The Haunting of Heck House (19 page)

“Art thou on my lawn?!” the creepy old ghost shrieked, clearly unhinged at the prospect. “Avaunt and quit my yard!”

His whole head was blazing now, like a jack-o'-lantern carved by an overly enthusiastic trick-or-treater, and the dancing dresses were gyrating and throwing their sleeves in the air in dismay.

The circle of friends sent up a collective wail of terror …

And
POOF!

The suit and dresses dropped limply to the floor.

All was suddenly silent. And dim. Only a faint glow pulsed from Simon's Spirit Stone inside the globe. There was the faint scratching of a pencil on paper and they all turned to see Artie scribbling away.

“Art-Bart?” Pilot asked warily. “Are you possessed?”

“What?” Artie blinked his one open eye and looked down at the notepad. “Oh. No. I doodle when I'm terrified. See?” He held it up. “Snoopy.”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, except Cheryl, who rounded on the crystal ball. “What didja do that
for?!” she demanded angrily. “Who in the heck was that old geezer?”

“Don't ask me!” Simon protested. “I just opened the portal! I can't control who comes through—”

“That was Granddad Hecklestone. He was a big old meanie.”

“Oh,” Cheryl said. “Well, that explains—GAH! Who said that?!”

They all turned toward where the whispery voice had come from, and there, standing—well,
floating,
really— in each of the dressing room's three long mirrors, were the shades of the Hecklestone children fading into view: Daphne, Roderick and Edwina.

“I'ma gedoutta here,” Feedback squeaked. “
Please?
”

“Please …” echoed one of the shadows in a polite and very proper English accent. “Don't leave us. We didn't mean to frighten you …”

“Guh … g-guh …” Artie began to stammer. “Guh-g-guh …”

“Ghosts,” Pilot finished for him in a strained whisper. “Yeah. I think we've established that.”

“Holy moly,” Cheryl said.

“
Cooool
…” Tweed said. “Also, incredibly terrifying.”

“The Hecklestone kids, I presume?” Pilot said, and swallowed nervously.

The tallest apparition—a willowy young girl who looked to be about ten years old, with ringlets tied up in bows and a pretty lace dress with a high collar—nodded.

“You must be Daphne,” Pilot said cautiously and tipped his hat to her.

The girl curtsied prettily. “My siblings, Roderick and Edwina.”

Edwina, who looked to be about seven, floated off to the side of her mirror so that she peeked out shyly around the frame, her pinkie finger stuck in the side of her mouth. Roderick, who was dressed in yet another dapper little suit almost identical to Artie's borrowed duds, gave a little gentlemanly bow. He was tall for his age whereas Artie was short for his, which had worked out nicely in Artie's favour, tailoring-wise.

“What are you doing in there?” Artie asked.

“We're grounded,” Roderick said with a sour pout.

“The house …” Edwina said in a shy whisper. “It's very angry with us.”

“Your friend in the metal box was right,” Daphne explained. “After so many years of our father holding his seances and conducting his experiments, this house is more ectoplasm than brick and plaster!”

“Why's it angry?” Tweed asked.

“Because we exploded it up!” Roderick exclaimed and floated in a twirl inside his mirror with his arms outstretched, making explosion noises.

Daphne rolled her ghostly eyes in the direction of her little brother's mirror. “We didn't mean to. But now it's punishing us. It won't let us go. It's making us do things—mean things—to you.”

“Naughty house!” Edwina made a terribly fierce little scowl.

“We just want to be free,” Daphne said. “We want to leave.”

“Er … I don't know if that's exactly possible,” Simon muttered.

“Then maybe
you
could all stay!” Edwina said. “It
has
been fun having someone else to play with again.”

“Play with?!” Cheryl sputtered. “What the—you mean like when you threw a piano at us! I heard you little brats laughing. You coulda killed us, you know!”

“The house made us do it—I swear!” Daphne pleaded.

“It really did.” Roderick nodded. “But it
was
a spectacular crash! Even if it was only an illusion. We used to do things like that all the time with our governesses.” He grinned. “They never minded. Of course, most never seemed to last for very long …”

“Well, listen here!” Tweed said sternly. “We're your babysitters—”

“Our what?” Edwina asked.

