by Lori Woods
I have to find out what it is, but I’m scared. What if someone attacks me? But I have to see what’s happening. If someone’s in trouble, I have to try to help. Or maybe Broom Hilda can stop what’s happening.
I hear a thud.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Snowball says. “I’m scared, Suzy.”
“I have to see what’s going on.”
“I think what’s going on is going to hurt us, too.”
Suddenly, I hear a noise like someone is stomping on what sounds like glass being ground against the floor. My heart hammers in my chest, and I feel dots of cool perspiration breaking out on my forehead.
Snowball is hiding behind me, making herself as small as possible. “Come on, Snowball. We have to find out what this is.”
“You go ahead, Suzy. I’ll wait here.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Snowball. You’re coming with me, and maybe you can help.” I can’t believe it. Snowball is pouting. The corners of her lips are turned down, and there’s a big crease in her forehead just above the eyes. If the situation were different, I’d break out laughing. But I’m certain what’s happening is not a laughing matter.
Reluctantly, Snowball follows me. The grinding noise has stopped. By now I’m sure it had come from the basement below. I slowly climb down the final steps but I don’t see anything at the base of the stairs. I take a couple of tentative steps into the basement and freeze!
I can’t suppress a scream. On the floor to the far right side of the room lies the body of a teenage girl, her head bent at an impossible angle. It suddenly occurs to me that the killer might still be here. I stop and listen. Nothing. No sound except the usual noises of a low-tech city—buggy wheels on the pavement, people shouting, the song of a bird.
It looks as if the girl is dead, but I have to make sure. I kneel and feel for a pulse. There is none. Suddenly, I feel I can’t breathe. I try to take one breath and then another. It feels as if something is squeezing my lungs. It’s because it dawns on me that I know this girl. At least I know who she is. She’s the one who said the headmaster wasn’t handsome but ugly. She wore Coke-bottle thick glasses.
I look beside her. Her glasses are in tiny, tiny pieces, the frames crooked and bent out of shape. She had been in the brewing class, and now she’s dead.
I have to tell someone. I have to tell them immediately. I stand up and hurry toward the door, Snowball racing ahead of me.
“I wouldn’t leave if I were you.” The voice sounds disembodied, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. I freeze in place, unable to move a muscle. A chill runs down my back. Is this the killer? Oh my God, Snowball and I are in the basement all alone with the murderer. Where is he? Snowball and I can hop on Broom Hilda and be back upstairs in a flash. “Do not be afraid,” the voice says. “I am not the one you think I am. I’m a ghost, and my name is Aubrey Dobbins.”
“Where are you, Aubrey?”
“Right here beside you.”
I jump back as he suddenly appears before me; a handsome man in his mid-thirties, attractively dressed in what I think is Victorian clothing—A forest-green coat and gray-striped trousers. He’s slender with a mustache and sideburns.
He bows. “At your service,” he says.
I notice his cravat is crooked, and there’s a rip in the sleeve of his coat.
“Oh, if only I hadn’t jumped,” he says.
I’m puzzled.
“That’s how I tore my coat and sent my cravat askew.” He pauses. “I noticed you looking at them.”
“Sorry,” I tell him, “I didn’t mean to stare.”
“Oh, I’m just being foolish. Nothing I can do about the tear. It’s there till I’m dead dead. And I can’t straighten the cravat.”
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“I cannot leave because my book is here, and wherever it is, I have to be.”
I find my breathing is almost back to normal, and I’m no longer shaking. “Did you see what happened? Who murdered this poor girl?”
“I was sitting on an old crate in back, remembering how it was before I jumped from the roof. And I wasn’t paying attention to anything.”
“You jumped from the roof? Why?”
“It’s a sad story.”
“But did you see anything?”
“Will you please wait for a moment?”
I must be in shock. I think, standing here talking to a ghost while this poor girl has been killed. “Wait for what?” I ask the ghost.
