Charlotte's pace quickened as she hurried up the large stone staircase that led to one of the turrets. The further she climbed the louder the noises became. A voice, quiet at first, whispered, so quiet that Charlotte couldn't really hear whether it was male or female. The cold wind whistled through a small window in the tower.

She pulled her warm navy cardigan tighter around her chest to keep out the chill, and walked further up the stone steps towards the small attic room. A strange feeling came over her. She could feel the eyes watching her. She could feel ears listening to every step she made. She could feel their breath and hear their voices.

"Charlotte," a voice from the distance, called her name.

The girl turned to see her father approach.
"Come down please," he said, "we need to look at a few local schools for next term."

Charlotte's heart sank. That was the first time she'd had an opportunity to venture out of her room since they'd moved and her father was putting a stop to it. He stood a few steps behind her, his arms were folded at his chest and his foot tapped against the stone ground.

"I don't have all day."

She sighed, and headed back in his direction.
"Can't I stay here?" She asked.

Her father shook his head, "no, certainly not. You and your sisters won't be allowed to hang about here for long. School is there for a reason. There are no thicko's in this family."

"Fine! I'm coming."

School. Well it wasn't supposed to be as bad as it usually was. If her last school wasn't so awful, whichever one she was sent to next, she'd be back to square one. The new girl, and at her age, it wasn't something she thought she'd be. No friends, certainly not a best friend, she'd be alone again. Charlotte who.

Charlotte followed her father back down into the warm castle, and down the main staircase towards the room he was using as an office. He closed the door behind them, and walked towards the desk where he collected his car keys from a drawer. He paused for a second, reached back inside the same drawer and retrieved an a4 sized brown envelope.

"Here you go," he said, "this is for you."

Charlotte took the envelope from him, and carefully pulled a glossy brochure out. The words, Lady Elizabeth's School for Girls, in big bold letters, stood out amongst the pale background that showed a large palatial building similar to Castle Stone itself.

"You're paying for me to go to boarding school?"

Dad opened the door and walked out of the room towards the front hall.

"No, no, we're not paying for you to go to boarding school, we've applied for you to sit an entrance exam. We think you're bright enough to get a scholarship."

Charlotte followed him out of the castle and towards his car which was parked at the side of the building.

Dad opened the car door, and Charlotte was a little bit surprised to find that both of her sisters were seated inside. She climbed into the back and sat next to Bethany.

The drive away from the castle was a chance for Charlotte and her sisters to see more of the small local village.

Greystone wasn't a large town like the girls and their family were used to, full of shops and beauticians, parks and leisure centres. There were none of those in Greystone. Pretty rows of stone cottages that were once roofed with thatch, lined the main road. At the corner near the crossroads, stood a shop, with gloriously colourful bouquets of flowers sitting in brightly coloured buckets of water outside the door. There was a decent sized pub with wooden tables and benches in a small beer garden nearby. A couple of men sat under a parasol, a pint in their hand and a meal of hot food on the table in front of them. The smell of the meat drifted through the family's open car window as they passed through.

Cars drove at a blur going from left to right, as the Greyson's turned onto the main road and away from the little village. The hills and mountainous backdrop of the chilly Scottish highlands gradually began to fade as they travelled closer to a town a few miles away. From her seat in the back of the car, Charlotte looked out of the window. Frost clung to the window panes making it difficult for her to see where they were going. She wiped the frost away, and looked out.

A tree lined driveway greeted them as they approached a set of high black gates. Inside the elaborate design were the letters, L E S G, painted in a stunning shade of gold. Charlotte knew what it was and as the car passed through the gates, she didn't know how to feel.

