“Paul. I really thought better of you,” chided Cookie.
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to offend. I was sleeping when you arrived. By the time I realized someone was in the house, I thought I’d just leave. I didn’t think Elton would be coming back,” he said. He looked at Cookie as if to confirm the suspicion. She gave him one brief nod. The jaw on the bottom of Paul started to tremble.
“He was so good to me, and I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” he said.
This was the spookiest-looking skeleton I had ever seen. How he had come to be living in the woods by himself with a mechanic, rather than working in the haunted house, I couldn’t imagine.
“Why didn’t you say hello when you realized we were inside?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s awfully suspicious to go hide,” said Pep.
The odd-looking skeleton hung his head in shame. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen witches, I really didn’t know what to make of it. Elton always told me that if he didn’t come home at the appointed hour, something was wrong. He was supposed to come home last night, and when he didn’t, I knew that his foreboding had finally come true. Something was very wrong. Given that I didn’t trust anyone else who came here, I hid,” he said.
“So what are you doing out here in the first place?” Pep asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
The skeleton hefted the axe. “I was preparing for battle.”
Lark, Pep, and I all looked alarmed, while the skeleton now looked completely at ease.
“He thought we were intruders. He was going to defend the house,” Cookie explained, as if that made it better.
Paul nodded. “I promised Elton that if anything ever happened, I’d keep people from coming in. I’m glad I don’t have to keep that promise just yet.”
“Paul, is there anything else in the house that Elton wouldn’t want anyone to see? The police are going to find this place eventually. At least, I think they are,” said Cookie.
“I highly doubt that the police will find this place. Elton paid for a lot of really expensive enchantments to keep the property hidden. I guess there’s a chance someone manages it, though, and what I’m really worried about is that whoever killed him will find it,” said Paul.
Who was this Elton, and why had someone been motivated to bash his head in? Did he have magic? Now I was truly befuddled. I had thought he’d just been a reclusive mechanic.
“I thought all warlocks had to register if they were in town,” I said. “Wouldn’t you know about it? He couldn’t have been a warlock if he was paying for enchantment spells.”
“Cookie clearly knew about it. She just didn’t tell us,” Lark pointed out, glaring at our grandmother.
That much was true. Cookie had made it clear that she had known Elton for years. She just hadn’t mentioned who or what he was to the rest of us.
“He wasn’t anything special,” said Paul. “He just knew about witches like you. That’s why he paid for enchantments, and that’s why he had me. We’re old friends. It wasn’t very complicated.”
There was something about the way he said it that made me think he wasn’t telling the truth, but we didn’t have time to argue about it at the moment. The day was getting on, and we had to get back home.
But the question remained: Who killed Elton? I had a feeling that even though Cookie knew a lot, she didn’t know that.
When we left, we tried in vain to convince Paul to come with us. He resolutely refused. There was no scenario where he was going to leave the house; he intended to wait and see if anybody came to break in. If the murderer showed up, Paul wanted to deal with him or her himself.
Cookie didn’t like that notion at all, and she insisted that Paul send word to her if anyone did find the house. She promised that in that case she’d definitely come back. I had a feeling that she planned on flying next time. Even though Cookie was robust enough for her age, I could tell she was tired of tramping around in the woods.
Chapter Six
Back at Haunted Bluff, the hope that no one would have noticed the four of us missing was short-lived. When we got to the mansion, it was immediately clear that Haunted Bluff was in turmoil.
Nobody was waiting for us when we got there, but as we pulled in to the driveway, a couple of ghosts floated past the house. One of them mouthed, “Big trouble.”
My stomach had long been grumbling. We had missed lunch, and by the time we left Elton’s secret house I was so hungry I was tempted to see if there was anything to eat in the place. Having thought better of that idea, I was looking forward to coming home and having a sandwich. The only trouble was that my mother was going to be furious with us. Despite the fact that she didn’t show her face right away, I knew that her anger would have to be dealt with before food was consumed.
“I had hoped she wouldn’t notice we were gone,” said Cookie sadly. “Oh, well. I plan on blaming it on the three of you. I was merely sitting in a car that started to drive away.”
Despite how hungry I was, we were still standing next to the car. This was because I knew that once we went into the house, we were never going to get back to town again, even though my mother would make us wish desperately that we didn’t have a home anymore.
Finally, we started moving.
Pep opened the front door cautiously, but all was quiet. As we walked slowly toward the kitchen, I stopped to see Steve the skeleton, who lived in a cabinet in the hallway, but he didn’t want to come out. That was unprecedented.
“Our moms are really angry, don’t you think? If the ghosts know we were gone, then our moms certainly know. It’s a bad sign that they aren’t even waiting to yell at us,” Pep said.
“Yeah, I have a feeling we’re in big trouble,” said Lark.
I glanced at Cookie. To my surprise, she had stayed with us, even though she could have run upstairs to her own part of the mansion and hid. Despite the fact that she liked needling people, she didn’t always like confronting them, especially when “people” meant my mom.
“Let’s see if Audrey has anything to eat. I’ll feel better about what’s coming if I’m fed,” I said.
