Ghosts of Rathburn Park

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Too bad because…Well, because he had a whole lot of questions he needed to ask her, and things to tell her about. One thing he really needed to tell her was what had happened that Saturday afternoon, because there was an important part of it that he couldn’t discuss with anyone else. And that was the part about Rover. No one else would believe for a minute that, if it hadn’t been for Rover, Matt wouldn’t have stopped to look around and notice the pickup way down there on the service road. And if he hadn’t, Justin probably would have been in the truck when it went over the cliff.

  It was only a few days later that in spite of the powerful No votes, Courtney came home with a puppy. Matt didn’t know how she managed it, except he was pretty sure the tears had something to do with it. Anybody who could cry that hard and look that good while she was doing it could get around a whole lot of negative votes.

  Anyway, Matt was sitting on the front steps when Courtney and the puppy arrived, and it was a pretty exciting moment. Courtney was—well, you can imagine what a person would be feeling like who had spent her whole childhood grieving because she couldn’t have a dog, and then suddenly could—and did. The grinning Greek mask didn’t even touch it.

  The puppy, whom Courtney had named Dusty, was a few weeks old and he looked like no particular brand of dog that Matt knew about. His mother, Taffy, looked a little like some kind of spaniel, but the word was that Dusty’s father had been more of a terrier, and the result was something that looked like a small, lively haystack. Obviously a mutt, but a mutt with a pedigreed personality according to Courtney, and Matt agreed she was right about that.

  Matt and Courtney went on sitting on the front steps while the puppy played on the lawn, chasing a tennis ball and running in circles and falling over his own big feet.

  “And he has another special kind of pedigree,” Courtney told Matt. “A Timber City pedigree.” And when Matt asked what that was, she went on, “Well, according to Brittany’s mom, Taffy’s ancestors have lived in Timber City for a whole lot of generations. Like maybe ten or twelve. I mean just about every family who has lived here for a long time has owned one of Taffy’s ancestors. And even though they’re no special breed anymore, they’re all especially brilliant.”

  It was just about then that the puppy started running in circles, chasing his tail. He went on chasing it until he ran headfirst into the gatepost and fell over. When he sat back up, he was looking kind of cockeyed and woozy.

  “Yeah,” Matt said, grinning. “Real brilliant, all right.”

  Matt and Courtney sat on the front steps watching the puppy for a long time that day. Every few minutes he would run back where they were sitting, and now and then Courtney would pick him up and hold him on her lap. Matt played with Dusty too, but Courtney asked Matt not to pick him up, at least not for a few days, because he was her dog and she wanted him to imprint on her.

  “Brittany’s mother knows a lot about raising dogs,” Courtney told Matt, “and she says that when a puppy is first adopted, it needs to pick out one person to imprint on. And he is my puppy.”

  Matt got the picture. But even if Dusty wasn’t actually his, it was still pretty cool having a dog in the immediate family after so many years without one.

  As the days passed some things seemed to be changing for the better, at least for some people. Justin started playing baseball with the Timber City Tigers and he got to be a pitcher right away, just like back in Six Palms. Around home he’d started talking more too. Especially to Matt. He talked to Matt about baseball almost every day, like about his great new split-fingered pitch, and a couple of times he even talked about the book on Daniel Boone that Matt was reading.

  And Courtney had a lot of new stuff to do too, like playing with Dusty, and going swimming and partying with people Brittany had introduced her to.

  But for Matt himself nothing had changed all that much. There were still some sleepless nights and some lonely days, which he tended to spend staring into space while he thought about Rathburn Park and who and what he might, or might not, see the next time he was allowed to go there.

  But finally, on a foggy Tuesday morning in late August, Matt’s last bandage came off and he got permission to ride his bicycle to the park again.

  The weather had definitely changed. Halfway down the drive Matt stopped and went back for a jacket and it wasn’t until then that he remembered the key and locket. As he fished them out from under his socks and boxer shorts he told himself that if he couldn’t find Amelia he might at least be able to find a way to leave them where she would be sure to find them.

