The Ghostly Hideaway (3 page)

“Listen! I thought I heard someone in the house."
That was Penny. Ed opened and closed the nearest hallway door.

“I heard a door close!” Chrissy enthused. “Somebody
must be coming. I hope Dad comes back around, soon. They might
think he’s snooping around or something.”

Edward was having a good time playing tricks on his
family until he heard a door close with a loud bang on the second
floor. Suddenly, he was rooted to the spot and stood looking up the
stairway for someone to come down and want to know what the hell he
was doing in their house. He continued to stand there for several
moments but nothing else happened and no more sounds emanated from
the upper regions. He sneaked back down the hallway and then walked
with a heavy tread toward the front door.

“Somebody’s coming to the door." That was Candy.

“I hear them, too." Andy chimed in. “It must be
whoever moved the curtain upstairs. It sure did take them a long
time to get down to answer the door.

About that time, the door opened very slowly and Ed
was grinning widely as the door creaked and groaned as if on cue.
“Well, hello, there. Do come in,” Ed laughed loudly at the shocked
looks on the faces of his wife and kids. The laughter was
short-lived, though, because at that precise moment, the upstairs
door banged again. Five pairs of eyes stared in apprehension
at—nothing. Again. As they were about to relax, the front door
banged shut loudly behind them. Finally, they were able to shake
off the shivers and make their way back to the kitchen.

“There’s plenty of food in the pantry, Penny. And
the electric stove looks as though it would work fine. Any way
there’re dirty pans that seem to have been used for cooking. I
don’t know what we should do. Do you?”

“I’m not sure we have much of a choice. We either
take shelter here and wait for the owners to come back or we spend
the night in the car after we get soaked to the skin getting there.
That doesn’t seem to be much of a choice, do you think?”

“I suppose we can offer to pay for whatever supplies
we use or any inconvenience we might cause. I can wash up the dirty
dishes. That should be some incentive to let us stay." Chrissy set
about stacking the dishes and running water in the sink.

“There’s a freezer in here in the pantry, too,”
Penny said as she opened the lid, “and I see some frozen hot dogs
we could boil for supper. We will eat crackers with them unless we
find some buns or bread.”

The twins were happy. “Yay, hot dogs.”

“But I need mustard with mine." Candy opened the
refrigerator and immediately spied the mustard jar. She preferred
the kind you squeeze on the hot dog but this would be fine.

“Chrissy, wash this pan next, Honey, and I’ll use it
to boil the wieners in.”

While the rest of them were working in the kitchen,
Ed decided he would look around. At the immediate end of the
hallway a door opened into a half bath and laundry room combined.
In that room was a stool, a lavatory, a slop sink, a washer and a
dryer. He opened the first door on the right as he started down the
hall toward the front door and found a small sitting room. In that
area, he saw a fireplace, some overstuffed chairs, a few extremely
dusty tables, a sewing basket, and a rocking chair. A few braided
rugs on the floor and a few pictures with cobwebs woven over them
completed the décor.

On the opposite side of the hall, the door opened
into a well-stocked linen closet. Sheets, blankets, pillowcases,
tablecloths, quilts, extra pillows, towels, washcloths, and other
linens were stacked neatly.

The next room on the right served as an
office/library with a desk and chair, a couple of filing cabinets,
and some straight backed chairs. The bookshelves that lined three
walls of the room were filled with all types of books from
dictionaries to Tom Sawyer to Modern Romances and Shakespeare.
Several volumes that looked like legal reference books were piled
on the floor.

On one side of the front door was a formal living
room and on the other side was an informal family room. Both
contained couches, lounging chairs, dusty tables and paintings
festooned with cobwebs. In the family room were an old-looking
television and a huge fireplace while the living room across the
hall contained a piano and a large Persian-looking rug.

