He strode over to us, his hand resting on the sword at his hip, his eyeglass firmly in place, and his shoulder blades held tightly back. “You have to get out of here! You have to go now. You can’t fight it, you can’t stop it. The end is near,” he cried.
“What makes you think the end is near?” Cookie asked.
My grandmother could find Uncle Taft completely exasperating, but she always treated him with respect when he had one of his fits. Maybe she recognized a kindred spirit.
For his part, he turned to her and looked relieved that someone sounded like they believed him. In fact, he looked like he was counting on it. “The clocks, obviously,” he said.
“Whatever are they doing?” said Cookie.
“They’re spelling doom,” he cried.
“Is that doom with two o’s?” my mom asked.
“You shouldn’t encourage him,” said Meg.
“I don’t think he needs any encouragement,” said Lark.
“Now is not the time to be arguing with me, young lady,” said her mother. Lark quickly closed her mouth.
“It’s okay, Uncle Taft. I’ll take you upstairs,” I said.
“Not until I check the grounds. Might as well keep them out while we still can. Don’t worry, I have supplies for the expedition. I won’t fail,” he said.
With that he marched toward the back door and disappeared into the gray evening light.
“We’ve delayed dinner long enough, we might as well eat,” said my mom, catching the sound of my stomach rumbling.
There was no part of me that wanted to face my family at dinner given that we had just been ordered to stay away from the investigation and everyone had surely been listening in. But I did it anyway. As I expected, Kip and Corey, my brother, Grant, and Audrey were all sitting around the dinner table. They had started eating without us, which was a small blessing. Maybe they would leave quickly.
Corey had just been saying something about the case as we walked in. He glanced nervously at us and then took a big bite of food.
“Just say it,” said Cam. “They’ll find out one way or another anyway. They’re nosy like that.” He glared at us.
I sat down and tried to act as neutral as possible so Corey would keep talking. If he had information about the case, I wanted to hear it.
We looked at my mom to see if she would object, but she knew very well that while she could order us to stop investigating, that there was no way she could keep us from hearing the information that was being passed around the mansion.
“I was only saying that my experiments were very interesting. I’ve determined that given the way the skeleton fragments were distributed, they weren’t smashed where we thought they were,” Corey explained.
“They were smashed somewhere else and then moved?” my mom asked.
“Quite so,” said Corey. “I’m not sure where, though. And I can’t think of a reason why anyone would do that.”
“Can you?” my mom asked Grant.
The warlock shook his head. “Maybe to make it impossible for us to tell where the violence actually took place. That makes it harder for us to investigate who did it. It seems likely that if we knew where the real the crime scene was, it would lead us to the killer.”
“Does this mean it was planned, or that the fragments were swept up?” I asked.
For a split second I didn’t think anyone would answer, then Grant of all people said, “It would make more sense if the Skeleton Trio was explicitly targeted, but we just don’t know.”
As a matter of fact, I had assumed that the Skeleton Trio had been targeted because of the artifacts they’d been stealing. They had stolen something, then run into another supernatural doing something nefarious.
That had been my working theory, but now I wondered whether I was wrong. Could the motive have been something entirely different, that none of us had guessed yet?
Cookie was uncharacteristically quiet throughout dinner, and she excused herself early, saying that we had a horrendous party to prepare for and she needed to brace up for it by getting a good night’s sleep.
“Who is she kidding? She doesn’t sleep,” Pep muttered as she, Lark, and I left the kitchen.
“Should we follow her into a stash of wine something?” Lark asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think we should get to bed as well. I have a feeling this weekend is going to be really busy.”
“Our family thinks that’s going to be in a good way,” said Pep.
“We can’t even get any more helpful information about Down Below,” said Lark.
“Actually, they confirmed our worst fears,” I said quietly.
Dinner was over, and we were making our way up the several flights of stairs to our rooms. Soon Lark and Pep would veer off to theirs while I continued the climb to the attic. We were snatching these last moments before sleep to talk about the case.
“What do you mean?” Lark asked.
“What he said confirmed that the smashers weren’t from Down Below. His point was that whatever part of the Root of All Evil is on this property, they’re right here in the haunted house,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Unlike the woman herself, Meg’s birthday party was a subdued affair. She was only having the party in the first place to appease her mother-in-law; as far as she was concerned, the less fuss the better.
Thank goodness Audrey made such good cake.
We had spent the day in frantic preparation for the opening extravaganza.
My mother had been loath to cut off work early, but she had insisted that everybody shower and look nice for the party. On top of that, many of the ghosts, vampires, skeletons, and other creatures would be attending Meg’s celebration.
We usually gathered in the kitchen for parties, but this time we were using the Great Hall. This was a room that had probably once been great, but as Lark said, it stopped being great when people stopped going inside it on a regular basis. We had no use for such a large room anymore except for occasions like tonight.
Cookie took credit for the whole thing, of course. She showed up dressed in so many sparkles, it was hard to look directly at her.
