A Gust of Ghosts (4 page)

She heard a mysterious rustling in the grass behind her and tried not to imagine what it might be.

And she heard the owl hoot again, a sound that seemed even more eerie with her eyes closed.

Her thoughts wandered to what her mother had said. Some cultures believe that owls are guardians of the afterlife … they help souls transition from this plane of existence to the next....

Poppy shivered slightly. She knew, of course, that the owl was simply letting other owls know that they shouldn't think of hunting in his territory. But now, sitting in a dark graveyard, it was easy to imagine that it was calling out to the spirits it was charged with helping, guiding them on their path home.

The owl hooted again.

There's nothing to be afraid of, she reminded herself. There's nothing here. Nothing at all.

The tree branches above Poppy's head shook violently.

She looked up, afraid that she would see a wild animal staring down at her, but the tree was empty.

“Did anyone else hear something moving in these branches?” Poppy asked, edging her way from under the tree.

“It was probably just a squirrel,” said Mr. Malone, his eyes closed. “You have to expect wildlife when you go out into the wild.”

“Or it could have been an evil wraith bent on driving us all insane,” suggested Will, who had once more stretched out on the ground in front of the granite headstone.

“Will, please, not in front of—” Mrs. Malone tilted her head toward Rolly.

“What?” Will asked innocently. “I'm just offering an alternate theory, in case the squirrel hypothesis doesn't work out.”

“Are there bad ghosts here?” asked Rolly, who sounded curious rather than scared.

“Of course not, darling,” said Mrs. Malone. She opened her eyes to give him a reassuring look. “And even if there were, your father and I would simply”—she waved her hand in the air—“banish them!”

Rolly fixed her with an unblinking stare. “How?”

Mrs. Malone looked flustered. “Why, by using the, er, Gliffenberger Technique, of course.” She cast a desperate glance at Mr. Malone. “Isn't that right, Emerson?”

“Hmm, what?” Mr. Malone opened one eye. “Oh yes, right. Gets rid of ghosts practically before you know you've got them.” He closed his eye again.

“You've never said anything about a Gliffenberger Technique before,” said Poppy. “Is it hard to do? How does it work?”

“Oh, you burn a smudge stick, say a few incantations, that sort of thing,” said Mrs. Malone vaguely. “It's quite simple, really.”

“But how—” Poppy began.

“Now, now, enough talk about the Gliffenberger Technique,” said Mrs. Malone hastily. She stood up and brushed dirt off her clothes. “After all, we're here to attract ghosts, not to banish them, so let's get started! I can feel it in my bones—tonight is going to be an exciting night.”

U
nfortunately, Mrs. Malone's bones had, as Franny had predicted, once more led her astray. Two hours later, Poppy was doing her best to stifle her yawns and Will wasn't bothering to stifle his. Rolly had fallen asleep next to the hole he'd dug, still clutching the silver ladle with a fierce grip. Franny was surreptitiously filing her nails in the shadows of the cypress tree. Even Mr. and Mrs. Malone were beginning to look tired.

Finally Mr. Malone stood up, stretched, and said, “It doesn't seem that we're going to get anywhere tonight. We might as well go home.”

“I suppose you're right,” Mrs. Malone said, her tone wavering between disappointment and relief.

“Thank goodness,” Franny said. “I can't wait to go home and take a shower. Of course, I've lost hours of sleep, which means that tomorrow I will look absolutely
haggard
.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Malone as she began gathering up the empty coffee thermos and crumpled soda cans. “You're thirteen. You couldn't look haggard if you tried. Franny, take Rolly to the car, please. Will, pack up the magnetometer and the EVP recorder. Poppy, can you set up your camera trap? If we leave it here overnight, we may capture a manifestation on film.”

Poppy scrambled to her feet and grabbed the special camera trap that she had modified at her parents' request. A normal camera trap snaps a picture when its infrared motion detector picks up the presence of an animal or person. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well with ghosts, which don't have physical bodies to be detected. Poppy had invented a camera trap that would start recording video when the temperature dropped more than twenty degrees in a minute or when a compass needle began spinning wildly due to a sudden fluctuation in the electromagnetic field. It had only been tested twice and had not yet managed to capture any spirits on film. Still, she had enjoyed tinkering with it and had secret hopes that someday there might be a practical use for it.

She found a sturdy tree branch to set the camera trap on, then glanced at the angel statue to make sure the lens was pointing at it. The night sky had started to cloud up, making the stone look even duller and more ordinary.

And then a cloud shifted and, in the sudden moonlight, the angel began to radiate a cool, silvery glow.

“Look!” Mrs. Malone gasped.

Mr. Malone grabbed the video camera and began fumbling with the buttons. “I'll need to zoom in on that,” he muttered.

Poppy stared at the statue, her heart beating faster. She took a deep breath, counted to three, then walked toward it.

“Stand still, everyone, I'm filming....” Mr. Malone lifted his head from the viewfinder. “Poppy, get out of the way! You're in the frame.”

“I just want to get a closer look,” she said, not bothering to turn around. She pulled her magnifying glass out of her backpack and leaned closer to the headstone.

“There's moss on this part of the statue,” said Poppy.

“I don't care about the moss!” Mr. Malone yelled. “I need to document this—oh, blast! Lucille, I just lost the picture!”

“Maybe it's phosphorescent,” Poppy murmured. “That would explain why it glows in the dark, although I wonder why it doesn't glow
all
the time—”

“Wa-ha-ha!” A gruesome head popped up behind the gravestone, staring wildly from dark, hollow eyes, its mouth stretched wide in a horrible grimace. “Who dares disturb my graaave?”

