Spirits and Spells (5 page)

Denise had to admit that that was true. She just wasn't sure it was all that bad. She sure as heck liked her own world better than the world around her.

Then one day Matt McMasters had invited her to a gaming session, and it had been instant love. Not between her and Matt; between her and fantasy gaming.

Her fondness for Matt had grown more slowly, though now it was strong indeed. The biggest thing they had in common was that they were different. Very different from each other, actually, but alike in being so different from most kids their age. They shared the experience of being outcasts. It was the one thing about the other that each understood perfectly.

Denise wished she were with Matt now. Even though she had felt flattered when Travis sent her off to search on her own, rather than teaming her up with her boyfriend as he'd had to do with Jenny, these eerie, empty rooms had started to seriously spook her.

She crossed the hall and stepped into another bedroom.

Niana.

The voice was a mere whisper, so soft she wasn't entirely certain she had heard it.

But the back of her neck was tingling.

She turned around, saw no one. But suddenly she felt as if something, someone, was trying to get inside her head.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Stop that!”

But the voice went on whispering to her:
Niana, come back to us!

Denise bit the back of her hand. This voice was no trick of Travis's, was not coming from some hidden speaker tucked in a corner of the room.

It was inside her head!

Niana
…

It was a woman's voice, soft and low.

Denise wanted to run but couldn't force her legs to move.

Niana
…

She felt a scream creeping up her throat. She tried to will it into the open. Maybe if she could scream, someone would come for her.

But no sound would pass her lips.

It was someone else's fear that saved her, when the voice in her head was drowned out by a desperate shout of “DENISE!”

Matt's urgent cry jolted Denise out of her trance.

“Denise! Help me!”

Breaking free of the mysterious voice in her mind, Denise bolted from the room.

Matt's cries seemed to be coming from the stairwell. Denise raced along the hall. When she reached the top of the stairs, she stopped short.

Matt was standing halfway up the stairs, swinging a glowing stick. He was obviously terrified and in need of help. And Denise wanted passionately to provide it.

But how could she help him fight something she couldn't see?

Tansy dropped to her knees and began scrabbling across the attic floor for her flashlight. She would have run, but the darkness was so complete she had no idea which way to go.

“Oh, don't be afraid, miss,” said the voice in the rocking chair.

Tansy stopped her searching.

“What?”

“I said don't be afraid.”

It was a girl's voice, soft and gentle.

Tansy held her breath.

“Are you all right, miss?” asked the voice.

“I don't know. Are … are you a ghost?”

A ripple of laughter, sweet and liquid, greeted the question. “Of course,” said the voice. Then it sang.

Charity Jones has lost her bones

And doesn't know where to find them.

Tansy began to shake. It couldn't be. And yet …

The voice laughed again. At the same time Tansy's hand brushed against the flashlight. She snatched it like a drowning person grabbing a lifesaver. She gave it a good shake and was relieved when the light turned back on.

The chair was still rocking.

She could see no string.

She began to crawl backward, away from the chair.

“Oh, please don't go, miss.”

The voice had responded to her movements. So it was no tape recorder.

Tansy felt the hair on the back of her neck begin to stand up. She wanted to turn and run, but her legs would not obey her command.

The voice spoke again. “I've been so lonely all these years. Won't you stay and talk a bit?”

Rooted to the floor, petrified, Tansy gazed at the rocking chair. Almost without volition, her mouth opened and she found herself asking, “Who are you?” Mixed with her fear was a delicious sense of fascination. She was having a conversation with a ghost!

“I'm Charity Jones, miss. Charity Jones, the murdered maid.” The ghost began to sing again. “‘Charity Jones has lost her bones …' That's what the children used to sing, after the murder. And it's true.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, just what the song said. I can't find my bones. All I have is what's in that box by the bed. But it's not enough.”

Tansy saw a good-sized wooden box on the nightstand beside the bed. “Not enough for what?”

“To free me. Go ahead—take a look.”

