Spooky Spindle

by Addison Creek

  Meanwhile, my mind was firmly stuck on the question of who had enticed us to leave the mansion and head over to Edmund’s.

  The old warlock wasn’t even there.

  Someone had tried to lure us to our deaths.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The owls were ferocious, brave, and uncatchable. We flew as fast as we could. I didn’t look back once, and my ears picked up no sound of anything chasing us. I was confident that the Undead wouldn’t follow us back to the mansion. The ones that had attacked Grant and me hadn’t done so, and these probably wouldn’t either. They weren’t strong enough yet to emerge from their lurking place in the forest.

  I figured the owls were just hoping we were skilled enough flyers to keep up with them. We were, if barely.

  As we flew around the mansion to land on the cliffside, the haunted house lit the night sky. There were lights everywhere, and I could see visitors and supernaturals alike gathered on the grounds.

  I wondered what Cookie would say when she saw us arriving back. Sure enough, there was an official-looking black car parked outside Grant’s house. He must have had someone pick Edmund up and drive him over. Maybe he had even taken care of it himself.

  I knew where my next stop would be.

  The air was cold as we coasted over the dark gray ocean on our way toward our landing point. As soon as we were safely on the ground, the owls took off. They’d had too much excitement for one evening.

  Pep let out a sob. She didn’t like fighting, even if she was darn good at it.

  We didn’t have to go far to find out what was going on. By the time we landed, Cookie, Edmund, and Grant had come outside to greet us. I had no idea what time it was, I only knew that I was bone tired and the night was far from over.

  Grant’s face was so hard he looked downright cantankerous. I tried to avoid his eyes, but it was impossible. They were large orbs beaming out into the darkness. He was not pleased.

  “Are you okay?” Cookie asked. “We’ve spoken with Corey. No, he wasn’t going to keep your secret.”

  I briefly closed my eyes in consternation and wished fervently to be able to live with people who didn’t behave properly all the time.

  Then I thought of Cookie and reconsidered.

  I nodded slowly.

  “You were at my house? Why? No one is home,” said Edmund.

  Given that the old warlock didn’t like to leave his property, I knew it must have taken something dire to dislodge him and bring him to Haunted Bluff.

  “Someone called us. The voice said you were in trouble. It was muffled. I thought you might be hiding from someone,” I explained.

  “I didn’t call you. All the vampires had the night off. I was getting tired of their fussing, so I told them to go out for the evening and I’d head over the Haunted Bluff to pay Jeff a visit,” he explained.

  The noise and lights from the supernaturals around us contrasted starkly with the quiet of the evening.

  “Someone was trying to kill you. They almost succeeded,” said Grant.

  “I highly doubt they almost succeeded. There isn’t a scratch on any of us. Those Undead didn’t stand a chance against Pep,” said Lark.

  But when she saw the expressions on the faces of everyone around us, she winced. They hadn’t known we’d been chased by Undead until she told them. Even Cookie’s eyes widened.

  Grant simply turned on his heel and stomped away. No one said anything as we watched him stride across the grass.

  “I’ll go talk to him. He and I have a thing or two to discuss anyway,” said Cookie. She hiked up her black skirt from where it had been dragging on the ground and headed off after Grant without so much as a backwards glance.

  “He doesn’t like to see you young ladies in danger. I have to say I’m not that thrilled about it either,” said Edmund after a long pause. “In fact, I’ve decided to terminate your employment as my private investigator. From now on I’ll just go with the professionals. It really is for your own good,” he added when he saw our faces.

  Lark and Pep looked outraged, and my mouth had fallen open. Not for one moment had it occurred to me that he would fire me.

  “You can’t do that! It’s not as if I ever imagined tracking down murderers was a safe gig,” I cried.

  He looked troubled. “Of course not. But you walked right into danger, rashly and without doing anything to see what the real situation was before you went. The more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t want anything to happen to you. I would never forgive myself.”

  “We’re very close to finding out who killed Timothy. All the vampires implicated each other, and someone called us from the house to trick us to come over. We’re going to know who did it very soon,” Pep pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s my final decision. I must be going,” he said. With that he started walking away in the direction of the black car I had spotted as we were flying in.

  We stared after him, too stunned, at first, to react.

  “Should we go after him?” Lark asked, breaking the silence at last.

  “All these people have a lot of nerve walking away from us,” Pep muttered.

  “That was abrupt,” was all I managed to spit out.

  “Let’s do something about it,” said Lark.

  “We can’t tonight,” I said. “It’s late, and Edmund is already gone. Let’s get a good night’s sleep if we can, and track everybody down tomorrow.”

  The haunted house was closing for the night as we made our way into the mansion. It wasn’t easy, but in the end we managed to bypass all the chaos and head upstairs.

  Mom would be furious with us for missing the evening. She had been short-staffed as it was, and our disappearance would have made the situation much worse.

  As with Edmund’s decision and Grant’s fury, I decided I’d worry about it tomorrow, but that hope was soon dashed.

  “What are you three up to? What’s with the disappearing act?” my brother asked, appearing from the haunted house and looking tired.

