The House Where Nobody Lived

by Brad Strickland

  Uncle Jonathan had muttered about that. “Nearly last quarter,” he had complained. “Why couldn’t it have been a full moon? A quarter-moon brings changes.”

  “I know all about sky magic, Frazzle Face,” returned Mrs. Zimmermann. “What do you expect me to do about it, though? I can’t say abracadabra and make the moon shine full and bright. On the other hand, you just might be able to work up your whammy and cause a magical eclipse, but unless I miss my guess, we’re all agreed that the last thing we want is a truly pitch-dark night.”

  After such minor disagreements, they had settled in, and to Rose Rita it seemed that hours had crept by, slowly, on hands and knees. Mrs. Zimmermann produced some cold chicken sandwiches and a thermos of hot cocoa, and they had dined in the dark. The pleasant aroma of the food filled the car, but enjoying it was impossible when worry clenched Rose Rita’s throat. The chicken turned to an unappetizing mush in her mouth. Even the sweet, rich cocoa felt as if it stopped somewhere short of her stomach.

  Then, as her eyelids began to feel as if they had been dipped in sand, Mrs. Zimmermann suddenly gasped. “Jonathan!”

  Rose Rita craned forward to peer over the top of the front seat. Mrs. Zimmermann held her umbrella, point down toward the floor of the car, handle up. And the purple light inside the orb flashed, like the beacon of a lighthouse sending out its warning.

  “Look!” Uncle Jonathan pushed open the driver’s door and stepped out, and Rose Rita saw that a ruddy light outlined his figure. Two of the windows in the Hawaii House had blazed red. The crimson windows were to the left of the square tower with its exposed platform.

  Mrs. Zimmermann was out too, and now Rose Rita leaped from the old car. “What’s happening?”

  Mrs. Zimmermann tapped her umbrella on the ground. Somehow it grew, extended itself into a tall staff, taller than Mrs. Zimmermann, and the globe flashed like a star being born. “Nothing harmful . . . I don’t think,” said Mrs. Zimmermann, her voice tight. “It’s as if some ghostly presence has arrived, but I can’t sense anger or hostility. I wish I knew just what—”

  Something exploded in absolute silence. Rose Rita felt a wave of heat slam into her and shove her backward, and she staggered to keep her footing. Brilliant scarlet light dazzled her eyes, blinding her.

  Drums pounded. A low, rhythmic guttural chant filled her ears. The ground trembled beneath her feet.

  “Avaunt!” bellowed Uncle Jonathan, holding up his cane, an inky silhouette against a wavering billow of red light. “Let no evil thing come nigh!”

  Mrs. Zimmermann held her staff straight before her, her arm stiff. Tears stung Rose Rita’s eyes from the brightness of the blaze before them, a sheet of flame stretching from ground to sky. Its base was the intense orange of a bonfire, and as it rose, the sheet reached white-hot intensity. Looking at it felt like trying to squint into the fiery heart of a blast furnace. A hot wind rolled from the glare. It stirred Mrs. Zimmermann’s hair. Somehow her baggy dress had transformed into the flowing robes of a powerful sorceress, their purple color so intense that staring at them, you got the feeling you were gazing into the heart of the universe. The rush of heated air billowed the garment out behind her in great rolling waves.

  “Pele!” Mrs Zimmermann shouted. “Are you here?”

  Darkness hit again like a silent peal of thunder, and Rose Rita felt the whole world vibrate and quiver from the impact. Where was the house? She couldn’t see it any longer. She reached out and felt the cool, reassuring touch of the car. She hadn’t gone blind—the double glow from Uncle Jonathan’s cane and Mrs. Zimmermann’s staff still shone. But the house had vanished. What had happened?

  “Who calls my name?”

  Rose Rita squeaked in alarm. From the night a figure emerged, an imperious young woman dressed in silky red robes, with her long dark hair streaming, fluttering around her, as though touched by rising hot air. She strode forward. Her face was terrible and beautiful, and her flesh glowed with an inner light, as if fires burned just beneath her skin. Her eyes should have been dark, but the pupils glared like white-hot embers.

  Uncle Jonathan’s hand fell on Rose Rita’s shoulder. “Let Florence handle this,” he said in a soft voice. “She’s the real McCoy.”