“I can give you some clues. Important clues. But I must warn you. I am a poet. And in things like this, very important things, I have no choice—literally no choice. I must talk in verse…verse that you may have a difficult time interpreting.”
“Why? I mean why in verse and why difficult to understand?”
“It’s my curse for jumping, just as I am cursed to always be close to my poetry book.”
“I suppose I understand.”
“But before I give you the clues, I need to tell you my story. I haven’t had anyone listen for many a year.”
Again, I turn and start toward the door. “I have to notify the authorities.”
“But I know who killed her. And I know why.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“Not when I have a captive audience like you,” he says.
I sigh. What’s wrong with me? It’s insane that I have to stand here and listen to the ramblings of some dead poet. Why don’t I just leave?
“So why don’t you make yourself comfortable,” he says. “It will only take a little while.” He points to a hardback chair with arms and a padded seat. The varnish has peeled away from the wood, and the color of the flowered seat has faded into dull pinks.
“It’s very dusty,” I tell him.
“Sorry. It seems I’ve become used to that sort of thing. Early on, it bothered my sense of aesthetics…but no more.”
I shrug and turn to Broom Hilda, “Would you mind terribly?”
For a moment, Broom Hilda doesn’t move. It’s as if she’s trying to make up her mind. Then she nods by bending slightly. She moves so quickly she’s a blur. Dust flies everywhere. The ghost sneezes. Snowball sneezes, and her eyes turn red. “What sacrifices I make!” she says, “just to hang out with you.”
“Sorry, Snowball.” At least she’s not terrified any longer, I think. Now she’s more like her usual, snarky self.
“Terribly allergic to dus—,” the poet says and then stops. “How silly of me. Ghosts don’t have allergies. It’s just that when I was alive I always had a stuffy nose.” He glances at the now less dusty chair. “Please.”
I shrug and sit down. Snowball jumps into my lap.
“I always wanted to be a poet. From the time I was a small child. As I grew older, I studied the best the age had to offer,” he says. “Poets like Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, and the humorist Oscar Wilde.” He has a terribly pitiful look in his eyes. “And I felt that I was ready to make my mark. Oh, starting when I was a mere twelve years old, I had poetry published here and there—newspapers, magazines. But never a collection. Now I felt it was time. After I had made many attempts at finding a publisher, a prestigious press finally gave me a positive response. I was on my way…or so I thought. And then came that horribly dreadful review in the Warlwicca News. I remember it word for word:
“IF YOU ARE in the mood for a good laugh or two I recommend reading Aubrey Dobbins’ Poems from the Depth of a Wounded Soul. It’s hilarious, an elaborate joke played on the public by the usually staid Witchery Press. You’ll chuckle at the rhymes that often aren’t! And when they are, they are sidesplitting. For example, take the poem, In Flightless Flight to Forest’s Green.”
AND HE RIDICULED my favorite poem:
TO THE FOREST FERNS, all dark and drear,
My soul did wander
While in my bed lay my body and head,
Soul and mortal self now rent asunder
E’en in idle moments
Of wet, wet rain and very noisy thunder.
I see the beauty of yon mushroom,
Which will fade to dark decay too soon.
Ah, praise thee, fern and mushroom too.
Wouldst thou grow in some great zoo?”
SNOWBALL CLIMBS up on my shoulder and whispers into my ear, “Is this dude kidding?”
I give her a sympathetic look. Like Snowball, I think the poem was just awful, the absolute worst I’ve ever encountered.
Aubrey gazes into my eyes. “Ah so painful to recall. All joy of my accomplishment gone in an instant; all sense of pride. There was nothing to do but jump from the roof of the witches’ school. I plucked up a copy of my book, raced to the roof and stepped off, the book clasped tightly against my chest.”
Were those tears in his eyes? I wonder. No, of course not. Ghosts couldn’t cry. “You poor man,” I said.
“Alas, I tried my best. But ne’er then were blessed.”
Is he putting me on? “The clues,” I say, impatient to get back to the murdered girl. “You were going to give me some clues.”