It wasn't that she thought she was done with school, she wasn't old enough for that yet. Her stomach churned at the thought of being the new girl and beads of sweat dampened her forehead. She tucked a stray strand of dark hair back behind her ears, and adjusted her long ponytail so it sat higher on her head. The driveway was long, and twisted this way and that. Charlotte signed as she gazed out of the window. A young boy dressed in a school uniform stood close to an evergreen tree. His skin was almost white, no colour to his cheeks, a hint of blue coated his lips. His piercing blue gaze transfixed upon the car as he followed its path with his eyes. He looked no older than twelve years old, which confused Charlotte. She'd read in the brochure that Lady Elizabeth's was an all girls ladies college for girls aged sixteen to nineteen, which meant no boys.

"How come there's a boy?" Charlotte asked.

Bethany sat beside her busily flicking through a magazine. Her attention was transfixed to the glossy pages full of makeup tips and the usual celebrity gossip that Charlotte didn't care about.

"Bethie?"

The older girl's eyes stayed glued to the page as she grunted a half hearted reply "Yeah..."

"Why is there a boy?"

Charlotte shook her head, she knew better than to pester Bethany when she was reading one of her magazines. With one sister not interested in anything else, she decided to try the second.

"Bella?"

Bella sat next to Bethany, music drifted from her headphones that were plugged into her ears. Charlotte sighed.

"This is an all girls school, girls," Dad finally spoke, "so no boys."

A deep frown formed across Charlotte's forehead. She swore she'd just seen a boy.
"No boys? Like not at all..."

"No, certainly not. This is an exquisite ladies college, Charlotte, not a knocking shop. There's no boys here!"

Now what was strange, Charlotte has just seen a boy. For the rest of the short journey down the driveway towards the school, she sat in silence. The strangeness of the day began to confuse her. Why would there be a boy at an all girls school? She watched from the car as it slowly turned and gradually came to a half outside a huge white stone Georgian building. Its two stoic pillars stood sternly at either side of its jet black front door. A golden plaque on the side of the wall, read Lady Elizabeth's College.

The double doors slowly opened and an older woman emerged. Charlotte's eyes widened as she looked at the lady who she assumed to be the headmistress. Just by taking one look at her, Charlotte thought she looked stern. The woman's grey curled hair was covered by a mortarboard perched upon her head, her clothes concealed by a sack-like cloak that fell just above her ankles. The heels of her shoes tapped on the hard concrete as she walked towards the car. Dad moved out of the car and went to open the back door for his daughters. Charlotte stepped out of the vehicle first, followed by Bethany and then Bella.

The lady moved towards them, and shook their father's hand.

"Good afternoon Mr Greyson." She turned to the girls and shook their hands one by one, "welcome to Lady Elizabeth's College. My name is Mrs Imelda Campbell, and I am your headmistress. You may call me Mrs Campbell. Follow me."

The girls walked through the large spacious hallway. Images of happy girls in various classes and participating in many activities, were pinned to a sizable notice board. Charlotte stopped for a moment and paused to look at the pictures. Her eyes widened as she took a closer look. A black and white photograph sat alone on a smaller notice board, a slip of newspaper clipping pinned to the board. The image showed a boy, no older than twelve, seated against a pale background, similar to one taken at school.

Mrs Campbell cleared her throat "Charlotte Greyson?" She called, "hurry up."

Charlotte's pace quickened as she followed her sisters and the headmistress down the wide corridors towards a set of double doors. As it was the weekend, the school was much quieter than it was during the week. No girls running through its corridor, no laughter leaked from its classrooms. Silence filled the atmosphere.

"Where is everyone?" She asked.

Mrs Campbell's voice dropped into a quiet Scottish whisper. "It is the weekend. Most of our day girls are at home and several of our boarders' have gone on a weekend outting." She paused for a moment as she pulled open the doors that lead into the main school hall. "Find a seat, girls. Your examination will begin shortly."

Charlotte and her sisters' entered the grand and extensive hall. Wooden panelling stained in a deep mahogany shade covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Many flags, coated with an inch or so of dust, hung from the beamed ceiling, each one the colours of ancient Scottish clans who roamed and fought on the land where the school was built. Taxidermy trophy heads of deer and stag antlers hung on plaques and hung on the walls.

