A Gust of Ghosts (16 page)

“You're the one in charge,” Will pointed out. “I think
you
should go upstairs. After all”—he gave her an evil smile—“you're the oldest.”

Franny bit her lip. Then she tossed her head. “All right, I will,” she said, standing up. “But someone needs to come with me.”

Poppy glanced at Will and Henry. Neither of them looked too eager to serve as backup, but they also clearly didn't want to look like cowards.

Will slowly pushed back his chair. “Fine,” he said. “But you're going first.”

Henry picked up a cast-iron pan from the stove. “I'll bring this,” he said. “Just in case.”

As they tiptoed into the living room, Poppy took Rolly's hand. “Come on,” she whispered.

He pulled his hand back and gave her a scornful look. “I'm not a baby,” he said.

Together they brought up the rear.

Franny had only gone halfway across the living room when she stopped so suddenly that Will bumped into her.

“Watch it!” she hissed.

“You were the one who stopped,” he said, forgetting to whisper.

“Shh! Look.” She pointed to the rocker that sat by the front window.

It was moving all by itself.

Poppy felt a shiver race down her backbone. She swallowed hard. “It's a draft,” she said. “That's all.”

With a long, low creaking sound, the closet door swung open.

Franny made a little whimpering sound, and even Will took a step back, treading on Henry's toes.

Henry was too unnerved by the closet door to protest. “It looks like there might be something inside the closet,” he whispered.

“That's ridiculous,” Poppy said, more loudly than she meant to. “I told you, it's just a draft. The air came through that crack in the window, making the rocker move, then flowed across the room—”

“And then opened the closet door,” Will whispered. “Funny kind of draft.”

“I don't like this,” Franny whispered. “I think we should—”

The lights went out.

Franny shrieked.

The lights came back on.

She shrieked again.

“Stop yelling,” said Poppy, trying to sound calm. “You're going to scare Rolly.”

“I'm okay,” Rolly said. He had taken a seat on the floor and was petting Bingo, who was lying on the rug and looking up at him adoringly. “Franny can keep yelling if she wants to.”

“No, she can't,” Poppy said, shooting her sister a warning look. “It's not helpful.”

Franny opened her mouth as if to yell again. Henry said quickly, “Don't worry. The lights flicker at our house when the power grid gets overloaded. It happens a lot during the summer, when everyone's got their air conditioners on—”

“Don't talk to me about air conditioners!” said Franny. “And don't try to make me feel better. There's something going on, I can tell—”

“Shh!” Will held up his hand for silence. “Listen....”

Overhead, the footsteps had started again.

“I don't think that's a draft,” Will whispered.

Poppy stared up at the landing, where a hall light cast strange shadows on the walls. The footsteps were getting closer and closer....

The telephone rang, making them all jump.

“Well, come on,” Franny snapped. “Somebody answer it!”

Poppy squared up her shoulders, then grabbed the receiver before it could ring again.

“Hello?” she said.

For one awful moment, she heard nothing except the sound of someone breathing.

“Hello? Hello? Who is this?” Poppy asked, trying to sound calm.

Then her mother's voice said cheerfully, “Hello, dear! I'm just calling to make sure everything's all right.”

Poppy slumped against the wall in relief. “We're fine, Mom.”

Franny and Will let out the breaths they'd been holding. Henry sat down suddenly on the arm of the couch, as if his knees had suddenly given way.

“Yes, we just finished eating … Of course we'll wash the dishes … No, we're doing fine … Have you found the vortex yet? … Oh well, if it was easy to find, it wouldn't be a mystery, would it? … Okay, thanks for calling … See you later....”

As soon as she hung up, Franny turned on her furiously. “What is wrong with you?” she cried. “Why didn't you tell them to come home right away?”

“Why?” Poppy asked. “Because a rocking chair moved a little bit and we heard the house settling?”

“You were just as scared as the rest of us,” Franny said. “Admit it.”

“No, I wasn't scared,” insisted Poppy. “Because there's nothing to be scared of! You're just letting your imagination run away with you—”

Suddenly a bone-chilling moan echoed through the house, followed by a series of strangled yelps and the sound of heavy footsteps walking down the upstairs hallway toward the stairs.

“I suppose that was my imagination, too!” Franny cried, grabbing Will and pulling him in front of her.

“What are you doing?” asked Will.

“Making sure that whatever's up there gets you first,” she said. “It might give me a few seconds to run away.”

“Thanks a lot, Franny,” said Will, wrenching out of her grasp. “It's good to know that you would sacrifice your own brother to save yourself.”

The footsteps came closer.

“Um, maybe we should all run,” Henry suggested, edging toward the front door. “That way we wouldn't have to worry about who gets killed first.”

Poppy's heart was thumping, but she didn't turn her gaze away from the shadowy landing above them. “Wait,” she said. “Look. Up there.”

The shadows were thickening and swirling about like a thundercloud.

Rolly put his head on one side and stared unblinkingly at the dark foggy shape. “That's what the Phantom in the Crypt-O-Mania video game looks like,” he said. “The one that likes to eat up all the people.”

Will forgot the ghostly presence manifesting on the stairs long enough to say, “No, it's more like the Spectre of Doom. You don't battle him until you get to level twelve—”

“Forget your video games, for heaven's sake!” Franny said. “In case you haven't noticed, we're all going to die!”

As the rest of them watched, the shadows gradually formed into a figure of a man. He began to walk down the stairs, getting one step closer, then two, then three....

