A Gust of Ghosts (22 page)

She glanced around the room. It had high ceilings and tall windows. A thick blue rug was covered with gold stars, and gold-framed paintings hung on pale blue walls. Mr. Farley and his great-aunt were seated on spindly chairs in front of a marble fireplace, with the Malones perched on even spindlier chairs on either side of them.

There was a small table for the tea service, but no place to set down the teacups or small plates of cookies, so the Malones had to balance these in their hands and on their knees as they talked. Once again, Poppy had the feeling that this was deliberate, to make them feel uncomfortable and ill at ease.

Judging by Mrs. Malone's breathless conversation, it was working.

“And so we went in search of a vortex, which for all we know is there, although we haven't found evidence of it yet,” she was saying, “but anyway, as we were out there looking around, we saw this mysterious glow in the distance and so we followed it, but it kept retreating, just as if it knew we were there and wanted to escape, or perhaps lead us into a bog where we would drown. That's always a possibility, you know, when you encounter the uncanny—”

Mrs. Farley put her cup into its saucer with a small clink. “It sounds,” she said, enunciating each word precisely, “like marsh gas.”

Mrs. Malone's mouth hung open for a moment. She recovered quickly, however, saying, “Yes, yes, we thought of that, and you might be right. But, you know, it might
not
be marsh gas. Surely it deserves investigation....”

Her voice trailed off as Mrs. Farley slowly shook her head.

“I'm afraid not,” she said with a faint smile that, Poppy could now see, was not kind at all. “Do you have anything else?”

Mr. and Mrs. Malone exchanged anxious looks.

“Well, er, there was an incident with vampires,” Mr. Malone began muttering.

“Stop.” Mrs. Farley held up one slim white hand. She looked right at Mr. Malone, and her gray eyes were no longer mild. Now they were the gray of a battleship, one that had guns poking out along its rails. “My great-nephew told me about the alleged vampire episode. It doesn't really come anywhere near the standards of a professional investigation, does it?”

“Um, well, perhaps not,” said Mr. Malone in a low voice.

A surge of fury swept through Poppy. It was so strong that she forgot about being intimidated by the granite columns and the bronze door and the lack of small tables to put a teacup on.

She put her teacup on the floor, stood up, and said loudly, “I have something to show you, Mrs. Farley.”

Mr. Malone caught Poppy's eye, frowned, and shook his head. “Actually, I don't think you do, Poppy,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Yes,” said Poppy calmly, pulling the DVD out of her backpack. “And it's very important.”

“I'm sure it is, Poppy, dear, but perhaps this isn't quite the time to share it,” said Mrs. Malone, smiling nervously at Mrs. Farley.

Poppy took a deep breath. She could sense her parents' tension, but she did her best to ignore it. Instead, she focused on Mrs. Farley's gray eyes. They weren't mild, as they had been in the beginning, but they were no longer battleship gray, either. They looked sharp and interested and the tiniest bit quizzical.

“Well,” Mrs. Farley said. “Go on, then. Let's see it.”

Poppy's hand shook a little as she inserted her disc into the DVD player that Mr. Farley had wheeled in from another room. As she pressed Play, she crossed her fingers for luck.

Not that she believed in such superstitions, of course, but there was no reason to test that now....

Poppy, Will, and Franny sat absolutely still during the ten minutes it took to show the film. Every once in a while, Poppy sneaked a peek at her parents, who were staring at the screen with their mouths hanging open.

First there was Poppy's voice-over, dryly giving the facts of the investigation: where the cemetery was located, what equipment was used, what readings were collected. Then, close-ups of the gravestones.

Poppy heard Franny's sharp intake of breath when Chance's headstone was shown and saw Will tilt his head to one side when the glowing angel—or baby with wings, depending on how you looked at it—appeared on the screen.

Then the ghosts themselves appeared, talking to the camera, completely at ease.

“I made my first pound cake when I was twelve years old,” Bertha was saying.

“I made mine when I was eleven,” Agnes added.

“That depends on which birth date you use,” Bertha said tartly.

“I think we're getting off topic,” Agnes said. “What did you ask, Poppy dear? Oh, what kinds of things we did growing up …”

And there was Buddy, swinging on the porch, singing (fortunately) one of his happier songs. Then Travis, demonstrating how to make a slingshot from a willow branch and then shooting a pebble into the air. (Poppy had edited out the crash as the pebble hit a neighbor's front window. That incident, she felt, should remain a neighborhood mystery.)

There was Peggy Sue, talking (in great detail) about her prom dress and how she had fixed her hair.

And there was Chance, giving the whole “To be or not to be” speech from start to finish, and doing it magnificently.

When the film ended, Poppy bit her lip and blinked. She never would have imagined that she would actually miss the ghosts of Shady Rest Cemetery....

Mrs. Malone broke the silence. “Children! I had no idea! Why didn't you tell us you were working on your own investigation?”

“We were
going
to, but then—well, we wanted it to be a surprise,” Poppy said.

“I can't believe it!” Poppy said. “I simply
cannot
believe it.”

“Calm down,” said Will. “Mom and Dad get to keep the grant, we don't have to move, Mrs. Farley thinks we're all adorable. Everything's right with the world.”

The Malones had finished dinner and Rolly had been put to bed. Poppy, Will, and Franny were now sitting in Henry's tree house, nibbling on sugar cookies that Mrs. Rivera had baked that morning (Henry had thoughtfully raided the cookie jar before meeting them).

“But did you hear what Mrs. Farley said to Mom and Dad as we left?” Poppy asked indignantly.

“Of course we did,” Will said. “Can we talk about something else, please?
Anything
else?”

