Spirits and Spells

by Bruce Coville

  Spirits and Spells

  Bruce Coville

  To the members of Apanage—

  past, present, and future.

  Contents

  1. “It’s only a Game”

  2. The Gulbrandsen Place

  3. Clues

  4. The Depths

  5. The Stave

  6. In the Attic

  7. Voices

  8. Tentacles

  9. The Powers that be

  10. Magic Takes Over

  11. Trapped!

  12. Double Discovery

  13. Into the Closet

  14. Rats

  15. Compulsion

  16. Coven Karno

  17. Arthur Grimsby

  18. Mass Attack

  19. Spirits

  20. Spells

  21. Inferno

  1

  “IT’S ONLY A GAME”

  When Lydia began to scream, Tansy Parker finally decided it was time to call it a night. “That’s enough!” she said, slamming down her pencil. “Travis, stop the game.”

  Travis Wyman, Tansy’s boyfriend, ran a long-fingered hand through his black hair. He opened his mouth to protest, but Tansy had already turned to Lydia. She took the girl by the shoulders and shook her. “Lydia. Lydia, stop it!”

  Lydia stopped screaming. She blinked at the others, a dazed expression on her face.

  “Tansy! What … what happened?”

  Tansy smiled uncertainly. “I’m not sure. I think you got too involved with the game.”

  Lydia put a hand to her brow. “I don’t feel well,” she said weakly. “I’d like to go home.”

  Lydia’s boyfriend had been watching her with a stunned expression on his face. Jumping to his feet, he said, “That’s a good idea!” After wrapping Lydia’s sweater and then his own arm around her shoulders, he guided her to the door.

  Tansy went with them as far as the porch, where she stood to watch them disappear into the cool October night.

  “That was weird,” she said when she returned to what was left of the group. Her large hazel eyes, usually clear, were troubled.

  “Lydia’s weird,” said Derek. “She always acts dumb.”

  Tansy scowled at him. Derek Clarke was so good-looking he often got away with saying unpleasant things. While Tansy enjoyed his sense of humor, his total lack of sympathy for others often made her angry.

  “This whole game is weird,” said Jenny. Tansy shifted her gaze to Jenny Erickson, Derek’s girlfriend. Tansy had always been jealous of Jenny’s beauty. Her long blond hair and clear complexion made Tansy resent her own short red curls and freckle-spattered cheeks.

  Fortunately, Travis claimed to love freckles.

  “The game really is weird, isn’t it?” said Travis now. His voice was ecstatic; he was hugely satisfied with his discovery, despite Lydia’s reaction. “Too bad we didn’t have a chance to finish it. But we will next time. I think this may be the greatest game ever.”

  Tansy sighed. Most of the girls she knew hung around with guys who liked to play football. Somehow she had managed to get interested in a gaming freak. Now while most of her friends were jumping up and down in the bleachers, she was rolling dice and learning about the powers of third-level characters.

  Even worse, she was starting to enjoy it! But this new one—Spirits and Spells—was decidedly creepy.

  “Where did you find this thing anyway, Travis?” asked Derek.

  “At the gaming convention in Pittsfield last weekend. The place was crammed and the table I really wanted to get to had a mob four deep around it. I was trying to decide whether to wait my turn or come back later when I noticed this old guy sitting at a table all by himself. He motioned me over. I didn’t go at first—didn’t want to lose my place. But finally I got bored and decided to come back to the main table later. So I figured I might as well talk to the old guy. He told me this game was his own invention—that it had come to him in a dream. He was really fierce about that: he called it ‘an inspiration from the beyond.’”

  Travis laughed. “To tell you the truth, I think he was a little nuts. Anyway, he was trying it out at the convention, to see if it would sell. And nuts or not, I think he’s got a real winner. Just think, you guys—if this thing takes off, we’ll have been just about the first people in the world to play it. It’ll be like being the first to have played Dungeons and Dragons, or Magic.”

