The Haunting (6 page)

“Hey, Jay!”

My dad was shouting from the top of the hill, where he and Sally were playing. I waved. Then I ran up to them, ready to tell Dad about what had happened in the basement.

With every step I became less sure. What really
had
happened?

The dim basement had gotten on my nerves. A little mouse had scared me. My ankle had gotten caught between the steps.

And the laugh? Maybe that evil laughter was all in my head.

When I got up to the top of the hill the first thing I said was, “Better not go down into the basement, Dad.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“The steps got busted. They're pretty old and rotten, I guess.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he said. He glanced at my ankle. “I notice you're limping, are you OK?”

“Yeah, I'll be fine. Just make sure you don't go down there, OK? You or anybody else.”

Dad looked at me kind of funny. “Sure, anything you say,” he said. “Your new friend Steve was around—wanted to know if you wanted to go swimming. Said he'd meet you down at the lake.”

Steve. I'd almost forgotten.

Ten minutes later I was cannonballing off the end of the dock. KERPLUNK! The water was cold but it felt good. It woke me up, as if the incident in the basement had been some kind of bad dream.

Except my ankle was still sore. So that part was true.

I figured it was partly Steve's fault, telling me that spooky story. Putting ideas into my head. So I decided to get back at him. It turned out he didn't like to touch bottom in the lake.

“Gross,” he said. “The mud squishes between your toes.”

“What are you afraid of, Steve?”

“I just think it's gross, that's all,” he said.

But he was real jumpy in the water, like he was scared something was going to bite him. Snapping turtles or snakes. I'm a pretty good swimmer—better than Steve, as it turned out—and that gave me an idea.

When Steve wasn't looking, I dove under as quietly as I could and swam in his direction. I reached down, got hold of his big toe, and held on.

Even under water I could hear him yelling bloody murder.

“Help!” he screamed. “Help! It's got me! Help!”

It was great. I held on as long as I could and then let go and broke the surface with a huge splash. I was laughing so hard I had to get out of the water. Steve was beet red.

“Gotcha,” I said.

“That's cheating. I never snuck up on you. All I did was tell a scary story.”

“Hey, Steve!”

I wheeled around. That was a girl's voice calling Steve. It turned out to be this black-haired girl with big, dark eyes. She came down to the landing and stood there with her hands in the pockets of her denim cutoffs. “I heard somebody calling for help,” she said.

“Forget about it, Lucy,” Steve said. He made a face at me to shut up.

“Hi,” I said. “We were just fooling around.” I stuck out my hand. “I'm Jason. Do you live around here, Lucy?”

“My family comes here every summer,” she said, smiling. “I've known Steve since I was six.”

“Careful of him, Lucy.” Steve warned. “Jason's our age but sometimes he acts about six. Or maybe he's possessed by the old witch that haunts that house he's staying in.”

“Whaaat?” Lucy raised her eyebrows at me.

“Steve's just mad 'cause he can't take a joke,” I said.

“Jason's spending the summer in that creepy old place on Cherry Street,” said Steve. “The one that weird old lady used to live in.”

Lucy's eyes widened. “I've heard stories about that place, too. What's it like, living there?”

“What kind of stories?” I asked, my pulse quickening.

Lucy looked away. “Nothing much really. Just silly stuff. You know how people make things up.”

“Go on, Lucy,” urged Steve wickedly. “Tell him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Tell me.” At first I didn't want to know but now I had to, she was acting so mysterious.

“Well,” said Lucy. “A family came to stay in that house last year but they only stayed a couple of days.”

I nodded. Steve had already told me that.

“My parents talked to them just before they left. They said that one night the ghost of an old woman came into their kids' bedroom,” said Lucy. “Although it wasn't an old woman, really, more a skeleton, all bent over and wearing some kind of black cape. She pointed her fingerbone at the little kids and warned them to get out. They said her voice sounded like it came from the grave.”