“And I shall. But I want to caution you first. You need to sweep up the broken glass and save it.”
“Why would I want to do that?” I’m becoming very restless now.
“So the floor is clean, silly, and to keep anyone from cutting his or her feet. That’s why you must take it away.”
I turn again to Broom Hilda. “Please,” I say. “Pretty please, with sugar on it.” I feel sorry for asking her to perform such menial tasks as dusting and sweeping.
She carefully sweeps the glass into a pile. I find a piece of old newspaper to use in place of a dustpan. I fold the paper around the pieces of glass so none can fall out and place the paper into the corner of the room for safekeeping. Then, I turn back to Aubrey. “The clues?” I ask.
“Of course, I’m glad to oblige.” He strikes a pose like a Delsartian actor, a forefinger raised in front of him.
“Riddles only, nothing more.
He stood there in the woodsy store.
Others, others gathered ‘round.
But only this one makes a sound.”
I’m impatient and frustrated. “What, for heaven’s sake, is that supposed to mean?”
“Sorry, but I am unable to elaborate.”
“You did say clues.”
“I did indeed,” Aubrey says.
“So do you have another one—maybe a little easier to understand?”
He shakes his head, a look of regret on his face. “Sorry.”
I sigh. “Give it to me,” I tell him.
He strikes a second pose, arms outstretched, his face tilted upward.
“What is swept away can be un swept.”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
“Then how about this, the final one I can give you:
Pay attention to the shape,
before you talk to any ape.
Sorry,” Aubrey says, “that one could prove difficult.”
“That’s all?”
“Unless you’d like to hear me recite some of my poetry.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I say as I try to repress a shudder at the thought of hearing more of his verse. “I have to go and report the murder.”
Suddenly, I remember why I came here in the first place. The book about brewing for dummies. “Aubrey,” I say.
“Yes.”
I ask him about the book, and he knows exactly where it is.
“But you don’t look like a dummy.” he says, pointing his gray transparent finger at the book.
I grab the book. Then Snowball and I jump on Broom Hilda and sail up to the classroom.
As I suspected, Red Sumac’s broomstick class is over but she is still in the room. “Whatever happened?” she asks. “I was ready to send out a search party.”
“Oh, Red,” I tell her and can’t hold back the tears. “Something terrible.”
“What is it, for goodness sake?”
“Someone was murdered,” I manage to stammer. “I discovered the body.”
“Murdered?”
“I heard two screams as I went downstairs, and then a thud and the sound of glass being destroyed. When Snowball and I reached the basement, she lay there on the floor, her head twisted sideways. I think she was strangled, her neck snapped, and her glasses ground into tiny pieces in anger.”
I see a look of horror on Red’s face. “Oh no,” she says. “It wasn’t Polly!”
“It was the one who wore very thick glasses.”
Red’s eyes fill with tears. “She was such a sweet girl. One of my favorite students.” She glances at me. “Have you told the authorities?”
“No…I tried to leave time and again, but the ghost kept telling me he knew who murdered her and he could provide clues.”
“Of course, the poet. What’s his name?”
“Aubrey Dobbins.”
“Right,” Red says. “And he told you his story, I’ll bet.”
“Before he’d give me any clues or let me leave.” I shake my head. “And the poem he quoted is the absolute pits.”
“Something about yon mushroom, if I remember correctly. Silly, silly man.”
“So you’ve met him?”
“Years ago, not long after he’d jumped from the roof.”
“I’ve been wondering. Why the roof of the school?”
“He was a warlock, of sorts. He had been enrolled in the school but apparently wouldn’t apply himself. Spent all his time writing…can it be called poetry? Poor fellow. Since he was acquainted with the school, I suppose that’s why he did it here. From the highest roof in town.” She shakes her head. “So what clues did he give you?”
I recite them for her.
She frowns. “None of them make sense to me.”
