Ghosts Beneath Our Feet (3 page)

The kitchen shades were drawn, and the air was hot and musty. Katie closed the oven and went back to the dining room, then turned off through partially opened French doors into a small library.
At least I'll have plenty to read
, she told herself and ran a finger across rows of bindings. But the books did little to cheer her. The house felt neglected, unloved—and what else? She had a strange feeling that something was about to happen. Here in the middle of a meadow on the edge of a forgotten town, the house seemed to be full of secrets.

Upstairs, a dim corridor divided the second floor in half. Katie turned toward the first open door, then stopped, startled by a movement at the end of the hall. Someone was there! Someone short and-dark-haired, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Katie took a quivery breath. What a place for a full-length mirror! She'd have to remember it was there, or she'd scare herself every time she came upstairs.

Her mother's suitcase stood, unopened, in the large front bedroom. Katie's bag was in the smaller room next to it. There was a lumpy-looking bed, a dresser with a wavy mirror, and a bedside stand. The blue rug was furred with dust, and the rosebud wallpaper was peeling at the corners. Katie opened the two windows and pushed back graying curtains to let in some air.

Jay appeared in the doorway. “There's no TV in this dump,” he announced. “How're you going to like being stuck in the middle of nowhere without a television set?”

Katie's heart sank. She'd miss television a lot, but not as much as Jay would.

“Listen.” He threw himself on the bed and groaned at the unyielding mattress. “Could you talk to her—to your mother?” Katie saw that he was very serious. “This whole thing isn't going to work. We don't belong here—anybody can see that. The old guy doesn't seem so sick to me, and besides, he isn't even related to your mother. Why does she think she has to come running when he says he needs a nurse? It doesn't make sense.”

Katie sat carefully in a rocker with a split in its cane seat.

“Frank was just like a real uncle to Mom a long time ago,” she said. “And he's not supposed to live by himself anymore. The doctors told him—”

“He must have a family of his own somewhere.”

Katie shook her head. They'd been over all this when Uncle Frank's letter arrived. “He had a son who was killed in an accident when Mom was a little girl. And his wife died a long time before that. After the son was killed, Uncle Frank changed a lot, Mom said. I guess he was really bitter. He wrote a few times, but he never came to Milwaukee again.”

Jay sat up. “He could go to a nursing home. Lots of people do.”

“Maybe he will, later on,” Katie said. “But he'd like to stay in his own house as long as he can. And you know Mom wanted to get away from Milwaukee this summer—”

“Well, I didn't!” Jay punched a pillow and then sneezed as dust rose around him. “We were going to fix up Doug Krocker's motorbike and do a lot of other good stuff.” He looked at Katie intently. “
You
don't want to stay here, do you? Tell the truth.”

Katie turned away. “I—I don't know,” she said finally. “It isn't the way I thought it would be, but I don't see how we can leave Uncle Frank now.”

She smiled, willing him to smile, too. “Maybe you'll have fun here,” she coaxed. “You don't know yet. We might as well find out what it's like, now that we're here.”

“No way.” Jay clenched his fists. “I just may go home by myself.”

“You can't!”

“Want to bet? Stay here and suffocate if you want, kiddo. I'll make my own plans!”

The conversation was over. No more brother-and-sister talk. Katie leaned back in the rocking chair as he stomped out of the room. She winced as the door slammed behind him with a bang that shook the walls.

Chapter Four

After all his concern about starving, Uncle Frank barely touched the soup and fruit Katie's mother served for supper. He was like a sad old scarecrow, sitting there half asleep. Even Jay must see that he was sick.

Mrs. Blaine had a notepad next to her plate. “The first thing we have to do is clean house,” she said. “You two can do your own rooms tomorrow and then give me some help downstairs. The whole place needs an airing.”

“Housework, ugh!” Katie looked sideways at Jay, who ignored her. “Not all day, Mom! I want to find out if there are any kids living near here.” There was one, she knew—the girl they'd met on the hill—though she probably wasn't interested in becoming a friend.

“You'll have time for that, too,” Mrs. Blaine assured her. “After you do a little cleaning.” She looked at Jay. “Come on, Jay, why so grim? What's on your mind?”

