37 - The Headless Ghost (5 page)

My heart began to pound. My throat ached.

I felt so discouraged. Were we ever going to find our way to the stairs?

Another door. Another dark, empty room.

“Hey, Steph—” I whispered. “I think we’re going in circles.”

Out into a long, twisting hallway. More candles. More flowers flickering
darkly on the wallpaper.

We ran side by side down the hall. Until we came to a door I hadn’t seen
before. A door with a horseshoe nailed onto it.

Maybe it meant that our luck was about to change. I sure hoped so!

I grabbed the knob with a trembling hand. I pulled open the door.

A staircase!

“Yes!” I cried.

“Finally!” Stephanie gasped.

“This must be the servants’ staircase,” I guessed. “Maybe we’ve been in the
servants’ quarters all this time.”

The stairway was blanketed in darkness. The stairs looked steep.

I took a step down, holding onto the wall. Then another step.

Stephanie had one hand on my shoulder. When I stepped down, she stepped down,
too.

Another step. Another. The soft
thuds
of our sneakers echoed in the
deep stairwell.

We had taken about ten steps when I heard footsteps.

Someone coming up the stairs.

Stephanie bumped me hard. I shot out both hands. Grabbed the wall to keep
from falling down the stairs.

No time to turn and run.

The footsteps grew louder. And heavier. Light from a flashlight swept over
Stephanie, then me.

Squinting against the light, I saw a dark figure climbing up to us. “So
there
you are!” his voice boomed, echoing in the stairwell.

A familiar voice.

“Otto!” Stephanie and I both cried.

He bounced up in front of us, moving the flashlight from her face to mine.
“What are you two doing up here?” he demanded breathlessly.

“Uh… we got lost,” I answered quickly.

“We got separated from the tour,” Stephanie added. “We tried to find you.”

“Yes. We tried,” I chimed in. “We were searching everywhere. But we couldn’t
catch up to the group.”

Otto lowered the flashlight. I could see his tiny dark eyes narrowing at us.
I don’t think he believed our story.

“I thought you two knew my tour by heart,” he said, rubbing his chin.

“We do,” Stephanie insisted. “We just got turned around. We got lost. And we—”

“But how did you get up here on the top floor?” Otto demanded.

“Well…” I started. But I couldn’t think of a good answer. I turned back to
Stephanie on the step above me.

“We heard voices up here. We thought it was you,” she told Otto.

It wasn’t exactly a lie. We
did
hear voices.

Otto lowered the beam of light to the stairs. “Well, let’s get back
downstairs. No one is allowed on this floor. It’s private.”

“Sorry,” Stephanie and I murmured.

“Watch your step, kids,” Otto warned. “These back stairs are very steep and
rickety. I’ll lead you back to the group. Edna took over for me while I went to
find you.”

Edna was our second-favorite tour guide. She was old and white-haired. Very
pale and frail-looking, especially in her black tour-guide outfit.

But she was a great storyteller. With her quivering, old voice, she really
made you
believe
every frightening story she told.

Stephanie and I eagerly clumped down the stairs, following Otto. His
flashlight swept in front of us as he led us out onto the second floor. We
followed a long hallway. A hallway I knew very well.

We stopped outside Joseph Craw’s study. Joseph was Andrew’s father. I peeked
inside. A bright fire blazed in the fireplace.

Edna stood beside the fireplace, telling the tragic story of Joseph Craw to
the tour group.

Stephanie and I had heard the sad story a hundred times. A year after Andrew
had his head cut off, Joseph came home late one winter night. He took off his
coat, then moved to the fireplace to warm himself.

No one knows how Joseph was burned up. At least, that’s how Otto, Edna, and
the other guides tell the story. Was he pushed into the fireplace? Did he fall
in?

One guess is as good as another.

But when the maid came into the study the next morning, she found a
horrifying sight.

She found two charred, blackened hands gripping the mantel.

Two hands, holding on tightly to the marble mantelpiece.

All that was left of Joseph Craw.

It’s a yucky story—isn’t it?

It gives me a chill every time I hear it.

As Otto led us to the study, Edna was just getting to the sickening part. The
ending. “Do you want to rejoin the group?” Otto whispered.

