“Hello!” he greeted me. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Fancy indeed. Can we talk?” I asked.
He glanced back into the darkness, for all the world as if a committee was waiting in the shadows to decide what he could and could not say. “Sure, for a bit. There’s a to-do going on around here. You’ve probably heard,” he said.
I shook my head and he frowned. “We can go to Sharon’s old office,” he suggested.
Sharon was a vampire who had worked for the Fudge until she’d doubled-crossed him, and committed a murder to boot. I didn’t know what had happened to her, because after Jefferson Judge dealt with her I told him I didn’t want to know.
Sharon’s office was tidy now, if not exactly clean. Gone were any personal touches or any evidence that the space had ever belonged to anyone but Peter. The office was next to the boiler room, and it was boiling hot. I loosened my collar as Peter looked around proudly.
“Is this yours now?” I asked.
“It sure is mine. Got the order right from the Fudge himself. Keeper of the Door I am,” he explained, beaming.
“Great news,” I told him.
“Isn’t it?” He did look terribly pleased.
“What’s the to-do down here?” I asked.
“The Fudge wants to close the Times for now. He says the articles in it are too hot,” said Peter, shaking his head.
I sat forward. “What? What does everyone else say?”
“We’re all against it. No one wants it closed but him,” said Peter.
“What does Old Leslie think?” I breathed.
“That’s a fake name. No one knows who’s behind the articles,” said Peter. “But the Fudge is afraid of repercussions.”
“From whom?” I asked.
Peter pushed a newspaper across his desk. A cloud of dust flew up around it. I glanced at today’s edition of the Spooky Times.
Printed in big letters on the front page was, “Crescent Garbo in danger.”
The article went on to detail a conversation between Cookie, my mom, Meg, and Audrey, during which they had decided that the spindle was threatening Cookie’s life, and furthermore, that until the threat was dealt with, Cookie was in a weakened position.
Which had now been exposed in print.
“You can’t publish this!” I cried.
“Keep your voice down,” Peter begged.
I leaned forward. “I want to speak with the Fudge.”
“He said you’d say that,” whined Peter. “And he said you can’t.”
“When did he say that?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“A little while ago,” he gulped.
“Good thing the paper is shutting down,” I muttered. “This could get Cookie killed.”
No matter how much my grandmother annoyed me, I didn’t want her life threatened.
At least not by anyone outside the family.
Peter nodded as if he understood.
I didn’t linger with Peter, who had been, as usual, no help. Well, maybe a little help; at least I now knew that Fudge was shutting down the newspaper for the time being. That meant that my mom could rest in peace for a while.
Before dinner started that night, I was as terrified as I had ever been. By the time it was over I found myself wondering what I had been worrying about. Grant fit in easily. As usual, Cookie did most of the talking. It was soon clear that my mother had invited Grant because he lived nearby and not because she suspected we were dating and wanted to quiz him on his lineage going back eight generations. It was great to have him join us, but that was about it.
By the time I got back upstairs, it was almost time for the haunted house to open for the night. I found Pep and Lark and we headed off to get ready, but we had just reached the second floor landing when the foyer phone rang.
This was a rare occurrence. Whenever Cookie thought of it she cut the cord, which Mom therefore had to replace from time to time. For that purpose, she had started keeping a supply of cords on hand. That had inspired Cookie to escalate the situation by, for example, throwing out the actual phone, at which point Mom had threatened to cut off her wine supply. My grandmother had shaped up.
I raced down the stairs at the first ring.
The less the phone rang, the less likely Cookie was to be annoyed.
I grabbed the receiver and said hello, expecting a sales call, which was all that usually came through on that phone. Cookie raged against them and plotted ways to get her revenge, but her anger never amounted to much.
On the other end of the line I heard a scratching noise and then a voice.
In a matter of moments I understood what had to happen.
By now Lark and Pep had come down the stairs to see what the fuss was about.
“What is it?” Lark demanded.
I swallowed hard.
“We have to go, now,” I said grimly.
“What? Why?” Pep whispered.
“I think that was Edmund. I think his life is in danger.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
That’s how it came about that instead of going upstairs to get ready for the haunted house, we headed for Edmund’s with all possible haste.
When I described what I had heard on the phone, Lark’s eyes went wild.
“Are you sure you didn’t recognize the voice?” Pep asked.
I shook my head. “Definitely not, but it was so muffled and low that I could hardly make out the words.”
Pep shook her head and frowned.
“How exactly are we going to do this?” I asked.
“Car, right?” said Pep.
“If we take the car, Mom and Cookie will know we’ve left, and they’ll come after us,” Lark pointed out.
“That leaves only one option,” I said grimly.
We made for the owls. After a quick explanation of what I wanted, they agreed to take us to Edmund’s. The owl in charge was named Grog, and in his excitement he revealed that they didn’t get to fly enough, so this was an unexpected treat for them. They were also excited that Lizzie wasn’t with us.
