Secrets at the Chocolate Mansion

by Leslie Margolis

  So we walked in silence for the rest of the way, and when we got to Southpaw, Milo picked up two schedules and handed one to me. Scanning it, he frowned. “Everything I want to see starts after my curfew. It totally blows.”

  “How come concerts have to start so late?” I asked.

  “Don’t know.” Milo crumpled the schedule and tossed it in the trash. Then he bent down to pet a passing poodle that promptly bared his pointy white teeth and growled.

  “Sorry,” said the owner—a hipster in skinny jeans with a tattoo of a dragon on his neck and a bowler hat on his head. “He’s kind of a jerk sometimes. Don’t take it personally.”

  “I won’t,” Milo replied, standing up straight again.

  The jerky poodle reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what. Oh, wait—that’s it. Dog walking! “I’ve got to walk Nofarm this afternoon!” I said.

  “But it’s Saturday,” said Milo. “Don’t you take weekends off?”

  “Usually, but Nofarm’s family just moved, so they asked me for this special favor.”

  “What time are you supposed to be there?” Milo asked.

  I checked my watch. “Ten minutes ago.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Milo and I sprinted all the way to Eighth Avenue and Carroll Street—an uphill journey, I’d like to note.

  Once there, I bent over and tried to catch my breath. “Tried” being the key word in that last sentence. I was huffing and puffing, sweat pooled in the small of my back, and my legs felt achy from sprinting. I gazed up at the building. Nofarm’s family had moved to a fifth-floor walk-up, and I wasn’t yet ready for the steps.

  Milo didn’t seem to be, either: his hands were also on his knees. He squinted at Nofarm’s new place—a beautiful but run-down old mansion made of large red bricks. The staircase leading to the oversize double front doors was wide and sweeping. Three tall spires met up at the top to form the roof. They were super pointy, as if poking the blue sky above.

  “This is where they live?” he asked.

  “Not in the whole building,” I said. “It’s a bunch of apartments now.” I walked toward the front steps and started to climb.

  “Hold on!” said Milo. “Do you know what this place is?”

  I turned around to face him, wondering why he hadn’t moved. “I just told you,” I said. “It’s Nofarm’s family’s new building. Are you coming, or would you rather wait for me down here?”

  “Neither,” said Milo, gazing up at the place with dread.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because that’s not only Nofarm’s new building,” Milo said, “it’s Brooklyn’s most famous haunted mansion.”

  Chapter 4

  I laughed in his face. I mean, obviously I laughed, because I couldn’t fathom that Milo was serious. Haunted mansions? Who believed in haunted mansions? And if this mansion was so famous, how come I’d never heard of it before? I’ve lived in Park Slope for my whole life. This building has been here for a lot longer than that. And never, ever, do I recall hearing anyone mention anything about it being haunted, which I told Milo in between fits of laughter.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Maggie,” he said, his tone harsher than I’d ever heard it before. I guess he was still reeling from being laughed at.

  I tried to stop. It wasn’t easy.

  “Okay, it’s haunted,” I said, deciding to humor him. “But how can you say it’s famous when I’ve never even heard of it?”

  Milo frowned and shook his head, unable to speak. Did I mention that my boyfriend is kind of sensitive? And when I say “kind of,” I actually mean “very.”

  “This mansion used to belong to the Adams family,” he said.

  “The what family?” I asked, walking back to where he stood on the sidewalk.

  “You’ve heard of Jonas Adams, right? He’s the guy who invented Adams miniature chocolate bars.”

  “Never heard of him, but I love Adams Chocolate,” I replied.

  “Of course you do,” said Milo. “Everyone loves Adams Chocolate. They’re more famous than Hershey and Cadbury put together, and their classic mini bar is insanely delicious. Those first bites are so sweet and satisfying. Even the sound of them tumbling out of the cardboard box is pleasing.”

  “You sound like a commercial,” I told him.

  “Yeah, because I really like the chocolate. You didn’t know it was invented here in Brooklyn? Their old factory was right next door. It’s condos now.” Milo pointed to a familiar looking high-rise.

  “My friend Beatrix lives there,” I said. “On the top floor.”

  “That’s where they made all of their chocolate-flavored bubble gum, which was really popular about a hundred years ago.”

  “I had no idea you were such a chocolate historian, Milo.”

  “It’s part of Brooklyn’s history,” Milo replied, not realizing I was teasing him. “The chocolate gum was huge.”

  “So you’re telling me this old mansion is haunted by a bubble-gum inventor?” I asked.

  “Not exactly—”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, interrupting. “He died and continued to stick around?”

  I fake laughed at my own joke. One of us had to! Milo insisted on staring at me in silence, almost like he was annoyed. But that made no sense. It’s not like I did anything wrong.

  I elbowed him and forced myself to smile, even though his expression made me nervous. “It’s a joke. Get it? He stuck around? Because gum is sticky?”

  “I get it,” Milo grumbled.

  “Okay, clearly that wasn’t my best material, but what is wrong with you?” I asked.

