The Screaming Staircase

On the way to the mansion, George tells Lockwood and Lucy about his research. The house was originally a priory for monks who were burned to death along with the house in the 1200s. In 1666, an apparent plague struck the house, and everyone but a baby was found dead. The owner before Fairfax died by suicide, and two children reportedly died on the stairs after being exposed to the wailing of the resulting ghost. George then brings out two sets of blueprints of the house: one from when it was built and another from the present. Comparing the two, he is able to figure out where the oldest rooms are. George also shares the information he discovered about Fairfax, including the man’s love of acting when he was a teenager.

After the train ride, the team is met by a somewhat reckless youth who drives them to Combe Carey Hall. The mansion is a large brick structure with two clear halves—one new, one old, all made of stone. They are met by a surly caretaker who insists on taking them around the grounds while Fairfax prepares the house. Lockwood begs to use the washroom inside and hurries away, which confuses Lucy. The caretaker talks about the monks who originally lived there and the dark rituals they performed. Some were tossed in a well, and others were burned alive inside the house. Next, he tells them about Mad Sir Rufus, who enjoyed torture and was known as the Red Duke. He would lay the skulls of his victims on the great staircase, and after he was killed by a victim who escaped, the screams of his victims were said to be heard on the stairs every time his ghost roamed the house. The caretaker continues to tell many horrific stories about the property and the deaths there, until he finally leads them to the house’s entrance, where Fairfax awaits.

Fairfax appears “mantislike” (263) to Lucy when he greets everyone at the door. He ushers them inside and assures Lockwood that the initial $60,000 has already been paid. Lucy is stunned by the size of the manor as she stands at the doorway and observes oil paintings, arches, and multiple hallways. Her eyes eventually land on the stone staircase, and she is compelled to stop and listen. Amidst the noise of the house, she hears a deep, perpetual silence that seems to extend forever. Feeling as though the silence is sentient and is waiting for her, she believes the house to be some sort of gateway. She makes her way to the Long Gallery, which is also filled with art, and finds George there snacking. Lockwood enters, and Fairfax states that he has checked their gear and is satisfied by the lack of fire-related gear, as has been agreed. Fairfax explains that he will leave most of the doors unlocked and will be present in the non-haunted East Wing if needed. He gives Lockwood a key to the Red Room and leads the children through the house’s many rooms, up the Screaming Staircase, and to the door of the Red Room. Lucy begins hearing voices, and Fairfax admits that he believes the room is the Source of the house’s many hauntings. Darkness settles on the house as Lucy and the others ready their gear, and Fairfax bids them a good evening. The house falls into silence as the children await whatever is to come next.

Lockwood runs to the bathroom and comes back proudly holding magnesium flares in his hands. (He had hidden them in the toilet when they first arrived to foil Fairfax’s examination of their gear.) He gives two flares each to Lucy and George and then pulls out a larger flare designed to produce a huge blast of iron, silver, and magnesium combined. They discuss what they’ve observed so far, including a steady drop in temperature, activity sensed all around the house, and whispers heard by Lucy near the Red Room. They begin investigating the house, and as they do so, activity sparks and tiny bits of plasma start to float through the air. Lucy starts to hear a crackling that comes and goes, and Lockwood starts finding death-glows around the lobby. Malaise starts to creep over everyone, and Type One (non-invasive) spirits begin to appear.

When they go down to the cellar, Lockwood sees an aggressive apparition that looks like a monk “swimming out of the dark beside the wall” (285). The ghost reaches out to grab Lucy, and Lockwood slashes at it, causing it to dissipate, but neither George nor Lucy were able to see it. Afterward, they decide to take a rest, and Lucy notices that Annabel’s necklace is glowing. George examines the floor plans further and determines that there might be an entire secret wing behind the stone wall near the Red Room. He believes that these passages lead to the true Source. Lockwood, who is immersed in reading about Fairfax’s acting past, suggests that the entrance to these passages might be in the Red Room. Unlike past missions, this time he consults George and Lucy for their opinions, and they both agree to investigate with all of the proper precautions put in place. They approach the room, and Lockwood puts the key in the lock.