Tansy walked over and picked up the box. Ornate carvings of elephants and tigers covered the top and sides.

“Be careful!” said Charity Jones's voice.

Tansy opened the box and began to scream.

Inside, staring up at her with sightless eyes, was the perfectly preserved head of a young woman—a girl, really, probably no older than Tansy. She wore a maid's cap. Her face was framed with lovely golden curls. The eyes were blue, with long lashes. Only the pale cheeks and lips were touched by death. Tied around the neck was a scarlet ribbon. Though it was torn and ragged at the edge, no flesh or bone showed beneath it.

Tansy dropped the box.

It landed on the bed. The head fell out and began to roll toward the edge of the mattress.

“Catch it!” screamed Charity Jones.

Responding automatically, Tansy reached out and grabbed the head before it could fall to the floor.

She was instantly aware of what she held in her hands. It was heavy, the hair silky beneath her fingers, the dead flesh smooth and cool.

Screaming again, Tansy dropped the grisly object onto the quilt.

It bounced once, then lay still, face up, staring at her.

“Please, miss, put it back,” said Charity.

“
What?
” Tansy tucked her hands into her armpits to try to stop their violent shaking.

“Put it back in the box. That's my most prized possession. But then, I always was too fond of my looks, according to my mother. Well, just put it back and we'll pretend this never happened.”

“I
can't!
” said Tansy desperately.

“Now, miss—it isn't going to bite you. After all, it hasn't opened its mouth in more than a hundred years!”

“But …”

“You
are
the one who dropped it. And there you stand with two good hands, which I haven't had in ever so long. So why shouldn't you put it back for me?”

Tansy no longer felt she could refuse. She turned back to the bed. Her stomach lurched, and she thought for an instant she was going to be sick. Steeling herself, she reached down and picked up the head. The hair was soft to the touch.

Gently she placed Charity's head back in the box.

“Turn it just a bit to the right, if you would, miss,” said Charity. “So my good side shows a bit more.”

Tansy adjusted the head. “Is that all right?”

“Yes, just fine. Thank you.”

With a shudder of relief, Tansy closed the box and put it back on the nightstand.

Once she saw that the thing clutching the sword was not moving, Jenny stopped screaming. Derek, recovering from the initial shock, pried her fingers from his biceps.

“If you're going to grab me whenever you get scared, I wish you'd cut your fingernails,” he said.

She let go of his arm. “What is that thing?”

Derek shrugged. “The guardian of the treasure, I guess. It's a model of some kind. A dummy. I don't know how Travis managed to make it, but that's what it is.”

Jenny pointed her flashlight directly at the monster and examined it in detail. It had a squat, rounded body that ended in several long tentacles, somewhat like an octopus. But that was where the resemblance ended. Its head was split by a wide gash of mouth that was filled with jagged teeth. Above that, two slits, fringed by a loose membrane, formed the hint of a nose.

It was not the mouth or the nose that made Jenny shudder, though. It was the eyes. They were bright and glossy, and except for their abnormally large size—and the fact that one was lower than the other, tilted down as if the flesh had somehow melted around it—she would have sworn that they belonged to a human being.

The reddish brown skin glistened with slime, which had collected on the floor like clotting blood.

Jenny felt sick. “If Travis made that thing, there's something wrong with him.”

“We always knew that,” answered Derek, forcing a laugh.

“What's making the breathing sound?”

“A tape recorder. Either that, or he's got the thing miked.”

“And the smell?”

“I'd rather not think about it. But take a look at the sword. Where do you suppose he got
that?
”

“I don't know,” whispered Jenny. “But you're right: It's beautiful.”

The golden hilt caught the rays of their flashlights, and fires seemed to spark from the gems encrusting it.

“I'll grab it, and we can get out of here,” said Derek, moving forward. “We'll have to be sure to congratulate Travis on what a sick mind he has.”

“Be careful!”