  Suddenly his eyes widened. Grinning broadly, he said, “And I’ve just thought of the best way to play it!”

  “How?” asked Derek, who was always ready for something new.

  “Well, the action takes place in a haunted house, right?”

  Derek shrugged. “Every game has a setting; a forest, a castle, an island. What’s the big—” His eyes widened as he realized what Travis was suggesting. “The Gulbrandsen place!”

  Travis nodded smugly.

  Jenny shook her head, causing her blond hair to swing over her shoulders. “I don’t know, you guys. That place is kind of spooky.”

  “That’s the idea!” said Derek. “This game is supposed to be spooky. Oh, man—it’ll be a riot.” He turned back to Travis. “But how are we going to get into the place?”

  “That part is easy. I can get a key from my dad’s office. His company is supposed to be selling the property. But there’s some kind of fight between the heirs, and until they settle it, no one can buy the place. To tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone will ever buy it even if they do settle. No one’s even asked to look at it for the last eight months.”

  Tansy glanced down at the game book. The words Spirits and Spells blazed across the top of it in large red letters. Beneath the lettering was a picture of a witch and a warlock with bolts of power flashing out of their hands.

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “There’s something about this that gives me the creeps.”

  Travis frowned. “Come on, Tansy. After all … it’s only a game.”

  The mocking words earned him a glare. Tansy had used those very words herself countless times during the last year. But that was different. Travis was so wrapped up in fantasy gaming, he sometimes seemed to think it was more real than real life. He could get furiously upset if he thought someone was not playing fairly. Tansy always felt obliged to try to calm him down at those times, and “It’s only a game” were the words she usually used to do it.

  He smiled, and after a moment she shrugged and grinned, laughing at herself for being afraid. Who could tell? This might be fun after all.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s plan on Friday night. But we’ll need two more players. Why don’t we ask Matt and Denise?”

  A dark look flickered across Travis’s face. Tansy rolled her eyes in response. It was true that Matt McMasters had been her first boyfriend. But that had been way back in eighth grade. As far as she was concerned, Travis’s ongoing jealousy in regard to Matt was just plain stupid.

  “Good idea,” said Derek, in his usual clueless fashion. “You should have invited them to begin with, Travis.”

  “I have to call Denise tonight,” said Jenny. “I’ll ask her then.”

  Travis sighed, but said nothing.

  Jenny winked at Tansy.

  Since it was a school night, it wasn’t long before the rest of the group decided to leave as well, Travis lingering behind for a good-night kiss.

  Tansy was heading for her bedroom when the phone rang.

  It was Lydia.

  “I just wanted to apologize for tonight,” she said. “For breaking things up.”

  “It’s all right,” said Tansy, letting her fondness for Lydia overcome her annoyance. “But are you? All right, I mean. What happened, anyway?”

  Lydia was so silent that for a moment Tansy thought th
ey had been cut off. When she finally spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. “I felt … fingers. Icy fingers, probing at my mind. Tansy, tell Travis to get rid of that game. It’s dangerous. No, it’s not just dangerous. It’s evil.”

  Then she did hang up, leaving Tansy to stare at the receiver and wonder if Lydia was losing her mind after all. She shivered and put the receiver back in its cradle. Lydia was living proof that it really was possible to be too imaginative for your own good.

  Even so …

  Well, it was too late to back out now. Travis would never let her hear the end of it if she did.

  Besides, Lydia was just being foolish.

  How could a mere game be evil?

  2

  THE GULBRANDSEN PLACE

  Tansy and Travis stood on the sidewalk in front of the Gulbrandsen house. Its huge turrets loomed out from a sky dark with massing clouds. A low rumble of thunder indicated that the storm which had been brewing all day would break soon.

  “What do you mean, ‘This place really is haunted?’” asked Tansy scornfully. She was already disturbed enough by her conversation with Lydia; she didn’t intend to let Travis rattle her with a bunch of nonsense. “All I ever heard was that old Mr. Gulbrandsen died without a will, so the authorities closed the house until the estate could get settled.”