Pep was the only one with reservations about what we were doing. She was concerned that we were just getting ourselves into more trouble. “As usual,” she said.
“Edmund is an accomplished warlock. I’m pretty sure he can handle himself,” she muttered as we prepared to leave.
“We can’t leave him there alone,” I insisted as we took off into the dark night.
As we rose, I looked down and saw the haunted house lit up in a variety of dark colors and wondered if we could get back before we were missed.
Meg had a theory that a haunted house could be creepy even if it were bright pink. Ours wasn’t, but she and the supernaturals enjoyed trying to make the place look pleasant and unassuming, right before they terrified everyone nearly to death. Taking one last look as we went out of sight of the house, I had to acknowledge that we had succeeded on the brightness scale.
Then I turned my attention to the task at hand.
We made sure to avoid flying over the road, so the stream of visitors arriving for the haunted house wouldn’t see us. The converse was that we didn’t see them either, so I didn’t get any sense of how the haunted house would go tonight.
The snow, which had started falling earlier, was coming down harder now, and it was hard to see in the darkness. But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting to Edmund’s in time.
One benefit of flying was that we weren’t at risk of running into any of the Undead that lived in the forest. I had had enough of them already, that night with Grant. I wondered whether I should get the spiders to come along and take care of them for me, but I filed the thought for later. I also wondered what other monsters lived on our doorstep that I didn’t know about.
My desire to avoid the roads meant that Edmund’s house was harder to find in the dark. By the time we landed, I feared we were too late to help.
We arrived in the back garden. There was a small gardenin
g shed, and then the house.
“We’re too late,” Lark whispered, looking around.
“Why do you say that?” Pep asked.
“There isn’t anyone here,” she replied.
We walked toward the back of the house, while the owls went to find perches to rest on until we were ready to go home.
“I see a light on upstairs,” said Pep.
Lark and I followed her gaze, and sure enough there was a soft glow coming from one of the upstairs rooms. I could also see a dim light coming from one of the downstairs rooms. It might have been the room where we had seen Edmund when he first told us of Timothy’s murder, but I couldn’t be sure.
As we stepped quietly into the house, something brushed against my neck. I shivered, but when I looked around there was nothing there. Not even a cobweb. It seemed strange that the house was unlocked, but at the moment I was too grateful to process what that might mean.
The wing of the house we’d entered was in total darkness. My heart hammered in my chest as we crept forward, but we didn’t encounter anything or anyone, good or evil. As we made our way down a hallway filled with streaming shadows, we could finally make out the faintest glow from the light we’d seen upstairs. I signaled to my friends that we should head in that direction next.
“This is a terrible idea,” whispered Pep.
When I looked into her eyes I saw something beyond terror. All she wanted to do was run away. Her whole body was shaking and her eyes kept darting from side to side.
I couldn’t really blame her for being afraid, but we had come this far, and now we had to find out what was going on. Above all, we had to make sure Edmund was safe.
We crept through the whole house slowly and methodically, each room we came to as empty as the last. The light we had seen was merely a lamp shining dimly in an empty room.
In each space we entered, we braced ourselves for a battle, and each time we found nothing, and no one.
As we climbed the stairs, I was sure something would be waiting at the top of the steps to attack us.
There was only more silence.
The seeming emptiness of the house was no comfort; rather, it only made the suspense worse, so much so that I felt an intensifying prickle of terror as we went back to the first floor.
A vampire, an Undead, or something worse could be lurking around any corner.
But still there was nothing.
When we reached the study I’d had tea in, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Lark tapped my shoulder and pointed forward. She would go first. I gave one brief nod.
She shoved the door open . . . on another empty room.
There was no one here.
We regrouped in the hallway, where a phone sat on a little table. I found myself glancing at it, tempted by the black receiver. Had it recently been used to lure us away from home? That suspicion was growing ominously in my mind.
Lark braced her hands on her hips.
“That was frustrating!” she said. “Who called us?”
I shook my head in puzzlement, my eyes still scanning our surroundings. That was an excellent question.
Then it came to me in a tumble. I just really didn’t like the answer.
“We have to get back to Haunted Bluff!” I gasped.
“What? Why?” Pep wanted to know.
“Because we were called away. Someone wanted us away from the mansion.”
At this point the mansion was the only place in all of Shimmerfield that was protected.
We had to get home.
“Let me just call Cookie,” I said.
Maybe she’d know what to do. At the very least, she needed to hear that Edmund might be in danger right at this very moment.
Fear curled around my spine and tightened. If Edmund hadn’t summoned us to his property, then who had?
I picked up the phone. Part of me expected not to hear a dial tone, but there it was. I dialed Haunted Bluff, even though it wouldn’t have surprised me if no one answered. Cookie might not answer just for the sport of it. Sometimes she did, and sometimes she just watched the phone ring.
When a familiar voice on the other end of the line greeted me, I nearly dropped the receiver in surprise.