  The fog became deeper and damper as Matt pedaled toward the park. Along the road, houses and barns and trees that had always been in plain view were now no more than vague shadows, and here and there ghostly white wisps drifted across dips in the road. Inside the park the change was even more noticeable. Swirling clouds hung low over the deserted parking lot, and all around it the treetops seemed to rise out of a foggy ocean. On the narrow path that led to the ruined church, a heavy mist almost like rain dripped on Matt’s head and trickled down the back of his neck.

  Just as he’d been warning himself to expect, no one answered when he called from the side entrance of the church. Called Amelia, and then Rover, and then Amelia again. No answer. So what next? On the one hand, he would be breaking his promise again if he went in, but on the other, he had a pretty good excuse this time. Two excuses, actually. The first one concerned finding a good place to leave the locket, and the second one could be about needing to get in out of the rain. Rehearsing how he could explain very quickly if Amelia happened to show up, he slithered in along the wall, pulled open the door and once again stepped into Old Tom’s cabin.

  This time there was a change, an important one, and Matt noticed it the moment the door closed behind him. The trunk was unlocked. The lid was closed, the latch was down, but there was no padlock. The moment he saw it, even before he crossed the room and squatted down in front of the trunk, he knew the difference was an important one. Important, and somehow threatening. Wishing he didn’t have to, but knowing he did, he reached out and raised the lid.

  The trunk was empty. No hats or dresses. Nothing except a tiny wisp of a peacock feather that had once been attached to a fancy old hat. Picking up the wisp of feather, Matt knelt there staring at it for only a minute before he knew what he was going to do next. Knew, not why exactly, but only what. He was going to go to the Rathburn Palace to look for Amelia. Why he was going to do it was a question he’d have to find an answer to later.

  Slamming the door of the cabin behind him, he almost stumbled into the booby trap pit as he hurried around the wall. Then he ran in an uncomfortable crouch through the drizzly tunnel path, and continued to run, at top speed now, across the parking lot and the ballpark. He didn’t slow down until he reached the edge of the swamp.

  Twenty-five

  THE SWAMP. AS HE stood on the slimy bank looking out at the murky water, its scattered reedy islands barely visible in the thick fog, Matt tried to remember not Frankie and his awful fate, but Amelia’s assurance that it was easy if you just remembered to keep moving. Then he was moving, jumping from one squashy clump of reeds to the next, and on again, without pausing even for a second. And very soon he was clambering up the other bank and stopping for only a moment of self-congratulation before making his way to the gate that led onto the Palace grounds.

  Still feeling unusually confident because of his easy triumph over the swamp, he was halfway through the overgrown garden before he stopped to look up. Up to the clutter of fancy towers and balconies, and then down to where, not far away now, a broad stairway led up to the wide veranda and the Palace’s grand double-doored entryway.

  What did he think he was doing? Was he really planning to march right up and ring the doorbell? And then what? When someone came to the door, would he ask to see a girl named Amelia—a girl who, according to Mrs. Hardacre, didn’t exist? Or if she did exist, maybe not in the way most ordinary people did.


  Turning back, Matt scooted into the underbrush, squatted down and began to give the matter some serious thought. It didn’t take long to decide that the grand front entrance would not be a possibility. Instead—what? A few minutes later he was making his way around the house to where a broken basement window could be easily opened if you had been shown, and remembered, how to do it.

  Matt did remember how, but it wasn’t a very easy thing to do with no one to hold the window open as he scooted through. It was with a scraped knee and a slightly banged head and elbow that he finally made his way down to the basement floor—and complete darkness.

  He’d forgotten about that. Forgotten the darkness—but fortunately… Fishing in his pocket, he brought out a key chain that held his house key, a small screwdriver and a tiny flashlight—the kind that is supposed to give you just enough light to find a keyhole on a dark night. But not really enough, he soon discovered, to light your way through a maze of underground storage rooms. Bumbling along, bumping into chests, boxes and barrels, Matt tried not to recall the nightmare he’d had about being in the Palace basement and stumbling over the bodies of dead and almost dead animals.

