Dylan remembered. ‘Wilfred is one of Reginald Griswold’s fake ghosts.’
‘Maybe he’s unhappy at how he’s being portrayed,’ Edgar said.
‘The last of our main suspects are Peter Fletcher and Bartholomew and Percy Carpenter. All worked at the stables and lived in the servants’ quarters at the castle. They each died around the stretch of time in question.’
‘So all we have to do now is find out which one of our suspects is causing all this trouble,’ Edgar said.
‘But if his aim was to drive Mr Griswold out,’ Dylan asked, ‘won’t that mean he’ll stay away now?’
‘Perhaps, but maybe he doesn’t want anyone there,’ Angeline smiled, ‘which is a good reason for us to go back.’
‘Go back? Won’t that upset him even more?’
‘Probably, but that just makes it more challenging.’
‘He is a spirited one,’ Endora warned. ‘And even though he’s done no harm so far, I’d advise you not to take any unnecessary risks.’
‘Aren’t we doing that by going?’ Dylan’s breathing quickened again.
‘There’s that humorous side again.’ A deep, melodious voice rose from behind them.
Dylan, Angeline and Edgar turned to see Mr Gloom standing at the door holding their satchels and coats. It was fair to say that only two of them were excited to see him. ‘Rose asked me to prepare your kits for tonight.’
Angeline and Edgar put on their coats and slipped their satchel straps over their heads. ‘Thanks, Gloom.’
‘You’re very welcome.’ His eyes lit up with a cheeky sparkle. ‘Has Endora told you everything you need to know about your latest catch?’
‘I . . . we . . . it’s . . .’ Dylan stammered.
‘I know.’ Gloom’s hand fell with a thud onto Dylan’s shoulder. ‘This business gets so exciting that it’s hard to speak sometimes. But that’s enough chitchat.’ He bowed slightly and motioned towards the door. ‘Your lift awaits.’
‘You’re driving us?’ Dylan barely whispered.
‘Not only that . . .’ Gloom leant in so close that Dylan could see the hairs of his moustache twitch under his breath. ‘We’re going ghost-catching together.’
‘|t is quite something.’ Gloom inspected the axe head deeply embedded in the heavy oak of Mr Griswold’s bedroom door at Castle Koszmar. ‘Really quite something.’
‘I know.’ Dylan’s eyes flicked either side of him and he pulled his coat tightly around his neck. ‘This ghost is a real menace.’
‘No, I mean that axe is amazing,’ Gloom insisted. ‘Quality steel blade, beautifully crafted handle . . . Edgar?’
Edgar looked closer. ‘It’s an early medieval battleaxe, used by foot soldiers and sometimes knights, often in close combat. It required less skill and precision than other types of axes and could deliver a devastating blow.’
‘Excellent.’ Dylan slumped. ‘So our ghost is handy with axes as well as horses.’
There was an instant silence that soon became awkward when Dylan realised everyone was staring at him. ‘What?’
‘Handy with axes,’ Angeline repeated. ‘Young masters of castles often didn’t have a lot of practice with axes.’
‘They’d use swords and bows and arrows,’ Edgar added, ‘but the more genteel classes tended to stay away from tools of hard labour.’
Angeline smiled. ‘Meaning Wilfred may not be our ghost.’
‘Good thinking, Master Dylan.’ Gloom slapped him on the back, causing him to almost topple over. ‘Your grandfather knew you’d be a natural at this ghost-catching business.’
‘So what we need to do now is –’ Angeline was snapped into silence by the lights going out and the room filling with a deep, impenetrable darkness.
‘That’s bad, isn’t it?’ Dylan whispered.
There was a soft rustling as they rummaged through their satchels for their torches. There was a soft click before Angeline’s face lit up. ‘Maybe Griswold hasn’t paid his electricity bill.’
Dylan fumbled through his bag until he finally found his torch. He switched it on, revealing a hopeful expression. ‘You really think so?’
‘Well, I . . .’ Angeline shook her head and sighed. ‘No.’