Jay stared at his plate. Katie squirmed.

“I'm not asking you to work all the time, you know,” Mrs. Blaine continued. “I want you to have fun this summer. Get outside—explore—enjoy yourself. A new place can be exciting.”

Jay nodded and sipped his soup.

Uncle Frank's spoon clattered to his plate.

“He's asleep,” Katie whispered. “Mom, he hardly ate anything at all.”

Mrs. Blaine touched Uncle Frank's arm, and the shaggy white head jerked. “Would you like to go to bed now?” she asked gently. “If you aren't hungry, I can fix you a snack later on.”

He looked around the table as if he'd forgotten who they were. “Tired,” he mumbled. He pushed back his chair, and Mrs. Blaine hurried to help him up.

What would it be like to be old, tired, confused, to be always on the outside of what was happening? Suddenly Katie remembered the question she'd wanted to ask Uncle Frank earlier. Here was something interesting that only he could tell her.

“Uncle Frank, we met a friend of yours when we were on our way up here. She's a teeny-tiny old lady, and she lives partway up the hill.”

The old man grunted. “Nancy Trelawny. Came over from Cornwall with 'er folks same year as me. Been in that 'ouse ever since, she 'as.”

“Well, she sent you a message,” Katie hurried on. “She said to tell you ‘They're going to get out,' and she said, ‘You can't stop them.' What did she mean, Uncle Frank?”

The old man straightened, and the deep-set brown eyes blazed with anger and disgust.

“Lot of Old Country nonsense, that's what,” he snapped. “I won't listen to such talk, you 'ear me?” Then his shoulders sagged. “She's a crazy woman, that Nancy,” he said. “Talks foolishness—always did. Don't pay her any mind.” He shuffled out of the kitchen with Mrs. Blaine close behind him, her face stiff with disapproval at Katie's probing.

“What do you think of that?” Katie demanded as soon as they were out of earshot. “Did you see how excited he got when I told him what that old lady said?”

Jay looked bored. “So he's right—she's a crazy woman.”

“But he knew what she meant!” Katie exclaimed. She brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. “Didn't you even notice that? He knew what Mrs. Trelawny was talking about, and it really got to him. He didn't like it one bit.”

“So?”

“So this is the only exciting thing that's happened since we got off that bus,” Katie retorted. “It's a real mystery!” She leaned back and considered. “Maybe Uncle Frank and Nancy Trelawny were lovers when they were young. Maybe they quarreled and married other people, but she never stopped loving him, and now she wants to warn him that something bad is going to happen.”

“And maybe you're crazy, too,” Jay said. “That doesn't sound like a love message to me—more like a threat.” He looked at her with amusement and disdain. “What a dreamer! Never a dull moment with you around!”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Jay grinned, and for a while they sat quietly in the dusk. Then Jay shrugged. “The thing is, you make up problems for the fun of it,” he said. “You don't have any real ones.”

His tone suggested that he had worries she knew nothing about. Katie waited, hoping he'd say more, but he pushed back his chair and stood up. “See you,” he muttered.

Katie finished her canned pears, spooning the sweet syrup slowly to make it last. A mystery, she thought. Jay could tease all he wanted, but a mystery would make up for having to spend the summer in this dreary place.

She checked to see if there was one last pear half in the can, then crossed the kitchen to the open back door. This was the right setting for a mystery, no question about that. A small porch extended from the house like a raft afloat on a sea of meadow grass. Katie went down the steps, stopping on the last one to gaze into the twilight. There were probably rabbits and mice and all kinds of wild creatures living in this field. Even snakes! She pulled her foot back hastily, and as she did, her toe caught in a rotting board and she lost her balance. One moment she'd been looking out over the meadow. The next, she was stretched full-length on the ground. Her chest ached with the force of her fall.

She started to get up, then froze. There was a groaning beneath her, a somber sound that began and ended in seconds. She lifted her head to look around, then pressed her ear to the ground once more. Silence. But as she lay there, not moving, the earth shuddered beneath her hands.

