A Ghost in the Window

by Betty R. Wright

  “I hope you didn’t cross any streets by yourself,” Mrs. Tate continued. “Did you?”

  Steffi glanced quickly at Meg, then nodded again.

  “Well, that was naughty of you.” The old lady bent and gave Steffi a quick hug. “I think you’d better stay indoors the rest of the afternoon. We’ll play some games if you like.”

  Left alone on the porch, Meg realized she’d hurt Mrs. Tate’s feelings by rushing off to look for the children. She threw herself into the big swing and glared out at the street. What a day this had been! There was the bad news about Grandma Korshak, and then the nightmare-dream had mostly come true, and now practically everyone was annoyed with her or had hurt feelings.

  Except for her dad and Mrs. Larsen, of course. They were just thinking about each other.

  If you want to feel sorry for yourself, I’ll play some sad music. That was what Rhoda would say if she were here. But for once the thought of her best friend didn’t make Meg feel any better. “It is a bad day!” she muttered aloud, and gave the swing such a push that she bumped her knees on the porch railing.

  Her father came home at six and called Bill at once to see if he’d heard anything more from Grandma’s doctors. Watching him on the phone, Meg realized he was terribly worried. She wanted to go to him and put her arms around him while he talked to Bill, but instead she just sat, slumped, in an oversized chair, and watched. After a while Mrs. Larsen tiptoed down the hall from the kitchen and laid a hand lightly on his arm. She left it there only a moment, but Mr. Korshak glanced up from the phone and seemed comforted.

  “Bill will call tomorrow,” he said when he’d hung up. “We’ll just have to wait, I guess.”

  What else? Meg thought grumpily. Waiting was one thing she’d remember about Trevor. Waiting for her father to say he was going to marry again. Waiting to find out the meaning of the real dream that had partly come true. Waiting to hear whether Grandma Korshak was going to be all right. She got up and stalked out of the room, almost bumping into Caleb in the hall. He grabbed her arm as she started to pass him. “Hey, about this morning …”

  Meg glared at him.

  “I guess I was sort of—uh—”

  “Yes, you were.”

  Caleb looked pained but determined. “You said something about a dream. Was it one of the special ones—the kind in your dream book?”

  “If you really want to know, it’s already come true—at least, part of it has.”

  “No kidding!” Caleb exclaimed. “Tell me about it.”

  Meg hesitated. After the way he’d acted this morning, Caleb didn’t deserve her confidence. But the dream, unlike most of the real dreams, was still a mystery, since it hadn’t entirely come true. She wanted to forget it, but the thought of the gray-haired man wouldn’t go away. Why would Caleb’s father—if it was the ghost of Caleb’s father—appear once again? It was possible that Caleb might be able to guess the reason. There was no one else she could talk to about it.

  There was an outraged exclamation from the kitchen. “No! You did what, young lady? Are you serious?”

  A small, quivering voice replied.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t do anything wrong.” Mrs. Larsen sounded angrier than Meg had ever heard her. “You had no business going into the museum without me. I never would have taken you there in the first place if I’d thought you’d go back by yourself. You go up to your room this minute, and stay there till I say you can come down.”

  Steffi hurtled through the hall, past Meg and Caleb, and up the stairs.

  “What’s the big rush?” Caleb called after her.

  The little girl whirled at the top of the stairs and stuck out her tongue at Meg. “I thought she was going to tell, so I told first!” she shouted, as if that explained everything. Her bedroom door slammed behind her.

  “Meg.” Mrs. Larsen appeared at the kitchen door. “May I speak to you for a minute?”

  She waited, arms folded, for Meg to join her. Caleb trailed along behind.

  “Steffi tells me she and Astrid broke into the museum this afternoon, and you found them and brought them home. I can’t imagine what got into her to do such a thing, but I’m grateful to you for finding her. Do you think they did any damage?”