Ed looked long and hard at the stairway before he
ventured up the steps to the second floor. Four of the rooms on
this floor were bedrooms with two bathrooms opening into the hall,
which ran the full length of the house as it did on the first
floor. The bed in the front bedroom was unmade and articles of
men’s clothing were strewn around on the floor, the chairs, and the
furniture. The closet contained an area devoted to women’s dresses
and accessories none of which was out of place. The other end held
a few pieces of men’s clothing and several empty wire hangers.
Hanging on the closet doorknob was a sloppily hung, out-dated suit.
Dust had accumulated on the shoulders of the jacket and the pants
had, in addition to the three pleats on each side of the fly, many
wrinkles, and the deep cuffs on the pants were partly wrong side
out. The once-white dress shirt was yellowed with age and was in a
heap on the floor beneath where the suit was hanging. One dresser
seemed to hold only neatly folded women's things. The one on the
opposite wall had open drawers with men’s under garments hanging
here and there across them.

At the back of that second-floor hallway were the
steps that went up to the third floor. The other three bedrooms
appeared to be ‘spare’ guest bedrooms; however, they were fully
furnished with beds, dressers, chests of drawers, and other
necessary furniture.

“Ed, are you upstairs?” Penny called. When he
answered in the affirmative, she continued. “The hot dogs are
ready."

Chrissy had also found some cans of soup and the
meal was quite simple but filling. While they ate, Ed told them
what he had found while he was exploring. They were eating in the
dining room because the kitchen table was too small for the five of
them. Penny had found a fire ready to light in the dining room
fireplace and since the dampness had seeped in from the outside,
she had decided to light it not so much for warmth as for
cheeriness and to dispel the musty dank smell.

"Only one bedroom is in use. The others look as
though they haven’t been used for some time. There are sheets,
blankets, and other bedclothes in the linen closet in the hall, so
we shouldn’t be without a place to sleep. We may want to go up
there and do some dusting and cobweb sweeping before bedtime. If it
quits raining, I’d suggest opening the windows and letting them air
out, too.”

They were startled again by the slamming of a door
on the second floor; but it sounded like it came from the doors
near the rear of the house instead of the front as it had
before.

“Does anyone know anything about getting rid of
ghosts?” Penny laughed nervously.

As night began to fall and no one came to see who
was in the house, they began to think about going to bed. Penny and
Chrissy had cleaned up the supper mess and Ed and the twins had
gone to see if the television worked. Surprisingly, it did get a
decent picture on three different stations and two or three more
that were somewhat fuzzy. But it beat nothing all to pieces.

Chrissy and her mother were somewhat nervous as they
climbed the stairs to see about preparing the beds for sleeping.
Nothing except dusty coverlets was on any of the beds other than
the one in the room that had been used most recently. They did
sweep down many of the cobwebs and dusted what they could in all
three rooms. They decided not to disturb the front bedroom and
leave it as it had been when they arrived earlier. They had decided
that the bedroom on the other side of the hall from the one that
someone had been using would work well for Ed and Penny. The one
next to it on the same side would be good for the twins. It even
had twin beds in it. The room across the hall from the twins should
work fine for Chrissy. They went back downstairs to get armloads of
bed linens to make up the beds they would use. The two of them
managed to turn over the mattresses and spread fresh sheets and
blankets on them.

It was still raining cats and dogs outside so they
would all need to ‘borrow’ something to sleep in, since no one had
wanted to get out in the rain to get their suitcases out of the
SUV.

While they were making up the bed that she would
sleep in, Chrissy made the remark, “Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if one
of our ghost friends would go get our suitcases for us?"

Penny laughed, “I don’t think we’ll hold our
breaths, though, do you?”

They went back downstairs and sat for a while in the
family room watching the T.V. with the others. When the news and
weather went off, they decided it was bedtime.

“I wonder if it’s still raining,” Ed murmured and
went to look out the front door on the way up the stairs. “What in
the—? Where did these come from? These look like our suitcases; but
I would have sworn I locked the car."

“I saw you lock the car, Eddie. But these are
definitely our suitcases. Did one of you all go after these? You
couldn’t have; we’ve been together all evening. I just don’t
understand this at all.”