I snorted. It sounded like another made-up story.

Lucy held up her hand. “That's not the end of it. The ghost then snapped her skeleton fingers and there was a huge clap of thunder and the bed lifted up and turned over on the kids. They thought they were going to suffocate! Their parents found them like that, trapped under the bed. Naturally they left the next day and nobody's been in that house since. Until you.” She looked questioningly at me.

I tried to think of something funny to say but nothing sprang to mind. “There's always stories about old houses,” I finally said dismissively.

“Of course,” said Lucy. “We know there isn't really any such thing as ghosts.”

She had a real nice way of laughing, I noticed.

Lucy took a band off her wrist and pulled her long hair into a ponytail. “The real truth is probably something boring like the kids heard noises all night. All old houses make strange noises. They got scared and made up that story so their parents would leave.”

“Or maybe she threatened to roast the kids like Thanksgiving turkeys,” Steve said with a big laugh, shoving me and then dodging away.

“Or maybe she sneaked in and pinched their toes, scaring them half to death,” I teased.

Lucy looked at us and shrugged. “I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm going for a swim.”

“I'll come, too,” I said.

“I'm waterlogged,” said Steve, dropping into one of the wooden chairs on the little beach.

As we entered the water, I turned to Lucy and asked what she knew about the house on Cherry Street. “Okay, you don't believe in ghosts,” I said. “But was there really an old lady who lived there?”

Lucy nodded, her eyes very serious. “Oh, yes. For years and years. She was kind of crazy, I guess. If a kid so much as stepped on her property she would come out screaming and cursing them. Everybody said she was a witch. But that was a long time ago. I don't remember her at all. She died when I was a little girl.”

I took a deep breath. I had to know. “Did she die in the house?”

Lucy hesitated. “No one really knows. They never found her body.”

15

When I pushed open the door to my bedroom I was thinking pretty hard about what Lucy had told me about the old lady.

Then I stepped inside and my heart went right up into my throat.

The room was in chaos. It looked as if a monster had torn it apart with his bare hands. Stuff I hadn't bothered unpacking was thrown all around. Models I'd left in the boxes were all in pieces, scattered everywhere. My clothes were tied up in knots and draped around, hanging from the bedposts.

Worse, the pillow feathers were everywhere. It looked like a million chickens had been fighting on my bed. The mattress was hidden under a layer of tiny white feathers.

What had really happened here? Who had done this?

I approached the bed cautiously. My pillow had been cut to ribbons and the feathers thrown every which way.

Then I noticed it. Something metal sticking out of the mattress. Slowly I reached out and brushed away feathers.

I jerked my hand away as if I'd been burned.

Mom's super-sharp cutting shears. They were plunged up to the hilt in my mattress—right in the spot my heart would be if I had been sleeping!

I yanked the shears out of the mattress and looked around in a panic. I remembered what Lucy had said—“The kids probably made up the whole story to get their parents to leave.” That's what my parents would think if they saw this mess. That I'd done it myself to prove that weird things started happening the minute we moved into this creepy old house.

Think quick, butter brains. You've got to clean this mess up before they see it. And you'll have to sneak those shears back into the office without getting caught.

First thing, I found a pillowcase and stuffed as many of the loose feathers into it as I could. They were hard to grab and it took forever, but finally the room looked as if only two or three chickens had been fighting, not a million like before.

Next I put the toys and models away, and unknotted my clothes, and put everything back where it was supposed to be. I found another pillow in the closet and hid the one that had been cut up.

All the time I was wondering if maybe Steve had snuck up and done this just to scare me. Was that his idea of a practical joke? Was he just getting even with me for giving him a scare at the lake?

I was going to find out first thing tomorrow, first thing.

Getting the shears back into the office turned out to be not so hard. I put them in an empty shoe box and carried the box downstairs as if I didn't have a care in the world. If anybody asked, I'd say it was my baseball card collection, and everybody was so sick of me making them look at the cards they'd never want to see what was inside the box.

