Horror at the Haunted House (4 page)

I hope he practices when I’m not around, Ellen thought.

She leaned close to the vase, noticing new details. As she did, she had the same sensation she’d had earlier, that someone was watching her. As she looked around at the empty room, she felt a sudden chilling breeze, as if someone had just opened a door or window directly beside her. A prickle of fear ran across her scalp.

Ellen straightened and backed away from the Wedgwood. There were no windows in this room and the only door was the one to the hallway. The cold air continued to brush against her. She shivered and turned to leave. The cold air swirled around her, surrounding her. Ellen stopped.

Was it a magic trick, something rigged up especially for the haunted house?

She took a deep breath, trying to control her pounding heart. Be logical, she told herself. She looked carefully around the dining room for any wires which might lead to concealed fans or air-conditioning vents. Maybe the electrician had fixed it
so the air-conditioning system would produce sporadic blasts of frigid air. Maybe it was a publicity stunt. Mrs. Whittacker said the electrician was in charge of publicity.

But this room wasn’t going to have a haunted house scene; this room was only a display of furniture and the Clayton family’s Wedgwood collection. There would be no reason to scare people who came to admire the museum pieces.

The walls in the dining room were plainer than the rest of the mansion so that full attention could be focused on the rows of recessed china cupboards which held the Wedgwood collection. She saw no wires. No vents. No way to make a blast of cold air turn on and off.

It’s the ghost, Ellen thought. It’s the ghost of Lydia Clayton. The cold wind seemed to blow from all directions at once. Ellen wanted to run away from it but she felt as if roots had grown down through the bottoms of her feet and anchored her to the floor.

Maybe the electrician had not tried to start a rumor. Maybe when the electrician got close to the Wedgwood he was warned away by Lydia’s ghost. Afterward, he was probably embarrassed when other members of the society laughed at his report of a ghost and so he pretended that he had made it all up as a way to get publicity.

“There you are!” Corey’s voice at the dining-room door jarred Ellen into motion. The cold wind vanished. “Come and meet Mighty Mike,” Corey called.

Ellen ran out of the dining room. Although the cold air did not follow her, she felt chilled to the bone, anyway.

“That’s what I like,” Mighty Mike said, as Ellen dashed toward him, “a fan who’s eager to shake my hand.”

When Ellen and Corey got home, they sat around the table
with their parents, eating tuna sandwiches, while Corey told all about the mansion and the pig and Mighty Mike. All, that is, except the part about a ghost. To Ellen’s relief, Corey was too excited about Mighty Mike and about pretending to get his head chopped off to talk of anything else.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Mrs. Streater said to Ellen.

“She hasn’t had a chance,” Mr. Streater said, looking at Corey.

“Ellen felt the ghost!” Corey said.

Ellen kicked him under the table. She might have known he couldn’t keep anything secret.

“I mean, there was a statue there and we pretended it was a ghost and Ellen . . .”

“Let Ellen tell her part herself,” Mrs. Streater suggested.

“I’m alone in my scene,” Ellen said, “but there are lots of special effects. You can even smell the fire.”

“And there’s weird music,” said Corey. “It gets loud right when the big knife comes toward my head.”

Ellen didn’t mind letting Corey do the talking. She was anxious to be alone, to ponder what had happened. She needed to think about the cold wind that she thought was the ghost of Lydia Clayton.

After lunch, Ellen took a hot shower. The water poured over her, warming her at last.

The ghost was watching me, Ellen decided. I sensed it during the meeting and again in the dining room. She watched me and then she tried to—to what? To scare me away?

Why me? Ellen wondered. Out of all the dozens of celebrities and volunteers and Historical Society members who were at Clayton House today, why was I the only one who felt the ghost?

A
s Mrs. Streater had predicted, the Historical Haunted House got plenty of publicity. Hundreds of tickets were presold. Many of Ellen’s friends planned to attend and they all promised to come to the Joan of Arc scene. Caitlin said she would try to come more than once.