For some totally unknown reason, I was very nervous about the evening. I had changed outfits a solid six times, each of which required me to run down to the unused bathroom on the floor below to check my appearance in the mirror. Lady Oakley suggested that I bring one of the old standup mirrors in from the other side of the attic, but I ignored the idea just because she was the one who had come up with it. Still, I made a mental note to do it the next day.
In the end I landed on a black dress with a black cardigan and comfortable shoes. Given that this was just a family affair, the evening didn’t really call for anything crazy. I also put on an old beaded necklace that I loved, which had belonged to my great-grandmother. It added a bit of pop to my outfit.
I decided to leave my hair down and flowing, which I usually didn’t do. Mostly it was the ponytail for me, because who has the time for that fancier sort of thing?
Feeling good about myself at last, I had headed downstairs to meet up with Lark and Pep. I was excited to see them, so when I walked into Lizzie instead my disappointment was considerable.
“Oh, hey,” she said, as if she’d never seen me before.
I had thought I looked good until Lizzie looked me up and down with a little smile on her face. She was wearing a metallic dress with spaghetti straps. It was so short . . . well, it was just very short.
I tried to maneuver around her without actually having a conversation, but she wouldn’t allow it.
“You look nice. Homey,” she said.
“I didn’t think Meg would want us to wear anything that was too too crazy,” I said, trying not to look her up and down in return. As usual she looked like she belonged at a club in the city and not in the middle of nowhere in Maine, going to her aunt’s slapdash birthday celebration.
“Yeah, that’s why I put on something o
ld and didn’t put much thought into it,” she said offhandedly.
My eyes narrowed. She was hiding something. “Are you excited for the party?” I asked.
“I sure am. I hope there’s dancing,” she said. “Maybe Grant will ask me to dance and we’ll start things off together,” she added, her eyes taking on a dreamy expression.
So there it was. She wanted to look nice for Grant. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Anyway, I wanted to do one more check in the mirror, so I’d better be going. I don’t want to miss the entrance of the cake,” she said, proceeding to waddle up the stairs. Her skirt was so tight she had trouble lifting her leg on each step. I turned around so she wouldn’t see me sniggering.
“There you are,” said Lark, coming out of her and Pep’s room. Her black hair was tightly curled on top of her head and she was wearing a black leather jacket and black jeans. She had put what looked like dog collars on her wrists and ended up looking like she belonged in some sort of biker chick gang. I guess everybody looked like they belonged somewhere else.
Pep followed close behind her sister, looking much more normal. She was wearing a blue skirt and a white blouse with a blue cardigan, plus delicate gold earrings for good measure. Her hair cascaded everywhere as usual, but she had at least tried to clip some of it back along her temples. She looked very cute. In short, very Pep-like.
“This is going to be fun,” said Lark. “Was that Lizzie I saw leaving? I don’t suppose it was permanently?”
“Yeah, just to check her makeup again,” I said. “Where is everybody else?”
“I think they’re already in the Great Hall,” said Pep.
“How is your mom taking it?” I asked as we made our way to the party. Already I could hear music and laughter, and the air was filled with the most delicious smells.
“The fact that we’re having a party in her honor?” Lark asked.
“She’s upset about it,” said Pep. “I don’t know why. She does so much for the family she should be celebrated.”
“Good evening, ladies,” said Mirrorz, who had materialized at our elbow as he so often did. The man was as silent as a vampire, which he was.
“You look nice today,” said Pep.
Mirrorz was turned out in his best coat and tails. Vampires were always very well put together, but Mirrorz especially so, and tonight he was looking extra elegant even by his own high standards.
“Thank you very much,” he said, smiling briefly. “I must get back to the kitchen and supervise.”
As he strode away Lark said, “Those are some nice white gloves he has.”
We had entered the Great Hall as we talked, and it looked splendid.
“These are some decorations,” Lark marveled.
“I think it’s something Mom threw together,” I said.
Mom had kicked us all out earlier in the day and performed some sort of magic that we weren’t supposed to know about. The result was that the Great Room was decorated in sparkling banners that read “Happy Birthday Meg,” and that it was clean and swept, which it certainly had not been that morning.
“Don’t give her all the credit. I helped,” said Cookie, appearing in front of us with a big smile. “How do you like my outfit?” she asked, striking a pose.
“You look like you’re a variety show performer from the sixties,” said Lark.
“And who’s to say I wasn’t?” said Cookie.
“Explains all the drama,” said Pep quietly to me.
I laughed. “Let’s go,” I said.
I led the way to a table where a plentiful array of finger foods was spread out. We filled our plates eagerly and went to a quiet corner by the fire to chat.
There were ghosts, le-haunts, and vampires everywhere, but no skeletons yet. The le-haunts were attempting to put on a show that mostly involved making guests move away from them and protect their glasses of champagne.
“This is fun,” said Cam, who showed up in a coat, but with no tie. His hair was slicked awkwardly back and he smiled at us.
“It’s a great time,” I said dryly.
“Who are the people we don’t know?” I asked.
