A Ghost in the Window

by Betty R. Wright

  “Caleb, will you build us a tree house this afternoon? It wouldn’t take long.” Steffi eyed her big brother, seeming to sense that this might be the wrong time to ask a favor.

  “Can’t,” Caleb answered gruffly. “I have to cut grass at Millers’ all afternoon. And trim bushes. And weed their garden.” He sounded abused.

  “But that’s wonderful, Caleb!” Granny Tate exclaimed. “You’ve been wanting some jobs like that, haven’t you?”

  Caleb looked embarrassed. “Sure,” he admitted. “Don’t mind me. Bad day. Again.”

  Mr. Korshak stood up. “We all have them,” he said. “I’m off to the newspaper office. I promised to work some extra hours to make up for yesterday. See you all tonight.” He gave Meg a quick peck on the forehead and tousled Steffi’s silky blond hair as he left. Caleb followed him out the door almost at once.

  “You lie down,” Meg told Mrs. Tate. “I don’t have anything to do but watch Steffi. I’ll sit outside and read.”

  The old lady looked grateful. “I haven’t had a headache like this in years,” she said. “Maybe if I rest just a little while longer …”

  With Steffi’s help, Meg quickly cleared the table and washed the few dishes. Then they went back outside. Astrid appeared almost at once, and Meg settled on the steps once more with her mystery book.

  She must have dozed. The next thing she knew, the telephone was ringing and her book was lying on the bottom step. Steffi and Astrid were looking at her and giggling.

  “Meg, telephone,” Mrs. Tate called. “It’s your brother, I think.”

  Meg’s first reaction was joy, followed almost immediately by panic. Why would Bill call in the middle of the day? He was supposed to be at work.

  The sound of her brother’s voice, surprisingly deep for such a beanpole of a boy, reassured her. “How’s everything there, kiddo? Are you and Dad having a great time together?”

  “We’re fine.” She couldn’t tell him the truth, not with Mrs. Tate lingering close by, looking anxious. “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t answer her question. “I had a call from Mom last night. She and Uncle Bill are with the family in Pittsburgh. She sent her love to you—hoped you were having fun.”

  “I’ll be glad when she gets back. Have you seen Rhoda?”

  “Every day. She’s mostly busy with the play.” There was a long pause, and Meg held her breath. “The thing I called about…,” he continued carefully, “Grandma Korshak is sick. She’s in the hospital.”

  “The hospital!” Meg clutched the phone, and Mrs. Tate gave a little gasp. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “Don’t know. They’re doing tests. She had a dizzy spell in her apartment yesterday, and the lady who lives downstairs called the paramedics. It may be nothing serious.…” His voice trailed off, and Meg knew he was as worried as she was. Nothing must happen to Grandma Korshak. They loved her and needed her so much.

  “When will you hear about the tests?” Meg’s voice trembled.

  “Tomorrow, maybe. I took the morning off and went to the hospital. Grandma’s cheerful, the way she always is, but I think she’s kind of scared, too. I talked to her doctor, and he said they’d know more in twenty-four hours.”

  It sounded like forever. “Dad’s at work,” Meg said. “I guess you can call him there.”

  “No need. I won’t have anything else to report till tomorrow. Just tell him what I said, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And try not to worry, kiddo. Grandma said she didn’t want us to worry, and she definitely didn’t want anybody coming home because of her. Got that? She even scolded me for taking the morning off.”

  “Right.”

  “And one more thing. Grandma said to tell you she had a dream about you. She can’t be feeling too bad or she wouldn’t be talking about a dream, would she? She said you were wearing a yellow dress, and you looked like a princess—those are her words, not mine.”

  “I don’t even have a yellow dress.” Meg knew Bill was trying to cheer her before hanging up, but she couldn’t respond.

  “Well, then, you’d better run right out and buy one. If it’ll make Meg Korshak look like a princess …” When she didn’t laugh, Bill gave up. “Try not to worry, kiddo. I’ll call again as soon as I know something.”

  Meg said goodbye and turned forlornly to Mrs. Tate. “My grandma’s sick,” she said, and burst into tears.