“Mom, don’t you remember? I said I wished one of our
ghost friends would get them for us. I guess they did." Her laugh
sounded somewhat strained and nobody else seemed to find much humor
in her statement either. Eventually, though, they locked the
downstairs doors and, taking the luggage, went up to bed.

The next morning, they all declared they had slept
soundly with no disturbances during the night. The sun was shining
through a foggy haze but shining, nevertheless. Ed walked down the
muddy road to check on the car and the trailer. Everything was
locked and looked undisturbed just as they had left it except for
the suitcases. He had forgotten his jacket that he had hung over a
chair back in the kitchen with the keys in the pocket so he
couldn’t get in to check anything but it all seemed to be fine.

He reported this to the others when he returned and
then checked his jacket pocket in which the keys still resided.
“Well, I wish we had some gas for the car so we could drive it on
up to the house. It would make it a lot handier to unload stuff,
wouldn’t it?”

Penny agreed. “If you had your lawn mower out of the
trailer, you could improve the way the yard looks. Maybe if we’ve
made enough improvements when the owner returns he won’t be too mad
about our staying here.

“I guess I could push the mower that far. After
breakfast, I’ll take the keys and go get it.”

Penny made pancakes for breakfast along with some
frozen sausage she found in the freezer. They had located some
syrup and margarine in the refrigerator so they had another good
meal. While Penny and Chrissy cleaned up again, Ed took the keys
and went back up the road to get the mower. He unlocked the
driver’s door to check that everything was as they had left it and
was about to go to the trailer and unlock it when he noticed the
strong smell of gasoline. He looked at the gas gauge and then stood
with his mouth hanging open in total disbelief.
It’s almost half
full! The gas tank is almost half full!
He was sure any minute
he would wake up and all this would have been a dream. But when he
turned the ignition, the engine roared to life. He slowly closed
the car door, put it in gear, and pulled on up the road to the
front of the house. He was still shaking his head when he went back
into the house.

“Penny, let’s be damn careful what we wish for
around here.”

“You sure weren’t gone very long. Did you get the
lawn mower already? Wait, where are we going?" Ed was still nearly
speechless with surprise. He pulled Penny by the arm to the front
door and pointed to the vehicle parked by the front gate.

“Oh, it did have enough gas to get it up the lane
this far. Well, that’s just wonderful!”

“Penny, it’s got at least five gallons of gas in it.
The gas tank is almost half full.”

“Oh, it can’t be,” she laughed. “We drove at least a
hundred and fifty miles since we stopped at the filling station.
And I had been watching the arrow creep down to empty for the last
ten or twenty miles. When it stopped the arrow dropped down below
the empty mark. There’s no way it can have that much gas in
it."

Ed took her by the hand, led her out to the SUV, and
again pointed to the gas gauge. Penny felt her knees go weak and if
Ed hadn’t been holding her, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have
fallen.

“This is so weird. It’s unbelievable! Chrissy wished
for our suitcases and there they were. You wished for gas in the
car and it’s got plenty. This isn’t possible." By this time, the
kids were out there and Andy decided it was his turn to ask for
something.

“I wish I had a hambur—“

Penny slapped her hand over his mouth. “We mustn’t
do that. There’s no telling what might happen if we ask for too
much,” she cautioned. “I think somebody is being awfully nice to
us. Let’s see if we can make enough improvements around here to
show them we appreciate their kindness in helping us.”

Ed got the mower out of the trailer and began
cleaning the yard. Penny found a broom and was sweeping the porch
when the twins yelled from around on the side of the house where
none of them had been before.

“Look what we found,” they exclaimed in unison when
the rest had followed them around the house. A small chicken house
stood in the corner of the yard with hen’s nests and roost poles.
Some of the nests had eggs in them and several hens and a rooster
were scratching in the yard...

“Now we can have eggs for breakfast,” Candy said
excitedly.

Ed had thought he heard a rooster crow earlier while
they were still in bed, but figured it was probably his
imagination. Yes, the eggs would sure come in handy. Chrissy found
a small box in the car and they gathered the eggs, took them into
the house, and put them in the refrigerator.