As we stepped into the kitchen, I was slightly relieved that Mom hadn’t appeared to yell at me yet. But my happiness was short-lived. Audrey wasn’t in the kitchen. What was there was a set of padlocks on every cupboard and fridge.
“Now that’s just unreasonable,” Pep burst out.
“Can’t we enchant them away?” Lark asked.
“Probably only if you want something to blow up,” I said, thinking of the time when we were little and my brother had wanted to ride one of his toy bikes. My mom had told him he had to do his homework first, but he had decided that she was too busy to notice, and went to ride the bike anyhow. He found out the hard way, when he touched the bike and green slime burst all over him, that she was never too busy.
He had gone and done his homework, but not before taking a long shower.
“Let’s go find my mom and apologize. I’m sure she’ll see reason and unlock the cupboards,” I said.
The four of us went to my mom’s office, a small, cramped space covered in papers. I knocked on the door but nobody answered.
“Do you think something is actually wrong?” Lark wondered.
We glanced at Cookie, who shrugged. “Maybe they disappeared. Maybe they finally left my house in peace. I’m not going to say I’m sorry.”
We looked all over the house, but there was no sign of anyone. “We should try the Magenta Dining Room,” said Pep at last.
“Why would they be in there? We only use that room now and then. Besides, the whole kitchen is padlocked,” said Lark.
“Right. Maybe that’s the point,” said Pep.
My feelings were mixed as we headed for the Magenta Dining Room. Partly I was excited that it would finally be dinnertime. Surely. Partly I was just filled with dread.
In the Magenta Dining Room, we found the rest of our family at last. We also found a rather large pile of food. T
here was everything delicious to eat, including three pizzas, each about the size of a bedside table, plus two pasta dishes, several salads, and what appeared to be a large stack of vegetable rolls, Lark’s favorite.
Sitting around the table between us and the food were the members of my family who hadn’t made the excursion to town.
Mom, Meg, and Audrey were chatting. They didn’t look at us when we walked in. As they spoke in hushed voices, I glanced at my cousins. It was only then that I saw the door to the dining room closing gently.
Cookie had run away.
“Traitor,” I muttered underneath my breath.
A throat cleared behind me, and I turned to face my mother. Her placid expression of a moment before was gone, replaced by a steely glare.
“Hungry?” she asked mildly.
Lark, Pep, and I all nodded.
My mother smiled with approval. The smile did not reach those implacable eyes.
“Dig in. We can talk while you do,” she said.
Oh, yes. There was going to be a very high price indeed.
Lark, Pep, and I set about filling our plates with delicious food. I took three slices of pizza and grabbed a second plate so as to take the best advantage of all of the types of salad on offer.
Once my plates were filled, I went to sit across from my mother. I tried not to look at her with too much pleading, but it was difficult.
Right before I was about to take my first bite of pizza, my mom spoke.
“How was your day?” she asked.
I glanced at Meg and Audrey. Neither of them looked especially pleased either. I was already starting to feel guilty. The day after a full moon haunted house was always a busy one around the mansion. Larger than usual crowds always resulted in larger than usual cleanup.
“The day was good,” I mumbled.
My mom’s glare only intensified. Clearly that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“Where’d you go?” she asked.
“To find out about the murder, okay?” Lark burst out. She was never very patient. She also wasn’t one for games. “We went to find out about the murder! There hasn’t been a murder in Shimmerfield in one hundred years, and we wanted to know what was happening.”
“So you disobeyed me?” Meg said sternly.
“You were too busy reading your love letter to notice!” said Pep hotly.
Meg’s face instantly went scarlet. I turned to stare at Pep in surprise.
“It wasn’t a love letter,” said Meg defensively. “It was units of sale.”
“Yeah, from the guy who sells apples, and he has a crush on you! Whoever heard of apple units of sale,” Pep scoffed.
Meg was getting redder in the face by the moment, but she stood her ground.
“You told me you were going to the greenhouse. There was a lot of work to get done here, and you blew it all off.” Meg sounded very unhappy
“It was a murder,” Lark said again.
My mom sighed. “We thought something might have happened to you. Especially when we realized that Cookie was gone as well. You shouldn’t take your grandmother to such places. She’s really too old.”
My jaw dropped slightly Just as my grandmother had predicted, we were getting into trouble for her absence.
If I ended up being half as crafty as she was at her age, people better watch out.
“Fine. We’re sorry. We can help now,” I said.
While my mom and I had been arguing, Pep and Lark had tried to eat as much as possible. Now I dug into my pizza. The first taste made my whole body tingle.
My stomach felt way too empty; I never missed lunch. If Cookie hadn’t taken us on some crazy trek through the woods, we would have been back in time and none of this would have happened.
“Who was killed?” my mom asked quietly.
We told her what the town busybody had told us. We had an unspoken agreement not to mention Paul or the secret house. Mom would like that part even less than she liked the rest of it.
“Cookie seemed to know him,” I concluded.
“She knows everyone. I think that’s who fixed our car. Never saw the guy or thought much about it. We don’t really go anywhere in it anyway,” said Audrey.