“Your … er … governators!” Cheryl clarified. “And there'll be no more of that kind of behaviour tonight!”

Edwina pouted. “Boo.”

“That's what all the ghosts say,” Tweed said.

“What happened the night the house went kablooie?” Feedback asked. “What caused the explosion?”

“That was all Roderick's fault!” Edwina said, jamming her chubby fists on her ghostly hips and glaring at her departed brother.

“Was not!” Roderick said and reached out the side of his mirror, into Edwina's, and yanked on one of her pale braids.

“Ow! Was too!”

The two ghostlings started a spectral slap fight that was pretty strange to watch, because their hands kept passing through each other.

“Hey,” Tweed said.
“Hey!”

They turned to her.

“Now cut that out,” she admonished. “Like Cheryl said. We're the sitters here and so you have to do what we say. Now. Tell us what happened.”

“Daddy was away—again—and Daphne and I were bored,” Edwina said.

“The latest governess had handed in her resignation— after a whole week this time,” Daphne explained, “and the domestic agency told us there was no one to replace her on short notice so we'd have to fend for ourselves that night. Imagine.”

“Imagine.” Artie snorted. “No one to torment!”

“Exactly!” Daphne exclaimed, as if it made perfect sense. “Such a bore. So Eddy and I thought, for a lark, that we'd try to contact Mumsy in the beyond.”

“Daddy was forever holding seances,” Edwina piped
up. “And I always listened at the keyhole. So we knew how to go about it. But Roddy's a silly old boy and didn't want to play. He went off tinkering in the silly old basement instead.”

“Which was
strictly
not allowed!” Daphne shook a ghost finger at her little ghost brother but he just stuck his ghost tongue out at her. “Daddy kept all the dangerous toys in there locked up tight.”

“You found the trap door, didn't you?” Tweed asked.

“Yup!” Roderick nodded brightly. “Daddy would use it to make ghosts appear sometimes when the seances he held weren't going so well. Old magician's trick.”

“Ha!” Simon barked a muffled laugh from inside his globe. “Told you so. Old Heck was a faker!”

“Only sometimes,” Daphne said. “But he had to keep up appearances so that all his tea-and-seance ladies would keep coming back.”

Cheryl shook her head at the mischief-makers. “So you two holed up in the study messing around with stuff you shouldn't have—”

“How were we supposed to know it would
actually
work?” Edwina pouted.

“—and
you
went down into the lab and started messing around with stuff you shouldn't have—”

Roderick shrugged innocently. “How was I supposed to know nitroglycerin was
that
explosive?”

“Right. And so
your
little chemistry experiment,” Cheryl continued, “and
your
inter-dimensional tea party
combined to send this old house ka-booming right into the stratosphere.”

“Sadly.” Daphne nodded. “Then, as far as I can tell from what you've all been saying about those carnival shenanigans and such,
you
lot messed around with matters you shouldn't have and look where we all are now!”

“Touché,” Cheryl admitted. It had, after all, been their rescue of Zahara-Safiya that had started the whole ball of mystical wax rolling.

“It's a
naughty
house!” Edwina pouted and kicked the surface of her mirror. The image in the glass rippled outward from where she'd made contact.

“So what's the deal with this whole house-sitter competition?” Feedback asked.

“Well, when the house rebuilt itself—with us poor shades trapped inside, subject to its
awfully
grumpy will—and we regained awareness of all that had happened, Roddy and Eddy and I became desperate,” Daphne explained. “We thought we'd try and possess some of the local townsfolk and try to escape.”

“You were gonna
possess
us?!” Tweed glared disapprovingly at the trio.

“Not you. Them. The two girls that left. And, well, you.” Daphne pointed at Feedback.

“Not cool!” Feedback exclaimed, going pale at the thought. “
Not
cool!”

“If you only wanted Cindy and Hazel and Karl”— Pilot frowned—“then why did you invite C and T, here?”

“We didn't.” Daphne shrugged.

“Here we go again!” Cheryl threw her hands up in the air. “What the heck's wrong with us? Is it this thirteen thing again? Is that it?”

