Chapter 1

Time becomes fluid once the sun completely sets. Without the reference of that blazing orb and corresponding shadow, or the friendly tick of the clock, the night can seem endless. It is through certain events which have befallen my family and myself that I have come to dread the fall of night. These accounts I am about to reveal may seem unbelievable, yet for my own sanity it is necessary for me to exorcise these memories through putting pen to paper.

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It has been almost three years since the last time we saw the ghost. Yet my use of the word 'saw' is incorrect, as none of us actually ever saw the thing at all. And it was this factor that made the experience all the more terrifying. It began not long after my family had moved into our first house, a tumbledown Victorian house just outside the handsome country town of Camden, not far from Sydney. We had been desperately looking forward to the move, as myself, my wife and two small children had been living in a cramped apartment in the city. My wife, Shelley, fell in love with the old house as soon as she saw it, and spoke of her visions of us slowly renovating the place ourselves. We didn't show the children the house until we had definitely secured the mortgage, so we could enjoy giving them the surprise of seeing it for the first time on the day of the move. They adored it instantly, the overgrown garden, the gigantic sky, the bright, crisp air.

The house itself, two storeys with an attic, was charming. We indulged in antique fantasy as we wandered the rooms, some very grand, some tiny and quaint. Mildewed wallpaper in gothic patterns peeled from the walls, heavy, moth-eaten drapes framed windows fitted with stained glass panels, dusty oak floorboards creaked under our feet. In some rooms, small piles of detritus languished in the corners, and on one of the rotting balconies, (which we deemed off limits,) there was a beautiful Edwardian rocking chair, which soon became the central feature of the sitting room. To us, all of these things held a romantic dark charm. Yet there was one thing we didn't like, especially my wife. In the dining room, to the right of the fireplace, was a massive, hulking black grandfather clock. The woodwork was in a particularly ornate and almost vulgar style, the roman numerals inlaid with mother-of-pearl were in a particularly long and spindly font, and the brass pendulum was particularly heavy. We thought it was ugly and we didn't wind it at first. In general, the house held a darkness and a coldness, yet we sensed nothing strange in the first few weeks, nothing evil.

We moved in in late autumn, in May, and though the days were warm, still and clear, temperatures frequently fell to freezing at night. The plumbing was lacking, the electricity not connected, the insulation non-existant. The chill in the house was all-pervasive, stubborn. After the first evening, even though we had our usual beds and bed linen, we shivered through the night, and the children rose from their beds and joined my wife and I in ours. The next day I drove to town and bought heavy, fleecy blankets, camping lanterns, dozens of candles and enough wood to fuel the fireplaces for a week. I had taken a month off work for the move, and I have to say it was bliss to be with my smiling wife and daughters all day, instead of late shifts and early starts. The still quite empty house echoed with the sounds of my laughing children, the tap of hammers and the swoosh of the broom. It didn't take us long to do the initial cleaning, as we were lucky enough to have the assistance of my brother and his wife for a few days. In about a week, with a merry fire blazing, new drapes and carpets, and our favourite posessions in their place, it had started to truly feel like home.