Derek snorted in disgust. “Come on—Travis did a good job on the thing, but it's not going to hurt me.”

“I know, but—”

Jenny was cut short as Derek slipped on the slime and crashed to the floor.

“Derek! Are you all right?”

He shook his head. “Yeah, I guess so. But this stuff is really—”

“DEREK!”

Derek looked up and let out a bloodcurdling yell.

The creature's tentacles were slithering toward him.

“Get out of there!” screamed Jenny.

Derek pulled his legs underneath him and tried to stand. But his feet slipped in the slime, and he went down again.

The tentacle was coming closer.

“Jenny, help me up!”

But Jenny was screaming, because she had seen what Derek still could not. At the sound of his voice, the creature's great eyes had begun to blink. Suddenly they seemed to focus on Derek.

With a horrible sucking sound the thing pulled itself off the floor and lurched in Derek's direction.

8

TENTACLES

Charity Jones was in her rocking chair again, rocking slowly back and forth. Tansy was sitting on the rug near where she supposed the ghost's feet must be. She found herself wishing she could actually see the dead girl.

“It was a terrible thing, miss,” said Charity sadly. “It's not easy to talk about, even now.”

“Well, you don't have to, if you don't want to,” said Tansy. “I mean—”

“No. It's good to be able to talk about it, if you don't mind listening.”

“I'd like to know what happened,” said Tansy truthfully.

Charity sighed and Tansy could almost see her settling back into the chair to begin her story.

“It all started when the Gulbrandsens hired me as a serving girl. That was back in, oh, 1888.

“It didn't take me long to figure out I had gotten myself into a strange house. Old Mr. Gulbrandsen was all wrapped up in magic and secret things. I never should have stayed, miss, and that's a fact. It was the first wicked thing I did. If my mother had had any idea what was going on here—witches' sabbaths, strange experiments, all sorts of things—she'd have wanted me to get out. But I hadn't been in this country long, and I was happy to have any work at all.”

“So what happened?” asked Tansy.

“Well, Mr. Gulbrandsen had a young friend, a Mr. Morley, who used to come and visit him. One of my jobs was to bring them brandy and cigars in the library.” Charity's voice dropped to a confidential whisper. “They usually stopped talking when I came in. It made me wonder what they were discussing. So I started to listen outside the door. They were always talking about ‘dark forces' and ‘forbidden secrets.' Sometimes I would see pictures they had drawn on the floor—big shapes like stars, with things written at the corners. And they burned candles and incense.

“I knew it was wrong, miss. But what could I do?

“Now Mr. Morley, he had a lady friend. And if you think Mr. Gulbrandsen and Mr. Morley were strange, you should have seen
her.
She could have been the wife of the devil himself. Except she wouldn't have agreed to that, because she was madly in love with Mr. Morley.

“And now I have to make my worst confession. I fell in love with Mr. Morley, too.”

“What was so bad about that?” asked Tansy, who always liked a touch of romance in her stories.

“Why, he was a magician—a heathen who worshipped dark powers. Not only that, he was promised to another. And we were of different worlds. He was a wealthy man. I was only a poor serving girl. I had no business being in love with him.

“But it wasn't all my fault. He was the one who started it. Oh, he used to say the dearest things. I tried to put him off and keep him out of my mind. But after a while I was thinking about him more and more.”

“That kind of thing happens,” said Tansy, feeling wise beyond her years.

“Thank you, miss. I knew you would understand. Not like
her.
She didn't understand anything. One day she caught Mr. Morley kissing me. She was
furious.
And that was the end of me.”

An enormous flash of lightning interrupted the story. Its bluish glare flickered through the window at the end of the attic. Thunder followed close and strong, a clap that shook the house on its foundations.

Charity sighed.

“It was a night just like this when that woman came sneaking into this house. I had gone to my little room to try to sleep. Suddenly I heard a sound in the hall. Then the door flew open. There was a flash of lightning, just like now, and I saw her standing there, clutching a big knife.”