  “Which won’t be for years,” said Travis. “With all those greedy second and third cousins squabbling to get their slice, this place will probably fall down before anyone gets a penny out of it. But don’t tell me you never heard about the murder?”

  His know-it-all attitude was starting to annoy Tansy. “What murder?” she asked sharply.

  “The murder of Charity Jones. She was a servant girl who was killed here, way back in the 1800s. No one knows who did it. But it was very violent, very brutal. Her spirit still haunts the place.”

  “Stop it, Travis.”

  He shrugged. “Do you want to go in?”

  “Why ask me? Even bribing you with a pepperoni pizza couldn’t stop you at this point. So I doubt that any second thoughts on my part would slow you down.”

  He gasped. “Tansy, you cut me to the soul!”

  “You’ll heal. Now are we going to stand here talking all night or are we going to go in?”

  Travis put his hand on the metal gate. “In!”

  “Well, lead on, MacDuff.”

  He grinned at her nervously, then pushed the gate open. The hinges creaked mournfully.

  Tansy followed Travis up the walk, which was edged with overgrown shrubs. A sudden gust of cold wind swept dead leaves about their feet, and the steps of the old porch groaned as they climbed them.

  Unlike the gate, the door—made of dark wood and ornately carved—swung open without a sound.

  “Wow,” said Tansy as they stepped through. “This is even better than I imagined!”

  Gazing up at the high ceiling and the cobwebbed chandelier, she reached behind her to close the door.

  A cold, wet hand closed over hers.

  With a scream she snatched her hand away and darted forward. She hadn’t gone more than three steps when she heard a familiar burst of hysterical laughter.

  “Derek!” she cried angrily.

  Derek Clarke was almost helpless with mirth. “Tansy, you … are … so much fun! I can always count on you for a good reaction.”

  Tansy was not laughing. She found herself wondering—not for the first time—why she put up with Travis’s crazy friends.

  Travis didn’t seem to be amused, either. “Knock it off, Derek. You’ll spoil the atmosphere.”

  As Derek tried to stifle his laughter, Jenny stepped from the shadows. Tansy saw that she was holding a plastic bag with some ice cubes inside. Well, at least that explained how Derek had made his hand so cold.

  “Sorry, Tansy,” said Jenny softly. “I told him not to, but …” Her voice trailed off.

  Tansy knew what she meant. Trying to keep Derek under control was like trying to get cats to march in a straight line.

  “Are Matt and Denise here yet?” asked Travis.

  Derek shook his head. “Matt called me earlier today and said they would be a little late. I think Denise was having a little trouble convincing her parents to let her come.”

  Travis frowned. “Well, let’s go upstairs and set up. Maybe by the time we’re ready, they’ll be here.”

  “Where are we going to play?” asked Jenny.

  “In the library,” said Travis. “I found it when I came to scope the place out yesterday. It should be perfect for the game.”

  The broad, curving stairwell was thick with dust, disturbed only where Travis had walked on his earlier scouting expedition. When Tansy reached for the banister, she found her fingers tangled in a cobweb. Resisting an impulse to squeal, she wiped her hand against her jeans.

  As they climbed, the little bit of light that had filtered in from outside faded rapidly.

  Derek switched on a flashlight.

  The hallway at the top of the stairs was hung with forbidding portraits of generations of Gulbrandsens. If the paintings were accurate, the whole family had had high cheekbones, fierce eyes, and thin, harsh lips.

  The carpet that lined the hall was faded but still thick. It muffled their footsteps so that they walked in near silence.

  Tansy felt as if the eyes of the portraits were looking down on them with disapproval. The thought made her shiver.

  When they entered the library, she relaxed a little. The room was beautiful. Three leaded-glass windows looked out over a rolling lawn that appeared as if it hadn’t been mowed all summer. Dark wood shelves covered the other walls, all of them still lined with books. Close to the windows stood a large oak desk. In the center of the room was a long table, oak also, its legs carved to look as if they ended in clawed feet.