“This is the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life,” I told her honestly. She smiled. She knew I was trying to make amends for running off, but she also knew I was telling the truth.
“How about this. I’ll stop telling you not to do things that you’re going to do anyway. In return, the next time you run off somewhere, how about you tell me?” said Mom.
I scrutinized her face to see if she was kidding, since I wasn’t sure I could trust the woman. She might just be making the offer as a ploy to find out where we were going next time so that she’d be able to stop us.
Reluctantly, I agreed to her terms.
She started to stand up. Audrey and Meg followed her lead.
“Excellent. Finish eating, and then here’s a list of chores that need to be done. If you want a summary, clean the haunted house. How’s the work going with Down Below?”
Pep and Lark stared at her. Cleaning the haunted house was usually a job for the whole family. In her anger, Mom had assigned the three of us to do the whole thing.
High price indeed.
“Fine. Everything is fine,” I choked out.
Once they were gone, we looked at the list Mom had given me. No surprise, it was incredibly long. I sighed and finished my meal. Cookie was still nowhere to be seen.
Having made up for our missed lunch, my cousins and I made for the haunted house.
“How did the talking to go?” Rose asked as she trotted up next to me, coming out of what hidden corner I had no idea.
I had gone to get a bucket and a mop, since the Cleaver Kitchen and the laundry room both needed a good scrubbing. Pep had gone to the costume storage room, a large space that was in need of constant organization. The supernaturals that lived at Haunted Bluff loved to go into the costume room and pick out clothes, but they did not love to pick up after themselves. After trying on twenty outfits and discarding them all onto the floor, they left the place in desperate need of someone who embraced using a hanger.
“As well as could be expected,” I told Rose as we made our way through the pretend graveyard, one of the permanent features of the haunted house. Some rooms changed and some rooms stayed the same; the graveyard was one of the latter.
But right now, without the spooky lights, the fake mist, and the vampires jumping out from behind tall headstones, it was far less intimidating.
“Who was killed?” Rose asked.
I filled her in as we walked. Once she heard the whole story she said, “Are you going to investigate?”
“Don’t see why I would. He didn’t have anything to do with the supernatural world except that he knew about us. He wasn’t a warlock,” I told her.
“There are all kinds of supernaturals. Are you sure he wasn’t another kind?” she asked.
“Cookie didn’t mention it,” I said.
“As if she would,” Rose said. Unfortunately, the cat’s words were true.
“Mom wouldn’t like it if I investigated. Neither would Chief of Police Gray,” I said.
Rose was quiet. Clearly she didn’t expect to convince me.
By this time we were back in the Cleaver Kitchen, and I started mopping. I was halfway done when I felt a slight breeze that made me pause. There were no windows open in the haunted house. The last thing we needed was for a poor bird to fly in and get caught by a skeleton who happened to be milling around.
Not seeing anything unexpected, I went back to mopping. Rose had gone to sit in a corner, from where she watched me quietly.
Rose was a strange cat. She actually liked being in the haunted house. I blamed my family’s influence for corrupting her, poor thing.
“Do you feel that draft?” I asked her when I felt it a second time.
Outside, the day was blustery and cold. The wind was blowing hard, and despite
the closed windows, this was one of those times when it felt like the whole haunted house was open to the elements.
“I’m kind of low to the ground,” the cat reminded me.
I made a face. “Fine. I think there’s a window open. Can you find it?”
Rose gave me a long look. She had made herself comfortable and cozy on the little pillow I had found for her to lounge on, and she didn’t want to be sent on errands.
I just stared at her, and eventually she gave a big sigh. “Fine. I’ll go search out whatever nonsense you’re making up now. I better find a hole in the wall. If I don’t, I’m going to hold you responsible,” she informed me.
The next time I looked up, the white cat was gone. I allowed myself a tiny smile. Rose was a good sort. She grumbled a lot, but this place couldn’t function properly without her.
I had just finished mopping the Cleaver Kitchen when she came trotting back.
“Find it?” I asked her.
When she didn’t say anything, I glanced at her again and saw that her face was suffused with concern.
“You better come,” she said.
I dropped the mop and followed her as she trotted out the door and into the hallway. She turned left and brought me to the next room over.
This was a room hidden by a thick set of drapes behind part of Cleaver Kitchen. We never went into it, and rarely used it for anything. It was more of a storage space or a place where supernaturals could hide during tours than anything else.
Inside the unused space, the draft was stronger. Across the room from where I was standing was an outside wall, dark and covered in tapestries. Rose trotted over as a full blast of cold air hit my face.
Carefully, I reached out and pulled the layers of tapestry away from the wall. It wasn’t hard to uncover what was behind them, which turned out to be a door-sized hole. I was pretty sure it hadn’t always been there, but the layers of tapestry covered it, so I supposed there was a chance I could have missed it.
The last tapestry was hung on the outside and meant to look like the stonework of the building. It didn’t match perfectly, but it was close enough. There was a small clump of trees on this side of the house, but otherwise there was nothing to slow the wind that was blowing hard into my face off the ocean.
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