She’d just put her feet back onto the floor after her third trip up the ladder when she felt something touch her right leg, down by her ankle. She wore trousers, so if it had been some kind of insect it was doubtful she’d have felt it. Besides, it was moving up and down, as though stroking her. Still looking forward at the ladder and grasping its handrails, Emily was frozen in place. She couldn’t move, speak, scream or even bring herself to look around.

She’d never been so scared in her life. The stroking sensation crept higher and higher until it reached her hip. Finally, something in Emily snapped and she screamed at the top of her lungs, lurched away from the ladder and ran out of the library.

Driven by nothing other than fear and the urge to get away from the library, Emily tore down the corridor, deciding on the spur of the moment that she was going to go and find George. She had no idea where his office was, but it couldn’t be that difficult to find. However, before she’d gotten much farther, George rounded the corner into the corridor, jogging toward her. His expression was one of confusion and concern and when he reached her, he put his hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes.

She didn’t know she’d spoken out loud and giggled at the realization, stopping abruptly when it hit home just how peculiarly she was behaving. This place was making her crazy, she decided, which could be catastrophic considering she hadn’t even finished one shelf of books yet, and she had considerably more to do. If this weirdness carried on, she’d be a wreck by the time the job was done.

Shaking her head again, Emily walked back to the desk and sat down. She resolved to knuckle down, get the first shelf completed and call it a night. Hopefully a decent amount of sleep and a session with her vibrator would make her feel more herself and mean she could put this idiotic behavior behind her and return to Westbury tomorrow with her sensible, hard-working head firmly screwed on. She hoped so, anyway, because this simply wouldn’t do.

Emily was able to finish cleaning the first lot of books without any further interruptions. She heaved a sigh of relief and swapped her book cleaning tools for her shelf cleaning tools. All she had to do was clean the empty shelf, replace the books, put the library back to how it had been when she’d started and be on her way. Tomorrow was another day, she mused, and she was determined it was going to be much more productive than this one.

When her gaze fell on the window, she rolled her eyes again. Of course. Old houses like Westbury more often than not had panes of glass which didn’t fit into their frames properly, or they’d slipped, been damaged. The draught was coming from the window. Emily crossed the room to the window, drew the curtains—she’d open them again before she left, and Mrs. Thompson would never be any the wiser—and sat back down again. Shaking her head at her own stupidity, Emily continued working on the book she’d just abandoned, quickly becoming absorbed in her task once more.

A noise from over by the ladder startled Emily, making her jump and almost jab herself in the eye with the end of the brush she was using. Turning, she saw that the photograph she’d righted earlier after its little mishap was once more lying down. She’d obviously not fixed the stand properly. Downing tools, Emily stomped across the room, cross at the seemingly endless interruptions, and grabbed the photograph. She checked the stand to make sure it held firm, then wagged a finger at the man in the image.

“Just you behave. I’ve got too much work to do to put up with your shenanigans, if you don’t mind.”

Emily worked in peace for a little while longer. Then she felt a slight draught on the back of her neck. Carefully placing down the book she was working on and fidgeting in the chair, she moved her head from side to side and up and down, as if to erase the odd feeling. She forgot it almost instantly, until a few seconds later, it came again. It felt as though someone was blowing on the back of her neck. Emily shivered, both at the sensation and the creepy thought that had entered her mind. Goosebumps crept over her entire body, and the third movement of air made her jump up out of the chair and spin round to face the source of the mysterious draught.

There was nothing there. Emily rolled her eyes. Why on earth was she getting like this? She’d worked in dozens of rooms like this, perfectly alone, and not once had she freaked out. Why now?