Ghosts of Rathburn Park

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “Wow,” Matt said. “Your friend saw a girl in a long white dress in the graveyard?”

  “Well, actually in this case my informant described it as blue. A pale, lacy blue. The dress, that is. But long, ankle-length, and he did mention a big hat and a veil. Sounded similar. That’s why I bit on this one. Two sources are always better than one. Don’t you agree, Mr. Hamilton?”

  “Oh yes,” Matt said. “Two sources are better for historians, too.” He went on to say that he was planning to be a writer of history books. Red Sinclair seemed interested, but just as Matt was about to mention some of the historical periods he was especially interested in, Mr. Sinclair said he thought they ought to stop talking so as not to scare off the ghost if she happened to be nearby, and Matt had to agree that was probably a good idea.

  For a while Matt only watched from just outside the fence while Mr. Sinclair tramped around looking at gravestones and taking notes. Matt couldn’t help being impressed. With all that camera equipment hanging around his neck and bulging the pockets of his safari vest, Red Sinclair certainly looked like a famous newspaper reporter. When he came back and sat down on the rail fence, Matt joined him, and for several minutes they just sat there quietly waiting—and wondering. Waiting to see if the ghost was going to show up and wondering—at least Matt was wondering—about a girl ghost who wore a big hat with a veil.

  He was also wondering how he could ask Mr. Sinclair some important questions without giving away a lot of secrets. Amelia’s secrets mostly, but some personal ones too. Questions that would require some embarrassing explanations, like, for instance, how he, Matthew Hamilton, happened to meet a girl in a big floppy hat with a veil, inside a ruined church on strictly “No Trespassing” private property.

  After they’d been quiet for a while without anything happening, Mr. Sinclair said he’d have to go, but he gave Matt his card and said to keep in touch. “And if you meet up with anything ghostly, either human or canine, please let me know.”

  Matt said he would.

  Sixteen

  AFTER HE WATCHED RED Sinclair’s old jeep disappear down the road, Matt pushed his bike back to the No Trespassing sign. There, at the beginning of the trail to the ruined church, he paused long enough to look around one more time just to be sure no one was watching. Nobody was. The coast was clear. Now that the jeep was gone, there was not a single car in the parking lot.

  No one around. Not a living soul. Something about the not a living soul idea made a small shiver sneak up the back of his neck. He didn’t exactly know why. Having the whole park to himself was actually a lucky break. A little bit lonely, maybe, and even kind of unnatural, but lucky in that there wouldn’t be anyone around to point out the No Trespassing sign and mention that the ruins were on private property. Matt shivered again before he checked out the whole area one last time and pushed his bike around the No Trespassing sign and on down the narrow, overgrown path that led to the church.

  Under the broken arch of the narthex he stopped again to park and lock his bike, and then to look and listen, to peer into the vine-draped jungle that filled the huge, roofless room, and to listen to that special breathless silence he’d noticed before in historic places, particularly deserted ones. A silence that was like the people who had passed that way long ago were holding their breath as they listened and watched. Thinking about all those invisible watchers was pretty interesting. Matt shivered. Under the circumstances, almost too interesting. Backing quickly out of the entryway, he ducked into Amelia’s secret pathway, which led around to the side entrance.

  Arriving at the smaller entryway, Matt again peered into the large, roofless enclosure that had once been the main part of the church. From there, just as he remembered, one slanted wall of Old Tom’s cabin was in plain view, and not that far away.

  Matt couldn’t help being tempted. On the one hand, he was sure he remembered how to get to the cabin door safely, by staying back against the church wall until he was almost there, to avoid the booby trap. On the other hand, he’d promised Amelia that he wouldn’t go into the cabin by himself. And besides the promise, there was the danger, according to Amelia, that the ghost of Old Tom would get him if he did.

  With his back pressed against the stone wall, Matt went over what Amelia had said on the subject exactly as he remembered it, word for word. “Old Tom’s ghost would get you for sure if you came here by yourself,” she’d said. But of course Matt hadn’t believed it, at least not after he’d had a chance to think about it. To think and wonder why a ghost would bother to “get” a particular person and leave someone else alone. The whole thing, he decided, was pretty hard to swallow, particularly for a person who didn’t believe in ghosts to begin with.

