The Bloodwater Mysteries: Skullduggery

by Hautman, Pete/Logue, Mary

He decided not to pay much attention to her. Let her get over it by herself. Brian loved wandering in the woods. He wanted to know the names of everything—animal, vegetable or mineral.

  “What’s that abominable blob?” she asked, pointing at a gelatinous, orange globule perched on top of a fallen log.

  “Slime mold, I think,” said Brian.

  “Yuck. Is it on our list?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good.”

  Brian stopped and took in their surroundings. “This might not be a good place to find skunk cabbage,” he said. “According to Professor Bloom, they like really wet soil.”

  “This is wet enough,” Roni said. She looked up the sloping hillside. “It looks like easier walking up there. Less itch-weed.”

  “Less skunk cabbage, too.”

  “How do you tell a skunk cabbage, anyway? All these plants look the same.”

  “Well, for one thing, it smells sort of skunky.”

  “Great. Let’s make it a point to not find any.” Without waiting for him to reply, Roni headed uphill.

  “We’re supposed to stay together!” Brian said.

  “Come on then,” she said over her shoulder.

  Brian sighed. Hanging with Roni was like trying to walk a bull elephant. He scrambled to catch up with her, giving up on the notion of locating a stand of skunk cabbage. Maybe something else would turn up.

  About twenty yards up the slope they came to a grassy area. Above them rose the limestone cliff known as Indian Bluff. He followed Roni along the base of the bluff.

  Brian asked, “So what do you think about that Eric Bloodwater?”

  Roni’s head snapped around and her face went pink. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing,” Brian said. “I just think it’s pretty weird that he would have the same name as the town.”

  “The city was named after the Bloodwater family, my dear Watson.”

  “Yeah, but there hasn’t been a Bloodwater in Bloodwater since forever. I thought the whole family had died out.”

  “Probably just some distant relatives.”

  “I guess. Hey, do you suppose they’re the ones who are renting out Bloodwater House?”

  “Somebody’s living there again?”

  “Yeah. My mom mentioned something about it. The bank is renting it to some family. I wonder if the Curse will get them.”

  Roni shook her head and continued walking. “You and your stupid Curse.” She waded through a patch of green three-leafed plants. Brian stopped. It looked like poison ivy. He opened his mouth to tell Roni what she’d just done, but before he could say anything, she held up a hand and said, “Did you hear that?”

  Brian listened, but heard only the breeze. “Hear what?”

  Roni held up her hand. “Listen.”

  They both listened. A bird calling . . . the muted drone of a distant airplane . . . and then a faint but unmistakable call for help.

  6

  sweetie pie

  “Where’s it coming from?” Brian asked.

  “Shh!” Roni cocked her head, listening fiercely. She had heard the voice call out twice, but she couldn’t locate it.

  Several seconds passed.

  “Help!”

  “There it is again!” Brian said. He looked up the rocky face of the cliff. “Up there!”

  “Up where?” Roni looked up at the bluff, but saw nothing but a craggy wall of rock.

  Brian was already climbing. Roni took a deep breath and followed.

  It was easier than it looked. The rock provided plenty of handholds and crevices. As long as she didn’t look down, it wasn’t bad at all. About thirty feet up, she came to a shallow ledge. Brian was waiting for her.

  “I heard it again,” he said. “It sounded like it was coming right out of the rock. Come on!” Brian edged along the narrow ledge. “Watch out for snakes,” he added.

  “That is not funny.”

  “Wasn’t meant to be.”

  The ledge narrowed, and Roni’s toes were hanging out over the edge. She made the mistake of looking down. Her stomach did a flip-flop. It was only about thirty feet, but it looked like a mile.

  Again, they heard the voice, still faint but louder than before. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?”

  “Up here,” Brian said, and he was climbing again. Roni followed him up to another ledge.

  “Hey!” he said. And then he seemed to melt into the rock.