“I didn't hear what she said,” Henry put in. “Not the exact words, anyway.”

Poppy sat up a little straighter and pursed her mouth in what she thought was a good impression of Mrs. Farley. “‘You must be proud to have such loyal children, Dr. and Dr. Malone,'” Poppy said in a prissy tone. “‘And so inventive! To fake a film of ghosts in order to help you keep your grant is moving. But to do it so well is remarkable. They must be experts with computer software. If I were you, I would definitely encourage them on that path. Yes, indeed.'”

Poppy slumped back against the tree trunk. “And then she closed that big stupid door.”

“So your parents kept their grant because Mrs. Farley was impressed by your video, even though she thought it was a fake.” Henry started to laugh.

“It's not funny,” Poppy said crossly.

“No,” he agreed. “But it
is
ironic. Which is actually better, I think. Humor's way too easy.”

“The worst thing is that Mom and Dad think we faked the movie, too,” Franny said gloomily. “They said they understood why we did it and that they were touched by our efforts and that it all turned out well in the end.”

“Then they made us listen to an endless lecture about professional ethics and standards,” Will added. “And how wrong it is to fake evidence—”

“Which we didn't do!” Poppy almost shouted.

“Calm down, Poppy.” Franny took another cookie. “You know what your real problem is? You miss the ghosts.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

“We all do,” said Will. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but—”

“I know,” Henry said. “I kind of want them back.”

Poppy shook her head adamantly. “Look, we couldn't go on having six ghosts in the house,” she said. “They were attracting too much attention. Sooner or later, the word would get out that our house was haunted. And you know what would happen
then
.”

Will and Franny nodded, their faces grave. They knew. TV and newspaper reporters calling for interviews, families driving slowly past their house and peering out the car windows at them, teenagers daring each other to run up on the porch at midnight....

“It would have been a nightmare,” Franny said. “But still—”

Poppy didn't let her finish. “A complete nightmare,” she said firmly. “Imagine what the first day of school would have been like. We would all be marked before the opening assembly.”

Will nodded. “And with Travis around, I would have been in trouble all the time. I would have been grounded for the rest of my life.”

A faraway look crept into his eyes. “It might have been kind of funny to soap the neighbors' windows, though—”

“No, it wouldn't,” Poppy said briskly. “We did the right thing. The
only
thing. And I'm sure they're all much happier back in the graveyard. After all, that's where they belong, really.”

“It is,” Henry said slowly. “But I've been thinking, and what I think is that I have an idea....”

“W
hy should we bother talking to you?” Chance said. He was leaning against his grave marker, his arms folded, frowning down at the Malones. Rolly could be heard in the distance, playing tag with Bingo, but the other ghosts sat still and silent, refusing to even look up. “You got what you wanted. So now, begone with you!”

He flung his arm out, as if he wanted to scatter them to the four corners of the earth.

“Don't be that way,” Franny pleaded. “We miss you.”

“Hmmph. You have a funny way of showing it, that's all I can say,” Bertha grumbled.

Agnes nodded agreement. She was too hurt to talk.

“We can't be friends anymore,” Travis said coldly. “You tricked us, with those stupid spirit traps.”

“Well, you tricked us first,” Poppy pointed out. “You said you'd help us with Mrs. Farley if we cleaned up the graveyard. You didn't tell us that you were trapped here by all the brambles and broken branches. You didn't mention that, as soon as the paths were clear, you'd leave the cemetery and come haunt us!”

Small smiles flickered on the ghosts' faces.

“It was a good plan,” Buddy said.

“It was a
great
plan,” Chance corrected him.

“And it was so much fun to be out and about.” Agnes sighed.

“Trying out new recipes,” Bertha added.

“Hanging out with kids my age,” Travis said.

“Riding in all those new cars,” Peggy Sue said dreamily.

“Sittin' on my own front porch, watching the world go by and playing my guitar,” Buddy said.

Poppy glanced at Will, Franny, and Henry. “Look, we've been thinking,” she said. “You can see why we can't have a house full of ghosts. But it seems like what you
really
want is company. And that's something we can help you with.”

Chance's eyebrows went up. “Can you?” he said. “How, exactly?”

“Come right this way,” said Mrs. Rivera, waving a flashlight in the air. “The Graveyard Friends tour is about to begin.”

The last rays of the sun had disappeared an hour ago. It was a dark night in the Shady Rest Cemetery, with just a sliver of moon shining on the gray headstones.

A crowd of thirty people jostled one another as they gathered at the rusty cemetery gate, where Franny stood ready to take their tickets. She was dressed in a 1950s prom dress (an homage to the legend of the Hitchhiking Prom Queen), and her blond hair (freshly washed and curled) shone in the moonlight.

When Mrs. Rivera gave her the signal, Franny opened the gate (which made a satisfyingly rusty creak) and let the crowd in. The dark night and spooky setting led some visitors to chat nervously to one another, at least until they reached the tomb where Mrs. Rivera waited for them.

“Please do not speak unless absolutely necessary,” said Mrs. Rivera in a commanding voice. “The spirits need to feel peace and quiet and goodwill before they will appear to those of us still on the material plane.”

All the conversation died away. Mrs. Rivera waited until the deep quiet of the countryside had thoroughly unnerved everyone.

Then she pointed her flashlight at the ground so that she could guide their feet without casting much light among the gravestones. “And so,” she said in a low, mysterious voice, “now we begin.”

Poppy huddled with Will and Henry behind Travis's gravestone, watching Chance pace nervously around his grave marker.

“Are you all right?” Poppy whispered.