At first sight Alice Dyson might seem to be in the same position in William Mayne's It [as the character of Anne in Robert Westall's The Watch House]. But though this girl of nearly twelve might seem to be an obvious medium through which a spirit would reach out to the world of everyday, it is not her state of mild discontent which emotionally directs the release of "It". Instead, the plot of the story—as circular as the position of the four crosses at the city boundary, as circular as the rings Alice cannot help finding—turns on an ancient curse which, subtly and insidiously, affects (or might have affected) many people…. (p. 3237)

Certainly William Mayne is not detached about Alice and the state of mind that seizes her after she has unwittingly given the invisible being a chance to escape into the city which had centuries...