by Mikki Lish
The children nodded. Spencer was in on the game now and added, “And pudding. It has to be today!”
“I already have a Christmas tree,” Grandpa John said, nodding his head at the fireplace mantel, which held a faded plastic Christmas tree, a tiny five centimeters tall.
“You can barely see that!” Hedy said.
“Well, I don’t have any decorations.”
“Could we buy some? Or borrow some from Jelly or Uncle Peter? They won’t mind.”
“And then have the trouble of getting rid of it all afterward? No, no. Pudding, however, might be a nice change.” He stood and walked toward the telephone. “I’ll call now.”
Hedy fought back a groan. A telephone call wouldn’t buy them enough time. But the line seemed to be engaged, because Grandpa John hung up the phone after a moment, muttering, “That woman is always on the phone. Gossips away most of the day. Well, we should all get dressed and walk to Mrs. Sutton’s! Get the blood moving.”
“We’d really like to go,” Hedy said slowly, thinking desperately, “but … Mom and Dad might call. We don’t want to miss them. Especially Spencer. He’s missing them like crazy.”
Spencer made a miserable face. “Yeah, I really want to talk to them,” he said.
“But you can go without us. We don’t mind,” Hedy went on.
“I can wait,” Grandpa John said.
“No, you should go now,” urged Spencer.
“We were supposed to tell you yesterday,” Hedy said. “About the pudding and the tree, I mean. We’re already a day late. If we miss out, it’ll be a disaster.”
“A Christmas disaster,” Spencer chimed in, shaking his head sadly.
Grandpa John smiled wryly at their worried faces. “I suppose it won’t do me harm to show my face in the village. Get my yearly chitchat with Mrs. Sutton and any other nosy parkers out of the way. It won’t take me more than forty-five minutes. Don’t be shocked if Mrs. Vilums lets herself in before I get home. She has a key.” He peered at them with a hint of suspicion. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
Hedy stacked their bowls and took them off to the kitchen sink to show Grandpa John how trustworthy she was. “Yep. We’ll wash up and read our books. I’ve minded Spencer by myself before.”
“Yeah,” Spencer said with a resigned sigh, “Hedy bosses me around all the time.”
As soon as Grandpa John was a few streets away from the house, the children darted to the room with the green door.
“Set your timer for thirty minutes!” Hedy called to Spencer.
They burst into the room, and Doug gave them a toothy grin. “Adventure time!” he said.
“Where are we going?” Hedy asked.
“To negotiate with someone upstairs.”
“Who?” Spencer asked.
Doug hesitated. “Let’s get up there first. But Stan and I both have to be there.”
“What’s the best way to get you down, Stan?” Hedy asked. “You look heavy even without a body.”
“We can end the adventure here if you cannot rise to the challenge,” Stan huffed. “It’s hardly my fault I’m an imposing creature.”
“Easy, Stanley, I’ll make sure they don’t break more than one antler,” Doug said mildly. “Hedy and Spencer, did you bring money?”
“Money? Why?” Hedy asked.
“You’ll need money if you want answers.”
Hedy nudged her brother. “Spence, go to my backpack and get my purse.”
“Yes!” he said with a gleeful fist pump.
“Don’t go thinking it’s yours,” Hedy called as he ran from the room.
After pulling Doug out of the way to leave a clear space in front of the fireplace, she began dragging furniture around. By the time Spencer came back, Hedy had shifted a coffee table and several boxes to create a cardboard staircase reaching up to Stan.
“Are you quite confident in this triumph of engineering?” Stan called out nervously.
“Do you want to come down or not?” Hedy asked. “I bet it’s super boring being stuck on this wall all the time.”
“I’m only thinking of your well-being,” Stan countered indignantly.
Spencer took a deep breath on his inhaler as Hedy slowly climbed up the boxes.
“You’ll need to lift me up and then put one hand under my chin and pull me away from the wall,” Stan said. “That should dislodge me from the screw.”
Hedy did exactly that, trembling as the weight of the head came into her hands.
“Is he heavy?” Spencer asked, biting his thumbnail.