  “I didn’t stay long enough to find out,” Meg admitted. “I don’t think so, though. Steffi just wanted to show Astrid the exhibits—”

  Mrs. Larsen brushed away the explanation. “Really, I’m sick about this. If she did break something, I’ll never hear the end of it. As if there isn’t enough talk about the Larsens in this town!”

  So that was it. Caleb was wrong if he thought his mother wasn’t troubled by gossip. Meg felt a rush of sympathy for Mrs. Larsen, who kept so much to herself.

  “Want me to go over there and check things out, Ma?” Caleb asked.

  The lines in his mother’s forehead softened. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “I still have the key we used when we were painting—it’s in my bureau upstairs. Just take a quick look around, and be sure to lock the window they used to get in.” She started toward the hall, then paused. “Meg, how in the world did you know where to look for the children? The museum is three blocks away.”

  Meg studied a bouquet of snapdragons on the table. “I—I just ran around till I saw the kids’ doll buggies,” she said. “And then I saw the open window.”

  “Well, thank goodness you got there before anyone else noticed,” Mrs. Larsen said. “I’m more thankful for that’ than I can say.”

  Meg squirmed. She didn’t want to lie to Mrs. Larsen, but she certainly hadn’t told the whole truth. She realized that Caleb was watching her with interest. When his mother had gone upstairs to Steffi, he grinned knowingly.

  “That was the dream, huh? You dreamed the kids went to the museum by themselves, and when they disappeared you knew where to look.”

  The grin was infuriating. “I never even knew there was a museum,” Meg said. “I might have known, if you had let me tell you about the dream this morning.”

  Caleb shrugged. “Oh, well, this way you got to play detective, right? Maybe you can go into business—a one-woman lost-and-found department.”

  Meg narrowed her eyes. Boys! she thought. Smart-alec, know-it-all boys! Well, she knew how to make this one take her seriously.

  “There was a man in the dream, too,” she said casually. “He was tall and thin and gray-haired. It was the same man I dreamed about before.”

  The know-it-all grin disappeared like magic.

  14

  “He just stood there looking at me,” Meg said for the third time. Now that she’d finally described the dream to Caleb, he couldn’t seem to hear it often enough.

  “Are you sure he didn’t say anything?”

  “I’ve told you and told you—he just stood there. He seemed kind of—kind of sad, I guess. And I could tell he wanted me to go into that other room.”

  She took running steps to keep up with Caleb’s long strides.

  “It has to mean something,” Caleb said, “my father showing up in your dream like that. Don’t you think so? Maybe he’ll be there in the hall when we go in.”

  His intensity frightened Meg. So did the thought of walking in on Mr. Larsen in the museum’s front hall. “The whole thing is so mixed up,” she complained. “I mean, I’ve never dreamed about a ghost before. Maybe it isn’t your father—”

  Caleb didn’t seem to hear. “What I think is this. I think you have a special thing that lets you pick up on stuff other people miss. It lets you see into the future—a secret window, you said your grandma called it. So maybe this time there’s a ghost in the window.”

  The explanation was scary, but it was no more frightening than the rest of this day had been. Only a couple of hours ago, Meg had promised herself never to go near the Trevor museum—or even think about it—again. But once she’d told Caleb the dream, there was no way she could avoid going with him. She’d become a kind of connection between him and his father. He’d begg
ed her to come with him, making it sound like the most important thing in the world.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad this time. After all, she had someone with her, and she knew now that the staring eyes and clawed feet in the dream belonged to harmless stuffed animals. Still, when she and Caleb reached the museum and turned up the walk, she couldn’t help hanging back. The house looked forbidding in the moonlight.

  “Spooky,” Caleb commented when they reached the porch. He switched on his flashlight and pointed the beam at the front door. “I used to be afraid of ghosts when I was a little kid. I pretended to look forward to Halloween because everybody else did, but I really hated it. I’ll tell you something, though, Meg—it’s different when the ghost you’re looking for is your own father.”