  He made his way through several rooms that he vaguely remembered. The one that smelled of aging wine, and the ones where large pieces of furniture sat around covered by ghostly white sheets. He had just passed what looked to be a large sheet-draped armoire when, with no warning at all, rough clawlike fingers reached out from nowhere and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Let me go. Let me go,” Matt gasped. Shocked and terror-stricken, he ducked and squirmed, trying to pull away. But the big hands were strong and very firm.

  “No chance, kid,” a deep, rumbling voice said. “You’re coming with me.” And then, with one big hand still on Matt’s shoulder and the other twisting his left arm up behind his back, Matt was being pushed up some stairs, through a door and out into a hall. Into the immense grand hallway with its gilded pillars, stained-glass windows and gold-framed mirrors.

  It wasn’t until then that Matt saw the large, shaggy-haired man who had captured him. Saw him not face to face, but in several mirrors as they made their way down the hall and then up another wide flight of stairs.

  Matt tried once or twice to plead his case, saying things like, “Hey, mister. Please let me go. I’m not a robber or anything. I was just…”

  “Yeah? Just what?”

  “Just trying to talk to Amelia. Please, just ask her. Ask Amelia. She’ll tell you who I am.”

  There was no answer except for a snorting laugh. “That’s a good one. Well, that’s what we’re going to do, kid. That’s exactly where we’re going.” And then the shaggy old man was knocking on a door. A sharp-faced woman in a white uniform opened it and Matt was pushed forward into a room.

  The large room was dimly lit and smelled of antiseptics and stale perfume. There was a bed at one end of the room, and at the other the sharp-faced woman who had opened the door had moved back to stand next to a wheelchair. And in the chair a thin old woman dressed in shiny black was frowning sternly in Matt’s direction. The woman’s face was deeply wrinkled, but her small dark eyes were bright and quick. Her frown deepened as she said, “Well, well, Ernie. What have we here?”

  “A boy, ma’am,” the big old man said. “Found him creeping around in the basement. Said he wanted to talk to…” He paused and chuckled. “To talk to Amelia.”

  “Did you indeed? In our basement?” She turned to Matt. “You have some explaining to do, young man,” she said. “You might begin by telling us why you wanted to talk to me.”

  For a moment all Matt could do was shake his head. “No. No, ma’am. Not you. I wanted to talk to…” He held out his hand to indicate someone about his height. “To the girl who lives here.”

  “The girl? What girl would that be?” And then suddenly, “Ah yes, I think I understand.” She turned toward the woman in the white uniform. “Freda,” she said, “do you know anything about this? Could this concern your Dolly?”

  The woman named Freda shook her head. “I don’t think so, ma’am. Don’t see how it could. But….” Her eyes narrowed and so did her thin lips. “But we’ll soon find out.” She turned away, hurried across the room and out the door, and a moment later Matt heard a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. A harsh, angry voice calling, “Dolly. Dolly. Dolly.”

  They waited, with the big man still gripping Matt’s shoulders and the woman in the wheelchair still looking at him curiously. Now and then she asked questions like “What is your name, boy?”

  “Matt, ma’am.” No point in lying now. They could easily find out who he was. “Matthew Hamilton.”

  “And where is your home, Matthew?”

  “In Timber City, ma’am. On Rathburn Avenue.”

  “And tell me how you managed to get into my basement.”

  That was harder. He didn’t want to blame it on…to say who it was who had shown him how to get in through the broken window. He was still stammering, trying to find something to say that would be believable, when suddenly the door to the hall flew open with a bang and two people burst into the room. The bigger one was the woman in the white uniform and the other was—Amelia. The wild-eyed girl who called herself Amelia was struggling to pull free from the woman’s grasp.

  The same Amelia for sure and certain, even though she looked different and somehow smaller in jeans and a T-shirt, and in the midst of a fierce struggle with a large, determined-looking woman.