  Mrs. Tate put her arms around Meg’s shoulders and hugged her. “Come along, dear,” she said. “A cup of tea will help. At least, it’s always helped my generation. News is seldom as bad as it seems at first, and tea helps you to see more clearly.” She was chattering, filling up the silence.

  Meg wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Nothing’s as bad as it seems at first, she repeated to herself. It mustn’t be!

  She couldn’t lose Grandma Korshak. Not now. Not ever. All through the divorce, and before, when Meg’s parents were arguing constantly, Grandma had been the steady, serene presence they relied on. Meg felt especially close to her, since Grandma, too, had real dreams. She’d helped Meg accept the fact that she was different from most people.

  Hesitantly, Meg began to talk, telling Mrs. Tate what a wonderful person her grandmother was. “She’s my friend,” she said, sipping her tea. “The way you’re Steffi’s friend.”

  She set the cup down, hard, in its saucer. Steffi! During the last few minutes Meg hadn’t given her a thought. She was sure Granny Tate had forgotten about her, too.

  Meg jumped up and ran to the back door. The cradle boxes, cupboard boxes and car boxes were scattered around the lawn under the maple tree. The little girls were gone.

  12

  “Now, Meg, there’s no need to get in a state.” Mrs. Tate stared at Meg in astonishment. “You’ve gone all white, dear. Come back and finish your tea. The children just got tired of waiting for their walk, I’m sure. They’ve decided to go by themselves. They’ll take their dolls around the block and be back before you know it.”

  “No, I have to find them! Right away!” Meg dashed across the porch and down the steps. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Tate!”

  “I’m not worried, dear.” Mrs. Tate followed her out on the porch. “They shouldn’t have gone alone, but there’s no need to fuss. Children are perfectly safe in Trevor.”

  Meg raced around the side of the house and looked up and down the street. A little boy was riding his tricycle near the end of the block, but there was no sign of Steffi and Astrid.

  Meg didn’t even know where to start looking. The old house in her dream was like dozens of other houses in Trevor, though she couldn’t remember seeing one exactly like it. Gray, she thought. It was gray, freshly painted. The bushes across the front looked as if they’d just been trimmed. Maybe there was a house like that on the next street. If Caleb hadn’t been so rude this morning, she would have described it to him, and he probably would have recognized it. Surely the house was close by; otherwise the children wouldn’t go there by themselves.

  Meg ran back along the side of the house, through the garden, and between towering sunflowers that separated the Larsens’ yard from the neighbor’s behind them. Steffi and Astrid weren’t on the next street either. The only gray house was a tiny bungalow banked with pink geraniums.

  Meg raced to the corner, feeling as if she were caught up in a waking nightmare. Her sneakers felt like iron boots, and she knew she might be running in the wrong direction entirely. Trevor! she thought. Trevor is one awful place! Steffi was gone, and Grandma Korshak—she tore her thoughts away from what might be happening to Grandma. She must find Steffi and Astrid before she thought about anything else. The little girls mustn’t face the horror that had stared at Meg from the darkness in her dreams. Steffi mustn’t confront a ghost—the ghost of her own father—by herself.

  On the next block some boys were playing ball in the middle of the street. Meg wondered if it were possible that the children had walked this far. She started toward the ballplayers
to ask if they’d seen two little girls, and then, as she ran, she caught a glimpse of tall gray gables at the end of the block. Her stomach lurched with the suspicion that she might have found what she was searching for.

  She had. The house, set well back from the street, dozed in the sun, with its window shades closed like sleeping eyes. Meg forced herself up the concrete walk to where two tiny doll buggies stood side by side. She examined the house. It was hard to understand why the girls would have picked this place to enter. It looked deserted.

  “Steffi? Astrid? Are you in there?”

  The window next to the door was half open, its shade limp and unmoving. Meg glanced over her shoulder, longing for someone to tell her what to do. She could go home, ask Mrs. Tate where Caleb was working, call him, and … But there was no time to do all that. If Steffi and Astrid were in danger, they needed her now. She’d have to look for them alone, just as she had in the dream.