“Well.” Daphne shrugged. “You
are
twelve.”

“ARRGH!” Cheryl's pigtails bounced in her frustration.

“It's only that, without a governess, if we managed to successfully possess someone, we'd have to fend for ourselves,” Daphne explained. “And thirteen is a more respectable age to be out and about in the world. We could get nice jobs.”

“Or go to the pubs!” Roderick clapped his hands.

“Er … maybe back in Victorian days you could,” Pilot said. “But not now. And I don't think most of the jobs back then were very nice.”

“Well, it's rather beside the point now.” Daphne sighed. “Those other girls turned out to be quite selfish and, while very competent at complaining and picking locks and eating sweeties, rather useless overall. Not at all capable of helping us out the way you lot seem to be. No imagination! That's why we siphoned some of the ectoplasm out of the door lock and helped them escape when the house was distracted by you having a bash at the windows.”

“Told you,” Simon said.

“Well, I guess that explains that,” Tweed said,
allowing herself a slightly satisfied grin. “What it doesn't explain is why we got the invites anyway.”

“Er … Mrowr …” From beneath a hanging rack of frilly petticoats, the gargoyle Ramshackle made a slightly guilty noise.

“
You
did that, Shack?” Artie asked.

“Murmmle-rrorwrgg,” the gargoyle answered. “Mrowow.”

“Uh-huh …”

The gargoyle chirped and burbled away, Artie nodding as he listened.

“Uh-huh …”

“What's he saying, Shrimpcake?” Cheryl asked impatiently.

Artie put up a finger and listened some more. “Uh-huh … right.” He turned to the others. “He said the Hecksters, here, sent him out to find three suitable possession candidates to lure to the house after dusk yesterday. He found Cindy and Hazel gossiping about sitter stuff in the park—something about the latest Binky Barker episode and how Hazel had managed to set her free—and figured they'd do for the girls. Then Feedback's name came up and Shack thought he was good to go. He waited around, resting his damaged wing in a tree, until he could follow Cindy and Hazel home. And that's when he heard them saying stuff about
you
two. After he delivered the invites, he kinda had second
thoughts. Ramshackle thinks weirdness is an
asset,
y'see. So, he dropped off another invitation at the barn.”

“Huh. At least someone around here recognizes our superiorness-ness.” Cheryl flipped a pigtail over her ear and squared her shoulders. “Right. So I guess this is where we get on with the mission, then.”

“What?!
What
mission?” Feedback sputtered. “Are you seriously considering helping set these three loony spooks loose on an unsuspecting Wiggins?”

The twins exchanged a glance with Artie and Pilot.
Well? Were they?

“Uh … yeah,” Tweed said after a moment.

“Yup.” Pilot nodded.

“Heck yes!” Artie enthused, always up for a healthy dose of looniness.

“Look …” Cheryl explained. “It's okay if you don't want in on this. That's cool. But … last time we met somebody we thought was a dangerous, supernaturally souped-up evil nutcase, it turned out she was just a lonely kid looking for a bit of help.”

“I …” Feedback blinked, frowning. “I …”

“Attaboy, Feedback!” Cheryl clapped him on the shoulder and turned briskly back to the matter at hand, as did the others.

“How'd Ramshackle find our barn?” Tweed wondered.

“Guys.” Pilot rolled his eyes. “You've put flyers on
pretty much every power pole and mailbox in the whole town. Couldn't have been too hard—”

“BUT I DON'T WANNA BE POSSESSED!” Feedback suddenly blurted at the top of his lungs.

In the silence that followed, everyone turned to look at him.

“I mean …” he continued, red-faced, “okay. I'll help. But a guy's gotta draw the line somewhere.”

Cheryl had to stifle a snort of amusement and Tweed bit her lip.

Artie just rolled his eyes. “Don't be such a baby. It's nuthin'.”

“And you don't need to worry about it now anyway,” Roderick said sourly. “It turns out we don't actually know
how
to possess people. This ghostly business is really rather harder than it looks.” He nodded at Artie. “I tried and was
almost
able to possess that one when he was standing there in my suit, in front of my mirror. It didn't work. Instead, I think I just managed to class the chap up a bit.”