“Or maybe there's some kind of mineral in the stone that reflects light,” Poppy said, without looking up. “If I had to guess, I'd say it's mica.”

“You scientists sure are a blast to hang out with.” Will lowered the flashlight he had been holding under his chin.

“Sorry,” she said with a slight grin. “But I stopped falling for that trick when I was five.”

He came out from behind the gravestone. “Well, at least you could let Mom and Dad have a little fun before you tell them the ghost is nothing but mica.”

“Or moss,” Poppy said. “I haven't determined the cause. And anyway—”

“Nothing I'm doing is working!” Mr. Malone shouted. “Blast, blast, and double blast!”

“Cursing at the camera won't fix it, Emerson,” said Mrs. Malone. “Why don't you let me take a look—”

“I knew we should have bought a new one when they went on sale,” Mr. Malone said, casting a reproachful glance at Mrs. Malone. “We could easily have waited a month to buy all those new sheets and blankets—”

“Proper bedding is necessary for a civilized existence,” Mrs. Malone said, “and I don't see anything wrong with this camera.”

She paused, then added, “Oh, Emerson! I just thought of something! This could actually be a wonderful sign!”

“A sign that we should have bought a new camera?” he asked grumpily.

“No, no, listen,” she said excitedly. “Maybe the camera's
not
broken. Maybe the spirits are interfering with it in some way! After all, one sign that a ghost is present—”

“Is electrical equipment going haywire!” said Mr. Malone, his eyes brightening. “You're absolutely right, Lucille, as usual. Forget the video camera. Let's see if we can get any of the other cameras to work. If none of them will take a picture, we may have evidence that we're experiencing a haunting....”

“Anyway,” Poppy said again, “I don't think anything could spoil Mom and Dad's fun. They'd figure out a way to prove that an apple falling from a tree is a sign of paranormal activity.”

Will stepped back in order to gaze up at the statue. “I don't know, that looks pretty spooky,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe there really is something weird happening at this cemetery.”

“
Maybe
doesn't mean anything,” she answered. “Try proving it.”

“Okay,” he said, with the air of someone accepting a challenge. “Give me that tape recorder.”

She rolled her eyes but reached into her backpack and handed him the recorder. As she went back to her examination of the statue, Will spoke into the microphone. “Hellooo. Is there anyone there? Anyone at all?”

He held the tape recorder out in front of him, as if inviting an unseen presence to speak.

Poppy calmly moved her magnifying glass to a different part of the statue, squinting and trying to remember the difference between lichen and moss.

“I don't hear anything,” she said. “Do you?”

“Speak now or forever hold your peace,” said Will loudly.

“Do be careful, dear,” Mrs. Malone called out from where she and Mr. Malone were pulling cameras from the equipment box. “Ghosts are people, you know, even if they are dead. They don't appreciate being hectored.”

“Shh!” Will held up a hand for silence. “If you are here, tell us who you are.
And tell us what you want from us!
”

He looked around wildly, as if hoping to see a sudden manifestation.

The only sound was that of digital cameras clicking away.

“Well, there's your answer,” Poppy said. “Dead silence. So to speak.”

“Ha-ha.” Will turned off the recorder and stuck it in his pocket. “I think you should leave the jokes to me.”

“So, if you're finished talking to the dead, can you help me out with something?” she asked. “Turn your flashlight toward this area. I think the stone might have quartz chips in it. They might reflect light and make the gravestone look as if it's glowing.”

He sighed but trained the flashlight beam where she pointed. “So. We hoped to find ghosts or ghouls or, at the very least, a screaming banshee bent on revenge. And instead, you are going to write up a report about moss.”

“Or mica,” Poppy said absently. “I'm not sure yet.”

Will shook his head. “Not an ounce of romance in your soul. It's just so, so sad.”

He craned his neck to look over her shoulder at the words carved beneath the angel. “‘Travis Clay Smith,'” he read out loud. “‘May 12, 1950—February 14, 1960.'”

Poppy glanced down. She had been so busy examining the rock that she hadn't noticed the epitaph. “He was only ten,” she said. She looked at the dates again and did some quick mental math. “Nine and three-quarters, actually. Just like us.”

Will nodded solemnly. “I wonder what he died of.”

Poppy read the rest of the inscription. “‘Our Darling Angel.' Hmm. Not much of a clue there.” She shrugged. “I guess we could look up his obituary at the library if we really wanted to know.”

“Don't say that, even as a joke,” said Will, shuddering. “I'm going to have nightmares about the microfiche room for years.”

Poppy knelt down on the ground. “I'm going to take a sample of this moss,” she said, pulling a penknife out of her backpack. “Maybe I can get a piece of the stone, too, if I can do it without damaging the statue....”

Will wasn't listening. He tilted his head back to examine the statue, which was still giving off a soft light. “I bet Travis hates having that on top of his gravestone,” he said.

“Why?”

“He was a boy,” said Will, as if stating something that should be obvious to the dimmest mind.

Poppy gave him a look. “Yeah, so?”

“So what boy would want an angel marking his grave? Especially one that looks”—Will made a disgusted gesture toward the statue—“like
that
.”

Poppy sat back on her heels and looked up at the little angel. It had tiny wings, chubby cheeks, and small, plump hands (one of which held a carefully carved stone rose). It stood balanced on one toe, with the other foot lifted behind, as if it were performing a pirouette in a ballet. It was wearing a short tunic that fell to just above its dimpled knees.

“You're right,” she said. “If there's a restless spirit in this graveyard, I bet it's Travis Clay Smith.”

As soon as she said that, a breeze blew through the trees, bringing with it a sudden chill. As quickly as it came, the breeze was gone, leaving the familiar smell of grass and the heat of a Texas night.