The Ghost Wore Gray

by Bruce Coville

  Chris had been a little jealous ever since this editor named Mona Curtis asked me to write a book about our first adventure. Mona asked me to write the book because my father showed her the pages of my journal where I talked about meeting the Woman in White.

  I was pretty mad when he did that without asking me. But when I learned I might get to write a book because of it, I had a hard time staying angry.

  Actually, Chris wasn’t that upset about the book. After all, she doesn’t keep a journal, and she doesn’t particularly want to be a writer. So she says it’s okay, as long as I tell everyone how beautiful and smart she is. (She’s going to kill me when she reads this.)

  Now with something like that going on, you wouldn’t think I’d need a part-time job. But I didn’t have a contract yet. Mona wanted me to write several chapters first. And my dad had already informed me that if I did make anything on the book, most of it was getting put away for college. So earning a little extra money didn’t seem like a bad idea.

  Any jealousy Chris had about the job vanished when I told her Norma’s shop was less than ten blocks from her house.

  “All right!” she shouted, nearly breaking my eardrum.

  The reason this was so exciting is that Chris and I live on different sides of town and go to different schools—which makes it a big problem for us to get together. I was even happier about the job at Norma’s when my father told me I could spend the night with Chris whenever I worked there. Of course, it had to be all right with Chris’s parents.

  Every time the phone rang that week, I jumped for it, hoping it would be Norma asking me to work. But it wasn’t until Thursday that I picked up the receiver and heard a gravelly voice ask, “So, Nine—are you working for me Saturday, or not?”

  “Working!” I cried, trying to keep from shouting with delight.

  Saturday morning I walked to Norma’s house. She was waiting in her red pickup. A terrifying ten minutes later we pulled up in front of Bliss in Brass. It should have been a fifteen-minute ride, but Norma drives the way she does everything else: fast!

  I was still thinking how glad I was to be in one piece when Norma said, “Are you getting out, or are you going to sit there all day?” I blinked when I realized she was already out of the truck and standing next to my window.

  Bliss in Brass was an old red building nestled at the end of a row of houses. I think it had been a house once itself. A low stone wall ran along the edge of the lawn, which was about three feet higher than the sidewalk. In front of the shop stood a wooden sign, carved with the same design that was painted on the side of Norma’s truck.

  Through the picture window to the left of the door I could see beautiful old dressers, beds, and mirrors. The inside of the shop was even better—crowded, but not too crowded, and arranged so that each thing you looked at seemed to lead you on to the next. Old-fashioned quilts and lots of pillows made the shop feel cozy and homey.

  The shop even smelled good, as if Norma had tucked spices into the corners.

  Of course, it also smelled like coffee. (How can something smell so good and taste so gross?)

  Norma sniffed the air as we walked in. “Ahh,” she said happily. “It’s working!”

  I followed her to the back of the shop, where I saw a large coffee maker. Hot coffee was dripping into the glass pot.

  Norma flashed me a huge grin. “I bought this yesterday. It has an automatic timer. Now I can have fresh coffee as soon as I get here. Want some?”

  I made a face. “I never touch the stuff.”

  Norma rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t live without it. I used to have a boyfriend who called me the Caffeine Poster Child.”

  She poured herself a cup, and we got to work. The first thing I had to do was dust. Gag. I hate dusting! Except somehow doing it here wasn’t as annoying as doing it at home.

  Besides, here I was getting paid for it.

  I had been working for about ten minutes when the bell over the door rang. Looking up, I saw an elderly woman enter the shop.

  She was probably as old as half the things in the store; her hair was white as baby powder, and her pale skin looked like a piece of paper that’s been wrinkled up, then smoothed out again. She had to lean on a cane to walk, and as she hobbled toward me I got the feeling that if I sneezed too hard, I might knock her down.