Katie scrambled to her feet and flew up the porch steps. She hurtled through the door just as Mrs. Blaine returned to the kitchen.

“Katie, for heaven's sake! Uncle Frank's trying to sleep.” She sank into a chair. “You really disturbed him just now,” she went on, without noticing her daughter's flushed face. “I don't want any more questions about mysterious messages, okay? Uncle Frank's heart is weak. He needs rest and quiet and
no stress
.”

Katie peeked over her shoulder at the open door. She half expected to see something horrible hulking there.

“And where's Jay?” Mrs. Blaine asked. “He's going to have to watch his tongue, too.”

“He went upstairs.” Katie took a deep breath to steady herself. “I'll wash the dishes.”

She couldn't tell her mother what had happened. Not now, anyway. In the first place, her mother probably wouldn't believe her. And in the second place, she already had a sick old man and a rebellious stepson to worry about. She wouldn't want to hear that there was a Mysterious Something moving around under Uncle Frank's backyard.

Chapter Five

“You're one very flaky kid. Period.” Jay scrambled to his feet and brushed bits of grass from his hair. “I don't hear anything. Except bees buzzing.”

Katie collapsed on the bottom step of the porch. “Well, you would have heard something really scary last night,” she snapped. “And I'm not flaky! I did hear a noise underground, right where you were lying. And I felt the earth shake, too!”

“Katie,” Mrs. Blaine called from inside the house. “Finish making your bed, and you can call it a day. What are you doing out there, anyway?”

Katie stood up and shook the bedspread she was supposed to be airing. “Want to go for a hike later on? We might see a deer.”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Katie sighed. She'd waited all morning for a chance to tell Jay what had happened the evening before, and now he didn't believe her. She frowned as she went back into the house. Was it possible that she'd imagined the sound deep in the earth? And the tremor? She had to admit that in the harsh light of day the whole experience seemed unreal.

Her mother sat at the dining room table making out a grocery list. She looked tired but contented after their morning's work. The freshly vacuumed rug was several shades brighter, and the room smelled of lemon oil. Uncle Frank, propped up in a chair, looked better, too. His hair was combed, and his face shone as if it had been scrubbed with one of Mrs. Blaine's brushes. A bright-colored afghan was folded over his knees. He avoided Katie's eyes and watched Mrs. Blaine warily.

“I'm going down the hill to do the shopping myself,” Mrs. Blaine said. “It's not nearly so warm today, and I want to see what the store has to offer. I'll bring back a few things for dinner tonight, and the rest can be delivered tomorrow. What would you like, Uncle Frank?”

Uncle Frank looked startled. “Don't matter. Anything'll do for me.”

“But there must be something you'd particularly enjoy.”

The old man considered. “Don't suppose you can make pasties,” he said glumly.

“Pasties? I've heard of them, but—”

“Never you mind, then. Ain't no use if you only
'eard
of 'em. There's a trick to doin' it right.”

“It's a Cornish dish, isn't it?” Mrs. Blaine asked.

“Yup. You take meat and taters and onions and beggies—”

“Beggies?”

“Root-a-bag-as.” He drawled each syllable. “Should think you'd 'eard of
them
, if you've 'eard of pasties.” He paused. “I could eat a bit of chicken, maybe,” he offered in a friendlier tone.

Mrs. Blaine sounded relieved. “Roast chicken it'll be, then. Katie and Jay like it, too.” She looked sharply at Katie. “Where's your brother?”

“Outside. Looking around.”

A worry line shaped itself between her mother's brows. “Are you two going to do something together this afternoon?”

“I don't know. We might go for a hike.”

“That sounds like fun.”

Fun was unlikely, but if Jay would just go with her, Katie would be satisfied. Otherwise he'd be up in his bedroom plotting how to get back to Milwaukee.

“This place is really nowhere,” he told Katie later on, when she suggested the hike again. “Absolute zero!” But he fell into step beside her, and he looked as eagerly as she did for wildlife in the little woods between Uncle Frank's house and town.
Come on out, deer
, Katie pleaded. She longed for something pleasant—anything!—to make Jay hate Newquay a little less.