  To my further dismay, Corey, Meg, Audrey, and Kip were right behind Cam.

  Not to mention my mother.

  Looked like we weren’t going to wait until tomorrow to have it out after all.

  “Don’t lie, either,” said my mother. “Because I know where you were. Cookie told me. She said your life was in danger. She said it casually, as if she was telling me what time it was.” My mother seemed to take offense at the idea that Cookie would think anything was casual, but especially her granddaughter’s life.

  “We were fine. We got back home quickly, and we didn’t have that much trouble,” I said, bending the truth as far as I thought I could.

  “Home pretty quickly how?” Meg asked.

  Lark and Pep looked at me with tacit resignation, and we gave them an overview of everything that had just happened.

  Well, almost everything.

  They listened closely, and none of them looked happy.

  “You can’t just go running off like that. And now, to top it off, Edmund has left Haunted Bluff?” my mom asked.

  “Right after we got home,” I said. My throat closed. I had left out the bit where he had fired me from the investigation, and also the bit where Grant and Cookie had gone off by themselves. My grandmother needed chaperoning at all times, but the fact of the matter was that I wouldn’t have been able to catch up with her anyway. The last thing I’d wanted to do was to leave her alone with Grant, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “You’re lucky nothing worse happened. You really can’t just run off like that,” said Kip.

  “How can you say that? You yourself are a haunt hunter. You’re in danger all the time, and yet no one yells at you when you come back,” said Pep.

  “Yeah, but that’s what I’ve trained to do,” Kip shot back. “The three of you aren’t haunt hunters. You can’t be risking your lives like that.”

  Pep gasped at the condescension. Some might call it straightforward, but others would ca
ll it asking to get smacked in the face. It was clear which view Pep took at the moment, but with a visible effort she managed to keep her cool.

  The fact was, it didn’t matter what Kip said. We all knew that if the choice had to be made again, we would make the same decision. The only trouble was that I had been fired, so the choice wasn’t going to come up again.

  “I’m just trying to look out for you,” Kip added when Pep didn’t respond. “If your family is worried about you, then I am too.”

  “Yeah, you can’t leave us in the lurch like that,” Cam chimed in. “We were so understaffed tonight that the vampires had to help out. Some people saw them and actually thought they were real. We had to convince them that we just have particularly good makeup and wigs.”

  “I’m sure you convinced them,” I insisted, “and I’m sure everything was fine. Look, we’re sorry we ran off, but it couldn’t be helped. Edmund is safe and so are we. That’s the important thing. Now can we go to bed? You can keep yelling at us in the morning,” I added.

  Lark gave me a sidelong look. She always liked it when I played up the guilt.

  “Fine. I’ll yell at you some more in the morning. You have a lot of explaining to do,” said my mom.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When I first woke up, I nearly didn’t get out of bed. I had a bad feeling about the day. My mom was furious with me, and in my heart of hearts I had to admit that her anger wasn’t totally unjustified. We had bailed on the haunted house at an extra-busy time, and it was all because of my stupid investigation. Not only that, but I had to admit, if only to myself, that we should have done more to figure out whether that phone call had been real before running off—or flying off—on a dangerous wild goose chase.

  And now Edmund had fired me, and to top it off I had no idea why he had sought refuge at Haunted Bluff, or who had actually called and lured me away.

  How could Edmund have decided, as if out of the blue, that investigation in general, and this case in particular, was too dangerous for me to deal with?

  My investigating career in general was none of his business, of course, but the fact that he wanted me off his own case rankled.

  The whole thing had started with a murder.

  Nothing said danger more than that.

  Then again, if Edmund could hire me, he could fire me. But as far as I was concerned, that only added one more mystery to my list: what had prompted him to do that, for no apparent reason?

  To round off the list of mysteries and unfinished business, I had made very little progress in finding out who Old Leslie was, or where the spindle had come from.

  Reluctantly, I threw the covers off and started my day.

  The mansion was eerily quiet when I finally headed downstairs. Usually when I slept in there was bustle everywhere by the time I joined the ranks of the awake.

  This time there was nothing but silence. Lizzie wasn’t in her room. Rose wasn’t underfoot. There was no drunken morning singing from my grandmother.

  I moved slowly down the main staircase. If something was wrong, I didn’t want to be caught unawares this time.

  When I got near the kitchen, Steve appeared to be asleep in his closet.

  The kitchen door was closed, as usual, but when I pushed it open a billowing cloud of steam hit my face, so thick it made me cough.

  I waved my hand in front of my nose to clear the fog a bit, and through the gray air I saw several figures, which turned out to be the whole family. I was surprised. It was late enough that Mom would normally have gone outside by now, and everyone else would have scattered to their various chores and activities.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I hurried to the back door and flung it open. The kitchen needed some fresh air. When it cleared a bit, I realized that the fog had been created by nothing more sinister than the dishwasher spewing steam and a pot of soup that Audrey had simmering for later.

  Audrey, Cookie, Meg, and my mom were all sitting around the island. Kip and Corey were leaning against the counter, their arms folded and their faces serious. Lark and Pep were fixing cereal, looking unhappy.

  I repeated my question.