“They’re a handful of other witch friends,” said Pep. “Mom doesn’t think they came for her, she thinks they came to see the mansion and mingle with the vampires, but who knows. I told her that everyone likes her and she shouldn’t be surprised if they want to celebrate her birthday.”
“Very true,” I said, surveying the room.
“Look at the woman of the hour,” Gus called out. He was wearing a bowtie that looked like it was choking him as he floated around dreamily amongst various groups of ghosts.
Aunt Meg walked in with my mom and Audrey, a big blush on her face. Instantly Cookie started clapping and pointing, “Birthday girl! Birthday girl!”
“Thanks for coming, everyone” said Meg. “The cake should be out soon.”
“Cakes,” Audrey corrected.
The middle generation of my family split up and started to mingle. My mother and Meg immediately zeroed in on a couple of the visiting witches, and in short order they had all moved to a corner and started whispering. I was desperately curious to know whether they were talking about the events with the Skeleton Trio, but I knew I couldn’t find out without drawing my mother’s wrath down on my head.
Despite the fun and laughter, I was uneasy. We hadn’t caught whoever had smashed the Trio, and tomorrow was SpookyBooSpectacular, the season’s grand opening extravaganza. We needed everything to run perfectly, and with the attacker on the loose the chances of that happening seemed small.
As my thoughts swirled, I sighed and examined my glass, but I there were no answers there. I knew I was missing something, and I was sure it was something that should have been obvious.
But my attention was soon drawn back to the party. It didn’t take long for demands for cake to become overwhelming, so Audrey returned to the kitchen and reappeared a few minutes later pushing a cart laden with a large cake. Behind her was Mirrorz, pushing another cart with two more cakes.
Applause rang out around the room.
“Where are the skeletons?” Pep asked suddenly. I hadn’t seen any sign of them, mostly because after the cake arrived I’d gotten distracted by the need to keep an eye on Grant. I shrugged and told her they were probably just fashionably late.
“How’s that going, by the way?” Lark asked, nodding in the warlock’s direction.
“How’s what going?” I asked, clearing my throat.
“Staring,” said Lark.
“I wasn’t staring,” I said.
“Oh, please. What color is your mother wearing tonight?” she asked.
My mother was now standing behind me, but I had been facing her when she walked in. I had no idea. “Black?”
“Gray,” said Lark. “See what I mean?”
“I just like watching Lizzie make a fool of herself,” I said, knowing that all three of us knew I was lying.
“Right, let’s talk about the skeletons,” said Lark.
“I don’t know where they are, but now that you mention it, I don’t like that they’re not here yet,” I said.
“You couldn’t possibly think that all the other skeletons were in on smashing the Trio, could you?” Pep asked.
“You mean the Root of All Evil is comprised of the other skeletons? No, I highly doubt that,” I said. I was sure that at least some of the skeletons were good.
“So where are they?” Lark asked.
“Oh. I think I found them,” said Pep.
Without any more warning than that remark, the double doors opened to reveal every skeleton that lived at the haunted house.
The Great Hall went entirely silent. Even Cookie, who had been laughing uproariously at nothing, quieted down.
My mom and Meg were still in the corner speaking quietly with the other witches, but when the skeletons made their entrance they paused their conversation to watch.
The skeletons marched grim-fa
ced (if a skeleton can be said to make faces) toward the center of the room, the ghosts, le-haunts, and vampires hurriedly moving out of their way.
“I demand to know why you’re having a party when the Skeleton Trio’s killers haven’t been caught!” said the skeleton in the lead.
Everyone in the hall leaned forward, trying to listen. My mother’s face was hard, but I couldn’t hear her response.
I glanced at Grant to see how he was taking the intrusion, but he was simply looking on quietly. The man was maddeningly calm. I hadn’t thought it possible that anyone could stay calm in the face of Cookie trying to ruffle him, but Grant managed it.
“We’re doing the best we can. We have extra patrols, and nothing else of significance has happened,” my mother assured him. I noticed her jaw tighten, though Grant didn’t, and if he had, he wouldn’t have understood what it implied.
I, on the other hand, knew her well enough to recognize when she was lying.
My mind flashed back to the incident where the solid ghost smashed another skeleton outside the window. She probably thought that was just some odd anomaly.
It was a good thing I hadn’t told her about the little back wing incident where I had been attacked.
The skeletons had fanned out by now, and I wondered if they were trying to appear threatening. Given how many witches were in the room, I doubted it. Cookie, who had been acting silly a moment before, straightened up and looked serious. I wondered if she had really had as much wine as she pretended. Maybe she was dumping it in the base of the cactus plant when no one was looking.
The skeletons waited. One of them had gone to stand in front of my mother, and when I looked more closely I realized that this skeleton was the union representative. My mother obviously represented the Garbo family.
For a few breaths nothing happened, and I wondered what my mother would do. Then she reached out her hand to shake the skeleton’s. He took it. An audible sigh of relief went up around the room.
At least for now, the haunted house supernaturals were on my mom’s side.
But for how long?
It took me until late in the evening to realize that Uncle Taft was missing.
Spooky Business (Jane Garbo Mysteries Book 1) Page 17