It's All Downhill from Here (10 page)

“Well, don't everyone get too excited,” Mr. Kim said,
shaking his head. “Is everything all right here? Did something happen
today?”

Simon looked up. “What do you mean?” he asked nervously.

“Well, Simon, I thought you, at least, would be happy about
this,” Mr. Kim explained. “This means that once we fix up the slopes,
you'll be able to ski anytime you want. I figured you'd be jumping for
joy.”

Simon looked over at Maggie and Sophie. Even though he still wasn't
sure there was a ghost, he now
believed that someone—or
something—was trying to scare his family away. But he certainly couldn't
tell his parents about the events that had led to his discovery.

“I don't know, Dad,” he began, his mind racing to come
up with some kind of excuse. “I guess now that it's real, I feel a little
overwhelmed.”

“Look, I know this is going to be a big change for you, for all of
us,” Mr. Kim said sympathetically. “But opportunities like this don't
come around every day. Just give it a chance.”

“What choice do I have?” Maggie asked, pointing out the
obvious.

“I'll start dinner,” Mrs. Kim said, heading for the
kitchen.

“I'll help,” Mr. Kim added, sighing deeply.
“Let's leave the Gloomy Guses to themselves.”

When they had left the room, Simon leaned in close to Maggie. “I
have to tell you, Mags,” he began, speaking softly so his parents couldn't
hear. “When you started with all this ghost stuff and disappearing candles and
writing in the snow, I thought you were just being a brat. But now I believe something
is going on.”

“The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
Maggie replied. “Even though we all now believe that
there's a ghost here, Mom and Dad will never believe us.”

“I'm scared to spend one more night here,” Sophie said.
“And the thought of you guys living here all the time . . .”
Her words trailed off.

“I thought you were just being difficult before,” Simon
continued. “But after what just happened to me, I have to agree with you. I think
that buying this house would be the worst idea ever.”

“What
did
happen to you?” Sophie
asked.

“I got up to the top of the hill just fine. As soon as I put on my
skis, I felt a pair of hands shove me in the back. I wasn't ready at all. I was in
no position to speed down such a steep hill. That takes preparation, proper form, and
complete concentration. My point is that someone pushed me. As I sped away, I twisted
around. I could make out the face of an old man, smiling.”

“Old Man Wharton,” Maggie said.

“It must be,” Simon agreed. “When I got to the bottom of
the hill, my skis must have been broken. I probably wandered into that shed, dazed from
everything, and then he locked me in.”

“What's to stop him from really hurting us?” Maggie
wondered aloud. She looked right at Simon. “By attacking
you, he's shown us that he's capable of violent action, not just pranks.
I'm with Sophie—I don't want to stay here another night.”

Sophie added, “Especially since your parents just announced to
everyone here—living or dead—that they're definitely buying the place.
I'm on pins and needles that at any second the lights are going to go off again,
or something will explode, or the house will catch on fire, or—”

“What are we going to do about it?” Maggie asked. She leaned
onto her backpack and felt something hard inside. Opening the flap, she pulled out the
scrapbook she had snatched from the shed.

Keeping one eye out for her parents, she slowly opened the dusty, battered
cover.

Old photos filled the book. Maggie recognized images of various rooms in
the house, but mostly they were pictures of people she didn't recognize.

“Look at this,” she said. “Pages from a
diary.”

“What's it say? Whose diary?” Sophie asked, peering over
Maggie's shoulder at the yellowed pages pasted into the scrapbook.

Maggie began reading. “‘January 21, 1951. Watched
Samuel head off to the mountain, skis in hand, as usual. He seems
to love skiing more now that he has become an adult.' The rest is torn
off.”

“There's that Samuel guy again!” said Sophie.
“Ernest built the place, and Jonas is Old Man Wharton, the one who died and
refuses to leave. But Samuel?”

“Jonas's brother!” Maggie said in an excited whisper
that came out a bit louder than she had intended. “Look at this
picture.”

“Maggie, did you say something, dear?” Mrs. Kim called out
from the kitchen.