  She stopped in front of me, put her hand on the dresser I was dusting, and burst into tears.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Phoebe Watson

  What are you supposed to do when an old lady stands in front of you and starts to cry? Part of me was disgusted; I think adults should have more self-control. Part of me was scared; what if she was crazy? Part of me just wanted to hug her and say, “There, there, it’ll be all right.”

  Finally I put down my dust rag and asked, “Can I help you?”

  The old lady fumbled in her purse for a tissue. “I’m sorry,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “That wasn’t fair to you. It’s just that this dresser used to be in my house. Seeing it here makes me sad.” Still sniffing a little, she ran her fingers over the area I had been dusting.

  Her answer only raised more questions, such as: What was the dresser doing here? Had someone stolen it? Had the woman sold it to Norma? And if she missed it so much, why didn’t she just buy it back?

  Before I could decide which to ask first, Norma came sailing across the shop, shouting, “Fee-bee!” (Actually, she was shouting, “Phoebe!”—but I didn’t know how to spell it until I saw it written down later.)

  Taking the woman by the arm, Norma asked, “How are you?”

  Phoebe smiled, but her eyes looked as sad as ever. “Not so good,” she said softly.

  Norma took her hand. “Well, you just come over here and tell Norma all about it,” she said, tugging Phoebe toward the coffee area. The old woman went along quietly.

  My curiosity was killing me. I was still trying to figure out some way to go listen to them when the bell at the front of the shop tinkled again and Chris Gurley walked in.

  “What are you doing here?” I yelled.

  “I came to look around,” Chris said, surprised.

  Suddenly I realized how rude I must have sounded. It was just that I was afraid Norma would be upset with me for having friends in the shop when I was supposed to be working.

  “Here to case the joint, huh?” I said, smiling.

  “You’ve been watching too many old movies,” replied Chris. “They’re affecting your vocabulary.”

  But she said it with a smile, too. Things were okay.

  A few minutes later Norma and Phoebe joined us. Norma was holding Phoebe’s arm, which meant that she had to walk at the same slow pace as the old lady. It probably drove her nuts to move that way, but she managed to smile anyway.

  “Introduction time!” she said, waving her free hand. “Phoebe, this young lady is my new assistant, Nina Tanleven. You can call her Nine. Nine, this is Phoebe Watson.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Watson,” I said.

  “I’d prefer you to call me Phoebe,” she said, putting out her hand for me to shake. I took it. Her skin was smooth and soft.

  I introduced Chris and explained that I would be going to her house when I was done working.

  “Whoo, child,” said Norma. “Are you the one Henry was telling me about—the one Nine’s been solving mysteries with? Honey, I don’t know how the two of you stand it! When I’m alone in this shop at night, it’s all I can do to walk from one end of this room to the other. If I ever saw a ghost in here, I wouldn’t bother opening the door; I’d go through the glass and pick up the pieces later!”

  “Have you girls really seen a ghost?” Phoebe asked.

  “Several,” Chris said, and grinned.

  “How interesting. I’ve always been fascinated by ghosts.”

  “Lord, Phoebe, don’t talk like that!” Norma rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to see a ghost. I don’t want to hear a ghost. I don’t even want to know about a ghost!”


  Phoebe looked troubled. Before I could figure out a way to ask why, Norma said, “Phoebe’s selling me an old wardrobe. I’m going over to her house to pick it up after we close this afternoon. If you have time, Nine, I’d like you to come along.” She paused, then added, “You can come, too, Chris, if you want.”

  “All right!” shouted Chris. Then she raised her eyebrows and slapped her hand over her mouth.

  I watched through the shop window as Phoebe drove away. Her car was even older than my father’s, and when she hunched down behind the steering wheel, she could barely see over the dashboard. I had a feeling that riding with her might be even scarier than riding with Norma!

  I went back to my dusting while Chris called her mother to see if it was all right if she made the trip. She flashed me the OK sign from the phone. We were all set!

  When some customers wandered into the store, Chris decided to go home. “I don’t want Norma to think I’m getting in the way,” she whispered just before she left.

  I nodded. “See you later.”