  “Let go of me, Grandma,” Amelia was saying. “I didn’t do anything. Why do I have to—” It wasn’t until then that she looked up and saw Matt and for a second seemed to freeze. To freeze, to stare at Matt as if in horror and then to go limp. A moment later she was lying on the floor in a silent, motionless heap while the woman in the white uniform and the shaggy-haired man bent over her. The other woman, the one in the wheelchair, was also moving her chair toward them, looking startled and concerned.

  Suddenly left to his own devices, Matt moved closer, watching the woman in white roll Amelia onto her back, feel her pulse and pat her cheeks. He was worried too, at least at first, but before long he began to suspect something. To suspect that maybe Amelia wasn’t as unconscious as she looked. He didn’t know why, at least not exactly, except that he had reason to know that where Amelia was concerned, things usually weren’t what they seemed.

  “Smelling salts,” the woman in the chair was calling. “Get my smelling salts, Freda.”

  It was then, while the woman in white was jumping to her feet and rushing out of the room, and the man was adjusting the other Amelia’s wheelchair, that Matt moved closer, and whispered, “Amelia. Hey, Amelia. It’s me.”

  And Amelia whispered back. Opening one eye, she barely mouthed, “Get out of here. Run!” And Matt did.

  Easing toward the door, he tiptoed out, down the stairs, down the long hallway and another grander flight of stairs to some huge double doors. He managed to pull one of them open, shot out across the veranda and on down to the ground. He stopped then just long enough to glance back over his shoulder, to listen for sounds of pursuit. Nothing. He went on running.

  Twenty-six

  WITH THE PALACE BEHIND him, and soon afterward the swamp as well, Matt’s pace finally slowed. As he went on, walking slowly, it was only his mind that was racing, worrying, puzzling and questioning. And beginning to come up with some possible answers.

  As he walked across the ball field he concentrated on asking himself who Amelia, or whoever, really was. By the time he’d reached the parking lot he had decided that she was not Amelia at all, probably not even a Rathburn. She was probably the granddaughter of the nurse woman called Freda. And her name was…It didn’t seem possible that her name was actually Dolly.

  The fog had lifted somewhat and as he passed the beginning of the path that led to the graveyard Matt suddenly stopped to stare. To stare down the path and then, without knowing why, to turn down it. A few minutes later he was kneeling in the gra
ss beside Old Tom’s grave—and the other grave that was probably Rover’s.

  Pushing the weeds and ivy away from Rover’s tombstone, he began to whisper. “So that’s it, Rover,” he said. “So she’s just a liar. A girl who likes to pretend she’s somebody more important than she really is.” He shrugged angrily. “Well, she sure fooled me.”

  He was still feeling angry, at the would-be Amelia, and at himself, too, for having been fooled for so long, when he suddenly jumped to his feet and whirled around to face the path. He’d heard something—the sound of running feet. The sound quickly grew louder and Matt was still frozen with surprise and fright when Amelia burst into view. Amelia—or whoever. Sliding to a stop, she stared at him, and then slowly turned in a circle like she was looking for something or someone else.

  “So,” Matt finally managed to say. “Are you all right? Did you faint, or what?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing happened to me. I was just pretending. I’m good at pretending.” She grinned. “It worked, didn’t it? They thought I was…” She shrugged again and went on, “I don’t know what they thought, but right after you escaped I did too. I just jumped up and ran. And as soon as I got outside I started looking for you, but you’d already gone.” She stopped and once again turned in a circle.

  Matt was feeling angry again. “So,” he said. “So you’re not Amelia after all. Okay. What should I call you?”

  She turned toward him angrily and then shrugged, curling her lower lip. “Right,” she said. “My real name is Dolly Davis. And sometimes I live with my grandmother, who is Freda Davis, R.N. As in Registered Nurse.” She shook her head. “Can you believe it? Do I look like a Dolly to you?”

  Matt found it hard to keep from grinning. “Well, no, you don’t, actually,” he said. “So what should I call you?”