A Haunting Collection

by Mary Downing Hahn

  Corey and I looked at each other. We’d have something to say to each other when we got home, but for now we’d keep our mouths shut.

  14

  After we’d put our new clothes away, Corey and I went outside for a walk. The rain had stopped, but the lawn was puddled with water. Our shoes were soon soaked, but we slogged through the mud, not paying much attention to where we were going.

  “Is Mr. Pumphrey right about the boys?” Corey asked. “Are they dangerous?”

  “No matter what he says, I’m not scared of them,” I said. “They’re just kids.”

  “Dead kids,” Corey reminded me.

  “Save your worries for Miss Ada. She’s the dangerous one.”

  Corey gnawed on a fingernail, her face worried. “What do you think they want?”

  “Maybe we should ask them.”

  As luck would have it, I’d no sooner spoken than I realized we’d wandered into the burial ground. Caleb, Seth, and Ira grinned down at us from an apple tree. The shadow children clustered around them, a profile here, a leg dangling there, a hand holding a limb—like one of those pictures where you have to find hidden objects.

  “We been waiting on you,” Seth called.

  Jumping down from the tree, the bad ones led us to a row of stones.

  “This here’s mine,” Seth said. “And there’s Caleb’s and Ira’s. But who’s to know withouten our names writ on ’em?”

  Corey looked at him solemnly. “Travis and I can write your names on these three stones.”

  “That’s right kindly of you,” Seth said, “but we want proper headstones, like you see in a church graveyard.”

  “And not just for us,” Caleb said. “For all the folks lying here forgotten.”

  “Do you know their names?”

  “Course not,” Seth said. “None of us ever seen a burial.”

  “Joseph dug the graves at night,” Ira explained. “By sunup, the job was done, and we didn’t know who was put where.”

  “Until we became as we are now,” Caleb corrected him. “We mourned all the folk they buried here after us. Said the right words for them and tried to send them over the river to the place where they belonged.”

  The shadows stirred. “We stayed, though,” they whispered. “All us boys, all us bad ones—we stayed.”

  “There’s just one here with a name.” Seth pushed his way through a thick tangle of bushes and honeysuckle vines and pointed. “There she lies.”

  A cracked stone lay face-up on the ground, covered with so much moss I had to scrape it off before I could read the inscription:

  MISS ADA JAGGS

  3 APRIL 1789–17 MARCH 1841

  A WICKED HEART IS ITS OWN REWARD

  Corey pressed against my side. “A wicked heart,” she whispered.

  “It’s true, ain’t it?” Seth asked.

  “Her heart was wicked through and through and black with hate,” Ira said quietly.

  “Who wrote the inscription?” I asked.

  “A man from the county office ordered it done,” Caleb said. “But it was our idea. We whispered it to him so sweetly he thought it was his idea.”

  Ira kicked Miss Ada’s stone. “He wanted to put names on all our markers, but he couldn’t find the burial records.”

  “That’s ’cause he didn’t know about her secret account book,” Seth said.

  “Now if you two were to find that,” Caleb added, “everybody could have their proper stones. And maybe we could rest easy.”

  “Are you saying Corey and I . . . have to find Miss Ada’s book?” I stared at Caleb. “Don’t you know where it is?”

  “She used to keep it under the floor in her room,” Caleb said.

  “But she could have hidden it somewhere else,” Ira pointed out.

  “After all, we wasn’t watching her every second of every day, was we?” Seth asked.

  “Do you remember which room was hers?” I asked Caleb.

  “Number seven.” He pointed at a window on the second floor, the Jenningses’ old room, the one with a good view of the grove . . . and the stupid ghost imitation that had started all the trouble.

  Corey looked at me. “Is anyone staying there?”

  “I think it’s those two old ladies, Miss Baynes and Miss Edwards,” I said.

  Seth giggled. “I sure riled them up with that mouse at dinner, didn’t I?”

  “I thought that was you,” Corey said, laughing herself.

  “They’re usually gone all day,” I said, in an effort to steer everyone’s attention back to the room—and to the account book that might or might not be hidden there.

