It must be a different necklace. This one's called the 'Viridis Diamond'. The one in the painting is an emerald.'

Everyone looked disappointed.

Liam finally broke the silence. His face was bathed in the ghostly light emitted from his phone screen. 'Or maybe it is the right necklace after all.'

'You looked it up online? Why didn't you just do that in the first place?' grumbled Conor. 'It would've saved us a lot of reading.'

'Probably for the same reason you didn't. I didn't know what it was called before and it would have been like looking for a needle in a great big pile of needles.'

Becky rolled her eyes. 'You mean looking for a needle in a haystack.'

'What did you find, Liam?' interrupted Alessia.

'An article about famous gemstones and the Viridis Diamond is listed amongst them. Guess what Viridis means.'

Everyone stared at him blankly.

'It means green.'

'The green diamond?' Conor frowned. 'I didn't know diamonds could be green.'

'Only very expensive ones.' Liam grinned. 'The original Viridis Diamond, the one in the painting in the hallway, was worth a fortune, but it had a bit of a reputation.'

'Let me guess, it was cursed.'

'Yes, Alessia. It most certainly was.'

The lamps flickered again.

Conor scratched his head. 'Then why would the duke give it to Lady Jane, if he cared so much about her?'

'Maybe that wasn't such a good will gesture after all.' Alessia switched on another lamp. 'Perhaps the duke was livid that she hadn't chosen him and wanted revenge.'

'That makes sense,' agreed Richard. 'Although putting a curse on her sounds a bit extreme. What else does it say about the duke, Conor?'

'Nothing, unfortunately. Not even where he was the duke of.'

'But what about all the others?' asked Becky. 'Why did the curse affect them? Why did they also die?'

'As I said before, perhaps Lady Jane didn't want them living in her house, so she killed them all off?' Liam ducked as a silver framed picture flew off the desk and narrowly missed him. 'See that? She's pure evil.'

'I don't think she is actually.' Alessia thought back to the incident on the narrow staircase. 'The painting she threw at you on the day we arrived here, it was the only one in the stairwell that didn't have a heavy frame fitted with glass. She chose the one painting that wouldn't badly hurt you.'

'What about the book she almost knocked my head off with, and that photograph she just threw at me?'

'Did either of those things actually hurt you?' pressed Alessia.

'Well, no. Not really.'

'See? I don't think Lady Jane is evil at all.'

'OK,' conceded Liam, 'but she really needs to work on her anger management issues.'

'Or maybe you could just be less annoying?' suggested Conor.

His brother scowled.

'I'm pretty sure that Lady Jane's been trying to help us all along.'

'I think Alessia's right about her. After all, I was her. At least it felt like I was her, in my dream last night. I didn't feel at all evil, just scared.' Becky stared around the faces of her friends. 'Anyway, it still doesn't answer my question. Why did all the others die?'

'There's something you don't know.' Stiles sudden arrival startled everyone. He was standing in the open doorway. 'It's a tradition that all jewellery owned by the family is passed down to each new mistress of Beaufort Hall.'

'Ah, Stiles. Thank you for coming.' Richard nodded his appreciation. 'But surely I would've seen the necklace at some point, if my mother had inherited it?'

Stiles shook his head. 'Not if she never actually knew where it was.'

'What do you mean?'

Alessia fixed Stiles with her kohl-rimmed eyes. 'I've just realised something, Mr Stiles. Out of all the family portraits that are hung on the walls of this house, I have only noticed that necklace in one of them.'

'That's right,' replied the caretaker. 'Lady Jane was the only one to wear it.'

'At the risk of repeating myself, yet again, then why did the others die?'

Alessia thought for a moment. 'Just because they didn't know where the necklace was, it doesn't mean they weren't its rightful owners.'

Becky looked doubtful. 'You think that they inherited it, but never actually had possession of it?'

'Dad gave me my grandfather's watch once and he was livid when I thought I'd lost it. Turns out Liam had hidden it as a joke.' Conor gave his brother a dirty look. 'The point is, even when it was missing, I still owned it, so it was rightfully mine.'

'I gave it back.'

'Yeah, eventually. After I'd been grounded for a week.'

Richard looked between the brothers. 'Do you think that the necklace was mislaid at some point?'

'Or deliberately hidden,' murmured Becky.

'I sensed something strange when we first arrived here.' Alessia looked around the room. 'I still do. I'm pretty sure it's the curse. I think the necklace is still here, somewhere in the house.'

'But this place is like a giant labyrinth,' exclaimed Liam. 'How on earth are we going to find it?'

'Lady Jane.' Alessia smiled. 'I think Lady Jane will help us.'