Mara Voss writes Gothic horror.

The house had been on the market for eleven years. During that time it had received three offers, each withdrawn after the survey. The estate agent no longer described it as charming. In the current listing, he called it substantial and left the photographs uncaptioned.

I arrived on the winter solstice with a suitcase, a folder of legal papers, and a ring of old keys. The taxi driver stopped at the gate and declined to use the drive. He looked at the unlit windows and offered to wait.

"How long?" I asked.

"That depends," he said, "on how long you're intending to be in there."

Thistlemoor had belonged to my family for six generations. It had stood empty for eleven years, ever since my grandmother left without packing and refused to return. She would not explain what had happened. For the remaining nine years of her life, she lived in a bungalow near the coast and slept with the lights on.

My father left me the property, its debts, and one instruction written on the back of an envelope: If you hear someone upstairs, leave at once.

I unlocked the front door. Before I crossed the threshold, I heard a door close on the floor above.