Three desks stood in front of a large stage which a wooden lectern complete with the school logo, sat upon. Charlotte moved and sat in the desk nearest the door, Bethany sat in the middle, with Bella at the other end. The door opened, and in walked a smartly dressed man who the girls assumed was one of the teaching staff. Dressed in a nice three piece suit, he headed towards the stage and stood a foot or so in front of it. He cleared his throat and then introduced himself as Mr Melrose, head of English.

"Welcome ladies," he said, "as you know today you will be sitting your entrance exam. In a few minutes I will ask you to turn the paper over. You will then have one hour, and not a second longer, to complete a series of questions to assess your abilities."

The girls sat in silence, and Charlotte's thoughts turned to the stables. She wished she was anywhere but taking an exam to attend a school she didn't really want to go to. More than anything she wanted to be cantering through the forests and the highlands, the wind in her hair, enjoying every second of what her new life had to offer her. Not that. Not wasting time with exams, home education did exist and she knew from friends that it was a possibility.

"You may begin." The teacher's voice snapped her out of her daydream and brought her back to reality.

Tests. Exams. They weren't something most people would choose to do for fun. If it wasn't a written examination, maybe a horse riding one or perhaps an art one, then Charlotte wouldn't have a problem with it. But this was an exquisite school for girls, and to get accepted, she needed to pass the test.

Her eyes squinted at the small font as she tried to read each sentence, her mind, so full of everything else that she struggled to find the answer. Beads of sweat soaked her hair, and she found herself tapping her fingers against her desk.

"Shh!" The teacher glared in her direction, an expressionless look upon his face.

Charlotte stopped tapping, and started to chew the end of her pen. Having never learnt Latin at her previous school, how could she possibly translate the sentence from English into Latin. What was the point in sitting an exam that she knew damn well that she'd fail? Who knew what the Latin word cat was? The day was turning into a disaster.

'Cat...' she whispered to herself, 'what's the Latin word for cat?'

The cold chill in the hall started to become more noticeable. The mist of her breath was visible as she breathed. She looked around, but no one else seemed cold. Her whole body began to shiver slightly and she found herself pulling her cardigan closer to her body to keep warm. A brief sweet scent of lavender drifted up her nose. A

'Cattus...'

Who said that? Charlotte's pen slipped from her grasp. She peered over her shoulder.

A shape lingered behind her, the figure of a girl about her age hovered nearby. Her skin was pale with a greyish tinge and like the boy from earlier, her lips awash with a hint of blue, and the girl was almost transparent. Her long sleeved white dress hovered just before her ankles, and her black leather lace up boots came just up to the skirt hem.

Charlotte looked around her. The teacher stood at the front with a clipboard and pen in his hand as he jotted down a few notes. She noticed both her sisters sat at their desks, their attention consumed by the exam they were sitting. So why was she the only one who could see the girl? Why was she the only one who could hear her?

Her heart began to beat louder and faster as it slammed inside her chest. Sweat ran down her forehead. Her hands were wet and clammy.
No no. That wasn't happening! She wasn't a... was she? Surely they didn't exist. She wanted to scream, she wanted to shout but who would believe there was a ghost behind her?

'Trust me.' The girl spoke softly and the sweet smile across her delicate porcelain face made Charlotte feel safe in her presence. 'The answer is cattus.'

In her best handwriting, Charlotte wrote down the word Cattus, as the answer to the question.

Cheating was wrong, and Charlotte was older enough to know the difference between right and wrong, but this was different, and it was an emergency. There were two options open to Charlotte Greyson, the first, to raise her hand and to admit defeat. No one would blame her, she'd never been taught Latin before and her knowledge of the periodic table was slim to non-existent. But option two, no matter how fun it seemed at the time, was wrong on so many levels.

She'd made her decision. And knew what she had to do.

Her voice dropped to a level barely audible, and turned to the girl.

"What else do you know?"

_______________________________________
Authors Note
So, what do you think? Things are getting spooky now for Charlotte. What's next?