  “Let’s see if we can find it.” Corey ran to the inn with me close behind. The bad ones followed us on soundless feet, blending in with the shadow children.

  We paused at the front door and listened. All was silent except for the grandfather clock ticking to itself in the hall. While Corey kept watch, I sneaked into the office and lifted the spare key to room 7 from its hook.

  On tiptoe, we crept up the wide stairs to the second floor and paused again to listen. The doors to the occupied rooms were closed. The other doors were open. We didn’t hear Mrs. Brewster’s vacuum cleaner, nor did we see any other signs that she was cleaning the rooms.

  Cautiously, we approached number 7. I knocked, but there was no answer.

  “Nobody’s home,” Seth said.

  Slowly, I stuck the key in the lock and turned it gently. Feeling like a burglar, I eased the door open. Corey and I—and the bad ones—stepped inside. I locked the door behind us. The room was empty. A pink sweater hung on the back of a chair, and a pair of neatly folded tan slacks lay on the seat. Shopping bags from Simon Pearce sat in the corner. On the desk was an assortment of tin cookie cutters made by Ann Clark of Vermont. Grandmother had dozens of them, and so did our mother. Not that Mom ever baked—she collected them and displayed them on a wall in the kitchen.

  But we hadn’t come to look at cookie cutters. On our hands and knees, we crawled across the floor looking for loose boards. We covered every inch, but each board was nailed down tightly.

  “Maybe we should pull them up,” Ira suggested.

  “No,” I said as Seth tugged at a board. “Try the walls. Maybe there’s a hole behind something.”

  We started with the little Currier and Ives prints and moved on to the mirrors. As Corey and I struggled to move a tall pine bureau, Seth said, “Hsst—the old ladies are back!”

  Just as he spoke, I heard Miss Baynes say to Miss Edwards, “Shopping tires me out more than it used to. Let’s have a rest before dinner.”

  They were in the hall, right outside the door. As one of them put a key in the lock, Corey and I slid under one of the beds. Hidden by a floor-length dust ruffle, we heard the women enter the room, accompanied by the rustle of more shopping bags.

  “Woodstock was just delightful,” Miss Edwards said. “So many nice stores.”

  “And lunch was delicious,” Miss Baynes said. “If the inn at Woodstock wasn’t so expensive, I’d cancel our reservations here and take a room there.”

  “I’m sure we wouldn’t see a mouse in the dining room.”

  “Indeed not.”

  The bathroom door opened and shut behind Miss Edwards, and Miss Baynes lay down on her bed. The mattress creaked and sagged over our heads. Corey and I scarcely dared to breathe.

  Suddenly, Miss Baynes sneezed and sat up with a jerk.

  The bathroom door opened, and Miss Edwards said, “What’s the matter?”

  “Someone just tickled my nose with a feather!”

  Miss Edwards laughed. “You must have been dreaming.” The next second her laugh turned into a gasp. “My sweater!” she cried. “It just floated out the window!”

  Both women ran to look. “There it is!” Miss Baynes said. “It’s caught on the branch of a tree. See? The wind must have blown it there.”

  “But it’s not windy,” Miss Edwards said.

  That’s when the giggling start
ed.

  “What’s that?” Miss Baynes asked.

  Little ripples of laughter ran around the walls.

  “It sounds as if someone is having a joke at our expense.” Miss Edwards opened the closet door. “Come out, right now!”

  The giggles got louder. At the same moment, a Simon Pearce shopping bag slid across the floor and bumped against Miss Edwards’s legs. A few small pictures fell off the wall, and the bathroom door opened and shut three times.

  As the women ran from the room, Seth joined us under the bed. Convulsed with laughter, he drummed his heels on the floor. “That was fun,” he crowed.

  Corey gave him an annoyed look. “They’ll leave for sure now.”

  Following her lead, I slid out from under the bed and left the room while we had the opportunity. Seth came with us, hiccupping from laughing so much.

  Behind the office’s closed door, Miss Baynes and Miss Edwards were complaining to Grandmother. “It must be your grandchildren,” Miss Edwards said.