  Meg couldn’t imagine what that would be like. “The ghost part of the dream might not come true,” she warned. “We don’t know—”

  “Don’t try to take it back now, Meg.” Caleb was determined. “That was my father you saw. I know it!” He swung the flashlight across the shaded windows. “I hope he is here. I want to see him and ask him …” His voice cracked as he started up the porch steps. Meg followed. She thought of her own father, who was alive and close by. Even if he gets married, she realized, we can still be together sometimes. I’ll still have him.

  Caleb unlocked the front door and they slipped into the hall.

  “Shine the flashlight over here,” Meg whispered. “There must be a light switch.”

  “No way,” Caleb replied. “If we turn on lights, someone in the neighborhood will notice, and they’ll call the police. We’ll do our looking around with the flashlight.”

  He found the window the children had used to enter and fastened the latch securely. “Okay, that’s done. Now, where did you see my—the man in the dream?”

  Meg gestured toward the closed door on the left. “He was right there. And Steffi and Astrid hid in that room this afternoon when they saw me coming.”

  Caleb played the light over the door, around the hallway, and up the stairs, while Meg held her breath. “Do you see anything? Is he—”

  Pity for Caleb, together with her own nervousness, made Meg irritable. “I don’t see anything,” she retorted. “Let’s check the displays the way your mother asked us to and get out of here. Please, Caleb!”

  “Right.” Caleb focused the light on the door on the left. “We’ll start in there.”

  Meg groaned. She wanted to say she’d wait for him in the hall, but that would mean being alone in the dark. Reluctantly she joined him as he opened the left-hand door.

  The flashlight revealed a long room divided into aisles by three display cases. Caleb directed the beam of light into the nearest case. It held dozens of fish, neatly mounted in rows, with identifying cards below them. The second case contained lake maps and drawings of underwater scenes, and the third was full of spears, carved fish lures, and different kinds of reels.

  “I remember my mom talking about a Lakes Room,” Caleb said. “This must be it.” He moved the light over the walls. “But why would my dad want you to come in here? Sure, he liked to fish, but I don’t see—”

  Meg took the flashlight from his hand and passed the beam more slowly over the displays and into the far corners of the room.

  “What is it? Do you see something?”

  She couldn’t explain her sudden certainty that someone, or something, was in the room with them. If she put the thought into words, she knew she’d panic and run.

  “Come on, Meg, tell me what you’re looking for. Or give me back the flashlight and we’ll go search another room.”

  The invisible presence became so real that Meg was astonished that she was the only one to sense it. It was as real to her as was Caleb, who had seized her wrist and was switching the light impatiently back and forth across the room. The beam picked up a display of turtles on a side table, a painting of fishermen caught in a storm, another painting of Indians fishing with spears like the ones in the display case.

  “Caleb, I’m scared—” The beam of light swung sharply upward, and Meg gasped in protest. “Why did you do that? You’re hurting my arm.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Caleb snapped. “I’m trying to find the darned door.”

  His voice came from the other end of the room.

  Meg opened her mouth to scream, but no scream came out. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t carry her. She couldn’t move her wrist, held in fingers of iron that she had thought were Caleb’s. All she could do was stand there, struggling to breathe, and stare up at the wall where the flashlight beam rested.

  It revealed a huge, beautifully mounted fish.

  “Hey!” Caleb sounded excited. “You know what that is?” He hurried on, not waiting for an answer. “That’s the record-sized musky my dad caught when I was six years old. It’s the fish he caught the day—” He hesitated.

  Never mind all that, Meg begged silently. Help me, Caleb! Something’s holding my arm! Help me!

  “Meg, that’s the fish my dad caught the day I tried to cut the line. You know, it happened in the first dream you told me about!”

  Meg’s knees threatened to give way. This was worse than any dream she’d ever had. With a tremendous effort she turned her head and saw darkness—a towering darkness, deeper than that of the rest of the room. As she stared, the darkness thinned. The pressure on her wrist relaxed, and she almost dropped the flashlight.

  “Hey!” Caleb bumped into the display cases as he made his way back to her. “Keep that light up there on the fish. This could be important, Meg.” She heard him come close, felt him seize the flashlight from her numb fingers. The beam swung back to the giant musky.