“We need to notify the sheriff of Hemlock,” I say. And I hope he is smarter than Sheriff Dudley.
CHAPTER 5
Well, Mastering the Cauldron for Dummies didn’t make me suddenly top of my class, but unlike Granny Maycomber, I did turn a tadpole into a frog, I think. I am puffing as I enter the library on the top floor of the Academy.
The bespectacled, crooked-nosed witch behind the reception desk looks over the wire rims of her glasses and forces a smile, which fades as quickly as it appears from her wrinkled face.
“Yes, and what brings our oldest student to the library with her familiar and broomstick? Already read all the books in Nightshade, have we? Or are you going to sweep the floor?”
So much for being anonymous.
“I’m looking for a book on Spell Masters?”
“One of those, hmm!” she says it as though I have a terrible affliction.
“Yeah, one of those,” I say with a sigh. I smile and ask, “What section should I look under.” Be nice and get the information from crook-nose!
The witch lifts a wrinkled hand and points to a winding staircase that seems to ascend to heaven. “Up in the tower of least-used books. They would be in the basement, but it’s already full!”
Yeah, full of the ghost of a dead poet and a dead body, I think, trying to maintain my smile.
“Do I need to sign up for a library card?”
The old witch looks at me like I just said the dumbest thing she has ever heard.
“Sorry, I’m from the other side,” I say as I turn and head for the stairs. Maybe she’ll expect a spell from me to check the book out when I leave.
I glance up the stairs. I guess since Spell Masters are one in a million, books about them are, too. But I’ll bet the reason they don’t get used very much is because I doubt anyone else would be willing climb these stairs.
“You ready for some exercise, Snowball?” I ask Snowball, who’s busy cleaning her favorite paw.
“I can’t read. And I’m not ready to go to heaven,” Snowball tells me in a tone equivalent to are you kidding me?
I shake my head at my lazy familiar as I start climbing and climbing, with Broom Hilda tucked under my arm.
I am huffing and puffing like that big bad wolf trying to get at the three little pigs by the time I reach the top step and find myself in front of a door.
Please, please, don’t be locked, I think, horrified at the prospect of having to go back down the stairs to ask the witch for a key.
I turn the doorknob and breath a sign of relief as the door swings open. I almost cry out, my surprise is so great. I am expecting a small round room. But what I find is a long hall, lined from top to bottom with ancient leather-bound books. And not a speck of dust! Wow, Nightshade could use an old fangless vampire as janitor. I must remember to ask Val what his grandfather is doing.
Suddenly I get sentimental thinking of Val and Nightshade. Stop that! There’s work to be done!
I look at the hundreds and hundreds of books. Where do I start? Ask the books?
“Hello. Can any of you fine books tell me where I can locate books on Spell Masters?”
“Here!”
“No, here!”
“I’m over here!”
“Please look at me!”
“Stop!” I shout as the books’ whispers threaten to overwhelm me. “Or will I look on my own.”
“Suzy, your grandmother Susana wrote me!”
“Who said that? Where are you?” I call out.
“I’m all the way towards the end of the room, Suzy.”
“Okay, I’m coming,” I say with relief that I don’t have to go through hundreds of books one at a time.
“You’ll be sorry.” One of the books from the top shelf calls down as I walk by.
Why would I be sorry? It’s my Granny Maycomber’s book, I think. But I began to wonder if maybe the warning was real as I near a dark corner at the end of the room.
“Okay, where are you?” I ask a little sharply.
I see movement in the recess at the end of the last bookcase. “Good, I’m glad you’re coming to me instead of making me search for you.” I say with a sigh. Then I realize it isn’t a book approaching but a pale, faceless man. He reaches for me. His hands have long fingers that end in claws. I jerk back, barely avoiding his touch. Then, as I backpedal, I bring Broom Hilda up just as the faceless man launches himself at me. I swing my broomstick as though it were a quarterstaff. The handle of Broom Hilda gives the attacker a solid whack on the side of its head, knocking him to the floor.