‘Be ready to access your ghost-catching equipment at any moment,’ Edgar instructed.
‘What should we use?’ Dylan’s hand gripped his torch like an emergency flare.
‘We’ll know that depending on what happens next.’ Angeline’s face brightened with a cheeky grin.
Dylan felt a shiver of breath against his neck.
‘This is where it gets really exciting,’ Gloom said. ‘Hold on to your heads, everyone.’
Dylan turned in time to see light glinting off Gloom’s axe head. ‘Don’t you mean, hold on to your hats?’
‘In this line of work, you need to hold on to more than just your hats.’ Gloom held his axe higher so that Dylan’s quickening breath fogged the blade. ‘Don’t worry, Master Dylan, that ghost won’t have a chance to hurt you with this.’
Dylan’s throat went dry and his voice creaked. ‘Hurt me?’
Faint, glowing specks of light sprinkled over the wall at the end of the corridor, accompanied by the sound of slow, heavy footsteps.
Gloom held up his axe in readiness. ‘I may need this sooner than I thought.’
Angeline and Edgar took out their Trackers and activated the screens.
‘What is it?’ Dylan asked, unable to move.
‘There’s no sign of any spectral energy,’ Edgar said, ‘but the temperature is falling.’
A draught of cold air slithered from the direction of the footsteps.
‘It helps at this point to do up your coat,’ Angeline whispered to Dylan.
A small whimper escaped his lips as his fingers struggled with the buttons.
The specks of light grew brighter.
‘I’m getting a faint reading now.’ Edgar studied his Tracker and looked up. ‘Which would explain that.’
From around the corner, a lantern had appeared. It was carved with small holes that sent out thin shafts of light, peppering the walls and floors.
And it was held by no one.
The red glow on Edgar’s screen became more intense. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a ghost.’
The lantern moved closer and the thumping footsteps became louder.
‘What should we do?’ Dylan whimpered.
‘We wait and see what it wants,’ Angeline answered.
‘What if it wants to kill us?’
‘It’s very unusual that –’ The lantern suddenly came hurtling towards them. ‘Duck!’
The fiery lamp sailed over their heads and crashed into the wall behind them. It clanged to the floor in a trail of sparks, spilling kerosene and igniting a hanging tapestry. Flames instantly came to life, lighting the room and burning up the material.
Gloom hobbled to a nearby glass-encased fire extinguisher and yelled, ‘Look away!’ Slamming his axe into the case, he reached through the shattered glass for the red canister, aimed it at the tapestry and swung it left and right with a loud cry. ‘Aaaah!’
A stream of thick, white foam covered the burning fabric and within seconds the flames were out, their torches catching the cloud of smoke, foam and floating ash.
Gloom tossed the canister aside and wiped his brow. ‘That felt good.’
‘Ghost Goggles,’ Angeline ordered.
The three catchers put on their goggles. The glowing red blob of the ghost was immediately dancing on their lenses. It was within reach but quickly retreating.
‘Wait!’ Angeline began running and reached into her satchel. She pulled out the Ghost Powder, undid the string of the pouch and swung it into the air in a wide arc. Most of it fell
to the floor, but some of it caught the outline of a young boy. ‘We only want to talk to you.’
The boy vanished from the corridor and the red glow on their Ghost Goggles faded to black.
Edgar stopped by her side. ‘I guess he’s not much of a talker.’
‘Then we have to be a little more persuasive,’ Angeline said. ‘Come on.’
She turned to see Gloom standing behind her, ready for action. What she didn’t see was Dylan.
‘Dylan?’
They lifted their goggles and retraced their steps down the hall, scanning it with their torches. Angeline noticed a shoe sticking out from behind a large pot plant. ‘Dylan?’
There was a faint, bleary, ‘Yes’, followed by the appearance of Dylan’s dirt- and ash-smeared face.
Angeline knelt beside him. ‘It’s harder to know what’s going on if you’re hiding back there.’
Dylan sat up and rubbed his forehead, which now had a huge egg-shaped bump. He winced. ‘The last thing I remember was Gloom telling us to look away.’