  So what was he going to do right now, right at this very moment? The thing was—for some strange reason he really wanted to see the cabin again. He didn’t know why or what he expected to find there. Amelia maybe? Amelia herself, sitting in Old Tom’s broken rocking chair. He could picture her clearly, sitting in the chair and rocking slowly back and forth. Amelia in a long white dress and a big floppy hat…

  Suddenly, impulsively, Matt leaned forward and called her name. Called, softly at first, and then just a little more loudly. “Amelia. Are you in there?” No answer. No answer except maybe a deepening of the breathless silence. So he tried again, but still not very loudly. Somehow it didn’t seem right, or even possible, to shout in a church. Even a deserted one. Or maybe, especially in a deserted one.

  He waited a while before he called one last time. Taking a deep breath, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called, but this time, not for Amelia. This time, without even deciding to, he opened his mouth and what came out was “Rover.”

  “Rover.” The word echoed once, twice, faded away, and once again the listening silence deepened. Deepened, and lengthened until another sound seeped through. A faint murmur, or maybe a whimper, so slight and unreal that Matt wondered if it had come from his own throat.

  He didn’t try it again. Instead, he ducked into the bushy tunnel and scurried back to the main entrance—and his bicycle. Opening the bike’s canvas pannier, he took out a pencil and notebook, thought for a minute and then began to write.

  Hi, Amelia. It’s Monday morning around eleven o’clock. I have to go home now, but I’ll try to be back tomorrow or maybe Wednesday around nine-thirty. Okay?

  Matt

  P.S. I didn’t go into the cabin.

  The next problem was where to leave the note. It had to be someplace where the wind wouldn’t blow it away and yet where Amelia would be likely to see it. Looking around the narthex, Matt found plenty of nooks and crannies where one could hide a note. But in this case, a hiding place wasn’t what he had in mind. The piece of paper needed to be where Amelia couldn’t possibly miss it.

  Giving up on the narthex, Matt made his way back through the tunnel path to the side door, and then suddenly, thinking only about a place to leave the note, he began to inch his way on into the church itself.

  He didn’t do it on purpose. It was more like he was following somebody, or something, that was leading the way. Holding the carefully folded note out in front of him, like a not-too-welcome guest at a fancy party might hold out his invitation, he sidled along the wall, skirted the crumbling edge of the booby trap pit, pushed open the cabin door on its rusty, creaking hinges and then there he was, inside the cabin—all by himself. Just where he’d promised he wouldn’t be. Inside the rough wooden walls and under the sagging roof where Old Tom had lived and died, and where his dog, Rover, had returned night after night to wait and watch for his dead master to return.

  Matt’s throat thickened and his eyes began to burn as he looked at the rusty iron cot, the rickety old table, the broken rocking chair and the metal-banded trunk. Then he turned back again to stare at the cot until what he was actually seeing blurred into a scene in which a small, shaggy dog sat with his chin resting on the edge of an empty bed. Matt shook his head, blinked, and Mrs. McDougall
’s painting faded away. He swallowed hard and shook his head again, forcing his mind back to the problem of the moment—the problem of where to leave the note.

  He was still trying to decide where Amelia would be certain to see it when his eyes happened to light on—the trunk. A nice flat surface, safely out of the wind, and very noticeable. He could leave the note right there, on top of Old Tom’s trunk.

  The note was in place, one edge of the paper tucked under a metal band, and Matt was getting to his feet when he noticed the bone. A large, old bone, chewed clean and dry, was lying right beside the iron cot. Surely he would have seen it when he was there before—if it had been there before.

  Picking up the bone, Matt was examining it carefully, turning it back and forth in his hands, when he began to hear a faint whimpering murmur. Maybe a baby bird’s call, but maybe not. He froze, motionless, except for turning his head from side to side to catch even the faintest rustle.

  What was it? The sound came again, faint and pleading. Matt was about to say, “It’s all right. I won’t take it,” when the whimper suddenly became a yelp, followed closely by a noise of an entirely different nature. This sound was loud and definite, a metallic clatter followed by a heavy thud.