  “Didn’t they cause enough disturbance in the dining room with their childish pranks?” Miss Baynes asked.

  We didn’t wait to hear Grandmother’s answer. Sneaking out to the porch, we sat down in the rocking chairs farthest from the front door.

  Seth joined us and rocked happily back and forth, his red curls blowing in the breeze he generated.

  Corey glared at him. “We get blamed for everything you do. It’s not fair!”

  Seth scowled. “You think dying when you’re just seven’s fair?”

  “Nothing’s fair,” I said. “You’re both old enough to know that.”

  “Not me,” Seth said. “I weren’t old enough when I died to know about what’s fair and what’s not.”

  “Well, you’re a lot older than seven now,” Corey said.

  “No, I ain’t. I was seven then and I’m seven now and I’ll always be seven. So there.”

  “What if you had to be ninety-nine forever?” Corey asked. “And you had to hobble around and you couldn’t see or hear and—”

  I gave her a nudge with my elbow. “Shut up, Corey. You’re giving me a headache.”

  “I was just trying to say—”

  “Well, stop trying,” I said. “Seth isn’t even here anymore.”

  She looked around, surprised. While we’d been arguing, Seth had disappeared.

  A little later, Miss Edwards and Miss Baynes stalked out of the inn. Mr. Brewster followed them, hauling their little wheeled suitcases and all their shopping bags. We sat very still and hoped they wouldn’t see us.

  Without looking to the right or the left, they got into their Honda and slammed the doors. As soon as Mr. Brewster had wedged everything into the trunk, they took off, driving faster than the average person their age, I thought.

  “All that,” I said, “and we didn’t even find the account book.”

  15

  “I’ve been thinking.” Ira appeared on the porch railing, looking glum, as usual. “Maybe she buried the book in the grove before she hanged herself.”

  I imagined Corey and me digging one hole after another, fighting roots and rocks with our shovels, sweating in the heat, bitten by gnats and mosquitoes—not a pretty picture.

  “What makes you think so?” Corey asked.

  “Well, she wouldn’t leave it in her room, would she? Somebody might find it there.” He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes. “Most likely she reckoned nobody would dig up the grove.”

  “Why would they?” Caleb sat down next to Ira, swinging his bare feet. “Nobody knew there was another book.”

  “But it’s spooky in the grove.” Corey toyed with her fingers, twisting them this way and that, as if she wanted to tie them into a knot.

  “Spooooky,” Seth whispered in her ear, “Spooooky.”

  “Go away.” Corey swatted at him as if he were an annoying fly. “You get on my nerves.”

  Seth pulled the barrettes out of Corey’s hair and laughed as long strands fell in her face.

  Corey got up so fast the rocker swung wildly back and forth. “Quit it!” she yelled at Seth.

  Grandmother heard the noise and came to the door. “I’ve been looking for you two,” she said. Her voice was calm but stern, and she had a teacherly gleam in her eye that meant Trouble, with a capital T. “Come inside. I want to talk to you.”

  Seth giggled and made a face. “Nyah, nyah, you’re in for it now!”

  Ira grabbed the younger boy’s arm. “Leave off.”

  The three faded from sight, and Corey and I followed Grandmother into the office.

  “I’m very disappointed in your behavior,” she began. “Because of your pranks, Miss Baynes and Miss Edwards have canceled the rest of their stay here. They—”

  “We didn’t do anything to them,” I said.

  “It was Seth,” Corey added. “We told him not to, but—”

  “Seth?” Grandmother stared at Corey. “Please don’t tell me he’s one of your ghosts.”

  “But he is,” Corey insisted. “He’s the worst one of all, he’s—”

  “Corey, I simply can’t believe this.” Grandmother turned to me. “Travis, tell me the truth. Why did you let a mouse loose in the dining room last night? And why did you booby-trap room seven? What on earth do you have against those two women?”

  “Corey’s not lying,” I said. “It was Seth.”

  “Seth.” Grandmother drummed her fingers on her desk top. “Seth.”