“Nothing, Mom.”

“Dinner will be ready in about half an hour,” her mother
continued.

“Here's a picture of Samuel Wharton,” Maggie said.
“Look familiar, Soph?”

“We saw a picture of this same guy in that storage room,”
Sophie recalled. “Remember, in that pile of old photographs we saw?”

“Exactly,” said Maggie. “And the portrait I saw at the
entrance to the secret room, and all the other ones inside. And I'll bet the photo
that crashed to the floor was a picture of Jonas and Samuel.”

“Um, did I miss something?” Simon asked.
“What does this have to do with anything?”

“I don't know,” Maggie replied, flipping through the
pages of the diary. “Here's another entry.” They leaned over to read
it together.

March 28, 1955. Still a decent amount of snow on the mountain. Yet with
the days growing longer and warmer as spring makes its approach, Samuel grows mournful,
worrying that each day he sets out to ski might be his last for many months.

He always dreads our return to the city for the summer; he misses the
mountain so. And although I am getting too old for skiing, I am beginning to see why
Samuel loves it so much. More often, it seems, I contemplate remaining here year
round.

This entry had a piece of a signature. It read
Jona
. The rest was smudged and torn.

“Jonas!” Maggie cried.

“What?” her dad called from the kitchen.

“Nothing, Dad, we're just playing a game,” Maggie
replied.

“Games are good!” came the response from the kitchen.

“So that confirms it. This is Old Man Wharton's scrapbook,
complete with pages from his diary,” Maggie continued.

“So that shed obviously was his private place!” Sophie
commented, shaking her head. “He must have gone there to write in his
diary.”

Maggie kept flipping through the book. Pages and pages later she came to a
brittle, yellowed newspaper clipping dated February 9, 1970, with a headline that read
SAMUEL WHARTON DIES IN SKIING ACCIDENT
.

“Whoa!” Simon said, leaning in close to get a better look.

Maggie read the article aloud. “‘Thirty-eight-year-old Samuel
Wharton, a local skiing enthusiast and member of the prestigious Wharton family, died
yesterday in a tragic skiing accident on family property. Mr. Wharton, who never
married, is survived by his older brother, Jonas Wharton.'”

Maggie and Sophie both turned to look at Simon.
Maggie's mind flashed back to the fact that her brother had just gone skiing on
the same mountain where Samuel Wharton had died.

“What?” he said defensively. “They had primitive
equipment back then. Who knows what that Samuel dude was using. I—”

Maggie threw her arms around Simon and hugged him tightly. She thought
about the old ski equipment that had been arranged as a shrine in the secret
room—obviously done by Jonas Wharton in memory of his dead brother.

“Guys, look at this,” Sophie said urgently, flipping the
scrapbook to the next page. “It's Old Man Wharton's diary, dated
February 12, 1970, a few days after Samuel died.” They all peered over the
book.

It is with a heart full of burning grief that I put pen to paper. I
buried Samuel today. It took every ounce of self-control to not climb into the grave
with him.

A part of me died today, as if I
had lost a limb or
a vital organ from my own body. Samuel was my beloved younger brother. I practically
raised him, and he was all I had. There are no more relatives, none that speak to me or
deem me worthy of a visit, at any rate. And as for friends, well, I have scant use for
them anymore.

I can scarcely breathe, as if all the oxygen in the world was buried
beside dear Samuel. One thing is for certain. No one will ever ski on my mountain again.
Not for any reason.

I fear these may be the last words I ever record, regardless of how long
my now-meaningless life drags on.

- Jonas Wharton.

The signature was clear this time, as if it had just been written
yesterday.

“Well, that explains a lot,” Sophie said. “He became a
bitter, solitary hermit of a man, consumed by his grief and loneliness. Rotting here all
alone.”

“Samuel's death must be the
‘incident' Ms. Walcott mentioned. The one that made Jonas close the
slopes,” Maggie said. “And that's why he didn't want this place
turned into a ski lodge. And apparently he'll do whatever he feels is necessary,
including not resting in peace, to make sure that doesn't happen.”