Downstairs I waited until Mom and Dad were both in the kitchen, and then I ducked into the office and closed the door softly.

It was dark in the room and I didn't dare turn on the lamp. Enough light came in the windows from the night sky so I could find my way around. Dad had set up his drafting table, and there were blueprints unfurled on just about every flat surface. Mom's computer was on the desk—you could see the little green warm-up light. All the drafting tools were laid out on the worktable, right where the cutting shears should have been.

I had just put the shears back in place when the lamp snapped on.

“Jay? Looking for something?”

It was my father. He was standing in the doorway, staring at me.

“I, ah, need some rubber bands,” I said. “For my card collection.”

I held up the shoe box.

“How were you going to find them in the dark?” Dad asked.

“I couldn't find the light switch.”

Dad looked at the shoe box and then at me, and he sort of smiled. Like he didn't want to know exactly what I was up to.

“Here,” Dad said, handing me a package of rubber bands. “That's enough for ten card collections.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said.

I was sweating like a pig from relief. Whew! That was a close one. I decided to get back up to my bedroom and make sure all the feathers were cleaned up.

I was passing by Sally's room when I heard her chatting happily.

It sounded like she was talking to someone, but hers was the only voice.

A chill went through me.

I stopped and put my ear to the door. There were pauses as if she was listening and then giggles as if what the other person said was funny.

I tried to shake off the eerie tingle that crept up my spine.

Sally often talked to her dolls, I reminded myself. It sounded just the same. Well, almost the same.

I opened the door as quietly as I could.

Sally was sitting on the floor in front of a coloring book. As I watched, she selected a crayon, held it out, then returned it to the box.

Sally glanced up and smiled when she saw me. “Bobby doesn't like red,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, really,” I said, stepping into the room. There was a second coloring book, I noticed, set out beside Sally's.

“Is that Bobby's book?” I asked.

Sally nodded, blond curls bobbing. “He's a good colorer, isn't he? And he's never even seen a coloring book before today or even a crayon.” Sally giggled as if this was amazing, more amazing than her friend's invisibility.

I leaned over to look at the two books—and caught my breath in shock.

Sally's book looked like her pictures always did—wide swatches of color, none too careful about the lines. The other book showed very careful, short strokes neatly inside the lines.

Someone else had been there, coloring in her book.

16

I snatched up the two coloring books and ran downstairs. Dad was in the living room, reading a magazine. I put the coloring books down on the coffee table and stood back and said, “Look!”

Dad raised his eyes at me. “Some of your handiwork?” he joked.

“Look at them,” I insisted. “They were done by two different kids!”

Dad looked from one to the other. He nodded. “One's very controlled, subdued colors. And this one—obviously Sally's usual wild flamboyance. Very interesting.”

“Then you believe me?”

“Believe you?” Dad looked puzzled. “It's not a matter of believing anything, Jason. I can see they're different. Obviously, Sally's imaginary friend is so important to her she's devised a way to make him seem real by coloring in a style that's almost opposite her own inclinations.” Dad rose from his chair. “I've got to show these to your mother. Amazing.”

I gritted my teeth and pounded my fist on the back of the now-empty chair. What would it take to make them believe me?

But wait. Why should they believe me?

What if I was wrong and they were right? My father's explanation made perfect sense. And I hadn't actually seen a crayon moving through the air by itself, had I?

But what about this morning, when I'd seen the bunny hanging in midair?

What if my eyes were playing tricks on me? Maybe Sally really had been holding the stuffed animal up somehow, pretending she was giving it to Bobby.

But what about the bursting pipes? Was it so strange that old pipes would break?

And what about all the strange noises in the middle of the night? That eerie voice calling my name? Maybe there was a rational explanation for that, too, just like the incident in the basement had been an accident—my foot breaking through a slimy old stair, making me think there was a bony hand grabbing my ankle.