  Then I saw what was on the island.

  The Spooky Times.

  I came forward and picked up the newspaper, only to find a blaring front page feature, yet another version of the bumbling Garbos story. The difference this time was that the article called out everyone in the family for the fight we’d had last night.

  “I want you to tell me which one of you is Old Leslie,” said my mom into the silence.

  Surprise raced through me, but I fought the urge to argue. Not for a single second had it occurred to me that one of the family could be Old Leslie.

  Then all eyes turned to Cookie, who calmly took another bite of rye toast.

  When we all continued to look at her, she glared around at each of us as if in surprise. “I thought you were kidding. What on earth would I use a fake name for? I criticize all of you to your faces all the time. If I had wanted to say all that, I would have. As usual,” she said.

  My mother continued to stare at her.

  Cookie blinked back, unfazed.

  “She does have a point,” said Lark.

  “I suppose she does,” said my mother, finally dropping her death stare.

  “If she’s telling the truth and it was none of the rest of us who carried tales to someone Down Below, then someone is listening in on our conversations,” said Kip. Usually the quiet one, when there was a threat to the family he softly assumed command.

  “I know who’s feeding information to Old Leslie,” said Cookie. “I’ve been telling all of you tall tales to try and see which one of them ends up in print, and now I know.”

  Then she turned to me. “Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do?” she gave me a sharp-eyed look.

  I hung my head in shame. “Sorry, I meant to . . .”

  “Never mind. It’s best if it comes from an accomplished liar. Like yours truly.”

  Now we were all glaring at her again.

  “What? I thought you’d be happy!” she scoffed.

  “You’ve been spreading rumors about us?” Mom asked.

  “They weren’t very hard to come up with,” Cookie admitted. “We needed to find out who was speaking to Old Leslie, and now I know who it is. All we have to do is follow that person to the next meeting with the writer and we’ll have them,” she said.

  “So you still don’t know who Old Leslie is?” I asked.

  “No, that’s still a mystery,” she admitted. “I’m very close to discovering the truth, though. Jane, Lark, and Pep will have to help me catch them. You don’t have to worry,” she assured my mom and Meg.

  “Why those three?” my mom demanded.

  “Because the haunt hunters are busy,” said Cookie.

  Lark, Pep, and I exchanged looks. Cookie had never tried to stick up for me when my mom refused to let me be a haunt hunter. This almost sounded like she thought I was capable and needed something to do.

  Audrey rolled her eyes. “Sure, we have nothing to worry about when you’re scheming. I feel better now.”

  “I do as well,” said my mom dryly as Meg nodded.

  “This conversation is over. Everyone can go about their day now,” said Cookie.

  The guys headed off to work on haunt hunt business, but I had to work hard not to ask Corey for information on the tests he was doing for Grant. I knew he wouldn’t tell me, but I thought he might react in some way that would give me a hint.

  However, I had promised Grant I’d behave, so I did.

  Maybe dating the chief investigator wasn’t the best idea.

  I was especially eager to find out what Corey was looking into because I had a suspicion it might confirm a theory I was starting to favor. But I decided to let it go for the moment. Maybe I could surprise some information out of him later without breaking my promise to Grant.

  Once everyone but Lark, Pep, Cookie, and I had left the kitchen, Co
okie rolled up the newspaper and threw it in the bin.

  “Tonight we find out who Old Leslie is,” she said. “Be here at dusk.”

  “What if the informant and Old Leslie don’t meet again tonight?” Lark asked.

  “They will,” she said.

  “If no one in the family did it, who else have you been talking to?” Pep asked. She was obviously the most intensely curious of the three of us, and I knew she was going to have a hard time waiting until dusk.

  Cookie just stared at her, so I broke in to change the subject.

  “That’s fine. We have another case to solve,” I said.

  “Weren’t you kicked off of that one?” Cookie asked.

  “How did you know?” I demanded with a frown.

  “Edmund stopped and told me on his way out. He said he couldn’t stand the thought of you running into danger for him. I told him you could take care of yourself, but he was adamant,” she said.

  “Thanks for trying,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me. I need you occupied. If you’re busy, you aren’t hustling me about wine all the time,” she said.

  We were interrupted by Corey, who’d come back into the kitchen to get something he’d forgotten, and then by Grant, who came rushing in looking for Corey.

  “What is it?” I asked Grant.

  But he didn’t look at me or even acknowledge that I was there. He was in investigative mode.

  An unfamiliar feeling welled up in my chest. I was miffed that he was ignoring me. How dare he! We had actually gone on dates, and now it was as if I didn’t exist.

  Then realization dawned and I tried to quell my reaction. If I got jealous now, he might not talk to Corey. If I stayed quiet, I might overhear something of vital importance.

  “Did you get any useful results?” he asked Corey.

  Our own Haunted Bluff researcher pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over.

  Grant’s eyes scanned it quickly, then he crumpled it and stuffed it in his own pocket.

  “Thank you,” he said to Corey.

  Before I could take another breath, he had whirled around and was gone.

  I stared at Corey. I knew he wouldn’t tell me what the paper had said, but equally clearly, Grant thought he now had a lead.