On opening night, the volunteers arrived two hours early, to allow time for a final dress rehearsal. The Historical Society had clearly been busy since the orientation meeting. The outside of the mansion was now shrouded in huge spider webs, making the building look as if the doors had been shut for a hundred years. Eerie music drifted across the grounds. The water in the courtyard fountain was green and slimy and the cherub in the center of the fountain was gone, replaced by an evil-looking sea serpent.

“I may not have to pretend I’m scared,” Corey said, as they climbed the steps and entered the mansion. The entry hall was transformed. The carved woodwork and somber furniture which
had seemed so impressive in the sunlight looked melancholy in the gloomy semidarkness. Strange sounds came from every direction: creaking doors, a muffled scream, the whoosh of unseen wings. Small eyes—rats? snakes?—glowed from corners and discordant music drifted down the great carved staircase.

Corey slipped his hand into Ellen’s. She squeezed it, to reassure him, but she wished she could turn around and leave. Let somebody else stand in this creepy place every night for a week, tied to a stake.

Just then, the lights went on and Mrs. Whittacker’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “By now, I’m sure you all can see how effective the Historical Haunted House is going to be. The lights will remain on for thirty minutes. All volunteers please take your places.”

Ellen hurried to the parlor, put on her costume, and climbed to the platform where Joan of Arc would burn at the stake.

Her rehearsal went smoothly. First a woman from the Historical Society gave her some stage makeup and showed her how to apply it. There was foundation, eye shadow, blush, and lipstick.

“Without makeup,” the woman explained, “you would look far too pale under the special lights. You’re supposed to be Joan of Arc, not her ghost.”

The casual remark annoyed Ellen. She did not want to think about ghosts.

“You may keep the makeup,” the woman went on. “It will be more convenient for you to put it on at home each day before you come.”

When the makeup woman left, Agnes tied the ropes around Ellen’s ankles, waist and shoulders, turned on the various switches, and watched for a few minutes from the viewing area. Then she turned everything off, untied Ellen, and told her she
was free to do whatever she wanted until she heard the announcement that it was time for all actors to take their places.

Ellen peeked into Corey’s room. Mighty Mike, wearing a long black robe and a black hood, stood beside the guillotine. Corey lay with his head on a wooden block, grinning gleefully.

“Should I scream now?” Corey asked.

“Let’s save the screaming for when we have an audience,” Mighty Mike replied. “We wouldn’t want you to overdo it and lose your voice.”

Maybe
you
wouldn’t, Ellen thought, but it would be a whole lot more peaceful at home.

While she waited, Ellen decided to see how she looked with the makeup on. She remembered seeing an ornately framed mirror in the room where the Wedgwood was. She entered the dining room and looked in the large oval mirror which hung just inside the door. She had never worn makeup before and she thought the eye shadow made her eyes seem enormous. She wondered how Corey felt about wearing makeup.

She left the mirror and wandered over to the Wedgwood display. Some of the older pieces, such as the black basalt, got only quick glances. Mrs. Whittacker said it was old, expensive and highly collectible, but Ellen didn’t think it was particularly pretty. Other pieces, like the creamware, were much more attractive but she didn’t look at them long, either. She focused her attention on the Fairylustre. She was drawn to it, feeling connected on a deep level, as if she herself had painted the small green fairies and embellished their long, sweeping wings with gold.

She stood warily for a moment, wondering if the chill breeze would appear. It did not. Ellen relaxed and began to admire the fairies.

The Wedgwood was carefully arranged by date, with a small brass plaque identifying each piece. The earliest was a large black urn. The plaque said it was made in 1768. Next was a set of cream-colored dishes with a rose and green design on the border. The Fairylustre was much newer. Ellen wasn’t interested in any of the other patterns or types of Wedgwood, only the Fairylustre. Of course, the dim lighting, which had been designed for formal candlelight dinners in the old dining room, did not show the pieces to the best advantage. It was easy to see why Mrs. Whittacker planned to use some of the haunted house profits to install spotlights.

Ellen’s favorite piece, the small octagonal bowl, was tipped slightly, so that viewers could see the inside as well as the outside. Ellen longed to hold it again but she didn’t dare pick it up without permission.