She flipped the scrapbook to its final page.

“It's him!” she cried, pointing at a photo.

The last page of the scrapbook was covered by a large photo of an old man.
It was labeled
JONAS WHARTON
.

“That's the face,” Maggie said, jumping up and backing
away from the photo as if it might bite her. “
That's
the face of the man I saw in the window the night we
arrived!”

“And that's the man who pushed me down the mountain!”
Simon added.

“If we had any doubt left, this nails it down,” Sophie said,
staring at the photo. “We are absolutely dealing with an angry ghost!”

“That's it!” Maggie cried as softly as she could.

“That's what?” Simon asked, truly puzzled.

“We deal with the angry ghost!”

“How do we do that?” Sophie asked, looking back over her
shoulder, half expecting the ghost of Old
Man Wharton to pounce at
any moment.

“We hold a séance,” Maggie explained.

Simon hesitated. “I don't know . . .”

“You have a better idea?” Maggie shot back.

Simon and Sophie looked at Maggie and then shrugged.

“Okay, I'm in,” Sophie said.

“Me too,” Simon agreed. “I'd like to tell him that
pushing people down mountains is definitely not cool!”

“We've got to be fast,” Maggie pointed out.
“Dinner will be ready soon.”

The three kids went to the library and shut the door. This way
they'd be close to Jonas's secret room and far enough away from their
parents in the kitchen. They sat in a circle on the floor. They placed the scrapbook
containing Jonas Wharton's diary in the center of their little circle.

“I read somewhere that if you're trying to contact a spirit,
using one of his possessions can help make the connection,” Maggie explained.

Then they all grasped hands and closed their eyes.

“Jonas Wharton, we summon you to join us in our circle,”
Maggie began. “We are truly sorry for your loss
and
don't wish to cause you any further pain. We know what happened to Samuel. The
loss of a brother is a horrible thing to bear. I almost lost my own brother today
because you went too far. I'm sure you don't want history to repeat itself,
do you?”

Silence filled the room. After a few seconds, Simon spoke.

“Jonas, as the one you could have killed, I ask you to communicate
with us,” he began. “The reason you tried to stop me from skiing is so that
no one can build a ski resort here, so that no one else had to die like Samuel. So why
did you try to—”

Simon stopped short and began to make noises that sounded as if he were
choking. His eyes closed and his head fell back.

“Simon!” Sophie whispered. “Are you okay?”

She began to pull her hand away from Maggie's, but Maggie held on
tight. “Wait!” Maggie said. “Look!”

Simon's head rolled back into an upright position. His eyes opened,
revealing only the whites. His mouth trembled; then a voice, not his own, emerged.

“I cannot allow anyone to ski here ever again,” said the deep,
echoing voice coming from Simon's mouth.

Maggie shook her brother's shoulder.
“Simon? Simon?”

“Do not allow skiing here, or more will die!” the deep voice
continued.

“Do you mean that they'll die skiing or that you, Jonas
Wharton, will kill them?” Sophie asked.

“Do not allow skiing here, or more will die!” Jonas
repeated.

“Nobody wants what happened to Samuel to happen—”

“Do not speak that name!” Jonas roared in a voice that filled
the room.

“We can't reason with him,” Sophie said. “And
I'm getting scared that he's hurting Simon again.”

“Do you intend to harm my brother?” Maggie asked. “I
love him like you loved Samuel.”

“DO NOT SPEAK THAT NAME!” Jonas shouted.

Simon's body started twitching wildly.

“We've got to remove Jonas's spirit from Simon's
body!” Sophie said. “Let go of my hand—maybe breaking the circle will
do it.”

Maggie let go of Sophie's hand on one side and Simon's on the
other, but Simon kept twitching.

“It's not working!” Sophie cried
softly.

Then Maggie got an idea. She grabbed Jonas Wharton's scrapbook, ran
down the hallway, across the room, opened the front door, and tossed it out into the
snow.

By the time she made it back to the library, Simon had stopped twitching.
His head dropped to his chest. Then he raised his head and opened his eyes.