  “If you knew the real story, you wouldn’t be laughing.” Milo blinked up at the building and shivered. Then he lowered his voice, almost like he was scared that these alleged ghosts were listening. “This whole mansion used to belong to the Adams family. It’s the biggest place in the entire neighborhood. The family was so loaded. There’s an elevator inside; their house was the first to have a private elevator in all of Brooklyn.”

  “It’s still pretty rare, I’d think. Right?” I asked. “I don’t know anyone with their own elevator.”

  “Neither do I,” said Milo. “Anyway, one summer the Adams family went to their summerhouse in Maine, and one of their servants stayed behind. The maid. I guess she was supposed to take care of the place. Except the elevator broke and she got stuck inside, and no one knew.”

  “Yikes.”

  “They didn’t find her for an entire month.”

  “Double yikes. She must’ve been starving,” I said.

  Milo shook his head. “She was way worse than starving, Maggie. She was dead.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly the wind picked up and seemed to blow right through my jacket. I shivered. “That’s awful.”

  “I know. They don’t even know if she starved to death or suffocated first. I don’t think there was much air circulation in those old elevators. Really, it was just one giant coffin.”

  I felt both creeped out and skeptical at the very same time. “Are you sure this story is true?” I asked.

  “That’s what I heard,” said Milo. “The maid’s name was Margaret, and she still haunts the place, apparently. People hear her singing, and she moves stuff around. My grandma knows someone who used to live there, and they had to move away because she used to visit them every night.”

  “Visit them?” I asked. “Like, in their sleep?”

  Milo nodded.

  “Doesn’t that mean they had nightmares? That they imagined the whole thing?”

  “No, there was physical evidence, too. Their glasses kept breaking.”

  I kept waiting for Milo to smile, to laugh and tell me he was kidding, except he didn’t.

  “What do you mean, their glasses kept breaking?” I asked.

  “Just what I told you,” Milo replied stubbornly.

  “Drinking glasses or eyeglasses?” I wondered.

  “Stop making fun o
f me,” Milo said.

  “I’m not making fun of you. I’m making fun of the idea of ghosts.”

  “Same thing,” Milo claimed.

  It wasn’t, but I decided not to harp on the issue. “So you honestly believe that this place is haunted?”

  “Yup,” Milo replied.

  I tilted my head, trying to figure out how to break the news to him gently. “But Milo, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “Do you have proof?” he asked.

  I laughed, but his expression remained stoic.

  I tried again. “I don’t have proof there aren’t ghosts, but I don’t have proof there are, either. I always figured ghosts are like unicorns or the tooth fairy: something you believe in as a kid, and then grow out of.”

  “So you’re calling me a kid now?” asked Milo. “I’m three months and two days older than you. And Margaret was a real person. My grandma showed me an article about the accident. She was from Ireland, and had just moved to New York to make money for her family.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

  “Lots of immigrants came over from Ireland back then,” said Milo. “Look it up. That’s where my great-grandparents came from. Park Slope was full of people like them.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I said. “There’s no way that Margaret’s ghost is haunting the place. Because there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “Haven’t you ever seen or heard something you couldn’t explain?” Milo asked. “Don’t you ever get the feeling that someone’s watching you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean those sensations are caused by ghosts.”

  “Well, it doesn’t mean they aren’t.”

  Milo’s eyes, which were normally super warm and sweet—twinkly, even—got dark and kind of squinty. He balled his fists together, as if he felt his anger so intensely he couldn’t contain it.

  I’d never seen him so upset before, and it made me uneasy. I giggled out of nervousness, but this seemed to anger him more.

  “If you’re just going to make fun of me, I’m not going to stick around,” he said gruffly.

  “Wait,” I said. “Are you really upset? I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “You didn’t,” said Milo, clearly wounded. “But I’ve gotta go.”

  Before I got the chance to ask him what was going on, he took off. And I couldn’t even chase after him, because I had to get to work.

  I watched Milo walk up Eighth Avenue and turn right onto First Street, out of sight. Then I took one last look up at the mansion from the sidewalk. It was kind of spooky-looking—large and imposing, and the twisty, dead tree out front didn’t help matters one bit, but that didn’t mean a thing. It was just a building. I knew this for a fact.

  So, after taking a deep breath, I bounded up the stairs to the front door and rang the buzzer.

  “Who is it?” one of Beckett’s moms asked.

  “It’s me, Maggie,” I said.

  The lock clicked, and I hauled the heavy door open and bounded up an old, creaky staircase, all the way to the fifth floor. Then I knocked on the door to apartment 5A.

  Nofarm, a super-friendly, supersized, and scrappy mutt bounded toward me as soon as the door opened.

  Caroline greeted me, too. She’s tall, with long, red, curly hair, and wore black leggings, a baggy white sweater, and no shoes. Her toenails were painted dark, dark red. The rest of her family—her wife, Lisa, and their son, Beckett—must’ve been out, because I couldn’t hear anyone else in the house.

  “Down, boy,” I said, scratching Nofarm behind his ears and trying to get him to calm down. Or at least get him off of me.

  “No jumping, Nofarm,” said Caroline. “Down, boy! Sorry, Maggie. Please come in.” Caroline gestured toward the messy living room. “Welcome to our new home!”