‘I don’t remember saying anything about head-butting a pot plant,’ Gloom said.
‘Do you feel okay to keep going?’ Angeline asked.
‘Because if you don’t,’ Gloom added with a gravelly voice, his torch lighting the edges of his face, ‘you can stay here. In the dark. All alone. Resting up while a wild ghost roams these corridors, unfettered and quite a bit cranky.’
‘No!’ Dylan almost shouted. ‘I’m fine now, thanks.’ He got to his feet and tried his best not to look as dizzy as he felt. ‘Why does my first ghost have to have such a bad temper?’
‘He’s not so bad,’ Angeline said.
‘Not so bad? So far he’s tried to run me down with his horse and thrown a flaming lantern at me.’
‘Sometimes ghosts can be misunderstood.’
From somewhere deep within the castle, a great resounding crash rang out, as if whole rooms were being demolished.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t –’ Dylan was stopped short by Gloom’s hand thudding onto his back.
‘Waste any more time. I agree.’ He hitched up his trousers. ‘We’ve got a ghost to catch.’
Edgar opened a 3-D map of the castle on his Tracker. ‘The Spectro-Thermal Scanner has identified the coldest part of the building as the dungeon.’
‘He couldn’t have chosen anywhere more pleasant, like the TV room?’
Gloom laughed. ‘Oh, Master Dylan, that sense of humour of yours.’ He held up his axe. ‘It’s party time.’
Using the 3-D map as their guide, Edgar led the way through dark corridors, along wide landings and down narrow, winding staircases. They burrowed deeper into the castle’s interiors that echoed with the muffled commotion. With each step, they became more mired in a breath-snatching cold, until they found themselves in a damp, stone passage that ended with a thick wooden door secured with a solid brass lock.
From inside, there was another series of crashes and the sound of smashing glass.
‘Maybe we should come back when he’s calmed down,’ Dylan whispered.
The noises stopped.
Angeline smiled. ‘Looks like he’s calmed down.’
‘Great.’ Dylan slumped. Only a wooden door stood between him and a dark dungeon with a crazed ghost. He was possibly facing the last moments of his life. And at such a young age. He had so many things he’d planned to do: breathe, eat more plates of his nan’s blackforest cake, do more breathing. All he wanted to do was run away. Get out of there. Save himself.
‘Ready?’ Angeline said in a way that made him think she’d asked him more than once.
‘To meet a possibly violent ghost who may tear me limb from limb?’ Dylan sighed. ‘What else would I want to do tonight?’
‘That’s the spirit, Master Dylan.’ Gloom stepped forward. ‘Now let’s do something about opening that door.’ He tightened his grip on the axe and with one swing he brought it down on the lock, breaking it into pieces that clanged to the ground.
Dylan gaped. ‘You’re stronger than you look.’
‘I work out. Shall we?’
They entered the dungeon, Gloom with his axe held high, Angeline and Edgar with their searching torch lights and Dylan with all his efforts focused on breathing.
But there was nothing.
‘What about all that noise we heard?’ Dylan asked. ‘It sounded like he was tearing this place apart?’
‘Ghosts can manifest sounds that create the illusion of a physical disturbance,’ Edgar explained.
‘They can be noisy little beggars when they want to be,’ Gloom added.
Angeline’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. ‘He’s not here.’ She scanned the room with her goggles and torch, searching over its roughly hewn walls, holding her nose against the strong smell of mould and damp earth. ‘We’ve lost him.’
‘That’s a shame.’ As brave as Dylan was trying to look, he couldn’t help but be relieved.
Until he heard snuffling and neighing in the tunnel behind them.
They turned and through their goggles saw the red, glowing silhouette of the headless horseman. The black beast’s nostrils blew white puffs of air and his hooves trampled the ground in agitation. The horseman cracked a whip above his head and let loose a piercing laugh.
Then he charged towards them.
‘Watch out!’ Angeline called and leapt out of the way, flattening herself against the wall of the dungeon.