  Travis stationed himself at one end of the table. He whispered something to Derek, who left the room and came back a minute later with two candelabra. He took some candles from his backpack, set them in the holders, and lit them.

  The flickering flames cast an eerie glow over the room.

  Travis opened the game box and took out the manuals that came with the set. Totally absorbed, he began writing on a pad, making some calculations.

  Jenny and Tansy wandered around the library, examining the old books.

  “Boy, the guy who owned this place must have been a real weirdo,” said Jenny, running the tip of her index finger over a set of leather-bound volumes. “Here’s six whole books on the history of witchcraft in America.”

  “And here’s one called Lycanthropia,” said Tansy.

  Jenny looked puzzled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Tansy smiled. “Werewolfism,” she whispered ominously.

  Jenny shuddered and shook her head. Candlelight caught and shimmered in her pale gold hair. “What kind of people were the Gulbrandsens? Why did they have books like these?”

  “Those books are just right for a haunted house,” said Derek, walking up behind them. “A place stalked by the spirit of a poor murdered girl.”

  Jenny slapped his shoulder. “Don’t be stupid. If you get me too scared, I’ll go home.”

  “Alone? In the dark?”

  Jenny looked uncomfortable. “Stop it. I don’t think you’re funny.”

  “I’m not being funny,” said Derek.

  “That’s for sure,” said Tansy. “But Travis told me the same thing, Jenny. There was a girl murdered here.”

  Derek rubbed his hands together and chuckled evilly. “And ever since, on wild and windy nights people have looked up here and seen lights moving through the windows—even when no one was home. Even after the place was abandoned. They say it’s Charity Jones, searching for her bones.”

  Jenny snorted. “You are hopelessly corny.”

  Derek looked offended. “That’s not corny. It’s classic.”

  “It’s also true,” said Travis, who had joined them while Derek was speaking. “At least the part abo
ut the bones is. My grandmother has a clipping in the scrapbook that her grandmother kept. I read all about it. The body was never found.”

  “Well, then, how do they know she was murdered?” asked Tansy sensibly. “She probably just ran away.”

  “I said they never found the body,” answered Travis. “All the killer left behind was her head.”

  “Euuuw!” cried Tansy.

  “Don’t be so gross!” said Jenny.

  “I’m not being gross. I’m just telling you what happened.”

  Jenny frowned. “Well, it’s still gross.”

  A crash downstairs made them all jump. Jenny, her face pale, clutched Tansy’s arm.

  Derek laughed. “Ever graceful, ever silent, McMasters and Wu are here at last. At least, I presume that’s who it is.” He gave his evil chuckle again.

  Matt McMasters’s voice boomed up from below. “Anybody here?”

  “Upstairs!” called Travis, stepping into the hall.

  The newcomers bounding up the stairway made an unlikely couple. Matt was short and intense, standing only slightly over five feet. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark streak in his personality that would have made him unbearable had it not been balanced by a healthy sense of humor.

  Denise Wu had dark coloring, too, but she was tall—even taller than Travis. Of the three girls she was far and away the most enthusiastic gamester. Shy and reserved in school (although a straight-A student), she lit up when she was with a group of players. Involvement in gaming was the tie that held her and Matt together.

  Right now, her dark brown eyes were glowing with excitement. “It’s a perfect night for this,” she said in a whisper. “There is one monster of a storm brewing out there.”

  Just like Denise to be rooting for a real gullywasher, thought Tansy.

  “Let’s get started,” said Travis.

  They pulled some chairs over to the library table. Outside, the October evening had plunged into total darkness. The wind was whipping around the house, and branches scratched at the windows. It really was a perfect setting for Spirits and Spells.

  Maybe too perfect, thought Tansy nervously.

  “You’re going to have to go over the rules carefully,” said Matt. “You guys have all had a chance to play this, but it’s brand-new to me and Denise.”