“It’s all those brains,” murmured Doug.
“Shut up, Doug,” replied the stag, his voice tight as Hedy retreated back down the box staircase.
“Sorry, Stan,” Doug said, sounding not at all sorry, and then whispered loudly to Spencer, “It’s all the antlers, not brains.”
Hedy made it to the floor safely and gently dropped Stan down. “Well done, child,” the stag said, relieved, as she gave him a soft stroke on the nose.
“Now put him on my back,” Doug said, “right in the middle, and we can drag him up to the next floor.”
As the children placed Stan on Doug’s back, the stag proclaimed, “My steed, I name thee Doug the Rug!”
“Watch me charge!” growled the bear, scrabbling his paws on the hardwood floor, which got them absolutely nowhere. The two animals began to laugh. “You should’ve seen me chase humans, back when I had a body,” Doug panted.
“We’ll have to drag you,” Hedy said. The children each picked up a front paw and began to pull. As they got to the door, Doug suddenly gasped and dropped his head like any other rug. A second later, Hedy and Spencer bumped into someone who was standing in the doorway.
“Hello there,” the someone said.
Hedy and Spencer let go of Doug’s paws in surprise and stumbled back to find a tall woman looking curiously at them with dark eyes.
“Hello,” croaked the children.
The woman was beautiful in a severe way. Her skin was alabaster white, and so fine and unlined that she seemed to glow. She didn’t seem old, but she didn’t seem exactly young either. Her pale hair was pulled back into a tight, neat bun and looked as though a typhoon wouldn’t budge a single strand. Hedy thought she seemed like someone who would be quite comfortable snitching on them to Grandpa.
“You must be Hedy and Spencer,” she said.
Both children nodded. Spencer found his voice first. “Are you Grandpa’s cook?”
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Vilums.” She looked pointedly at Doug and Stan, who were now lying lifelessly on the ground. “Going somewhere with those?”
“Just to our room,” Hedy said.
“I’m not entirely sure Mr. Sang would approve. He doesn’t like people touching his things.”
“We’ll put them back.” Hedy tried to sound light, responsible, and utterly non-mysterious. Mrs. Vilums craned her neck to study the tower of boxes Hedy and Spencer had built to reach Stan.
“We’ll put them all back super carefully,” Hedy tried again.
“Promise,” said Spencer.
Mrs. Vilums gazed at them for a moment. “I hope you will call me if you need help.”
“We will,” they assured her.
She gave them an unreadable look before turning back toward the stairs. The children exhaled in relief.
“No time to waste,” Stan said once Mrs. Vilums was gone. “Take us up to the next floor!”
They each took two of Doug’s paws and then clumsily made their way up the stairs.
“Does Mrs. Vilums know that you can talk?” Spencer asked.
“I suspect she does,” Stan said.
“She caught us talking one day,” added Doug.
“Arguing,” Stan interjected.
“About … what was it about, Stan?”
“Bees.”
“Don’t be daft. We wouldn’t have been arguing about bees!” argued Doug.
“We were! You were telling me about t
he time a bee got stuck in your nostril and I maintained no sane creature would venture there …”
The top floor of the house was shadowy and subdued. Hedy knew that warm air was supposed to rise, but it felt colder up here. All four doors were closed, and the only light in the hall struggled between twisted branches outside the one small window. Spencer let Doug’s hind paws gently drop to the floor, and he sidled close next to Hedy.
“We’re going to the one with the yellow door,” said Stan.
Hedy nudged Spencer to pick up Doug on the other side.
“I don’t like it up here,” Spencer whispered.
“I know,” Hedy said, “but we have to find out if it’s Grandma, don’t we?”
From Doug’s back, Stan said, “Young sir, you have with you the fiercest bear rug in England—and, in me, the Lord of the Queen’s Wood. Courage. Let us advance with resolve to unravel this mystery.”
Spencer breathed deeply, took up Doug’s front left paw, and kept pace with Hedy as she led them to the door that was once a daffodil yellow. The door was locked.