“It’s pretty late. I think we’d better get home,” Stephanie told him.

I quickly agreed. “Thanks for rescuing us. We’ll catch the tour again soon.”

“Good night,” Otto said, clicking off his flashlight. “You know the way out.”
He hurried into the study.

I started to leave. But stopped when I saw the boy again, the pale boy with
the wavy blond hair. The boy in the black jeans and black turtleneck.

He stood away from the tour group. Close to the door. And he was staring at
Stephanie and me again. Staring hard at us, a cold expression on his face.

“Come on,” I whispered, grabbing Stephanie’s arm. I tugged her away from the
study door.

We quickly found the front stairway. A few seconds later, we pushed open the
front door and stepped outside. A cold wind greeted us as we started down the
hill. Wisps of black cloud floated like snakes over the moon.

“Well, that was fun!” Stephanie declared. She zipped her coat to her chin.

“Fun?” I wasn’t so sure. “It was kind of scary.”

Stephanie grinned at me. “But we weren’t afraid—right?”

I shivered. “Right.”

“I’d like to go back and explore some more,” she said. “You know. Maybe go
back to that room with all the voices. Find some real ghosts.”

“Yeah. Great,” I agreed. I didn’t feel like arguing with her. I felt pretty
tired.

She pulled a wool muffler from her coat pocket. As she swung it around her
neck, one end caught in a low pine bush.

“Hey—!” she cried out.

I moved to the bush and started to pull the muffler free.

And that’s when I heard the voice.

Just a whisper. A whisper from the other side of the bush.

But I heard it very clearly.

“Did you find my head?”

That’s what I heard.

“Did you find my head? Did you find it for me?”

I uttered a startled gasp and stared into the bush. “Stephanie—did you hear
that?” I choked out.

No reply.

“Stephanie? Steph?”

I spun around. She was staring at me, her mouth open in surprise.

“Did you hear that whisper?” I asked again.

Then I realized she wasn’t staring at me. She was staring past me.

I turned—and saw the strange, blond boy standing there beside the pine
bush. “Hey—did you just whisper to us?” I demanded sharply.

He narrowed his pale gray eyes at me. “Huh? Me?”

“Yeah. You,” I snapped. “Were you trying to scare us?”

He shook his head. “No way.”

“You didn’t whisper from behind this bush?” I asked again.

“I just got out here,” the boy insisted.

We saw him in Joseph Craw’s study less than a minute ago, I told myself. How
did he get out here so fast?

“Why did you follow us?” Stephanie demanded, shoving her muffler around her
coat collar.

The boy shrugged.

“Why were you staring at us?” I asked, stepping up close to Stephanie.

The wind howled over the hilltop. The row of pine bushes shook in the gusty
wind, as if shivering. Thin black clouds continued to snake their way over the
pale moon.

The boy wore no coat. Only the black turtleneck and black jeans. The wind
fluttered his long, wavy hair.

“We saw you staring at us,” Stephanie repeated. “How come?”

He shrugged again. He kept his strange, gray eyes down at the ground. “I saw
you sneak away,” he said. “I wondered if… if you saw anything interesting.”

“We got lost,” I told him, glancing at Stephanie. “We didn’t see much.”

“What’s your name?” Stephanie asked.

“Seth,” he replied.

We told him our names.

“Do you live in Wheeler Falls?” Stephanie asked.

He shook his head. He kept his eyes down at his shoes. “No. I’m just
visiting.”

Why wouldn’t he look us in the eye? Was he just shy?

“Are you sure you didn’t whisper something from behind that bush?” I asked
again.

He shook his head. “No way. Maybe someone was playing a joke on you.”

“Maybe,” I said. I stepped closer and kicked the bush. I don’t know what I
expected.

But nothing happened.

“You and Stephanie went exploring on your own?” Seth asked.

“Yeah. A little,” I confessed. “We’re kind of into ghosts.”

When I said that, he jerked his head up. He raised his gray eyes and gazed
hard at Stephanie, then at me.

His face had been a blank. No life to it. No expression at all.

But now I could see that he was really excited.