  I stepped inside and surveyed the scene. The place was filled with boxes. Most were empty, but some were still full and stacked taller than me. Crumpled newspaper littered the floor. And those Styrofoam peanut things were everywhere.

  “I like the new place.” I said this to be polite, but actually I couldn’t tell whether I liked their place or not. The living room was such a mess, I had to stretch my imagination. The apartment had the potential to be lovely, though. It was on the fifth floor, which meant it rose above the treetops and faced the park, which I could see from the large windows in back.

  “Wait until we’re actually set up,” said Caroline. “Of course, you may have to wait a while. I can’t believe how hard this move has been.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Let me know if I can help.”

  “Oh, you’re helping by walking Nofarm. Believe me. But since you mentioned it, we could use another favor. How do you feel about babysitting?”

  “I love it!” I said. “Wait—I should be more accurate. I assume I will love it, but I don’t know for sure because I’ve never done it before. But Finn and I—Finn is my twin brother—just took a babysitting safety class at the local hospital.”

  “Impressive,” Caroline said with a nod. “You’ve actually studied up on babysitting. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  I shrugged. “It was my mom’s idea, actually. She’s like that—always thinking ahead, planning, and signing us up for stuff. She’s not so into us having downtime.”

  It’s true, too. If my mom finds out we have nothing to do on a Saturday, she has this amazing ability to find an Indian cooking class, a Claymation workshop, or an origami-folding lesson nearby. And if all else fails, she’ll volunteer us to sort through clothes at the Salvation Army. Except last month the Salvation Army warehouse had a bedbug scare, so that’s why she signed us up for the babysitting preparation course at the local hospital instead.

  “So, you are willing? To babysit, I mean?” asked Caroline. “Because it’s our anniversary next Saturday night, and we’re really in a bind.”

  “Yes, definitely. Wait—you do mean babysit for Beckett, right?”

  Caroline smiled and raised her eyebrows. “He is our only child, for the time being.”

  “Right. I knew that. Just clarifying,” I said. Beckett, Lisa and Caroline’s son, is cute, but kind of a handful. And when I say “kind of,” I actually mean “really.” Last week Beckett’s moms had to take him to the emergency room because he told them he swallowed a nail. It turned out he did it on purpose: he wanted to know what it would feel like going down.

  It felt painful, apparently. They told me he bawled for the entire taxi ride to the emergency room. But luckily for him, there was no permanent damage, because Beckett hadn’t swallowed a nail—he’d swallowed a small garden snail. His moms had misheard him.

  The doctor seemed less alarmed about the snail. It would pass naturally, he told them. And it did. Not that I have physical evidence—I don’t need it. That’s the kind of thing I’d rather take their word for.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized babysitting for Beckett could be fairly complicated.

  On the other hand, what else was I going to do on Saturday night? There was nothing good on TV that I could recall. “Sure, I’d love to,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s fantastic, Maggie. Thank you. We’re having some issues with our regular sitter.”

  “Issues?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  Caroline rolled her eyes. “Yup; ever since the move. She’s a little superstitious. In fact, she won’t even set foot in this building. Once she found out where we’d moved, she quit via text message.”

  “Is it because of that old ghost story?” I asked.

  “You’ve heard about it, too?” asked Caroline.

  “Yup. Just now. My boyfriend, Milo, told me about it right before I showed up.” I didn’t mention that we’d also kind of fought about it and Milo had stormed off. That seemed like too much information, although it was on my mind.

  “Did you hear that she cleans? The gh
ost, I mean. She was a maid from Ireland. Margaret was her name, and apparently she still dusts.”

  “Milo didn’t go into any details,” I said. “I did know her name was Margaret.”

  “Isn’t that your name, too?” asked Caroline.

  “Technically,” I said. “But no one calls me that. I’ve been Maggie forever.”

  “I told Lisa, if the ghost maid cleans, she can stay as long as she wants. That’s exactly what—”

  Caroline was interrupted by a loud booming sound and the shattering of glass.

  “What was that?” Caroline asked, hurrying to the back of the apartment.

  I followed her to the master bedroom, where both of us froze and stared at each other in shock.

  A giant mirror lay in the middle of the room, like it had face-planted there. Razor-sharp pieces of glass were everywhere.

  “Unbelievable!” said Caroline. “That was my favorite piece of furniture.”

  “How’d that happen, do you think?” I wondered.

  Caroline shrugged. “It was propped up on the wall, and I guess it wasn’t that secure. The wind must’ve knocked it down.”

  This explanation made sense; it was kind of windy outside. But here’s the weird thing: when I glanced at the wall of windows on the other side of the room, I couldn’t help but notice that every single one of them was closed.

  Chapter 5

  “I’d better walk Nofarm now,” I said, backing out of the room. I felt overcome with a strange sensation—a sort of suffocating nervousness, and an overwhelming desire to leave.

  “Good idea. He’s been acting so strange ever since the move,” Caroline said, turning away from the mess and toward Nofarm, who stared at us from just outside the bedroom door.