“Shoot!” Hedy fumed, jiggling the doorknob.
“Got the key?” Stan asked.
“No,” Hedy said.
“Do you know how to pick locks?” Doug asked.
Hedy and Spencer both shook their heads.
“Doug does,” Stan piped up.
“Shush, you blabbermouth!”
“You do! You told me years ago that you could open doors and start a fire if you needed to—and unscrew nails. Because of that lowly magician thief who made you.”
Doug huffed ashamedly. “Now what will these cubs think of me? The fiercest bear in England really just a thief’s tool!”
“We don’t think that!” Hedy exclaimed. “We think you’re honorable. Really. And we’re not stealing anything from Grandpa John. We’re trying to help him. Finding our grandmother would make him so happy.”
“Persuasive, aren’t you?” Doug muttered. “Well, then. Lift my paw up and hold my claw to the lock. That’s it. Now, just let me …”
Doug’s eyes squeezed tight, and then every single strand of fur and hair between the four of them stood on end. The air seemed to crackle. Doug grunted. Hedy could have sworn that a tiny lightning bolt fizzled from his claw through the metal lock.
They heard the lock turn. Hedy tried the doorknob, which was warm to the touch.
The door swung open.
Top job, Doug,” Spencer said softly as they eased into the room.
“Are you all right?” Hedy asked. “Your paw’s gone pale.”
It was true. The paw Doug had used to open the lock had gone a pale brownish-gray color. “Must be getting old,” Doug whispered. “Let’s get on with it.”
The room was a mess. A grand piano loomed above mounds of books on the floor. Old birdcages were randomly scattered about the room, some hanging from the ceiling. A bust of Lord Wellington on top of the piano seemed to gaze out the window, at the wood that Grandpa John said was called Foxwood.
At the animals’ request, they pulled Doug over a chair, facing the piano, and then propped Stan on top of a table.
Hedy gazed around the room in wonder. “Now what do we do?”
Doug pointed a claw toward a crystal bowl on the top of the grand piano. “Put some money in that bowl.”
Hedy drew a coin from her purse and dropped it into the crystal bowl with a musical clink.
“Simon,” Stan said softly, “are you there?”
Hedy wondered who Simon was. There was no sound except for Spencer shuffling nervously from foot to foot.
“Hedy, how much did you put in?” Doug asked.
“Fifty pence.” When both Doug and Stan snorted, she asked, “More?”
“Try a couple of pounds,” answered Doug.
Hedy followed Doug’s instructions and Stan tried again. “Simon, are you there?”
The lid of the dusty grand piano lifted by itself to reveal the black and white keys. Unseen fingers played three keys so that a soft major chord hung in the air. Spencer climbed into the wingback chair, his worried face appearing above Doug’s head, while Hedy stepped away from the piano, looking for the invisible musician.
Stan spoke up. “Was that a yes or a no?”
Doug threw an exasperated eye at Stan. “What do you mean, Was that a yes or a no? He wouldn’t be playing if he wasn’t here. Simon, we’re trying to steer these young ’uns in the right direction. Will you help us?”
The sound of the chord had melted away. Silence.
“Hedy,” Spencer whispered, “put some more money in.”
Hedy dropped another two pounds into the crystal bowl. “I’m going to run out soon if we keep going like this.”
The major chord played again.
“Simon,” Stan said, “something in the house has contacted the children. It says it’s the Master’s wife, Rose. Do you know if it is her?”
After a moment, the major chord sounded again. Hedy and Spencer looked at each other hopefully.
“Wait,” said Doug, “does that mean it is her or that he knows whether it is or it isn’t? I don’t know which question he answered.”
“What?” Stan’s eyes crinkled in confusion.
A low, forbidding minor chord was played on the grand piano, startling them all.
“You’re making things complicated, you moth-eaten pelt,” Stan rebuked Doug.
“Because you’re not being clear, Bambi.”
“Quiet!” Hedy exclaimed, stamping her foot. Doug and Stan both shut their mouths in surprise. Hedy turned to the piano. “Simon, were the messages from our grandmother?”
