One summer evening, the girls were all sitting around the dining-room table, a sultry breeze blowing in from the open door to the garden. Carmen was bustling around the kitchen.

She was a creature of habit and had little rituals that she followed regularly. Every evening, she would send the girls up to bed and follow a little while later with a tray of hot drinks and biscuits. But tonight, it was not to be.

She suddenly went deathly pale and stifled a scream.

“Fiona, shut the antiporta,” she yelled and then, to the girls’ bewilderment, she turned and ran out of the room, up the stairs. They heard the room of her bedroom slam shut and the key turn in the lock. And then there was silence.

They had no idea what was wrong. They tried to work out what could have happened but the only thing that Fiona remembered was the sound of the light switch flicking on and off. Not that that would have meant anything.

It was one of the days when they did not have any electricity and the room was lit by a large oil lamp. And she also heard the door handle rattle slightly after her mother left the room but it did not open and she thought it was just the way her mother had slammed it.

The girls waited for a while and then realised that their mother was not coming down again. They were surprised. What could have frightened her so much that she would run away and leave her children down there?

It was not till the next morning that they found out. Even then, she was reluctant to say. Eventually Carmen, looking fearfully around as she spoke, told them that she had looked up to see a smart, elegant man walk into the room from the garden. He was tall, dressed in evening wear. And instead of a face, a skull grinned lewdly at her.

The effect on Carmen was profound. Whenever the girls went out, she would refuse to stay in the house alone and would wait on a chair by the antiporta. She refused to talk about it again but often Fiona would catch a look of horror flitting across her face. The ghost was obviously still in the house. What is more, it seemed to have attached itself to Fiona.

For weeks, Fiona would suddenly feel a coolness behind her. The light switch would click on and off as she walked into a room and the door handle would rattle. They once heard the sound of heavy, rasping breathing coming from their bedroom. But she never saw anything and the door would never open.

What could have frightened her so much that she would run away and leave her children down there?

Her sister one day flew down the stairs. Till then, she had been pretty sceptical but her face showed that something had changed her mind.

“OK,” she gasped. “I believe you. There is something there.”

She too refused to talk about what she had seen or heard.

The days passed and their mother grew more and more fretful. In the end, the strain of the unwelcome visitor proved too much for her and she had a heart attack and died.

The girls were beside themselves with grief. But the house loomed larger and more terrifying after that. They tried all sleeping together in one room but in the end, fear got the better of them.

They decided to move in with Fiona’s brother in Mellieħa for a few months. Eventually, they gave up the house and moved into a far smaller place that the housing department managed to find for them.

The family did not really want any reminders of the house but they had spent a small fortune doing it up. Fiona’s married sister, Mariella, insisted on removing at least some bits and pieces. She was to regret her decision.

They all went into the house together, hoping to find safety in numbers. Mariella’s little girl clutched her Aunt Fiona’s hand, aware of the strange tension in the air.

As they all walked down the stairs, the little girl was suddenly snatched from Fiona’s side and slammed against the wall opposite. No, she didn’t fall. She was actually thrown horizontally across the stairs, banging her head and falling unconscious to the ground.

Even now, Fiona can remember with a shudder of horror the silence after she had fallen down onto the ground. Not even a cry.

Mariella scooped the little girl up into her arms and ran out into the street with Fiona and Carol not far behind. They never went into the house again.

The housing department immediately identified three other families desperate for a roof over their heads. But even these families did not last long in the house.

Fiona heard that one woman died soon after moving in. Her aunt told her that another woman had seen someone, something, while she was in her bath, and had run out into the street, terrified out of her wits, completely naked. The neighbours abandoned their weaving industry and apparently left the island.

And the house still stands. Fiona is now in her 60s and whenever she passes the house, she wonders whether the family who now lives there has ever seen the man with no face.

And whether the workmen who dug up the skeleton from under the blackcurrant tree could have had any idea of the forces that they had unleashed....

Concluded. The first part was published on March 7.

This is the 45th in a series of short stories The Sunday Times of Malta is running every Sunday. It is taken from The Unexplained Plus (Allied Publications) by Vanessa Macdonald. The first edition was published in 2001 and reprinted twice. It was republished, with added stories, as The Unexplained Plus. The Maltese version of the book, Ta’ Barra Minn Hawn (Klabb Kotba Maltin), is available from all leading bookstores and stationers and from www.bdlbooks.com.