The Haunting of Heck House (9 page)

Tweed sighed.

“Anybody home?”

The door creaked as it swung open another few feet. It sure seemed like an invitation to go on in and make themselves at home … or something to that effect. So they did. That was what they were there for. The girls squared their shoulders and lifted their chins and stepped over the threshold, wearing their widest, brightest best-dang-sitter smiles.

Cheryl held their business cards out while Tweed had a neatly folded three-colour flyer to present, but as they stepped into the soaring, elegant, opulent … also dim, dusty, spooky … foyer, there was no one to give them to.

“Uh … Mr. H?” Cheryl glanced around. She even checked behind the door. The place echoed with her voice.

“Maybe he's got the door on remote control,” Tweed suggested.

“I would have expected at least a butler in an upscale hoity-toity joint like this.” Cheryl crossed her arms.

“Kinda been left without the Lurch here it would seem,” Tweed joked, riffing on that spooky old
Addams Family
TV show. “Heh. Maybe this is one of the so-called challenges mentioned on the invitation.”

“What kind of a challenge is this?” Cheryl snorted. “How to break-and-enter without the ‘break' part? I mean—we just, y'know, entered.”

A breeze slithered down the grand curved staircase and sent little whirlwind eddies of dust dancing across the black-and-white-tiled floor. From somewhere far away, they heard the flapping of wings—birds in the attic, maybe, or bats—and the girls unconsciously assumed a defensive back-to-back stance. It was disconcerting to feel as if they were being watched in a house that seemed, at the same time, to be so completely empty.

Cheryl gulped. “Tweed?”

“Yeah?” Tweed felt a shiver run up her cousin's spine that seemed to transfer over to her own and she clutched her elbows tightly.

“Maybe … I dunno. I'm starting to think that maybe this wasn't one of our better ideas.”

“I'm starting to think you're right,” Tweed agreed.

“Let's go back outside and wait on the porch and see if anyone else shows up—”

SLAM!! went the front door.

“Or …” Tweed suggested in a dry whisper, “maybe we could just run home right now and never come here again!”

“Good plan!”

The girls ran for the door, but before they could get to it, the big bronze doorknob—gleaming with a sullen, greenish light in the gloom—made a sound like someone was turning a key in its empty keyhole. There was a loud, echoing
ker-chunk,
like a door to a prison cell locking up tight, and when the girls tried to turn the knob, it refused to budge in either direction.

Wild-eyed, Cheryl ran for the window beside the door. It was tall and heavily curtained. When she pulled the drapes aside, she discovered it was locked and painted shut. It wouldn't budge. The glass was sturdy-looking, thick and rippled in places. Cheryl wondered whether she could throw the foyer's tall wooden coat stand through it.

Tweed, for her part, seemed to have recovered a measure of her usual calm self. Or maybe she was just scared stiff. Cheryl couldn't quite tell. “Nobody knows we're here, do they?” she asked.

“Nope,” Tweed answered.

“We probably should have told Pops,” Cheryl said quietly.

“Then he wouldn't have let us come and we wouldn't be here.”

“Exactly.”

Tweed turned in a tight circle. “Maybe we should have at least told Pilot.”

“Then he would have told Pops and he wouldn't have let us come and we wouldn't be here.”

“Exactly.” Tweed hugged her elbows and frowned. “I feel like a sneaky jerk. We never should have lied to Pops.”

“Nope. And so do I.” Cheryl let the curtain drop. “But we've made our bed and now we're gonna have to sit on it.”

“I guess so.”

After a moment, Cheryl tried to lighten the sombre mood a bit. “You know who we should have told?” she said.

“Who?” Tweed wondered.

“We should have told Artie Bartleby.”

“What?” Tweed quirked an eyebrow at her cousin.

“Why? He wouldn't have told Pops. He would have bugged us to tag along and we would have let him, and then we'd still be right where we are, except he'd be here with us and annoying the heck out of the both of us.”

“Yup.”

“Yeah.” Tweed smiled grimly. “You're right. It would at least have given us something to take our minds off the extremely high creep factor going on here …”

“Plus, he was actually pretty useful during the whole cursed mummy episode.”

“I kinda miss the scales and teeth he had when he went all possessed-reptile-minion …”

“Don't forget the tail!”