  Roni did not like being halfway up a cliff, and especially not alone. She slowly inched along the ledge until she came to a hidden opening, a slash in the rock about five feet high and twelve inches wide. The air coming out of it was cool and sour smelling.

  “Brian?” she called out.

  There was no answer.

  The cave widened a few yards past the entrance. Brian congratulated himself for having a flashlight with him. True, it was a tiny thing, its beam of light no more powerful than a candle, but it was better than no light at all.

  The flashlight was one of several pieces of equipment Brian liked to have on his person. The other necessities in his numerous pockets included a small 10x magnifying glass, a Swiss Army knife, a short spool of copper wire, a six-foot tape measure and several pieces of hard candy. Because you never knew when you might get caught in the dark with nothing to eat.

  As he moved deeper into the cave, he noticed that the sour smell was getting stronger. He also noticed several sets of footprints on the dusty floor. He stopped and called out.

  “Anybody in here?” His voice echoed weirdly off the limestone walls. A few heartbeats later a querulous voice came from deeper within the cavern.

  “Help! I can’t find the light switch.”

  Light switch?

  “I’m coming!” Brian said.

  The voice sounded fainter than before. Brian wondered how they had ever heard it from outside the cave. Some strange amplification effect, he supposed. Caverns did odd things to sounds. Following the twisting passageway, Brian noticed his flashlight beam getting weaker. How long had it been since he had replaced the battery? Too long.

  The passageway opened into a large chamber. The smell was stronger, and he could see why. The floor was black with bat droppings.

  Brian shined his light up and was rewarded with an outburst of angry chittering. Hundreds of bats hung from the ceiling twenty feet above his head.

  He heard the disembodied voice again. “Where am I?” After a moment, the voice answered itself: “Why, I’m right here! Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”

  Brian shone his light in the direction of the voice and saw a low opening to his right. He ducked his head and crawled through into another chamber. Just as he entered the new chamber, his light gave out.

  Brian stood up slowly, blinking his eyes in the utter blackness. There is no dark darker than the darkness inside a cave, he decided.

  He could hear someone breathing, and then the voice again, very close.

  “Is that you, Sweetie Pie?”

  7

  yorick

  Roni peered into the cave entrance. She thought she could hear faint voices.

  “Brian?” she called again.

  “Back here!” His voice echoed through the passageway.

  She took a few steps into the narrow opening.

  Maybe whoever was in there was holding Brian captive, forcing him to lure her into a fiendish trap. An escaped convict. Or a cave troll. You never knew.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could make out the faint outlines of the cavern walls, but the deeper it went the less she could see. She took another step. The passage curved to the right and led into complete darkness.

  Roni plopped her backpack on the floor of the cave and rooted around in it. Her mom laughed at her for having so much junk in her backpack, but as she liked to say, you never knew what might come in handy. She found the lavender-scented mood candle she had bought a few days ago. In one of the side pockets she located a really cute box of matche
s she had nabbed from Bratten’s Café and Bakery.

  She lit the candle and held it out in front of her. Not much light, but enough to let her see where she was going. “I’m coming,” she yelled.

  As the passageway opened into a chamber, she heard an odd beeping sound, like someone’s cell phone put on hyper-speed. She looked up and almost dropped her candle. At first she thought the ceiling was alive. Then she knew it was alive. Alive with bats. They covered the ceiling like thick, leathery, wriggling carpeting.

  Roni wondered if they were disturbed by the candlelight. Too bad, she thought, I gotta see. She forced herself to enter the chamber, making a promise to herself that she would make Brian pay for this. She would have him tortured and killed. Why had he left her side? What good was a sidekick if they weren’t there to kick when you needed them?

  She tried calling again. “Brian!”

  “Here,” a thin voice squeaked out of an opening in the far wall.

  She crossed to the opening. It was low and narrow. She would have to crawl. What if she got stuck? How embarrassing would that be? She didn’t like tight places; they made her feel squeamy.