“Do you want to see some real ghosts?” he asked us, staring hard. “Do you?”

Seth stared at us as if challenging us. “Do you two want to see some real
ghosts?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Stephanie replied, returning his stare.

“What do you mean, Seth?” I demanded. “Have
you
ever seen a ghost?”

He nodded. “Yeah. In there.” He pointed with his head, back to the big stone
house.

“Huh?” I cried. “You saw a real ghost in Hill House? When?”

“Duane and I have taken the tour a hundred times,” Stephanie told him. “We’ve
never seen any ghost in there.”

He snickered. “Of course not. Do you think the ghosts come out when the tour
groups are in there? They wait till the house closes. They wait until all the
tourists go home.”

“How do
you
know?” I asked.

“I sneaked in,” Seth replied. “Late one night.”

“You
what?”
I cried. “How?”

“I found a door around back. It was unlocked. I guess everyone forgot about
it,” Seth explained. “I sneaked in after the house was closed. And I—”

He stopped suddenly. His eyes were on the house.

I turned and saw the front door open. People stepped out, fastening their
coats. The last tour had ended. People were heading for home.

“Over here!” Seth whispered.

We followed him behind the pine bushes and ducked down low. The people walked
past us. They were laughing and talking about the house and all the ghost
stories.

When they were down the hill, we stood up again. Seth brushed his long hair
off his forehead. But the wind blew it right back.

“I sneaked in late at night, when the house was dark,” he repeated.

“Your parents let you go out so late at night?” I asked.

A strange smile crossed his lips. “They didn’t know,” he said softly. The
smile faded. “Your parents let you two out?”

Stephanie laughed. “Our parents don’t know, either.”

“Good,” Seth replied.

“And you really saw a ghost?” I asked.

He nodded. Brushed his hair back again. “I crept past Manny, the night
watchman. He was sound asleep. Snoring away. I made my way to the front of the house. I was
standing at the bottom of the big staircase—when I heard a laugh.”

I gulped. “A laugh?”

“From the top of the stairs. I backed up against the wall. And I saw the
ghost. A very old lady. In a long dress and a black bonnet. She wore a heavy
black veil over the front of her face. But I could see her eyes through the
veil. I could see them because they glowed bright red—like fire!”

“Wow!” Stephanie cried. “What did she do?”

Seth turned to the house. The front door had closed. The lantern over the
door had been put out. The house stood in total darkness.

“The old ghost came sliding down the banister,” he reported. “She tossed back
her head—and screamed all the way down. And as she slid, her red eyes left a
bright trail, like the tail of a comet.”

“Weren’t you scared?” I asked Seth. “Didn’t you try to run away?”

“There was no time,” he replied. “She came sliding down the banister, right
toward me. Eyes blazing. Screaming like some kind of crazed animal. I was
pressed against the wall. I couldn’t move. And when she reached the bottom, I
thought she’d grab me. But she vanished. Disappeared into the darkness. And all
that was left was the faint red glow, floating in the air. The glow of her
eyes.”

“Oh, wow!” Stephanie cried.

“That’s
awesome
!” I agreed.

“I want to sneak back in again,” Seth declared, watching the house. “I’ll bet
there are more ghosts in there. I really want to see them.”

“Me, too!” Stephanie cried eagerly.

Seth smiled at her. “So you’ll come with me? Tomorrow night? I don’t want to
go back alone. It’ll be so much more fun if you come, too.”

The wind swirled sharply. The black clouds rolled over the moon, covering it,
shutting out its light. The old house appeared to grow darker on its hilltop
perch.

“So you’ll come with me tomorrow night?” Seth asked again.

“Yeah. Great!” Stephanie told him. “I can’t wait. How about you, Duane?” She
turned to me. “You’ll come, too—won’t you, Duane? Won’t you?”

I said yes.

I said I couldn’t wait to see a real ghost.

I said I was shivering because of the cold wind. Not because I was scared.

We made a plan to meet at midnight tomorrow at the back of Hill House. Then
Seth hurried away. And Stephanie and I walked home.

The street was dark and empty. Most of the house lights were out. Far in the
distance, a dog howled.