The girls started to relax, remembering just what a sight Artie had been on that crazy carnival night, with his glasses perched at a wonky angle on his crocodilian snout and a mouthful of snaggleteeth that gave him one heck of a drooly speech impediment. But even mystically monsterized by a cursed mummy princess, Artie had proven himself remarkably resourceful. Reminiscing about it in that moment actually gave Cheryl and Tweed a nice shot of encouragement.

“Listen,” Cheryl said, “if Shrimpcake could handle that, then we can handle this. And you know what? Maybe this is just another one of those challenges the invite mentioned. You know, see how well we react under stress and all that.”

“If it is, we probably just bombed out on that one,” Tweed murmured, stepping farther into the gloom of the old house. “Wonder if Cindy and Hazel will be able to handle it better than us …”

“Pff.” Cheryl was reasonably certain that there would be no contest on that front. After all, Cindy was most likely still sporting bite marks from her last less-than-successful sitter gig over at the Bottomses' family house. And there was a rumour widely circulating that Hazel still hadn't gotten over the time that little Binky Barker had taken a hammer to her cellphone. “I'm not worried about
those two. And our brief hiccup will soon be forgotten as we demonstrate our mad sittin' skills, partner.”

“Do you think any of the other Wiggins sitters accepted the invite?”

“Maybe. I guess we'll find out soon enough …”

“Right.” Tweed yanked her jacket straight and squared her shoulders. “So. Mission objective?”

“I'd say recon first.” Cheryl nodded decisively. “Check the place out. Get the lay of the land.”

“Check.”

Tweed gave Cheryl a bonus C+T Secret Signal (patent pending) and off they went. It was easier to push aside their initial apprehensions once they got focused on the reason for being there in the first place. No doubt the lack of host to greet them was all part of the test to see how they would handle themselves. Not throwing a coat stand through the front window in an immediate escape attempt was sure to score them points right off the bat. Confidence and competence were the order of the day.

First, they checked out the dining room to the left of the foyer. There was a long dining table set with twelve chairs on each side and one tall armchair at the head of the table. Tall silver candelabras stood in the middle, set with unlit candles.

“Okaaay,” Cheryl said after a quick circuit. “Moving right along …”

Back through the foyer and over to the other side, a set of tall double doors stood open, leading to a
combination living room/study. On one wall was an enormous stone fireplace, logs stacked in the grate, with an assortment of heavy mahogany and leather furniture facing it. The air in the house felt weirdly heavy—as if the girls were walking under water. Dust motes hung in the air, swirling like swarms of tiny insects as Cheryl and Tweed moved through the room.

“Boy,” Cheryl said, “this place could use an update. Lighten up the decor a little, you know?”

“Yeah.” Tweed nodded. “Even I have to admit that the whole early-Munsters vibe is kind of a downer. I mean, creepy chandeliers, grandfather clocks, suits of armour … it's all a bit obvious.”

“Agreed.” Cheryl shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and rocked back and forth on her sneakered feet. Then she strode briskly back out into the grand marble foyer. “Ho-hum. This is pretty typical fare as far as creepy old manor houses go, wouldn't you say, Tweed?”

“Oh definitely. No surprises here,” Tweed agreed, striding equally briskly beside her cousin. “Except, of course, for that piano teetering precariously at the top of the staircase …”

“Oh …” Cheryl's sneakers squeaked to a halt on the marble tile as she stopped and looked up to see a majestic, shiny black piano slowly rolling forward over the lip of the top step of the great sweeping staircase, like a ship in full sail cresting a wave. “Yeah …” she said. “That's not something you see … every … uh-oh.”

With a roar like an onrushing locomotive, accompanied by the sound of its own silent-movie off-key tinkly piano, the shiny black grand piano suddenly tipped forward and thundered down the stairs. Eight hundred pounds of crushing musical mayhem headed straight for Cheryl and Tweed, who froze on the spot, transfixed by the spectacle.

“LOOK OUT!” Cheryl shouted.

