Notes

It was a blur. At first there were only colours. Then lines. Slowly through the haze of Stella's gaze the room eventually too shape. The little girl realised she was lying in her own bed. Her bedroom was just one of countless in this vest country house. To her right side stood her wardrobe, on her left sat a tiny dressing table, framed by a tall window. Stella know her bedroom as well as she know her own face. Saxby Hall had always been her home. but somehow, at this moment, everything seemed strange. outside there was not a sound. The house had never been this quiet before. All was silent. From her bed Stella turned her head to look out of the window. All was white. Thick snow had fallen. It had covered everything within sight-the long sloping lawn, the huge deep lake, and the empty fields beyond the estate. Icicles hung from the branches of trees. Everything was frozen. The sun was nowhere to be seen. The sky was as pale as clay. It seemed to be not quite night, not quite day. Was it early morning or late evening? The little girl had no idea. Stella felt as if she had been asleep forever. Was it days? months? years? her mouth was as dry as a desert. Her body felt as heavy as stone's still as a statue.For a moment the little girl thought she might still be asleep and dreaming. Dreaming she was awake in her bedroom. Stella had experinced that dream before, and it was frightening because try a she might she couldn't move. Was this the same nightmare again? Or something more sinister. To test whether she was asleep and dreaming, the girl thought she would try to move. Starting at the far end of her body, first she tried to waggle her little toe. If she was awake and she thought about waggling her toe it would just waggle. But try as she might it wouldn't waggle, or wiggle. Or even woggle. One by one she tried to move each toe on her left foot, and then each toe on her right. one by one they all point-blank refused to do anything. Feeling increasingly panicked she tried to circle her ankles, before attempting to stretch her legs, then ton bend her knees and finally she concentrated as hard as she could on lifting her her arms. All were impossible. It was as if she had been buried in sand from the neck down. Beyond her bedroom door, stella heard a sound. the house dated back centuries, it had been passed through many generations of saxby family. It was so old that everything creaked, and so vast that every noise echoed down the endless labyrinth of corridors.