The Red Room is large, with white, detailed ceilings and aged, dark green wallpaper. There are spiders all over, indicating the presence of paranormal activity. Iron is embedded in the doorway. Nobody seems to sense anything at first, and Lockwood and Lucy set up an iron chain circle while George puts an iron wedge under the door to keep it open. Afterward, George keeps watch while Lucy and Lockwood feel the walls for a switch or hollow space. Lucy finds a hollow spot behind the wall, but plasma starts to develop in the room and a loud tapping sound begins. Lucy and Lockwood rush to the circle. Lockwood starts seeing countless death-glows, and loud voices invade Lucy’s mind.

Everyone draws their rapiers and readies themselves for defense, but before they can decide whether or not to leave, the tapping grows louder. Lockwood shines his flashlight, and they all see a large pool of bloody plasma slowly growing on the ceiling and dripping onto the floor. They run for the door, but it is now sealed shut with the key on the outside. They rush back to the iron circle, but the blood begins to pool even more and forms directly above them. Lockwood only sees one way out and tells Lucy to find the secret opening while he and George distract the Visitors. As the blood surrounds her, she grows desperate and realizes that there might be something behind a wooden shutter that hangs against the wall. She is unable to loosen it, but Lockwood and George soon arrive and force it open, revealing a dark cavity inside the wall. They all tumble inside and frantically pull the shutter closed.

Everyone is piled on top of one another, and as they sort themselves out, they realize they are somewhat covered in splatters of plasma. Lucy notices that Lockwood seems suddenly numb and hardened, but he optimistically comments on their safety and success in finding the secret passage. They shine a light around and see that they are inside a brick corridor that leads back behind other rooms of the house. They start traversing the corridor, and Lockwood professes that he thinks Fairfax locked them in the Red Room but refuses to say why. His reticence irritates Lucy, who has noticed Lockwood becoming increasingly secretive and distant. They find a passage leading down a dark corridor, and along it they encounter the apparition of one of the children who died investigating the house decades before. It is a boy, and he stares at them blankly as Lucy hears him weep louder and louder. The temperature continues to drop, and they eventually come to a spiral staircase that leads ever downward. They bravely head down the stairs, passing by a small chamber along the way, and Lucy begins to wonder if this is the true Screaming Staircase.

As they continue their descent, Lucy traces her fingers along the wall and begins to feel panic and smell burning. She can hear a swordfight and the stomping of many men, and then a wailing begins that grows increasingly louder. Lucy tells the others in alarm that she thinks they’re on the Screaming Staircase, and suddenly the sound grows so loud that even Lockwood and George can hear it. The fear and torment imbued in the walls are palpable emotions that consume them as they run down the stairs. Hooded shadows race the steps alongside Lucy and her teammates, and they finally reach the bottom and come out into a small room. Inside, they find the body of the child agent from years ago, covered in cobwebs. The screams and shadows consume the room, and Lucy and the others become desperate and start throwing all of their salt and bombs, to no avail. Inside the room is a well, and Lucy guesses that it is the source of the preternatural silence she heard when they first arrived. Eager to end the noise and suffering more than anything, she is compelled toward it, but just before she walks off the edge, Lockwood pulls her back. He grabs his large flare and tosses it down the well, and “a millisecond later, the world explode[s] in a soundless burst of light” (327).

When Lucy regains consciousness, she has a pounding headache and ringing ears but is comforted by the fact that she is still alive. She realizes that she is in the corner of the study, bloodied and covered in ash and debris from the explosion, and then she sees George and Lockwood lying motionless across the room. She checks on George first, who is injured but awakens quickly, and then sees Lockwood “lying on his side with his coat blown outward like a single broken wing” (331). She gently wakes him and finds that he is relatively unhurt. The well is still emitting a glowing smoke, and they are all certain it is the Source that holds the residue of the monks’ traumatic deaths: the original tragedy that sparked all the rest. They hope to seal off the well and resolve the building’s many hauntings. George posits a theory that the spirits of the monks were able to change form and were responsible for the Red Room, the Screaming Staircase, and the shadows in the room they’re in now.