She dove left and Tweed dove right. Thank goodness for all that rigorous physical training the girls put themselves through to keep their sitter skills keenly honed. Also, Cheryl's stunt-double aspirations were really starting to pay off. Whereas, only a month or two earlier, she might have escaped rumbling-piano death by a hair's breadth, on this particular occasion, she escaped rumbling-piano death by a hair's breadth—
and
looked good doing it! Her forward dive transitioned smoothly into a classic shoulder roll and when, at the end, she popped back up into a bent-kneed fighting stance, it was with little effort and only a mild wobble. An 8.5 out of 9.

Of course, no one was there to applaud her or post a score, other than Tweed, who, Cheryl was glad to see, had avoided being crushed in her own inimitable style. Her dive had carried her into the far corner by the cobweb-festooned coat stand, which she'd grabbed on to and used to spin herself around so that she could launch into a ninja-esque flying kick that neatly dispatched the
piano bench thump-thump-thumping down the stairs after the grand piano. As Tweed's kick sent the bench careening harmlessly down the hallway, Cheryl was already halfway up the curving stairs, flailing fists stirring the dusty air before her as she sought out the source of the piano pushing.

There was no one.

By the time Tweed joined her at the top of the stairs, Cheryl had thoroughly inspected the empty landing and had found it, well … empty. The girls looked over the railing, down through the mushrooming dust cloud at the mess of kindling and keys and discordantly twanging wire that had once been a lovely old Steinway.

“Guess there will be no encore tonight,” Simon muttered from Cheryl's knapsack pocket.

“Shh!” Cheryl shushed him.

Tweed's gaze narrowed beneath the fringe of her straight dark hair. “Who the heck called that tune in the first place?” she wondered.

“What the heck kinda test was that anyway?” Cheryl glowered. “Agility? Musical appreciation?”

“I
really
didn't appreciate that,” Tweed said grimly.

Cheryl frowned. The long, wide hall branched off in three directions, but all of the corridors were empty. The tall doors set into the corridor walls at regular intervals were all closed, except for three, which stood wide open. Cautiously, the twins approached the first door and saw
that there was an ornate brass nameplate in the middle of it.

“‘Daphne,'” Cheryl read.

Tweed moved on to the next one. “I've got ‘Edwina' over here,” she said.

“This one says ‘Roderick,'” Cheryl noted of the third open door. “So Heck's got kids, I guess.”

She poked her head into the room to see a neatly made boy's bed in the middle of a chaotic mess of old-timey rocket ship models—all brass rivets and gears and cogs—and all sorts of unidentifiable bits of machines in various stages of disassembly. In one corner, a Junior Professor–style laboratory table was set up, and there was a faintly sharp tang of rotten-egg smell hanging in the air.

Edwina's room was full of dolls, sitting on the canopied bed, tucked into carriages, perched in tiny high chairs or riding doll-sized rocking horses—all of them draped in lace handkerchiefs, as if they were dressed as ghosts for Halloween.

In Daphne's room, the walls were covered with picture frames. Which was, the girls supposed, fairly normal. Except for the fact that every single one of them was turned around to face the wall.

“Huh. Weird …”

Cheryl reached out and turned the nearest frame around. It housed a black-and-white photographic
portrait of a family—mom and dad and three kids: a boy and two girls who looked to range in age from about seven to ten.

“Hecklestone family ancestors?” Cheryl said.

“Guess so,” Tweed agreed. “I gotta say, I'm not surprised Daphne has the pictures turned around if they all look like this. Who wants to go to bed every night with that bunch of sourpusses glaring at you?”

She had a point. The expressions on the faces of the portrait subjects were uniformly unsmiling. Mom and Pop looked resigned, stern and a bit bored. But the three kids stared into the camera with the kind of intensity the girls could almost feel. Their eyes seemed to glitter darkly. Cheryl shivered and turned the photo back to face the wall.

“Old pictures really creep me out,” she said. “Except, y'know, old pictures of the ‘moving' variety.”

Tweed nodded in total agreement.

A sudden whispering, hissing noise sounded like it was coming from the hall. The girls turned back to see that another door was now open directly across the way. They exchanged a shrug and crossed the hall to find a large dressing room. The room was dark, but they could see, from the illumination cast by the glowing wall sconces out in the hall and the last blue gleam of dusk filtering through tall windows, that it was stocked with expensive-looking clothing—for both boys and girls—
hanging from rows of hangers or tucked neatly into cubbyholes and dressers.