  She climbed the steps and crossed the porch to the open window. With a last look at the street behind her—so safe, so ordinary looking—she lifted the shade and stepped over the sill.

  The entrance hall was the way she’d seen it in her dream—shadowy and dim, a closed door on either side, a flight of stairs straight ahead. There was a smell of fresh paint and of floor wax.

  “Steffi, can you hear me?” Meg waited, willing the little girls to answer. Then she crossed the hall to the door on her right and opened it a crack. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done. This was where the really terrifying part of the dream had begun.

  “Steffi?” She stepped into the room, holding the door open behind her. Hulking shapes loomed ahead and on every side. Eyes glittered in the dark, just as they had in her dream. The things, whatever they were, filled this room on either side and hovered overhead.

  Hardly breathing, Meg waited for her eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. Gradually she was able to identify one shape, then another. A deer and its fawn stared at her from one corner. Across from them, a wide-antlered buck lowered his head to fight off two coyotes. Porcupines, foxes, woodchucks, and a badger were posed around the room. A mother wolf and her pups wrestled in front of a fireplace. Overhead, an eagle soared near the ceiling, and owls glared solemnly from branches attached to the walls.

  Stuffed animals! The door started to slip from Meg’s grasp, and she leaped to stop it. Even if the animals weren’t real, she didn’t want to be alone in the dark with all those staring eyes. She didn’t want to see—she looked down and squealed with fright. The terrible clawed feet were there, practically touching her sneakers. When she looked up, she saw that she was standing under the outstretched forepaws of a black bear.

  For a second Meg couldn’t move. She knew the bear wasn’t alive, but as she stood there, frozen, the great furry arms seemed about to swoop down and crush her.

  “No!” The sound of her own voice broke the spell. Her feet, which until then had seemed glued to the floor, moved of their own accord, carrying her in one leap through the doorway and out into the hall. There she stopped, caught up in a new terror. The gray-haired man—the ghost-man who was surely Caleb’s father—would appear now and try to coax her through the doorway on the left.

  But the hall was empty. She leaned against the wall, her head whirling. The heat and the heavy smell of paint made her sickish, and her eyes ached as she strained to see into one corner and then another. At any moment the gray-haired man might appear in those shadows. Ghosts did that, coming and going as they wished. She looked longingly at the front door, but Steffi and Astrid were still here in this strange house. She couldn’t leave without them.

  “Steffi?” Her voice quivered. “Steffi, where are you?”

  She would have to search. They could be anywhere, and if every room of the house was as frightening as the first one she’d entered, she didn’t think she could stand it. At least, she thought, she could leave the room on the left for last. That was the one the ghost had wanted her to enter, and it was just a few steps away. Surely if Steffi and Astrid were in there, they would have heard her by now and called to her.

  Unless they’re tied up and gagged and helpless. Unless they’re unconscious. Unless they are …

  The uncarpeted staircase curved upward into gloom. Meg mounted the first step and then the second, pausing after each to listen for a creaking floorboard overhead or a childish voice calling for help. Each time she stopped, the silence closed around her like a blanket.

  On the fifth step Meg stumbled and almost fell. She would have slipped all the way to the bottom if she hadn’t caught the banister and hung on. Jolting pain, as one knee hit the edge of a step, pushed her over into panic. She burst into tears.

  “Steffi!” she screamed. “Steffi, where are you?”

  As if in answer, behind and below her the door on the left burst open. A shriek cut through the stillness, and before Meg could turn around, something hit her hard between the shoulder blades.

  13

  They stood hand in hand at the foot of the stairs, their laughter fading rapidly as they looked up at Meg.

  “We fooled you, didn’t we?” Steffi sounded uncertain. “It was funny, wasn’t it? We hid when we saw you coming up the walk.” She picked up her teddy bear and straightened the bonnet that had almost slipped off when he was thrown. “Teddy wanted to scare you, so we let him do it,” she said with a sidewise glance at Astrid.