  “Isn’t he a beauty? When my mom fixed up the sewing room, she packed the fish away, and then when the town started planning a museum, she told me she was going to donate it. I forgot all about that till now. She said my dad was a terrific fisherman, and she wanted Trevor to remember something good about him. I’m glad you found it up there.”

  Meg clung to the display case. She was trembling violently. “I—I didn’t,” she whispered. “I mean—”

  Caleb was caught up in the discovery of the musky. “My mom was right,” he went on with satisfaction. “It looks great.”

  Meg rubbed her wrist. She could still feel the pressure of those invisible fingers. She had better think about something else—anything!—or she’d run out of this room and never stop running.

  Images from her first dream about the fish and then the second flashed through her mind. What was the connection? She had dreamed first about the catching of the fish. Then in the second dream Caleb’s father had appeared and tried to coax her into the Lakes Room. Now he had returned while she was wide awake, and had directed the flashlight toward the musky.…

  “What’s the reason?” Meg wondered out loud. “Why is that fish so important, Caleb? I think your dad—I think he wanted us to see it up there.”

  For a moment, she and Caleb stood side by side, staring upward.

  “I’ll need something to stand on,” Caleb said suddenly. “Come on.”

  They went back to the entrance hall, and after a short search they found a stool tucked in the open space under the stairs.

  “This’ll do. You carry the flashlight, Meg, but keep it low. We don’t want anyone else charging in here now.”

  It took all of Meg’s courage to return to the Lakes Room. “You can hold the stool steady or you can tremble like that,” Caleb muttered. “Not both. What is the matter with you, anyway?” Without waiting for an answer, he climbed up on the stool and reached for the fish.

  It looked heavy, but to Meg’s surprise he lifted it off the wall with one hand and lowered it to her easily. “All the taxidermist uses is the skin, the head, and the fins,” he explained as he scrambled down from the stool. “The body’s a piece of plastic foam carved to fit the skin.”

  Meg laid the fish on a display case. It was mounted on a narrow strip of wood which
, she realized, would fit exactly the outline left on the wallpaper in her sewing room-bedroom. It was easy to understand why Mr. Larsen had been proud of his giant catch, but she was glad it had been moved out before she moved in. The fanged mouth gaped wickedly in the narrow beam of light.

  “Now what?” Caleb wondered. “It looks the way it always did.”

  “Maybe your dad carved a message on it,” Meg suggested. Her fear was gradually giving way to curiosity. “Let’s look.”

  Caleb moved the light up and down the long shape. Then he turned the fish over and examined the back.

  “Nothing.”

  “Maybe inside. Is there some way to open it up?”

  “Of course not.” Caleb sounded disgusted. “I told you, the body’s a solid piece of foam. Besides, I wouldn’t wreck the fish on the chance that—”

  “Its mouth,” Meg interrupted. “Shine the light into its mouth.” She was running out of suggestions, but she didn’t want to give up.

  They moved to the end of the display case and crouched down. Caleb pointed the light into the fish’s mouth. Needle-sharp teeth guarded the opening. Beyond them were folds of hard, dry cartilage, and thick flaps that formed the insides of the gills.

  “There!” In her excitement Meg almost lost her balance. “In the back, Caleb. Isn’t there something in the opening where the throat ought to begin?”

  Caleb started to reach inside the mouth, then drew his hand back as the teeth raked his knuckles. “You do it. Your hand is smaller.”

  Meg bunched her fingers to avoid the teeth and reached into the mouth. Her hand and then her wrist disappeared inside the jaws.

  “Can you get it?” The flashlight beam shook, Meg noted. She wasn’t the only one who was trembling.

  “I think so. If I can just hook one finger behind it …”

  She picked gently at the object. At last it popped into the fish’s mouth, where she was able to grasp it. “Got it!” she exclaimed and dropped her find on the display case.

  Caleb groaned. “It’s just a scrunched-up wad of brown paper,” he said. “The taxidermist must have left it in there by mistake.”