  “Yes’m?” Seth came as if in answer to his name. “What is it you want?” He drummed on the desk, too.

  Grandmother jerked her hands back, but the drumming went on. She looked right through Seth at Corey and me. We held up our hands to show we weren’t—couldn’t be—responsible. Thanks to the shadow children, the sound had gotten much louder.

  “Stop making that noise!” Grandmother raised her voice to be heard above the drumming. She was plainly frightened but trying hard not to be.

  “It’s not us,” I said.

  “It’s Seth,” Corey said, “and the others.”

  “I’m going to call your parents right now and tell them to come and get you,” Grandmother shouted. “I cannot allow you to destroy the inn’s reputation. Not to mention my sanity!”

  As she reached for the phone, Seth picked up an eraser and threw it across the room, followed by a handful of pens and pencils. A stapler rose into the air and floated a few inches from Grandmother’s nose. The printer churned out a stream of blank paper, the computer flickered on and off, and the radio suddenly changed from classical music to loud rock. Doors and windows opened and shut with loud bangs, and a swivel chair spun as it rolled around the room, banging into walls.

  Grandmother just sat there, watching the office dim and brighten as the shadow children filled the air with a blizzard of spinning paperclips and thumbtacks.

  “It’s true,” she whispered. “The inn really is haunted . . . everything I’ve believed is wrong.” With that she put her head down on her folded arms and closed her eyes.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” Corey yelled. “You’ve upset Grandmother!”

  The shadow children giggled and retreated, but Seth plopped down on the edge of Grandmother’s desk. Regarding her sadly, he touched her hair.

  Grandmother shuddered and looked up. “You must be Seth.” Her voice was weak, but she seemed to be back in control.

  “You can see me now.” He looked pleased.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s ’cause you believe in me.” He grinned. “Sorry I had to scare you into it, but you was a hard nut to crack.”

  Ira and Caleb appeared on either side of Seth. “Sorry, ma’am,” Caleb said. “But we couldn’t let you send Corey and Travis away.”

  “We need them to help us, you see,” Ira added.

  “Even though they’re none too smart,” Seth put in. “But we ain’t found nobody else. Most folks just run off, like them silly old ladies.”

  “Or they try to trap us with machines
of one sort or another,” Ira said. “Cameras and the like.”

  “Those psychos got no business messing with us,” Seth said. “If we wanted our pictures took, we’d pose.”

  “Psychics,” Caleb corrected him. “That’s what they call themselves nowadays.”

  Grandmother just sat there staring at the boys as if she was too stunned to say a word. Finally, she said, “What do you want my grandchildren to do?

  “Just three things,” Caleb told her.

  “Truth to tell,” Seth piped up, “they’s a hard three things.”

  “First, they have to find Miss Ada’s secret account book,” Caleb went on, “the one that has the names of the dead who are buried here.”

  “Then they have to mark the graves with proper stones,” Ira said, “the kind with names, not numbers, wrote on them.”

  “And last, they got to exercise Miss Ada,” Seth said.

  “Exorcise,” Corey said.

  Seth frowned. “That’s what I said.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Corey said. “You—”

  I gave her a little sideways kick. “Drop it.”

  “Yes,” Seth said. “Drop it or I’ll drop you.”

  “Stop squabbling,” Grandmother said as if she were in her fourth-grade classroom. With a sigh, she leaned back in her chair. She looked very tired. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said.

  “We’ll explain it to you,” I said.

  Grandmother closed her eyes. “I’m listening.”

  Helped here and there by the bad ones, Corey and I told Grandmother everything we knew about the poor farm; Miss Ada Jaggs and her brother, Cornelius; the burial ground; the secret account book; and so on. By the time we were done, it was almost five o’clock.

  Wearily, Grandmother got to her feet. “I don’t know what to think,” she murmured. “I just don’t know.”

  Mrs. Brewster chose that moment to appear in the doorway. “Time for dinner,” she said, and then gasped when she noticed the mess the bad ones had made. “It’s them again, ain’t it?”