The major chord was played, but hesitantly.
“That’s a yes, isn’t it?” Hedy asked the others. Doug and Stan nodded. “Okay, we have another question. Is Grandma Rose a ghost trapped here?”
There was a long pause. Then a sequence of chords was played: the minor chord, the major one, another minor chord. After a long moment, the sequence was played again.
“What does that mean?” asked Hedy.
“It’s like he’s saying yes and no,” Stan said.
“But what does that mean? Is Grandma a ghost trapped somewhere, or isn’t she?”
Someone let out a loud, irritated sigh, and then—out of nowhere—an imperious-looking man gradually appeared, wearing a wig of long white curls. A yellow waistcoat strained around his large belly, which hung over royal-blue knickerbockers and white stockings. His white shirt was rumpled and had large ruffled sleeves.
And he was completely see-through.
“It means,” said the man primly from his seat at the piano, “she is not a ghost but she is trapped somewhere.”
“Simon!” exclaimed Doug.
“At your service.” Simon stood and gave a deep courtly bow. His voice, with its faint French accent, sounded as though it came from far away.
Hedy and Spencer stared—at him and at the rest of the room, which they could see clearly through his body.
“Monsieur de Polignac, this is an honor,” Stan said, bowing as far as a large head on a short neck could bow.
“I thought it best to make an appearance. You and your companions are dreadful at interpreting my music, and I did not want to be here all day.” Simon flapped a hand in the children’s direction. “Did you not warn them what to expect? They have gone mute.”
“We didn’t know we’d have the privilege of seeing you,” Stan said.
“Give them a moment,” Doug added. “They took to us pretty quickly, all things considered.”
Simon raised an eyebrow and did his best to wipe the haughty expression from his face. He tinkled a few keys of the piano, and Hedy noticed that he had a much kinder look when he touched the instrument. It softened even more when he ran a tender hand over a bundle of sheet music, tied with a navy-blue ribbon, which sat upon the slender stand. On the first page, Hedy could see dashes and dots of inky, hand-drawn notes, and she had a strong feeling that the music was his ow
n composition.
It was Spencer who unfroze first. “Can I touch you?” he asked.
“You may try,” Simon said doubtfully.
Spencer climbed down from the chair and inched forward until he was close enough to swipe a finger through Simon’s arm as though it was just air. Emboldened, he did it again with a whole hand, then shivered. “Cold!” he said to Hedy with a grin. “Try it.”
Simon rolled his eyes skyward and muttered, “Oh, the ignominy of death.”
Hedy stepped forward and eased her hand into Simon’s chest, wiggling her fingers, which were still visible from within Simon. Spencer was right: From her fingers to her wrist she felt chilled to the bone. When she drew out her hand, she brought it to her lips and blew warm air on it before tucking it under her other arm. “Simon, my name’s Hedy, and that’s my brother, Spencer. We’re John’s grandchildren. Can you speak to our grandmother Rose?”
Simon shook his head. “I know the other ghosts in this house. She is not among them.”
“There are more?” Spencer interrupted.
“Oh yes.”
“Where?”
Simon shot a critical glance at Doug and Stan. “Well, it would be rather unkind of me to disturb their rest by telling you where to find them.”
“We didn’t wish to disturb you,” Stan insisted. “Douglas and I thought another ghost might be tricking the children into thinking it was their grandmother.”
“That didn’t seem like your style,” Doug added, “and you’re the only ghost here who’s decent enough to talk to people.”
Simon was mollified. “Well, I am certain it is not one of the others. I do not believe your grandmother is a ghost. I would see her if she was. She is not in the same place I am.”
“But … you’re here,” Hedy said, confused. “And you said she was here.”
Simon held out a transparent arm. “I am not all here, as you can see. I am mostly somewhere else.”
“Where?” asked Spencer.
The ghost averted his gaze uncomfortably. “That I may not say. I can tell you that your grandmother is not in the ‘somewhere else’ at all. She is not dead.”
“But she asked for our help,” Hedy said, feeling a little sick, “so it can’t be good.”