  Dropping the bone and jumping to his feet, Matt hurried out of the cabin, out of the church and onto the tunnel path, where he ran, stooping and dodging, back to where his bicycle was…gone!

  Well, not entirely gone. The bike was there, but it wasn’t leaning against the narthex wall where he definitely had left it. A few feet down the trail, the bike was lying on its side. A bunch of pens and paper had spilled out of the pannier, there was a new dent in the hind fender and the front wheel was still slowly spinning.

  Seventeen

  THERE WAS A LOT to think about. A lot of puzzling questions to be asked and answered, but not right away. At least not until he’d opened the lock, turning the dial with shaky fingers, put it away in the pannier, pushed the bike down the trail to the parking lot, jumped on and headed for home. And no answers even then, at least not while his mind was still busy warning him to watch for stop signs and lumber trucks and, at the same time, reminding him over and over again that he was seriously late.

  Even after he was safely home, it was quite a while before he was able to arrive at any useful explanations of what had happened at the ruined church. The problem was that, from the moment he walked into his own house, there was too much other stuff to be considered. Stuff like whether Justin was still determined to go to the coast with Lance on Saturday night even if he didn’t have permission. And whether Courtney was still in mourning because the Hamilton family was about to self-destruct.

  Matt was home, establishing an alibi by standing around outside on the back porch. Standing around long enough so he could say, “Oh, I’ve been home for quite a while,” if anybody mentioned how late he was. He was still on the back porch when he began hearing voices.

  The voices were Dad’s and Justin’s, and the subject was…Matt crept silently across the porch to the kitchen door. Right at first it was hard to catch the exact words, but the general tone was pretty easy to interpret. Dad and Justin were definitely having a really serious argument. But then, loud and clear, Justin said, “Yeah, I hear you, Dad. But the thing is, that’s a lie. All of it. Who told you that stuff?”

  Frozen in his tracks, Matt couldn’t help listening—and trying to figure out whether things were getting better or worse. Worse, judging by the anger in Justin’s voice. Or maybe better? At least he was talking instead of refusing to say anything to anybody.

  Putting his ear to the edge of the door, Matt heard Dad’s answer. “Some people told your mother originally and then—”

  “Oh sure,” Justin interrupted. “Those club ladies, I bet. All those old women who hate people like Lance just because he doesn’t…” Justin hushed then as if he’d guessed someone was listening, so Matt scooted back to bang the door and walk noisily across the back porch. When he came into the kitchen Justin was on his way out of the room and he didn’t stop or look back when Matt said, “Oh, hi, Justin.”

  Dad was standing by the sink with a glass of water in his hand. He smiled at Matt in a distant, disconnected way and went on looking toward where Justin had disappeared. After a minute or two, Matt went on through the kitchen toward the sound of another conversation.

  This time the voices were Mom’s and Courtney’s, and they went right on talking when Matt came into the living room. The first thing Matt noticed was that Courtney had definitely stopped doing the Greek tragedy bit. Actually, Matt decided after checking her out again, she seemed to have changed the wailing mask for the grinning one.

  “Well, we mustn’t get our hopes up.” Mom didn’t sound quite as overjoyed. “We’ve tried other treatment programs before without much success and…” She stopped when she saw Matt. “Matthew! Where on earth have you been? I’ve been worrying about you.”

  “Oh, hi,” Matt said, so busy wondering if someone had come up with a cure for whatever was ailing Justin, he even forgot to use the “Oh, I’ve been home for quite a while” alibi. Instead, he only said, “What kind of treatment?”

  “For allergies.” Courtney’s smile was cover-girl bright and shiny. “For my allergies.”

  “Oh. Oh sure, your allergies.” He tried not to grin. He knew Courtney’s allergies weren’t funny, but he couldn’t help being pleased that, at the moment, the new allergy treatment seemed to have taken Mom’s mind off the time of day. The definitely-too-late time of day.

  It wasn’t until evening when he was alone in his own room that Matt was able to get down to making sense of it all. Or at least start trying to. To make some sense out of what was going on in Rathburn Park as well as right there in the Hamilton family.

