A Haunting Collection

by Mary Downing Hahn

  That afternoon, three couples, all friends of the Jenningses, arrived and requested rooms. Mrs. Jennings had told them about the ghost sighting and they were full of questions. Grandmother became increasingly annoyed, but no matter what she said, the new guests refused to be discouraged. If the Jenningses had seen a ghost, the ghost was real. And they wanted to see it themselves.

  “Aren’t you glad you have more guests?” Corey asked at dinnertime.

  “Not if they’re coming to see ghosts,” Grandmother said. “They’re bound to be disappointed.” Sipping her iced tea, her expression as sour as a lemon, she regarded the four couples huddled around a table by the window.

  Mrs. Jennings was describing the screaming phantom to her friends. “It pointed right at me, and cursed me. Not George. Me. It cursed me.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Mrs. Bennett, one of the new guests, gasped. “You must have been terrified.”

  As Mrs. Jennings shivered, Mr. Jennings said, “You should have seen its eyes. They were red, and they glowed like hellfire.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Grandmother muttered more to herself than to Corey and me. “This is getting more ridiculous by the moment.”

  Without waiting for Tracy to bring coffee, she left the dining room. The others followed her outside, chatting noisily. Corey went to the library to read, and I followed Tracy into the kitchen.

  “Do you think Mrs. Jennings really saw a ghost?” I asked.

  She looked up from a sinkful of soapy dishes. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “But I can’t be sure unless I see it myself.”

  “Wouldn’t you be scared?” I was hoping she’d say yes and faint in my arms or something, but she merely shrugged. Without even looking at me, she said, “Ghosts can’t hurt you.”

  Mrs. Brewster laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Unless you want to help Tracy clean up,” she said, “I suggest you find someone else to talk to.”

  Taking the hint, I left Tracy to her dishes and went outside. Grandmother was sitting in a lawn chair, enjoying the last of the sunset, Robert and Tim were playing a relaxed game of tennis, and Mr. Nelson had settled himself in a rocking chair, his face hidden behind the evening paper. The Jennings party was seated in a circle, taking turns reading from the haunted inns book.

  No one noticed me stroll across the lawn to the haunted grove—as Mr. and Mrs. Jennings now called it. The sun had just sunk behind the mountains, and the air was growing cool and damp. A breeze rustled the leaves, and a bird called. As I stood in the shadows, looking at the inn, I had a sudden feeling I wasn’t alone.

  Expecting to see my sister, I glanced behind me. No one was there, but the feeling lingered. “Corey?”

  I peered into the shadows gathering under the trees. For a second, I thought I saw something duck out of sight behind one of the tall oaks.

  “Hey,” I called. “I see you.” My voice sounded loud in the quiet evening—and a little high pitched, almost as though I was scared. Which, of course, I wasn’t.

  No one answered. Leaves rustled, and something on the ground snapped—maybe a branch cracking under a foot, maybe an animal scurrying past unseen.

  With a shiver, I left the grove and hurried back to the inn. I told myself I’d heard a squirrel or a bird. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been watching me.

  5

  In the middle of a bad dream, I woke up to see a hideous face hanging over me in the dark.

  “Wake up, Travis,” it moaned. “It’s time to go to the grove.”

  “No, no!” I pushed the thing away from me, only to hear it laugh.

  “Fooled you,” Corey crowed.

  “Brat,” I muttered, too embarrassed to come up with a clever retort.

  “It’s time for the ghost to walk.” Corey glided toward the door.

  Shoving my blankets aside, I got out of bed and tiptoed outside behind my fearless sister. As soon as I stepped into the shadows under the trees, I began to shiver, just as I had earlier. The night seemed darker here, colder, spookier. The leaves whispered, the shadows shifted and changed and formed new shapes.

  I glanced at Corey, but she didn’t appear to notice anything out of the ordinary. With a giggle, she danced across the grass, waving her arms dramatically, her head thrown back, her filmy nightgown fluttering. Just as she had the previous night, she stopped suddenly, turned toward the inn, and screamed loudly. The echo made it sound as if a dozen ghosts—or a hundred peacocks—were shrieking an answer.

