Antoinette was just about ready for a cup of tea. Much as she loved shopping, it was tiring work. Even for a teenager.

When she stopped outside her friend’s house, just off the main shopping road, and they sorted out whose package was whose, she leapt at the offer of a drink. Still chatting together, Helen put the key into the lock of her front door.

Antoinette’s heart almost stopped. No sooner had she opened the door than the sound of wailing and ferocious shouting started up from inside. It was a hideous noise, loud and terrifying. Antoinette turned to Helen but was surprised to notice that her face was registering embarrassment rather than shock.

“It is nothing,” she said. “There is nothing there. Don’t worry.”

She opened the antiporta and sure enough, the wailing stopped immediately.

Antoinette took a step back, still terrified, not daring to look into the dark hall. Helen walked into the house.

“Look, you see? There is no one here.”

She took a hesitant step inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark after the bright sunlight outside. The hall was empty. The clock ticked reassuringly in the corner. Her friend shrugged.

“It happens a lot. I suppose I am used to it now.”

She explained that the heart-rending shouts would start as soon as the family stepped through the door but stopped as soon as they opened the antiporta. They had never seen or heard anything inside the house. Helen took Antoinette’s hand in hers.

“Please,” she begged her. “We never even talk about it among ourselves. Please, don’t say anything about it to anyone.”

Antoinette found it hard to put the awful wailing out of her mind. Perhaps that was why she had such a vivid dream that night.

The family found out that there had been some unexplained disappearances in the house

She dreamt that she went into her friend’s house and a man, dressed in black, appeared at the top of the stairs, beckoning her in. He seemed to be quite elegant, wearing a black cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. He had something in his hand; she thought it was a scroll, tied up with a red ribbon around it.

As she went into the house, the man spoke to her, instructing her to tell Helen to dig up the floor under the third floor tile from the antiporta.

“If you do,” the man continued, “you will find riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

Antoinette woke up with a shudder. Although the man had promised her money, the atmosphere of the dream had been evil, threatening. The next day, she still felt really disturbed by the dream and wanted to tell Helen about it. She went to her house and started blurting out the story almost as soon as she had got inside. As soon as she saw her, Helen also started blurting out a story about a dream she had had. It was not long before the two of them trailed off into silence. They had had virtually the same dream.

In Helen’s dream, the man – also dressed in black – had told her to dig up part of the floor but he did not say anything about money, and he told her to dig up an area under the stairs.

Helen had also been upset by the dream. She and Antoinette went to the foot of the stairs and looked at each other. What should they do?

Helen told her father about the dream. Perhaps there was something unusual, some intensity or hint of panic in her voice, as she recounted the improbable story, because he took the advice in the dream seriously. They decided to dig up the area under the stairs.

It is hard to know what the family were expecting to find. It was certainly not the legs of a skeleton. In shock, they carried on digging and underneath, found a pile of crumbling skeletons, laid in a shallow grave under the stairs.

The family found out there had been some unexplained disappearances in the house. It seems they had found evidence of some long-forgotten murders. They did not know what to do about them. The idea of the publicity, the effect on the value of the house, the psychological trauma of finding out more details of whatever had gone in...

They couldn’t cope with it. Eventually, after much soul-searching, they decided to cover the skeletons up again and to keep the whole incident as quiet as possible.

Perhaps the evil had been laid to rest. Antoinette never found out anymore. Helen refused to discuss the matter and never said whether the voices were ever heard again. For all Antoinette knew, the skeletons were still there.

Many times over the years, Antoinette remembered her dream and toyed with the idea of asking Helen to dig up the third tile from the antiporta but she never dared. But sometimes, when Antoinette walked her friend home and Helen put the key in the door, they caught each other’s eye and shuddered.

This is the 32nd 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.