Some people could sell their soul for a baby's laugh. It's a pure sound. One of such heart piercing clarity, it can send shivers of pleasure pulsing through them. It is something removed from being 'noise,' something fresh with innocence and wonder.

A baby's cry, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast, one which claws at your ears and eats your innards to the point where you want to cry out yourself. You want to either stop whoever or whatever is upsetting the child - or you want to silence the baby. The cry can tear your senses apart until you know not what you do and, when your reason has returned and you are able to focus once more, you are in prison and your child is dead.

Or, that wailing can break you inside. It has the ability to dissolve your resolve. If there is pain in the sound, then some are unable to turn away, to put their hands over their ears and ignore the suffering.

A boy born of such pain, such heartfelt, guiltless anguish, would stand aside from most. With such an inception into this world, his years would be filled with a shadowy memory of distress which could not fail to haunt him.

But, it would also be filled with love. The love of the parents who had almost lost their first born. Their only born. Parents who had waited too long to have children and had refused, against all the warnings, to give up on their dream. Their love would be all-encompassing. It would be absolute.

It would be a suffocating adoration. A worship teetering on the edge of reverence.

But.

If you hear a baby's laugh, as welcome a sound as it almost always is, in a quiet, dark, sprawling house with aspirations to mansionhood, you would worry. If you were alone in such a residence, with only a boy to keep you company, you would be concerned.

If you were alone in such a place and the boy was, in fact, a porcelain doll, your concern would take upon itself a new countenance. It would bear the face of fear, with the snarl of terror twisting its features. And, no matter what the rules you were instructed and entrusted to enforce were, and no matter how implicitly you had done so, such restrictions would be as spiderwebs across a doorway. You'd brush them away but they would stick to your hands, making your skin crawl at the thought of them creeping up your arm and sinking their teeth into your flesh because you tried to cast them aside.

I set down the bowl I was eating from. Even with my attention on the noise, my hands realised the implications of marking the polished mahogany of the coffee table and found the mat. I swallowed, the food, a carbonara mix of pasta and chicken, going down hard as if it, too, found the sound unsettling and preferred to stay with me. What protection I might give, I didn't know.

I looked at Albert, my charge. He ignored me and stared forward. He did that a lot. I would try and strike up a conversation with him but he would ignore me. I thought he enjoyed it, as if it was a game and he was winning. See how long you can stay silent for. Permanently. Maybe he heard the sound. I doubted it. Porcelain dolls don't generally have the function to hear. Or talk. Or eat. It didn't stop me having to go through the motions with the rules I was made to follow.

Still, as much as this was the strangest employment I'd ever had, it was also the easiest. At least Albert had never thrown a tantrum or hit me, something which had happened on occasion with other children I'd been taken on to look after.

Laughter. An inherently joyous sound, especially from a child, you'd think. From nowhere, my internal temperature dropped, starting at my toes and rapidly moving up to chill my blood. If I'd dared to exhale, I was sure I'd see my breath billow from my mouth, a ghostly incarnation of the fear inside me.

I was being silly. I'd imagined it. The house was big, dark and quiet. Odd creaks gave the building a semblance of life as it moved and settled in tune with humidity and temperature. It was natural for one's mind to fill in the gaps between the heartbeats where silence dragged on forever. I laughed.

"Yvonne, you're a numpty," I berated myself. Albert said nothing. No doubt he agreed.

I reached for my bowl but froze as the laugh came again. Standing, I crept to the door. I had a habit of closing the doors of rooms I was in. I had never felt unsafe in the house, but shutting myself in seemed to calm the shadow of a dread I would never admit to. I turned the handle slowly and pulled it open a crack. Cool air stroked my face, inviting me out into the hall. I waited for a moment, then accepted the invitation.

I couldn't leave Albert alone, that was one of the rules. Number seven of ten, to be exact. Rules I was told, and handsomely paid to follow to the letter. I took pride in my work, in my reputation. I could be relied upon and, though I was minding a doll, to the Denholms, he was their son. I took the list seriously and did not deviate. I glanced back at the boy. He looked lost in his favourite high backed chair. Still, he refused to look at me. Dolls, I assumed, were like that.

Laughter. A fun-filled giggle. It was close. Along the hall somewhere. I felt a stirring of maternal instinct driving my footsteps out of the room and had to forcibly stop myself. I hurried back to Albert and crouched in front of him.

"Now, Albert," I said. "I know I'm meant to stay with you. I always have so far, right? I've been good, haven't I? Stuck to the rules, looked after you?"

I took his hand and held it in both of mine. I was used to the cold, hard feel to the point I no longer noticed. I could have been holding the hand of a real boy.

"I don't know if you heard that, but there's a baby somewhere in this house. I need to go check it out. I'd take you... I know I should take you... But if the baby is in trouble or needs something, I won't be able to if you're with me."

I returned his hand to his lap and smoothed his already smooth trousers.

"I'll be quick, ok? You'll hardly know I was gone."

I stood and looked down. Our eyes met, mine bluey grey and his a hand-painted black. His head was angled so our gazes bumped into each other on the journey from one to the other.

"Don't look at me like that, Albert. You know I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to."

I turned and walked to the door again. Holding my breath, which I hadn't realised I'd released, I listened intently.

Silence.

I could have imagined the noise once, but not multiple times. I had to investigate. Albert was just a doll. I spoke to him and interacted with him as if he was living purely to make my job easier. If I pretended he was a boy rather than a doll, I didn't feel so stupid looking after him. The rules were there and I had to follow them, but I'd only be a moment. Barely enough time for them to realise I'd broken one.