  With one more piercing scream, Corey fled into the shadows, and the two of us raced back to the inn. Again, I sensed someone close by, not just watching me this time but following me. Someone silent and swift, darker even than the night. I wanted to look back, just to prove nothing was there, but I didn’t dare.

  Corey usually outran me, but a surge of adrenaline sent me speeding into the inn well ahead of her.

  I dove into bed just before Grandmother poked her head into my room. “Travis?” she whispered, “are you awake?”

  I lay still, eyes tightly closed, breathing deep, regular breaths.

  She closed my door, and I heard her go to my sister’s room. “Corey?”

  No answer. I pictured Corey huddled under the covers, made up to look like a ghost from your worst nightmare, and hoped Grandmother wouldn’t pull the blankets back.

  Soon I heard Grandmother return to her bedroom—where she probably lay awake pondering the noisy peacocks down the road.

  I snuggled deeper into bed. Between talking about the hauntings and playing the ghost game, I’d set myself up to imagine I’d been watched in the grove and followed to the inn. As Grandmother said about the Jenningses, I was obviously susceptible. Nothing was in the grove. Nothing had followed me. It was ridiculous. I was ridiculous.

  But what was that noise in the hall? Was someone standing just outside my room, ear pressed to my door? I lay still and listened so hard my ears buzzed. Nothing. . . . No, not nothing. A tiny creak, a flutter in the air, a cold draft across my face, a whisper of sound almost like a giggle.

  “Corey, is that you?” I sat up and peered into the darkness. I was alone in my room.

  Feeling foolish, I lay back down and pulled the blanket over my head. The loudest sound was my heart pounding. I might as well have been five years old.

  In the morning, the guests gathered in the dining room to talk about the screaming ghost. The newcomers were almost too excited to eat the waffles Mrs. Brewster had prepared.

  After Grandmother left the room to take a phone call, Tracy came to our table. “I heard the scream last night.” She smoothed her hair back behind her ears and grinned. “Tonight, I’m going to camp out in the grove—I want to see the ghost for myself. You know, up close and personal.”

  Corey and I glanced at each other, frozen for a second. “You’d better not,” I said. “No matter what you think, that ghost is definitely dangerous.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Tracy laughed.

  Mrs. Brewster stuck her head out of the kitchen and gestured to the bicyclists’ table. Tracy turned and noticed Robert holding up his coffee cup. “Excuse me,” she murmured to Corey and me. “I’d better get back to work before the old battle-ax fires me.”

  As Tracy fetched coffee for Robert, Corey and I left the inn and settled into a pair of Adirondack chairs at the shady end of the lawn. “Do you think she’ll go to the grove tonight?” Corey asked.

  “If she does, she won’t see anything.”

  “What do you mean?” Corey frowned as if she suspected I was about to edge her out of the starring role in our little drama.

  “We’ll be inside,” I said, “trying some new tricks. Footsteps. Doors opening and shutting. Sobs and moans and spooky laughter.”

  We got up and ambled across the lawn, talking about things we could do with flashlights and string and sound effects. Without noticing where we were going, we ended up in the grove. Even in the daylight, it was a gloomy place. The shade seemed too dark, the air too cold, t
oo still. Moss grew thick on the damp ground and furred the tree trunks. Toadstools sprouted everywhere, some red, some yellow, some white—all poisonous, I was sure. A crow watched us mournfully from a high branch, but no birds sang.

  Corey shivered and folded her arms across her chest. “Tracy’s a lot braver than I am. I wouldn’t sleep here by myself. Not if you paid me.”

  “Me, either.” I glanced at her. “Last night I swear somebody was hiding here in the shadows, watching us.”

  Corey drew in her breath and hugged herself tighter. “I thought it was my imagination.”

  We were both whispering, as if someone might be listening as well as watching. When the crow cawed from its perch overhead, we both jumped and then tried to pass it off with a laugh.

  “Let’s go,” Corey said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  We left the grove and wandered through a sunny patch of weedy ground, leaping with grasshoppers and humming with bees. Wild thistles grew taller than our heads. A narrow path led toward a dilapidated shed and the remains of a barn, its roof fallen in and its walls collapsed. Vines and brambles crawled and curled over the weathered wood, prying the boards apart.