“Hi, Corey,” I said. Of course he had answered. He was the only one not working tonight, since he was still in the lab trying to help Grant.
Our brief conversation was both shocking and instructive.
“Edmund is at the mansion,” I said, hanging up the phone after taking barely a minute to fill Corey in. I swallowed hard. I had told Corey not to tell anyone I’d called, much less that Lark, Pep, and I weren’t even home. Corey didn’t like it, but I hoped he’d do what I asked, and with any luck we’d have time to get back before he gave in and sounded the alarm.
I thought I had caught a note of fear in Corey’s voice, and I wondered if it was down to his lab experiments for Grant. Maybe he now knew what the substance Grant had asked him to identify was; maybe he now knew that our lives were in grave danger.
“I can’t stand this anymore,” Pep said. She darted forward and flicked on a couple of table lamps in the corners. The lights flickered over her face, etching her concern. “Why do I keep getting into these messes with you two?”
My heart was hammering in my chest as I tried to think.
“We’ll just perform some enchantments. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” said Lark.
We exchanged looks. I wasn’t remotely convinced it was going to be fine.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Pep desperately.
“I’m just going to check the shed before we go.
As we headed outside, everything sounded louder than it really was. Our footsteps echoed. The door creaked open and then slammed shut. The wind beat a drum against the fragile dead leaves.
“There’s nothing here,” I said, having poked my head into the shed and seen nothing but garden tools, including several trowels.
“Great. Now, I said it before and I’ll say it again, let’s get out of here,” Pep urged through gritted teeth.
But we hadn’t gotten two steps away from the shed when there came a noise that sounded like a drill.
Stopping to listen for a moment, I realized that it was a creature screeching.
“What is that?” Lark whispered. She sounded horrified; I had never heard her use that tone of voice before.
“Probably the Undead,” I said, my eyes springing forward to scan the tree trunks tattooed in shadows, my breath coming in gulps.
“What now?” Pep whispered.
“RUN!” I cried.
But before we could move, several dark forms swooped through the trees, angled right toward us.
The owls that had brought us to the estate had disappeared. They were smart owls, and they’d stay out of the middle of this mess until we could get far enough away to meet them safely.
Meanwhile, we were anything but safe.
“Let’s try to get to Edmund’s car!” I cried. I knew that it usually sat beyond a thin strip of lawn, just a little bit away from the house.
We took off running, gained the back driveway and raced for the vehicle. Air came into my lungs in short bursts and gasps. We were in grave danger.
“Just get to the car!” Pep yelled over my shoulder. “We’ll have to use an enchantment to get it moving, but that’s better than the alternative.”
I stumbled for a moment as I fought to increase my speed.
The darkness pressed in on us.
Suddenly, creatures slammed around in front of us. The Undead weren’t just in human form, they could also fly.
Pep skidded to a halt, scattering pebbles and mulch. Her whole face changed. She didn’t like her mad dash to safety being interrupted.
“That’s it!” she yelled, and stamped her foot. For a split second even the creatures looked taken aback, as if they didn’t expect any of us to have temper tantrums.
Pep pointed at each of them in turn, muttering “D
estroy!” under her breath each time. The Undead started to scramble away, but they were in such a mad rush to get into the air that they started crashing into each other, into the trees, and even into the car. One unfortunate one made the mistake of trying to escape by hurtling right at us.
“There’s an opening,” I cried.
We raced for Edmund’s car, only to find it locked.
“Enchant this as well?” Lark asked.
“No, we’ll try to get away by owl. This forest might have dangers in the air, but I have a feeling that there are more dangers on the ground,” I said.
“All right. Let’s see if we can find the owls,” said Lark, jumping into action.
But the Undead had only been deterred temporarily. Suddenly they swarmed back at us, making me gasp and dive for cover.
Pep, however, was not to be intimidated. She stayed standing, pointing at the creatures and muttering as enchantments flashed from her hands.
Inspired by her courage, I sprang to my feet as the creatures closed in.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of movement from near the house, but I couldn’t take time to see what it was.
The goggles I’d worn as we flew were still hanging from my pocket. Just as I pulled them out and put them on, one of the creatures made a dive for me. I copied Pep, pointed my hand and muttered an enchantment. The creature went careening into the night.
Lark and Pep fell into line alongside me and the owls came swooping toward us. One of the creatures made a swipe at them, but Lark fended them off.
In the pause that ensued, the sisters adjusted their goggles.
“It’s time to go!” Pep yelled.
I couldn’t have agreed more.
Lark nodded her head and planted her feet. She looked more like she was playing catcher for a softball team than getting ready to take flight.
“Here we go!” I yelled.
The six owls descended in a beautiful formation. One positioned itself in front of me and one in back, and I kicked off into the air, with Lark and Pep following close behind.
Enough of the attacking creatures had been dislodged so that we passed the edge of the woods without incident.
I went in front, determined to confront any other menace we might meet.
Spooky Spindle Page 16