For the first time, she realized why people have collections. She began to understand why someone would care so much about an old bowl that they would pay thousands of dollars for it. If I were rich, she thought, I would buy a piece of Fairylustre with fairies on it. She liked the vase where a spider web was made entirely of tiny gold dots, too, but the pieces that showed the fairies were the ones she liked most.

The purple, green, and gold colors of the fairyland scene on the octagonal bowl were truly lustrous. Even in the dim light, they shimmered and Ellen thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. She wished she could meet the artist; clearly it was someone who loved fairies as much as Ellen did.

The voice of Agnes Munset came over the loudspeaker. “Ten minutes until we open. All actors please take your places. Ten minutes until we open.”

Ellen took one last look at the octagonal Fairylustre bowl, trying to imprint every detail on her memory so that she could think about it later.

Then she turned and hurried toward the door. As she did, she caught a glimpse of movement in the mirror. When she looked, two faces gazed back at her from the mirror, her own and another.

Ellen glanced back over her shoulder, wondering who was behind her. The room was empty.

With her heart racing, she looked at the mirror again. The other face was still there. It was a young woman with light brown curls, wearing a long-sleeved, white nightgown with lace at the throat. She might have been pretty except for the expression on her face. Ellen had never seen anyone look so sad.

Her unhappy eyes stared straight at Ellen and her mouth slowly opened, as if she wanted to cry out for help but could not speak. Her arms lifted and her hands stretched toward Ellen, beseeching her to—to what? To help her? How?

Ellen stood still, unable to move or speak. The back of her neck prickled as she stared at the face in the mirror.

Agnes’s voice came again. “All actors should now be in their places.”

Ellen glanced quickly around the room again. She was still alone. When she looked back at the mirror, she saw only her own reflection. The sad woman had disappeared.

Ellen hurried across the hall. As she took her place on the platform in the Joan of Arc scene, her breath came fast, as if she’d been riding her bike uphill. The face in the mirror had to be one of the special effect tricks that had been set up throughout the haunted house. Still, it had startled her so much that her heart
was still pounding. She wondered how they could make the face so realistic. For a moment, Ellen had been convinced that the woman was standing directly behind her.

Before they left for home that night, Ellen took Corey into the dining room to show him the face in the mirror. She didn’t tell him about it; she wanted it to surprise him, the way it had surprised her.

She led him in, pretending she wanted to show him a fairy scene on one of the dishes. “See the mushrooms?” she said. “And the toadstools? I think the fairies use them for chairs.”

Corey glanced at the Fairylustre without really looking. “Mighty Mike is going to the Rose Bowl game this year,” he said, “and he’s going to ride a horse in the parade. He gets to go the week before and see how they make the floats for the parade. He says they make whole scenes out of flowers. I have to watch the Rose Bowl parade on television because I might see him and if the camera is pointed at him, he’ll wave to me.”

Ellen turned away from the Fairylustre and started toward the door. There she was again. The sad woman in the mirror was behind her, arms outstretched, beseeching. Ellen waited for Corey to notice but he just kept chattering about Mighty Mike’s visit to the Rose Bowl parade.

Ellen stopped walking and pointed at the mirror. “Look,” she said.

Corey looked up. “What?” he said.

“See the woman? I wonder how they do that.”

“What woman?”

“The woman in the mirror.”

“I don’t see any woman in the mirror.”

Ellen looked at Corey to see if he might be teasing her. Then she looked at the mirror again. She saw her own face. To
the left, and not quite as tall, was Corey’s face. And in between them, taller than both, was the woman in the nightgown.

“You don’t see her, standing between us?” Ellen said.

Corey shook his head. “All I see is you and me. Is it supposed to be a trick mirror?”

“Change places with me,” Ellen said. “Stand where I’m standing and then look.”

They traded places. Ellen could still see three faces in the mirror. “Do you see her now?” she asked.

“Nope. They’ve probably turned it off for tonight.”

Ellen stared at her brother. Why couldn’t Corey see the face? Ellen saw the curls and the nightgown and the sad eyes just as clearly as if the woman had been standing directly beside her. She saw the hands, stretching toward Ellen, as if begging her to grab hold.