  Corey stopped suddenly and pointed at a row of small square stones barely visible among the weeds. “What are those?”

  We knelt down to look closer. A two-digit number had been chiseled into each stone, but years of rain and snow made them almost illegible.

  “They must mean something,” I said.

  “But what?”

  I shook my head, puzzled.

  Losing interest, Corey pushed her hair back from her face. “It’s boiling hot. Let’s go swimming.”

  She headed toward the inn, but instead of following her, I stood there, contemplating the row of stones. “Forty-one,” I read, “forty-two, forty-three, forty-four.” My eyes moved from stone to stone. There were twelve of them. And many more in other rows, all numbered.

  “Travis,” Corey yelled. “Are you coming?”

  Suddenly aware of the heat and the gnats buzzing around my head, I ran to catch up with my sister.

  Corey and I spent the rest of the morning in the pool, then got dressed and went to the dining room for lunch. Robert and Tim had checked out that morning to explore New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Mr. Nelson was gone, too, claiming he had no desire to experience any more supernatural manifestations. The Jennings gang was still there, along with a new couple from Albany who’d already been drawn into the ghost conversation.

  Just as I took a bite of my hamburger, another newcomer swept into the room. Short and plump, with a head of frizzy blond curls, she wore layers of dark gauzy clothes that seemed to float in the air around her. Her arms clanked with silver and copper bracelets. She sported a ring on each of her chubby fingers, as well as a few on her round little toes, and a small silver hoop in one nostril. Earrings dangled to her shoulders in a shower of stars. Her scarlet lipstick matched her nail polish. She’d taken care to coat her eyelids green and spike her lashes with mascara.

  With much twittering, she joined the group at the Jenningses’ table.

  “Don’t stare,” Grandmother whispered.

  “Who is she?” Rude or not, neither Corey nor I could take our eyes off the woman.

  “Miss Eleanor Duvall,” Grandmother said with a sniff. “A self-proclaimed ghost hunter.”

  “Really?”

  Grandmother tapped Corey’s wrist. “Eat your hamburger and stop looking at her. I’m sure she loves the attention.”

  Despite Grandmother’s injunction, Corey and I watched Miss Duvall as if she’d hypnotized us.

  By the time we’d finished eating, Grandmother was thoroughly annoyed with both of us. “You’re from New York,” she said. “You must see people like her every day.”

  We shook our heads. Even in the East Village, Miss Duvall would have stood out from the crowd.

  “Oh, no,” Grandmother muttered. “She’s coming this way.”

  Indeed she was, followed by the Jenningses and all their friends.

  “Don’t talk to her about your so-called ghost sightings,” Grandmother warned Corey. “Or we’ll never get rid of her.”

  “I’m Edna Frothingham,” one of the newcomers said. “And this is Miss Eleanor Duvall, the world-famous psychic and ghost hunter. I called her as soon as I heard from the Jenningses.”

  Miss Duvall bared a mouthful of tiny teeth in a smile aimed at Corey. “You’re the little girl who sees ghosts,” she proclaimed, jangling her bracelets like a musical accompaniment.

  Just then the phone rang, forcing Grandmother to excuse herself. “Not a word,” she hissed in Corey’s ear.

  But of course Corey couldn’t resist a chance to take center stage. “Yes,” she said modestly. “I see ghosts all the time.”

  “Lovely.” Miss Duvall sat down in Grandmother’s chair. The others gathered around the table, hanging on every word their new leader uttered.

  Corey told her about the granny ghost, the ghost of the haunted grove, and the other presences she felt in the inn—the crying baby she heard late at night, the footsteps in the hall outside her door, the sobs, moans, and spooky laughter, the howling dog, and so on. There was no end to her imaginings.

  Obviously enjoying herself, my sister had everyone’s total attention. Even Tracy drew near, clutching a tray to her chest, her eyes wide, her mouth half open.

  “You are truly gifted,” Miss Duvall whispered to Corey. To the others she said, “Often it is children who are most in touch with the spirit world. It is to be expected. After all, they are closer to the other side than we. As the great poet William Wordsworth says, ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. . . . Heaven lies about us in our infancy.’”