  She showed up again just as we were closing the shop.

  “Oh, there you are!” Norma said happily. “I was starting to worry that you had forgotten us.”

  “Not a chance!”

  I decided not to mention the fact that Chris’s father had once threatened to have her name legally changed to Chris “Late Again” Gurley.

  “Phoebe lives only a mile or two from Westcott Street, so we’ll be driving back through our own neighborhood,” Norma told me, as she locked the door of the shop. “Kind of a sad old lady,” she continued as the three of us climbed into the truck. “She must have sold more than half her furniture over the last few years.”

  “How come?” Chris asked.

  “Too many expenses, not enough income,” said Norma as she pulled out of the driveway and roared up the street. “Happens to a lot of older people.” She took a swig of coffee from her travel cup, then stuck it back on the dashboard.

  “I thought the government took care of people like that,” I said.

  Norma snorted so hard that she nearly blew coffee through her nose. “Honey, that government ‘safety net’ has more holes than a pair of cheap panty hose at the end of a bad day.”

  A car honked as we cut into the right lane. We hit the highway and headed for our neighborhood, which is known as the university section, because it’s close to Syracuse University.

  “Look!” Chris exclaimed when we reached the business section of Westcott Street. “What’s that?”

  She was pointing to Seven Rays, which is this great bookstore that specializes in what they call the mystic arts. The north side of the store, a solid brick wall about twenty feet high and eighty feet long, had been painted white from about six feet above the ground to the top. Sketchy black lines showed the outline of a forest, with mountains in the distance.

  “Dave’s getting his mural!” Norma shouted.

  I knew Dave Davis was the owner of the store. But I didn’t know anything about a mural.

  “He’s been wanting to have a mural painted on that wall for years,” said Norma when I asked about it.

  “How do you know that?” asked Chris. “I thought you only moved here two months ago.”

  “Honey, I work fast!” said Norma. Then she laughed that great laugh of hers.

  I was happy. I thought the mural would fit well in our neighborhood, which is filled with great old houses and strange young people—well, strange people of all ages, actually.

  About a mile from Westcott Street we started up a long hill. At the very top of the hill was an enormous, dark green house. It looked like the product of an architect’s nightmare. Everything that could have been added to a house of that time had been added. The roof had three chimneys, two dormers, and a skylight. A long porch with big pillars stretched across the front. Some of the windows bowed out, some had diamond panes, and some were made of stained glass.

  But the thing I liked best was the right corner—the east corner, I later figured out—which was a three-story tower. The roof of the tower was covered with black shingles; it tapered to a peak that made me think of a witch’s hat.

  The house was surrounded by more open land than most places in Syracuse. A winding stone sidewalk led up a broad lawn to the porch.

  The lawn itself was bordered by the remains of a stone wall; the jagged chunks of broken rock looked like rotting teeth in some huge, prehistoric jaw.

  Even though the place was rundown, I thought it was wonderful. As soon as Norma parked the truck, Chris and I jumped out.

  As we did, I realized one more thing about Phoebe Watson’s house.

  It was haunted.

  Very haunted.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Painted Past

  I turned to Chris. “Do you feel it?” I whispered.

  Eyes wide, she nodded.

  I could tell she was frightened. I was, too. The reason was simple: Until that moment, we had never known a place was haunted without somehow experiencing the ghost itself. Yet the instant we stepped out of Norma’s truck, we knew there was a ghost somewhere nearby. It didn’t show itself. It didn’t touch us. We just knew it was there.

  Waiting.

  Waiting for Chris and me?

  That didn’t seem likely.

  But if not for us, then who? And why did we know about it?

  The last question was the only one I thought I might have an answer to. Chris and I have a theory that one reason we met Captain Gray was because our experience with the Woman in White had increased our sensitivity to spirits. Had our second experience done the same thing? Had we started on some kind of spiral that would have us meet more ghosts, and become even more sensitive to the spirit world, so we would meet even more ghosts?