  “Come out,” she shouted.

  “I can’t see! My flashlight died!”

  She held out the candle. “Can you see my light?”

  “Yes! But I need your help.”

  “Help doing what?” she asked.

  “There’s a guy in here. I think he’s hurt.”

  Roni wished that she and Brian had a secret word they could say when they were in serious trouble to let the other one know to run as fast as they could and get help and not enter the scary other chamber. But they didn’t.

  “Hurry up!” Brian said.

  Roni ducked her head and crawled into the opening, holding the candle in front of her. A few seconds later the passageway opened into a chamber, and she was able to stand up.

  “I love it!” Brian said when he saw her. “A candle! How nineteenth century.”

  “At least the batteries don’t give out.”

  Brian pointed down and Roni saw a thin, bearded man slumped against the wall. He looked like he was about her mom’s age. His eyes were closed.

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yeah, but he’s not making much sense.”

  Roni knelt down next to the man. “What happened?”

  The man’s eyes popped open. “Sweetie Pie?” he said in a quavering voice. “Is that you?”

  Roni looked at Brian. “Sweetie Pie?”

  “He calls everybody that,” Brian said. “He’s a little out of it.”

  Roni noticed a trail of dried blood winding down the man’s neck. She bent closer to him and saw that he had a large cut on the back of his head.

  “What happened to your head?” she asked.

  “Somebody hit me.”

  “Who?”

  “It must have been a ghost,” said the man.

  Roni stood up straight. “Oh, great. A ghost.”

  “Or maybe a skinwalker,” he said.

  “What’s a skinwalker?” Brian asked.

  “An evil shape-changing shaman.”

  “Oh. I’ll take the ghost,” said Brian.

  “Can you get up?” Roni asked. “Can you walk?”

  “I could if everything would stop spinning.”

  “What’s that he’s sitting on?” Roni asked. It looked like a pile of oddly shaped yellow sticks. She moved the candle closer, then gasped. “It’s bones!”

  “Bonesy bonesy bonesy,” the man cackled. He brought up his right hand, holding a human skull.

  Roni let out a yelp and jumped back.

  “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio!” The man laughed, then suddenly became very serious. “Whatever you do,” he said, looking straight at Roni, “don’t let them eat your brains.”

  8

  bulldozers and ghosts

  “You stay with him,” Roni said. “I’ll go get help.”

  “Okay,” Brian said. “Except how about if I go for help, and you stay.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Roni.

  “Let’s flip a coin,” Brian suggested.

  “You should stay. You’ve known him longer.”

  “I don’t actually know him that well,” said Brian.

  The man held up the skull and said, “He can hear you.”

  Roni said, “Let’s compromise. We both go back to the entrance, then you can have the candle and come back here to keep him company while I get help.”

  “That’s a compromise?”

  “Yup.”

  As usual, Roni got her way. Brian walked her out of the cave, then returned with the candle to keep the mad-man company.

  The guy had the skull again and was staring into its empty eye sockets. He said, “Bloodwater owes you a debt of gratitude, Yorick. You have saved us from ourselves.”

  “If you keep talking to that skull, I’m going to leave you here,” Brian said.

  For several seconds, the man said nothing. Then he asked, “Are you going to get me out of here?”

  Finally, he had said something that made sense.

  “My friend went to get help.”

  “Good.”

  “What’s your name?” Brian asked.

  “I am Dart,” said the man. “Andrew Dart. Dr. Andrew Dart. Andrew Wyndham Dart, PhD. I am an archaeologist. I work at Bloodwater College.”

  “Dr. Dart? I think you’re supposed to talk to my class!”

  “I’m afraid I may have to cancel—I have more important work to do!”

  “Why were you in here?” Brian asked.

  “I came to stop the bulldozers,” said Dr. Dart. He reached out and grabbed Brian’s wrist. “You have to help me!”

