The terrifying bestseller from the author of House of Reckoning The children were waiting. Waiting for centuries.   Waiting for someone to hear their cries. Now  nine-year-old Christine Lyons has come to live in the  house on the hill—the house where no children  have lived for fifty years. Now little Christie will sleep in the old-fashioned nursery on the third floor. Now Christie's terror will begin. A sound was coming to her. Her mind began to drift . . .  Usually it came to her at night, when the wind was blowing. But today it was bright and clear; the wind was still. And yet the sound was there. A baby, crying out for its mother. Instinctively Diana knelt next to Christie and took the child in her arms. “It's all right,” she whispered. “Everything's going to be all right.” Perplexed, Christie looked into Diana's eyes. “I am all right, Aunt Diana. Really, I am,” Christie insisted. “But you were crying. I heard you. Good girls never cry. Only bad children cry. They cry. And cry. And then they must be punished. . . .”