Meanwhile, Lockwood notices that the smoke from the well is being funneled out between the stonework, and he is suddenly struck with a newfound energy. He and the others start trying to break through with their crowbars. As they do so, Lockwood muses on the motivations of Fairfax and why he brought them to the mansion on such short notice and was so willing to pay off their lawsuit. Lockwood confesses that he went to Combe Carey the day that Fairfax made his offer and discovered that Fairfax uses the house to test new safety equipment. On the train, he did further reading on Fairfax, and when he looked at the photo of Hugo Blake and Annabel Ward at the gala, he noticed Fairfax in the background. Lucy suddenly remembers that she read Annabel was passionate about acting, just like Fairfax. Meanwhile, they finally manage to break through the walls and climb into a cellar. Before they can, Fairfax appears with a gunman and demands that they drop their weapons.

Mr. Fairfax is dressed in an array of iron and steel, including a steel helmet with goggles. Lucy compares his appearance to a “demonic frog: both horrible and ridiculous at the same time” (343). With the gun held to his chest, Lockwood remains calm and asks who the other man is. Fairfax introduces him as his assistant, and Lockwood realizes that it is the man who broke into his home the other night. Fairfax comments on the children’s skill at escaping the Red Room (into which he admits locking them) and demands that they follow him back into the house’s library. Fairfax asks Lockwood about the necklace and how he figured everything out, and Lockwood explains their process of investigation, including their mistake of suspecting Hugo Blake.

After Lockwood saw the photograph with Fairfax in it, he recalled reading that Fairfax went by his middle name in his younger days: Will. Thus, the “A” and “W” in the code stood for Annabel and Will, and the “H” and numbers, Lockwood guessed, were from the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet. Fairfax confesses that he and Annabel acted in Hamlet together; he was Hamlet, and she was Ophelia. He then admits to unintentionally killing Annabel during a vicious argument after he discovered she was cheating on him with Hugo. In a single hit, he broke her neck and killed her. He then made a tomb for her inside the wall of his home to cover up the incident, claiming that the experience was traumatic. He asks where the necklace is now, and Lucy gets an idea. She pulls it out and takes it out of the jar, allowing Annabel to be released. Sure enough, a large gust of wind is followed by the apparition of Annabel, who seems to swallow Fairfax in fury and takes him down, killing him. The assistant flees, and Lucy and the others make their way to the lobby, where they find Inspector Barnes and several other agents.

Lucy sits in a daze as she is attended to by medics and watches as various agents storm into the Hall. They find Fairfax’s lifeless body, but nothing more: no apparitions or other strange phenomena. Soon dawn breaks, and the house reverts to being a non-threatening old manor. Inspector Barnes reluctantly congratulates the group but also criticizes them and has all of Fairfax’s anti-ghost gear removed from the mansion. Weeks later, the bodies of the monks are found at the bottom of the well. After their removal, the activity in the house ceases. Although Lucy believes that Annabel departed the world of the living forever, she knows that she cannot be certain.

An article is published in the London Times about the Combe Carey Hall case and the adeptness of Lockwood & Co. at locating the Source and resolving the hauntings there. Barnes asks Lockwood to lie about Fairfax being the murderer, and Fairfax dies without ever having been exposed. The fame brings a new level of success to the company, and after a week of rest, Lucy and the others celebrate with an array of food and drinks. The one souvenir George was able to take was a pair of Fairfax’s goggles, which he plans to study. Lockwood asks Lucy how she knew that Annabel wouldn’t attack them, and Lucy explains that she sometimes feels what the spirits feel. Lucy goes downstairs to get more doughnuts, and while there, she trips and knocks over the ghost-jar. The door closes, and the ghost-jar begins speaking to her, telling her that it has been watching her and that death is near. Lucy, determined not to let anything ruin her evening, covers up the jar with a cloth and heads from the dark basement back up into the bright living room where she can hear Lockwood and George laughing.