The corridor was gloomy, lit more by the cloud covered moon through the skylight than the ultra low wattage bulbs which struggled to illuminate anything beyond the confines of their shades. With a last look back at Albert, who still stared into space and didn't seem to have noticed my absence, I took a step away from the door into the hallway proper.

The slamming of the door drop kicked my heart into my throat and I let out a shriek, spinning around. I grabbed the handle, turning it urgently. The door wouldn't move. The slam must have caused the lock to sneck. A gust of wind? No, the window in the room was shut. It was too cold outside to warrant any natural air conditioning, instead needing the assistance of the central heating. There would have been no breeze to encourage the door to close so forcibly.

"Albert!" I shouted before realising I was calling out to a doll whom I'd instilled with a false life of my own in order to properly look after it as I was meant to. I shook my head and banged on the door, again before realising there was only a porcelain figure on the other side to take no notice of me.

Trying the handle one last time, I admitted defeat. Well, I had no choice now. I couldn't get back into the room so following the sound was my only option. Except there was no sound. Even the house felt like it was holding its breath.

I ventured along the hall, moving slower than usual but faster than I thought I should. I kept turning my head from side to side, pausing in my path, hoping to catch hold of a fragment of the laughter which shouldn't have been there. Three quarters of the way along, there was an opening to the left, between a massive bathroom with antiquated, now probably renamed 'retro' suite and fixtures, and a small, unused bedroom. A bare, bedstead, sans mattress, was all that occupied the room, making it feel cold and barren.

The opening housed a short staircase leading up to the attic. Never being a fan of loft spaces, with their spiders and dark corners full of whispers and threat, I'd yet to explore that part of the house. I was about to not explore it again, moving past the opening when I heard the baby laugh again. Upstairs. Sighing, I started up, my hand gripping the rail. I was trying to think what had caused me to suddenly be so afraid. Under normal circumstances, I was fairly pragmatic. I dealt with problems. Spilt milk was just something to be wiped up. I wasn't scared by horror films and it was very rare that someone could make me jump by leaping out and shouting 'BOO!' I should have been striding along, calling out to whomever was trespassing in my (or, rather, the Denholm's) house.

But it was a baby. Babies don't trespass. Babies don't go where they shouldn't They can't. They're babies. Which explained my trepidation.

The door, which would normally have been closed (my employers hated doors to be left ajar), was cracked slightly open and swung easily on oiled hinges. The lack of a creak served to emphasise the silence and the sense of impending doom which curled across the floor towards me. I fumbled for a light switch, my eyes fixed on the darkness lest it move or attack. Click. I'd found it. Unfortunately, due to a defective or missing bulb, the darkness remained where it was. I could feel it smile.

I had to go inside. Somewhere in there was a baby. I could see it in my mind's eye. It would be hungry and in need of changing. Probably cold too. As I took a step, I saw a candle on the floor by the entrance. A box of matches rested against it. Now, that never happened in the movies. Relieved, I remembered I was in the real world and bent to take a match and light the candle. It was hardly used, and I figured the attic was seldom visited. At least the Denholm's had the forethought to leave a source of light. Perhaps the wiring was faulty. No matter. I struck a match and held it close to the wick. After a few seconds, the two grasped my intention and merged, causing the darkness to take a rapid step back, like wolves circling the edge of a forest campfire. Feeling a little bolder by the flame, its heat and its actual presence, I entered.

The attic was large, but much smaller than I expected. In a house of this size, I thought there'd be space for a whole loft conversion, giving at least three en-suite bedrooms and a corridor. The high vaulted roof had been given a ceiling, and a wall had been placed roughly halfway along the attic's length, effectively cutting it in half. I couldn't see one, but I assumed there'd be a door between this part and whatever was beyond. Hopefully, the baby was in the section I currently occupied. Careful to not let the candle sputter and die, I began to search. A tall, three-drawered dresser stood against the dividing wall, its shelves overflowing with papers and ancient looking ornaments, their paint chipped and faded. On the floor next to it was a small Moses basket. Otherwise, the attic was empty.

I rushed to the basket, forgetting the temperamental manner of the candle. I stopped moving as I saw it flickering fitfully and waited for it to go out or settle down. Thankfully it stayed lit. I mentally thanked it, then moved more cautiously. I crouched over the Moses basket, which laid on the floor in a thin layer of dust. It clearly hadn't been moved in a good while. Pulling back the once-white cover, I looked into the eyes of the baby.

A toy.

What was it with this family and dolls?

I picked it up, recognising it from my own childhood. I'd had one. If you squeezed its tummy...

The doll chuckled.

I sighed, angry at myself for going on a ridiculous, pointless adventure. I berated myself for my stupid fear and even more so for abandoning the rules of my employment and leaving Albert alone. Tucking the baby doll back into the basket, I stood. I glanced over the dresser, my eyes flicking randomly from document to newspaper clipping to photo, not taking any real notice of their contents. One photograph did catch my attention and I picked it up, carefully, from the pile it was resting on. The last thing I needed was to be picking up decades of old memories from the floor by candlelight. Holding the candle close, I looked at the photo. It showed a much younger, by at least twenty years, Mr. and Mrs. Denholm. Standing between them was a young boy. I'd seen him somewhere before, I was sure. He was familiar in the way a thought flutters its wings against the back of your mind, making you unsure if it's a real recollection or just a visiting irritation. Then I realised. It was his clothes.

Albert wore the same ones.

I turned, holding on to the picture, and left the room. As I exited, I felt a strong gust of wind where there couldn't be any and the door slammed, smashing into my back. I fell forward, the stairs seeming to stretch as I tumbled. I grabbed at something as it touched my palm and screamed when I realised it was the candle, the flame searing my flesh.

Then I hit my head. Then I heard the baby giggle. Then the darkness which had been waiting inthe attic swept over me.