Will squeezed his eyes shut, Franny put her hands over her face, and Henry took hold of the doorknob, ready to fling open the front door so that they could all escape. Only Rolly and Poppy kept watching as the figure descended three more steps until it stood next to a wall sconce. The light fell across his horrible, staring face and his mouth that was stretching open, ready to emit another guttural moan.

“What are
you
doing here?” demanded Poppy, her hands on her hips.

“A
h, well you might ask!” Chance Carrington smiled as he floated down a few steps to stand halfway down the stairs. “We've come to stay with you, dear children.” He paused and looked around. “What a lovely home,” he said with a sigh. “This will do quite nicely.”

“Quite nicely for what?” Will asked suspiciously.

Chance stretched out his arms and beamed at them all. “For our new home, of course. Ah, it's good to be back among the living!”

This was greeted with several seconds of silence.

“You mean you're … haunting us?” asked Franny.

“Oh, that word,” said Chance, making a slight face. “It's so, so …”

“Distasteful.” Agnes's tall, thin figure flickered into view near the bookcase. She gave them a stern look over the top of her spectacles. “Unpleasant. Offensive. And, worst of all, technically inaccurate. Ghosts are said to ‘haunt' a place where they used to live or, perhaps, where they died. However, we were able to follow you—”

“Agnes!” Bertha's round figure suddenly appeared at the foot of the stairs, glaring at Agnes. “That's enough.”

“Oh, of course, you're quite right,” Agnes said, blushing. She turned to the bookshelves, peering at the titles to cover her confusion. “Hmm, I'm glad to see you have Dickens … oh, and Shakespeare … excellent....”

Poppy sighed. “I suppose your friends are going to be here any minute?”

“Naturally,” Chance said, lifting his chin haughtily. “One must always travel with one's entire cast....”

One by one, the other ghosts had materialized. Buddy sat on the bottom step of the stairs with his guitar, Peggy Sue found an uncomfortable-looking perch on top of the grandfather clock in the living room, and Travis had straddled the banister at the top of the stairs.

“This is so great,” Henry said, his eyes filled with glee. “
Nothing
like this has ever happened on our block. I bet nothing like this has ever happened in the whole state of Texas.”

“It's not great,” Franny said. “For heaven's sake, don't you know what happens when ghosts take over your house? You can't invite friends over because of all the groans from the attic, you have to wear a sweater all the time because you keep walking into cold spots, no one gets a good night's sleep, thanks to all the mysterious laughter echoing off the walls—it's horrible!”

“Nonsense,” said Chance. “You will scarcely know we are here.'”

Franny crossed her arms. “
Really
,” she said in her most sarcastic voice. “What about all that stomping around upstairs and those weird noises that sounded like a cat trapped inside a bagpipe? Was that an example of scarcely knowing you're here?”

Chance's expression darkened. “Are you perhaps referring to this?”

He opened his mouth and uttered a deep, guttural moan, followed by a series of strangled cries. The effect was, at the very least, startling.

There was a long silence as everyone took a moment to recover.

Then Rolly said, “You sound sick. Are you going to throw up?”

“
Can
a ghost throw up?” Will asked the room.

“They don't eat or drink,” said Henry. “I'd say no.”

Will nodded, conceding the point, then said, “Maybe they vomit ectoplasm—”

“I am
not sick!
” Chance snapped. “That was my gibbering ghost, just one of the many varieties of apparitions I have played in my career. Picture it!” He held out his hands as if sketching the scene in midair. “I step onto an empty stage. All is dark but for a single candle sitting on a table, stage right. I give a hollow groan, followed by a demonic laugh!” He dropped his hands and bowed his head, as if acknowledging a wave of applause. “The audience is gripped with terror!”

“Uh-huh,” said Henry. “Of course, they might have been terrified that you were going to throw up on them.”

The other ghosts burst out laughing.

“I'll have you know that I had audiences too frightened to speak when I played Neville Snively in
A Murderer's Revenge
,” Chance said through clenched teeth. “Not to mention a brief turn as the Ghost in
Hamlet
, of course, and Banquo in the Scottish play—”

“Don't let him get started or we'll be up all night, listening to him talk about every play he's ever been in,” Bertha warned Poppy. “Now, I would love to take a quick peek at your kitchen, if it's not too much trouble.”

“Yes, we'll just take a quick look around,” Agnes said. “I promise, we won't touch a thing.”

They glided down the hall and through the kitchen door. They heard Agnes exclaim, “Oh my, just look at that stove!” and then the door swung closed once more.

Peggy Sue floated gaily toward the upstairs landing. “I saw the bathroom as soon as we got here,” she said with delight. “I can't wait to take a real bubble bath again! I don't even mind sleeping in the bathtub!”

Franny's mouth dropped open. “But you
can't
,” she protested. “That's our only bathroom.”

“Don't worry, I won't be long,” Peggy Sue called over her shoulder as she drifted out of sight. “Ta-ta!”

Travis slid down the banister, jumping off at the end and landing next to Will. “I figured we could share a room,” he said brightly.

Will's mouth opened, as if he were about to say something, then closed.

“You don't mind, do you, Will?” Travis asked.

Will tried to speak again, then gave up and closed his mouth again.

“Stop doing that,” Poppy whispered. “You look like a fish.”

She turned to face Chance head on. “You said that if we cleaned up the cemetery, you would let us film you.
In the cemetery
. Not here, in our house.”