  Mrs. Zimmermann stepped forward, taller somehow. Dark red flames, giving no illumination, rolled up from the earth and surrounded the ghostly figure that had stopped ten feet away. Purple flames blossomed as Mrs. Zimmermann moved forward, tracing her path, then writhing around her figure. The two women stopped barely three feet from each other. “Pele?” asked Mrs. Zimmermann.

  “I have come far,” the other replied. “Why do you try to stop me?”

  “You have no claim on these people,” answered Mrs. Zimmermann. “I know the stories they tell of you: From island to island you traveled across the seas, seeking a home. Always when you found an inviting cavern it filled with water, until at last you came to rest in beautiful Hawaii. That is your home. That is where you should be.”

  “What is mine was taken,” the other woman said. “A stranger came, a thief, and took something most dear to me. Shall I not reclaim my own?”

  Mrs. Zimmermann stood tall, holding her staff before her. “You have taken more than that. You have taken innocent lives. You will take no more.”

  Pele’s body blazed like a jetting fountain of molten lava. “You,” said a voice like the rumble of an explosion, “are wrong, old woman.” From the folds of her clothing, Pele held up a weapon, a paddle-like club, its edges spiked with sharp white teeth—except for one gap near the tip, where one of the teeth was missing. “This I claimed many years ago. Tonight I claim the rest, and you cannot stop me.”

  Rose Rita felt as if she, as if everything in the world were shrinking to nothing before the fiery anger of the great and fearsome figure standing before them. She felt Uncle Jonathan catch her arm. If he had not held her up, she would have collapsed from awe and despair. How would they, how could they fight this unearthly being?

  Lewis held the chain in a death grip as the disembodied hand stubbornly tried to pull it away. With a flash, a crimson light flooded the room, turning everything red. Now Lewis could see the rest of the figure before him, a transparent gray silhouette. Her hand was the only solid part of her, but it clearly was the young woman who had beckoned to him from the window in his dream. “Stop it!” he said with a gasp. “Let go!”

  The young woman nodded toward the door, her face showing urgency and concern. Lewis realized with a shock that she was trying to warn him—warn him to stop what he was doing and leave the room. “I—I want to help you,” he said, his voice quavering in fear.

  The ghostly grip loosened. The orb dropped. From the delicate oval fingernails, solidity flowed into the arm, the body and face of the figure. The young woman had a fine, proud face, jet-black hair, and a defiant thrust of her chin. She wore the old-fashioned clothes of the 1870s, a dress that might really be white but that looked red in the unearthly light filling the room. The woman’s great wide eyes were dark with sorrow. “You cannot. Go, please. Just go.”

  The woman had not spoken. At least, Lewis had not seen her lips move. Still, a sweet voice seemed to echo in his head. “I have to,” he said.

  “You cannot. I have waited here for my husband. His spirit cannot join mine. If you take what you wish to take, then Pele wins, and my spirit must go with her warriors. Leave it here. Leave this house. I had rather remain here for all eternity, close to my husband, than be taken halfway around the world from him.”

  Lewis understood. “You are Makalani.”

  “I am Makalani, daughter of kings, descended from Pele. Of my own choice I left my island and came here, and of my own will I remain.”

  “I want to help,” said Lewis. “I’m only trying to help.”

  “It is too late! It begins again!”

  Nothing shimmered or faded, the way things did in the movies, but somehow the brilliant light went away, and Lewis stood alone in the room. No. Not alone.
A woman lay sleeping in a big bed, her dark hair spilled across the pillows. The lovely, calm face was Makalani’s. On a small round table beside the bed a single candle burned, its flame pale and yellow. The door opened, and from the top landing a man stepped in, a tall man, his thick hair nearly white except right on top, where a dark wave of it lay brushed back from his forehead. Long white whiskers came down his cheeks. His eyebrows scowled fiercely above eyes as deep blue as the open Pacific, and his nose jutted out like the prow of a mighty ship. His expression softened as he gazed at the sleeping Makalani. Then he raised his arm, and Lewis cried out in shock.