  Sitting in his favorite spot on the window seat, he looked out at the twisted oak tree and the smooth sweep of lawn and waited for the soft, green silence to make his mind stop jittering from one thing to another and get down to business.

  First of all, there was Red Sinclair’s ghost story to think about. A story about a ghostly girl wearing a long, old-fashioned dress and a big hat with a veil who had been haunting the graveyard and Rathburn Park.

  Closing his eyes, he could bring back sharply and cleanly his first meeting with Amelia, when she had suddenly appeared behind him, dressed in a frilly, old-fashioned blouse and skirt and a big, floppy hat tied on with a veil. It was that memory that brought with it the alarming possibility that what Red Sinclair’s informants had actually seen was—Amelia. And even more disturbing, if they had seen Amelia, did it mean they only thought they’d seen a ghost? Or—and this was the weirdest possibility—could it mean that Amelia really was what they thought she was? It was a thought that made a strange tingle crawl up Matt’s backbone and right on up the back of his head.

  He shook his head hard, thinking that was just plain crazy. Amelia couldn’t be a ghost. Not that he, Matt Hamilton, was any kind of authority on the subject, but everything he’d ever read or heard about ghosts made it clear that they tended to be pretty flimsy, unsubstantial characters. Like you could walk right through one and not feel a thing, except maybe a kind of hair-raising chill. Bringing to mind how Amelia had jerked him around by the back of his shirt, Matt knew for sure that, ghost or not, there wasn’t anything flimsy about Amelia.

  But that still left some other mysteries, like what had happened to the bicycle, for instance. In the few minutes it had taken him to run around the church and leave the note in Old Tom’s cabin, someone not too unsubstantial had managed to throw the locked bicycle two or three yards away from where he’d left it.

  And then there was the Dolly question. The only thing Matt knew for certain about Dolly was that he was positive he had heard someone in the Palace calling her name. And when he’d asked Amelia about her, she had said, “Dolly is just a ghost.”

  So if there was a ghost and her name was Dolly, where did she come from, and how did Amelia happen to know abou
t her?

  And then there was the bone. A clean-looking, frayed-at-the-edges bone that looked like…Well, what it definitely reminded Matt of was an old ham bone that Shadow used to carry around Mrs. McDougall’s backyard. A bone that looked like it had been chewed on for a long time. But the important questions for Matt were how long it had been lying there beside Old Tom’s cot, and why he hadn’t noticed it before.

  The questions, all of them, kept parading through Matt’s mind, one after the other, and then as it got later and he got sleepier, began mixing together in a senseless jumble.

  It was quite late when he woke up in the middle of a nightmare to find he’d forgotten to go to bed. Curled up in an uncomfortable position on the window seat, he woke up to find that his right arm had gone to sleep and his head was full of scenes from a nightmare. A vivid, Technicolor nightmare in which a purple pickup truck was stopping in front of the house and Justin was going out and climbing into it. Mom and Dad had been in the dream too, standing in the front yard in their pajamas shouting at Justin to come back. And as the truck drove away with Justin in it, Matt could see that there wasn’t anyone behind the wheel. The truck was driving itself.

  Eighteen

  ON WEDNESDAY MATT’S BIKE ride to Rathburn Park once again wasn’t hard to arrange. Mom had taken Courtney to see the new allergy doctor, Dad was having a meeting that would probably last most of the day, and right after Dad left, Justin disappeared too. Matt didn’t see him leave, but he hoped it hadn’t been in a purple pickup.

  It was a hot July day. Almost as hot as summer in Six Palms. But as Matt pedaled toward the park, his mind wasn’t on the weather. Instead it kept doing a mental rerun of the part of the nightmare where Justin climbed into the cab of the truck and roared away into the night with nobody behind the wheel. But as soon as he turned in at the park, the pickup truck nightmare began to fade. As he parked and locked his bike in the narthex of the old church other worries began to take over. Living, wide-awake nightmares, for instance, like the one that brought to mind the P.S. he’d added to his note to Amelia. The one he’d jotted down in a hurry to say he hadn’t been inside Old Tom’s cabin. And which he’d wound up leaving right there in the cabin on top of the old trunk. How was he going to explain that?