  How long could that go on? Would our lives become crowded with ghosts that no one else could see? I hoped not. Much as I like being able to meet ghosts, I do want some kind of limit to it all!

  Norma was halfway to the porch before she realized we weren’t with her. She turned back to see what was keeping us. The look on our faces must have startled her because she asked, “What’s wrong with you two? You look like you just saw …” Her voice trailed off. “Forget it. If you saw what you look like you saw, don’t tell me. I promised Phoebe we would pick up this wardrobe, and I won’t be able to do it if I’m all the time worried that someone is floating behind my shoulder.”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s okay,” I said, trying to reassure her. “Neither of us saw a ghost.”

  “Donteventalkaboutit!” cried Norma, so fast it all came out as one word. “Now, come on, before I change my mind. And if you see anything weird, don’t tell me!”

  We nodded and began to walk up the path.

  I was frightened, but not terrified. After all, the ghosts we had met so far had actually been pretty nice.

  The porch echoed hollowly under our feet.

  Norma rang the doorbell. Phoebe took so long answering that I began to think that maybe she had died and the ghost we had sensed was hers. It wasn’t until she opened the door and we started to follow her into the parlor that I remembered how slowly she moved.

  The parlor was almost pretty. It had a high ceiling, dark blue wallpaper covered with little flowers, and an Oriental rug. The October light streamed in through three tall windows. Clearly the room had once been beautiful. But it looked slightly shabby now, and somehow empty, as if it should have had more furniture than it did. The only decorations were a painting that hung above the fireplace and a large Oriental vase.

  The one thing in the room that didn’t look worn out was the person sitting in the blue armchair. He was probably about sixty years old, but he had a full head of thick, silvery-white hair. He was dressed in business clothes and looked very formal except for his tie, which was bright red and covered with images of large, fan-tailed goldfish. He stood as we entered the room. Crossing toward us, he said, “You must be Norma Bliss! I’m so pleased to meet you!”
r />   Norma looked surprised. “I didn’t know I was so famous,” she said with a slight laugh.

  “Phoebe has told me all about you.”

  “This is Stephen Bassett, Norma,” Phoebe said. “He’s a very dear friend of mine. Now, why don’t you introduce the girls, while I go get some tea things.”

  “Make mine coffee,” said Norma.

  As Phoebe left the room, Norma began to introduce us.

  Mr. Bassett raised a hand to stop her. “No need for an introduction. I know who they are.”

  “You do?” I asked in surprise.

  “You are Nina Tanleven, aren’t you?”

  Judging from the way he laughed, I must have appeared even more surprised than Norma had. “Don’t be so worried. You live up the street from me. I know your father. And I assume you’re Chris Gurley,” he continued, turning to Chris.

  “How do you know that?” asked Chris.

  “You two did gain a certain notoriety after your adventure in the Grand Theater this past summer,” Mr. Bassett said. “The newspapers covered the story, in case you forgot.”

  I was starting to like this guy. I figured I might learn something from him.

  “You have the advantage on us, Stephen,” said Norma. “Why not tell us what brings you here?”

  “Business,” he said, and shrugged.

  Norma frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re an antique dealer, too. My business is tough enough as it is.”

  “I’m Phoebe’s lawyer,” he said. I could hear a hint of steel in his voice. “If you want to know anything beyond that, you’ll have to ask Phoebe herself.”

  I had a feeling tht Norma wanted to give him a big “Well, excu-u-u-use me!” But she held it in and said something polite, and pretty soon the two of them were involved in a conversation that I thought was totally boring.

  It didn’t seem like the kind of situation where we were going to learn anything. So when Chris made a gesture with her head, I was glad to follow her over to look at the painting that hung above the fireplace.

  At first I thought it was just a pretty picture of a forest. Then I realized there were dead bodies scattered among the fallen leaves. After I spotted the first few, I couldn’t miss them. My eyes began picking out more and more, almost as if I were staring at one of those find-the-hidden-object pictures.