  The man—he had to be Abediah Chadwick, the wealthy ship owner who had married Makalani and brought her here—carried what was clearly a weapon. It looked something like a slender tennis racquet carved from some shiny red wood. In the edges of the paddle part, though, deadly white points gleamed in a sawtooth pattern. Shark’s teeth. The thing was some sort of primitive weapon, a war club.

  A sound of drums! The man said harshly, “They’ve found us, my love! They’re coming!”

  Makalani awoke instantly, rolling from the bed and standing beside her husband. She said something in a foreign language, something full of L’s and R’s and murmurous vowels. “I will try,” the man replied.

  The first warrior came through the wall next to the window closest to the head of the bed. Chadwick sprang forward, right through Lewis, who flinched and spun in the same moment. With a furious sweep of the war club, Chadwick struck at the armed figure. The warrior dissolved into mist, his body streaming as if a blast of wind had hit him.

  Lewis backed against the wall, felt it hard and cool behind him. Chadwick faced a stream of marching warriors, grim in their helmets and armor. Chadwick struck again, but though each warrior he hit vanished, there were too many of them. They crowded close, they tried to press past Chadwick to get at Makalani. The older man grunted with effort, the club a blur as he fought the ghostly army.

  And then one of them hurled a javelin-like spear as he emerged. Chadwick swung wildly, missed the ghostly spear, and turned to see it pierce Makalani’s heart. She gave one soft cry and fell back on the bed. “No!” shouted Chadwick. He furiously slashed at the warrior, whose body puffed away.

  The drums ceased. From somewhere a woman’s laughter, cold and cruel, broke out. Chadwick, his face streaming with tears, lifted Makalani’s body. He put her back in the bed, gently put the covers over her, crossed her hands. Then he looked toward the windows. “You didn’t get her,” he said. “You released her spirit, but I kept the warrior from taking it. You won’t get her as long as I can hold out. As long as I have something of yours!”

  Drums. Louder.

  A huge warrior burst through the wall. Chadwick leaped forward, bringing the club up from his knees, striking at the ghostly form. Thud! The club passed through the dissolving form of the warrior but then slammed into the underneath edge of the windowsill with such force that the window flew open. Chadwick pulled with desperate strength. One of the shark’s teeth had penetrated the windowsill so deeply that half an inch or more stuck up through splintered wood. More warriors poured through, menacing Chadwick. Abandoning the jammed club, he retreated. He slammed the door, and Lewis heard his footsteps on the short stair leading up to the platform.

  Now the warriors had faded. He heard chants from the stairwell, scrapes and creaks as Chadwick barricaded the platform door. Through the slightly open window air blasted in with the breath of ice. Lewis felt as though he were glued to the wall beside the bed.

  Makalani somehow stood at the foot of her bed, even as her body lay there unmoving. And then another woman appeared, tall and fierce, her silky robes made of glowing red and orange fabric, flowers adorning her hair. “Child. All the others in the house have become part of my army of ghosts. Now I have come for you.”

  “I will not go.”

  “You belong to me.”

  “I belong with my husband.”

  “No. You are a child of the sun-sparkling sea and the high white clouds in a smiling blue sky. You are a child of the deep green valleys and the smoky streams of waterfalls. You are mine.”

  “I am my own.”

  The second woman—and Lewis could guess this was Pele—reacted with a snarl of rage. She grasped the war club and wrenched it from where it had stuck in the windowsill. Lewis heard a snap. For an instant a white chip stood out on the face of the dark night as the tip of the tooth fractured and flew off outside. Pele brandished the club, and Lewis could see the gap where one of the great shark’s teeth had broken short. “This a man stole from a temple,” said Pele. “This I take, as I shall take the sacred pearl stolen by another and given to the man who crossed the sea. As I shall take you.”

  “You will not take me,” returned Makalani, defiance in her voice. “Not as long as my husband keeps watch!”

  “So be it!”

  The floor beneath Lewis’s feet heaved. He fell heavily. The next instant he lay in darkness, not sure if he was conscious or unconscious, alive or dead.

  CHAPTER 17

  LEAVE, ”MRS. ZIMMERMANN SAID to Jonathan and Rose Rita. “Go. Back away. You’ll know when to return. You’ll know if you should return.” She did not so much as glance at Rose Rita and Uncle Jonathan.