  The Jennings gang nodded solemnly, as if they all knew Wordsworth by heart and understood exactly what Miss Duvall meant. Which was more than I could say for myself.

  “When I first spoke with Corey, I knew she was special,” Mrs. Jennings said, taking the role of my sister’s discoverer.

  Miss Duvall turned to me. “And how about you, Travis? Do you share your sister’s powers?”

  Taken by surprise, I said, “Sometimes I sense things. Like the grove. It’s, it’s—I can’t explain it, but—”

  “The grove, yes!” Miss Duvall rose from the table in a whirl of gauze and a tinkle of jewelry. “Take me there. I must see it!”

  With some reluctance, Corey and I led the whole group of adults across the lawn and into the grove. Immediately, they all began to shiver. The woman from Albany made the sign of the cross, and her husband mumbled a prayer. Mrs. Jennings said she felt faint and took her husband’s arm. Her friends gathered closely about Miss Duvall.

  “Are you all right, Eleanor?” Mrs. Frothingham asked.

  Eyes closed, Miss Duvall swayed as if she’d fallen into a trance. With outstretched arms, she turned in a slow circle, breathing heavily. “Come forth,” she whispered. “Show yourself, spirit of darkness. I fear you not.”

  She stood still and waited. Nothing happened. Nothing that we could see or hear, that is. But something was there. Something that sent shivers racing up and down my spine and prickled my scalp. Corey actually reached for my hand and held it tightly, something she wouldn’t do normally.

  Opening her eyes at last, Miss Duvall stared at us, the dim light silvering her hair. “It is here,” she whispered, “just as the child said. But it does not wish to reveal itself. Perhaps there are too many of us.”

  With a nervous gesture, she smoothed her clothing and took Corey’s other hand. “Come,” she said, “we’ll return tomorrow when Chester arrives.”

  “Chester?” I asked.

  “Chester Coakley, my associate,” Miss Duvall explained. “He was delayed by a nasty piece of business in Salem but should arrive tomorrow with our equipment.”

  Once we left the grove, the guests began babbling away about the presence in the trees. If Corey and I hadn’t felt the thing ourselves, we would’ve had a
good laugh at their expense.

  That night, Corey and I made plans for some new tricks. Well after midnight, we tiptoed out of Grandmother’s apartment, through the silent kitchen, and into the hall. Scarcely breathing, we crept up the stairs. Moonlight streamed through the tall window on the landing.

  “Look. There’s Tracy.” Corey pointed outside.

  We watched the girl cross the lawn, lighting her way with a flashlight. After she vanished into the grove’s shadows, we lingered for a moment, watching her light appear and disappear among the trees.

  “Just like Nancy Drew,” Corey whispered.

  “Don’t go to the grove, Nancy,” I intoned in a spooky voice. “Don’t open that door, don’t go down those steps, stay out of the attic, watch your—”

  “Shut up.” Corey hustled me up the stairs.

  At the top, we paused and listened. Except for a chorus of snores, all was silent. The guests’ doors were closed. No lights showed. At the opposite end of the hall were the back stairs, our escape route to the kitchen.

  We looked at each other, and I nodded. Corey began to sob in a high breathless voice, and I waved a tiny pocket flashlight. Its faint blue light barely lit the darkness. Under our bare feet, the floor boards squeaked and creaked. I tapped at one door, then another, and laughed a horrible laugh.

  As the guests began shouting and stumbling about in their rooms, we ran silently down the stairs and hid under the kitchen table.

  Upstairs, Miss Duvall screeched joyfully, “Sobs, rappings, laughter, footsteps, a blue light—a classic visitation!”

  Grandmother opened the door of her apartment and stepped into the kitchen. From our hiding place, Corey and I watched her bare feet pad past.

  As soon as she headed upstairs to quiet the guests, my sister and I scurried back to our rooms and jumped into bed. We’d done it again.

  I would’ve laughed out loud if Tracy hadn’t screamed somewhere outside in the dark.

  By the time Corey and I reached the front door, Grandmother and the guests had gathered around Tracy.