  Astrid shifted from one pink-sanddled foot to the other. “Naughty old teddy,” she added. “He’s really naughty, isn’t he, Meg?”

  Meg collapsed on a step and buried her face in her hands for a moment. When she looked up, the little girls were watching her, wide-eyed.

  “Teddy isn’t naughty,” she said unsteadily. “You are! Both of you! You think it’s funny to scare a person half to death, but it isn’t. It’s mean and cruel! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

  Steffi’s face puckered. “I don’t see why you were so scared, anyway,” she whined. “We weren’t scared. The museum is a very good place. It’s like a school. My mama said so.”

  “Museum?” Meg looked around, her anger set aside, briefly. “This is a museum?” She thought of the only museum she knew, in Milwaukee, a vast, modern building that housed hundreds of exciting displays.

  “Sure. But it’s not finished.” Steffi was relieved at this change of subject. “My mama’s helping to clean it up and paint it and stuff. I came with her and helped once.”

  A museum. Of course. That explained a room full of stuffed animals.

  “What’s in there?” Meg demanded, pointing at the door on the left.

  Steffi shrugged. “Just—nothing important. I like the animals better. And the people upstairs.”

  Meg jumped up so fast she almost lost her balance again. “What people upstairs?”

  “Not real people, Meg.” Astrid giggled. “They’re like big dolls, and they’re wearing old-timey dresses and funny hats. Steffi showed me.” She looked fondly at her friend.

  “I’ll show you, too, Meg,” Steffi offered.

  Meg shook her head. It was annoying to think of the little girls enjoying a leisurely tour of the museum while she raced from one street to another, trying to find them so she could save them from—whatever. “I don’t want you to show me anything,” she said coldly. “I’ve already seen the animals, and that was enough. Besides”—the thought occurred to her for the first time—“if the museum isn’t open to the public yet, we aren’t supposed to be in here. We could be in big trouble. Your mama’s going to be so mad—”

  “She won’t care,” Steffi said. But she looked scared.

  “Oh, yes, she will. Wait till she finds out you opened a window and sneaked in when no one else was here.”

  “Let’s not tell her.”

  Meg was sick of the whole conversation. The most frightening dream of her life had just come true, or most of it had, and she knew she’d never forget the experience. The gray-haired man had failed to appear, but the children’s “joke”
had been just as terrifying. She didn’t want to talk about any of it.

  She herded the children to the open window and raised the shade so they could scramble out onto the porch. As soon as she was alone, the heavy silence settled around her again, and now she had an uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched. At the far side of the hall, under the stairs, one shadow seemed darker than the rest. It was tall, thin … With a little moan she climbed through the window and slammed it shut behind her.

  Steffi and Astrid were tucking their babies into the carriages for the journey home. “Let’s go,” Meg ordered. “Come on, hurry!”

  She set off down the walk at a rapid pace, and after a moment the children followed. No one spoke again until they reached the corner, and then Steffi touched Meg’s hand timidly.

  “Do we have to go so fast?” she asked. “The sidewalk’s all bumpy and Teddy doesn’t like it.”

  “Granny Tate is probably worried sick about you.” Meg didn’t care how crabby she sounded. “The sooner we get home, the better.”

  When they reached the Larsen house, Astrid announced her legs were tired from all that fast walking and she was going home. Steffi parked her doll carriage at the foot of the front steps and watched her friend scurry away.

  “Are you going to tell Mama where we were?” The blue eyes were unhappy.

  “I haven’t decided.” Meg wanted to make sure Steffi understood the seriousness of what she’d done. “You might have caused a lot of damage in the museum, you know. Or someone besides me might have seen you there and had you arrested!”

  “Arrested!”

  “Sure, arrested. You can’t go breaking into places any time you feel like it.”

  The screen door opened, and Mrs. Tate came out on the porch.

  “Well, there you are!” she exclaimed, but she looked only at Steffi. “You had your friend Meg very upset, dear. You really shouldn’t wander off like that. Has Astrid gone home?”

  Steffi nodded, still overcome by her close escape from the law.