  “No!” cried Rose Rita. But Uncle Jonathan firmly, gently pushed her into the car. He got into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and with a screech of tires he recklessly backed away. The figures of Pele and Mrs. Zimmermann became two silhouettes sketched in orange and purple on the dark screen of night, circling each other. Flames flashed and leaped. Behind them, the Hawaii House lay bathed in unearthly colors, glowing and shimmering with a drifting net made up of all the hues of the rainbow. In that wild, weird light, Rose Rita glimpsed movement. “Up there, in the tower! That’s Lewis!”

  Uncle Jonathan jammed his foot on the brake, and the big car lurched to a stop. “What’s he doing?”

  “I can’t see!”

  Rose Rita wanted to climb out of the car, to go running to help her friend. She realized with a pang that she couldn’t do it. An army had grown out of the ground, or had formed from the air like fog. Gray in the darkness, all wearing crested helmets, all carrying spears, they stood in a grim line, shoulder to shoulder. They did not move, but held their ground like guards determined not to let anyone pass. Rose Rita could see right through them. The battle between Pele and Mrs. Zimmermann still raged. The house still writhed in quivering waves of light, as if it lay on the bottom of the sea.

  But between the car and the house stood the gray warriors. Rose Rita knew she and Uncle Jonathan had no hope of getting past them. This was the army her grandfather had warned them about.

  They were the Marching Dead.

  Lewis emerged on the platform, feeling the chilling caress of cold night air. He had dragged himself out of the bedroom and up the tower stair. This night did not hold the killing cold of the one that had frozen old Abediah, but for someone wearing only cotton pajamas, it was bad enough.

  A man stood at the railing that ran waist-high around the platform. He wore a long blue coat and a hat that looked a bit like a short top hat. His transparent hands gripped the rail, and he stared out at what was happening in the front yard. His face turned toward Lewis, and Abediah Chadwick’s ghost spoke.

  “A foul night, Mr. Barnavelt.” Like the princess’ voice, this one came not from the unmoving lips of the spirit, but simply formed in Lewis’s mind. “Ye have a goodly crew, but who can stand against that island witch?”

  “Captain Chadwick,” said Lewis between chattering teeth.

  “Aye. That was my name, while I walked the earth a living man.”

  “They didn’t get her,” Lewis said.

  The ghost turned its face from him. “Aye, lad, that I know. Her spirit is confined to her room, and mine is locked here, because of Pele’s curse. We are so close and yet never to be completely reunited, not so long as Pele’s hatred endures. And a spirit ca
n hold enough hate to last for all eternity.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Leave this place. Leave us to unending misery. Oh, for a vessel that could sail the skies! For a swift ship upon the waves of the clouds, and a good deck beneath my boots! I had such a one, my schooner Sword, but she is driftwood and rust these many years.”

  Lights flashed down below, and Lewis craned to see what was happening. He gawped at the sight of Mrs. Zimmermann, dressed in wind-whipped purple robes, standing inside a circle of purple flames, holding her own against Pele, tall and imperious in her own circle of orange-red fire. They were chanting, taking turns back and forth. Lewis could not hear what they were saying, but it seemed a furious contest of wills.

  “The tooth anchors Pele here.”

  “What?” Lewis spun toward the ghostly figure of the old sea captain. He was fading away, melting into the cold night air. Lewis threw himself into the stairwell, tore down to the top landing, and through the door of Makalani’s room. The lurid red light had vanished, but the overhead bulbs were still on. Lewis knelt by the window and ran his fingers over the sill. He found a hole—a hole plugged by something hard and oval. If he only had something to pry with, he thought. He rushed to the stepladder and saw lying next to the can of paint a flat-head screwdriver. Lewis grabbed it, ran back to the window, and started to work on the plugged hole. He put the blade against the top of the plug and pounded the handle of the screwdriver with the heel of his left hand. Ouch! Once—twice—three times, and the screwdriver blade sank down as the plug gave way and clicked on the floor. Lewis grabbed it at once.

  He held the broken shank of a shark’s tooth. It had been part of the club that Abediah Chadwick had swung at the ghostly army. Now Lewis grabbed his shoes, pulled them onto his feet, and hurtled down the stairs with the laces flapping. He nearly screamed out loud at the middle landing, where the light burned. Something was creeping toward him from the darkness below!