But Dylan didn’t move. He stood in the path of the horseman and his ghostly stampeding stallion.
‘Oooph!’
The galloping horse and its rider collided into Dylan, striking him down like a bowling pin. He hit the ground hard as the spectre continued past and dissolved through the walls of the dungeon, leaving a ghostly cackle resonating in his wake.
Angeline and Edgar tore off their goggles and ran to Dylan.
‘Are you okay?’ They knelt beside him. ‘Why didn’t you move? We called out to you!’
Dylan lifted his goggles, making sure to avoid the bump on his forehead. ‘What happened?’
Gloom shrugged. ‘The horseman decided to use you for target practice.’
‘He knocked into you pretty hard.’ Angeline winced.
Dylan frowned. ‘I thought ghosts were supposed to go right through you.’
‘It all depends on the concentration of their spectral energy.’
Dylan stared at Angeline. ‘I must have hit the ground hard, because you’re starting to sound like your brother.’
Edgar smiled. ‘What she means is, the first time we saw the horseman the reading on our Trackers wasn’t very strong, which meant the manifestation lacked the necessary mass to have any impact. But this time, the level had increased.’
‘And I got knocked over.’
‘Sorry,’ Angeline said. ‘We should have warned you that they don’t always appear with the same intensity. If they’re really worked up about something, they can pack quite a punch. How do you feel?’
‘I’m not sure. I fell pretty heavily and think I might have hurt my . . .’ But when Dylan attempted to move, he noticed something strange: ‘Nothing hurts.’ He sat up and felt his arms and legs.
‘Lucky you buttoned up your coat when you did,’ Angeline said.
‘The coat protected me?’
Edgar nodded. ‘It absorbed the impact of the fall.’
‘Told you they were good,’ Angeline said.
‘Only the best for Ghost Club members.’ Gloom slowly swung his torch around and began inspecting the dungeon. ‘Now where’s our sprightly little friend gone?’
Edgar accessed the 3-D map of the castle on his Tracker. ‘There’s no reading at all now. Not in the castle or the grounds.’
‘What does he want?’
Dylan asked.
‘That’s what we have yet to work out.’
‘I think I may have a clue.’ In the light of his torch, Gloom saw something shine behind the open dungeon door. He hobbled across the room and dragged it shut. There were more dripping red letters on the back.
‘So that’s it then,’ Dylan said. ‘We should definitely leave now.’
Gloom laughed. ‘Oh, Master Dylan, again with the jokes. You’re a regular comedian. As if we’d leave when we’re so close to a catch.’
‘We are?’
‘If we stay, he’ll keep appearing because our presence seems to upset him,’ Angeline explained.
‘Yeah, I noticed.’ Dylan nodded towards the door. ‘It also does nothing for his spelling.’
There was another awkward silence where everyone’s eyes were trained on Dylan. ‘You’re all doing that staring thing again.’
‘The boy’s a genius.’ Gloom shook his head.
‘What?’ Dylan was getting creeped out by being the focus of everyone’s attention.
‘It’s the small things like this that can secure a catch.’ Gloom was impressed.
Dylan was still confused.
‘Wilfred was an excellent student,’ Angeline and Edgar said in unison.
‘So that means we’re definitely not looking for him,’ Gloom added.
‘Or Wesley,’ Edgar said. ‘Even though he didn’t end his life well, he was a good enough student as a boy to be able to spell a simple message like this.’
‘That means, based on Endora’s research, we’re looking for one of the three stablehands: Peter, Bartholomew or Percy.’ Angeline turned to Dylan. ‘Nice work, Sherlock.’
‘Thanks.’ Dylan smiled and his whole body relaxed a little until what she said next.
‘To cover more ground and increase our chances of finding clues, we should split up.’
‘Split up?’ Dylan looked as if Angeline had suggested he dip himself in honey and crawl into a bear pit. ‘Won’t it be safer it we stay together?’
‘With your satchel, you’re well equipped to handle anything a ghost throws at you,’ Edgar reassured him.
‘But Endora said to be careful and not take any unnecessary risks.’
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