  “I am helping you. My friend—”

  “No! I mean you must help me stop the bulldozers!” His eyes glittered in the candlelight, sane and sober. “Indian Bluff is one of the greatest archaeological sites ever discovered in the area. We can’t let them destroy it!” Then he whispered, “But don’t breathe a word of this to Jillian!”

  “Um . . . okay. Don’t tell Jillian. Right. Could you please let go of my arm?”

  Dr. Dart placed Brian’s hand on top of the skull. “Swear on Yorick. If anything should happen to me, you must save the bluff!”

  “Save the bluff. Uh-huh.”

  “You swear?”

  “Sure . . . whatever.”

  Dr. Dart released his grip. Brain wiped his hand on his shirt. He had never touched a human skull before.

  “They didn’t believe me,” Dr. Dart said. He reached into his shirt pocket and came out with something wrapped in a handkerchief. With shaking hands, he unfolded the cloth to reveal a flat, palm-sized stone. He held the stone out to Brian. “Take it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Take it!”

  Clearly, this Andrew Dart was raving. Brian took the stone quickly so that Dart couldn’t grab his arm again, and put it in his pocket.

  “No matter what happens to me, you must save the bluff. I have enemies!” He looked over Brian’s shoulder and his eyes suddenly went wide.

  Brian whirled and held up the candle—but there was nothing there.

  “They sneak up on you,” said Dart.

  “Who?” Brian’s heart was pounding.

  “The ghosts,” Dart said. “The bulldozers and the ghosts.”

  9

  eric bloodwater

  Roni pointed the way up the bluff for the two paramedics. She stood below and watched them climb the bluff and enter the cave. By that time, Professor Bloom’s entire class had gathered in a clearing about fifty feet back from the base of the bluff.

  “Is there really somebody in there?” Adam, one of Brian’s nerdy friends, asked.

  “Yeah,” Roni said. “We heard him yelling for help, so Brian and I went in and found him.”

  “That is so cool!”

  Roni was pleased. It was cool, not to mention courageous and brave. Her mother would probably add reckless
and foolish to the mix. But that was cool, too.

  After a few minutes, Brian emerged from the cave. He climbed down the bluff, walked up to Roni and said, “You took long enough.”

  “I was on the bus driver’s cell phone five minutes after I left you.”

  “It felt like forever.”

  “Sorry. I wonder who he is.”

  “His name is Dr. Andrew Dart. He’s the archaeologist who was supposed to talk to our class.”

  “You actually got him to make sense?”

  “Just for a minute. He made me swear to stop the bulldozers. He says the bluff is an important Indian site or something. Then he started talking about ghosts and stuff.”

  A large, bony hand descended on her shoulder.

  “Come along, Miss Delicata,” said Professor Bloom. “It’s time for us to return to school and let the rescue workers do their job.”

  “Can’t I stay and watch? It was me and Brian who found him.”

  “I am aware of that. You were supposed to be looking for skunk cabbage. What were you doing way up here?”

  “We thought we smelled something skunky.”

  “Perhaps it was a skunk. Now come along.”

  The rest of the group, including Brian, were already walking toward the bus. Roni shrugged and followed them.

  When they got on the bus, Roni did not sit with Brian. She didn’t want anyone—especially Eric Bloodwater—to think that she and Brian were boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe when Eric got on he would sit next to her. She looked around discreetly. Where was he?

  Professor Bloom stood at the front of the bus and did a head count, using his cane as a pointer. He finished, frowned and counted them again.

  “One missing. Does anyone know who that would be?”

  Roni knew. It was Eric Bloodwater. But she was not about to publicly admit that she was aware of his existence.

  “It’s the new kid,” somebody from the back yelled. “The one who came in late.”

  Professor Bloom consulted his notebook.

  “Miss Kohlstad?”

  “Yes?” said Gennifer Kohlstad.

  “Where is Mr. Bloodwater, your partner?”

  “He wandered off, I guess.”

  Several of the students snickered.