Some Spook That I Used to Know
October 11
“Look. All I’m saying is, if she’s supposed to be our great-great-whatever grandmother, what was up with the not-at-all helpful cryptic message? Beware? Of who? Or what? It’s not like any of the other dead people we’ve met had trouble speaking to us, so how come all she did was pop in for a quick scare moment then disappear again?”
Mart reached for the door to The Crescent Moon and pulled it open, stepping to one side and waving his sister in. “I don’t know. All I have to go on is what you and Dan told me, and it does seem… odd, to say the least.”
“Oh! And that’s another thing,” Trixie continued, “Is she our great-great-whatever grandmother? Because that would mean she had to have had at least one child, and we’ve never heard anything about that. If she did, where was it – he, she… where was this child the night she was killed? And what happened to him or her after that?”
“Maybe we’re related by a different branch of the family tree,” Mart suggested. “Perhaps Sarah had a brother or sister and we’re part of that line.”
“Maybe so… but how do we find out for sure?”
“Ancestry dot com?”
“Ha.” Trixie’s grin was gone almost as soon as it had formed, but Mart figured he’d take what he could get in that department. At least it seemed her rant was winding down. He knew she was mostly blowing off steam, but he also recognized the core worry beneath her words. There was a growing feeling they both sensed that something was going to happen and in some way, they were supposed to play a large part in it, for good or for bad. It was like one of his worst reoccurring nightmares, only instead of discovering he had a final exam to take that he was completely unprepared for in a class he’d never even attended, this was no dream, and the stakes, he suspected, were considerably higher than a failing grade on his transcript.
Trixie pursed her lips and looked around, nodding to acknowledge the friendly greeting the girl at the register called out to them. “Okay. So… the stones were in the back, right?”
“Yeah. This way.”
They stopped at a table with five baskets arranged in a circle. Each one held a collection of polished rocks of various sizes, shapes, and colors. After only a brief hesitation, Mart selected several of a pale reddish-pink shade. “We’ll need to stop in at the hobby shop, too. We need paint and a paint brush.”
“Oh. I thought we’d just ask Di if we could borrow some of her art supplies?”
“Yeah… no. With as excited as she is about all this, I didn’t want to really go into an explanation for why we’d decided to paint a bunch of stones with mystical symbols.”
“Fair enough,” Trixie agreed. “But keep in mind, we’re intending to make one for her, so at some point we’re going to need a plausible reason for why we want her to keep a protection charm with her at all times.”
“I don’t think it will be that hard to convince her. I’m more concerned with Moms and Dan. And Regan. What on earth are we going to say to them?”
“I’m hoping the inspiration will hit us when the time comes,” Trixie admitted ruefully. She glanced at her watch and frowned. “If we’re making another stop, we should really pick up the pace. We still have to run by the library before we meet everyone at Wimpy’s.”
The hobby shop was located a few blocks east of The Crescent Moon. The Saturday shopping crowd was out in full force, and Trixie impatiently stepped around a slower moving family. She bit back a groan as she found herself staring up into the eyes of a man dressed in clothing that had gone out of fashion in the early 1980’s. “What do you want-“ she began. She didn’t bother finishing. His expression was one she could only describe as “fearful.” Without a word, he vanished, leaving her flabbergasted by the entire shockingly brief encounter.
“What do you suppose that was about?” she asked her brother. “Because I haven’t got a clue.”
Mart grimaced and shrugged one shoulder. “No idea. Maybe he was up to no good and didn’t want to get caught?”
“Caught? By who? Us? All our kidding aside, it’s not like we really are the Ghostbusters.”
“Yeah. I know. But let’s go with the idea that we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. We really didn’t have time to help him anyway.”
They walked on, falling into silence as they each got lost in their own thoughts. As they crossed Banes Avenue, Trixie spotted a familiar figure on the street corner. “Hey, look. There’s our pirate friend.”
The diminutive spirit noticed their approach at almost the same time as she’d pointed him out. His eyes widened and he shook his head before disappearing.
Mart’s brow furrowed in a deep scowl. “All right. Something’s up. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say for some reason the ghosts are suddenly afraid of us. I wonder if Professor Lee’s protection spell worked too well?”
“I don’t think it could be that,” Trixie said slowly. “That was designed to ward off evil, and I’m pretty sure Davie Mark’s worst crime is his choice in costumed characters. I certainly don’t think he’s evil. Maybe we have Vernon to thank?”
“What do you mean?”
“He said he was going to get out word that we had ‘office hours,’ remember? Maybe it worked?”
“But would that really account for the fear? If it was just about respecting our time, would the ghosts look so scared simply to see us on the street?”
“No,” Trixie replied with a sigh. “My explanation doesn’t really make sense, either. All right, we’ll be seeing the professor this afternoon. I guess we’ll get his opinion on the matter then.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Something… strange happened to me on my way here,” Dan said slowly, with a significant look in Trixie and Mart’s direction. “I parked my van over on First and when I got out, there was this guy standing there, but he took off as soon as he saw me.”
“Maybe it was just a coincidence and he had somewhere he had to be,” Di suggested with a small shrug. “Or are you worried that he was… I dunno about to break into someone else’s vehicle or something and panicked when he saw you?”
“No. I don’t think it was that.”
Trixie traded a look with her brother. “Funny you should mention it, but we had a similar experience with someone we ran into while we were out shopping. And then we saw someone we, uh… used to know. You might remember him? An actor. He kinda blew us off, too.”
Dan’s expression darkened. He glanced at Di and Trixie knew he was frustrated with the need to deliberately choose his words. She hesitated for a moment, then came to a decision, hoping she wasn’t about to be making a huge mistake. “Di? We really need to talk.”
Di paused in the act of salting her fries. “Huh?”
“Freckles…” Dan shook his head slightly in an unspoken caution. Mart, too, was regarding her with obvious doubt.
“Guys. C’mon. She’s one of us. She’s a Bob-White. She should know the truth.”
“The truth?” Di echoed. “What’s going on?”
Trixie offered her friend a weak smile. “It’s real, Di. Everything I told you? About the amulet and spells and seeing ghosts? It wasn’t just an idea for the Halloween bash. Ghosts are real and Mart and Dan and I really can see them. Also? Uh… it turns out we’re sorta witches.”
“I’d start laughing now at the big joke,” Di said carefully, “except that you all look completely serious.” Her eyes cut to Honey. “This is true? And you knew?”
“I didn’t know right away,” Honey replied quietly. “I figured it out and confronted Trix about it. Di… we weren’t deliberately cutting you out. Trixie did try to tell you. We just figured you’d never believe it.”
“Or go back to your ‘you guys must be on drugs’ theory,” Trixie added.
“Well, to be honest, between the two? My friends are high seems like the more plausible explanation over, ‘Hey, so we’re witches and we see dead people.’”
“And I can definitely understand why you would say that. But we aren’t doing drugs of any kind. And we aren’t suffering from some sort of mass delusion, either. I know it sounds crazy… but it’s the truth.”
Di reached for her purse and dug around for her wallet. She removed a ten dollar bill and set it on the table. “That’s for my share,” she said. “I - I need to get going to meet my mother and the twins. I also need some time to think, okay? Can we meet again tonight after the game?”
“How about at my place?” Honey offered. “Mother and Daddy are in the city for the weekend, and you know how good Miss Trask is about respecting our privacy. We can talk there without any interruptions.”
“Good. Okay. Your place it is.” Di slid out of her seat and stood. “Honey, I’ll see you at school. Don’t forget we’re meeting an extra half-hour early to go over our new cheer one last time.”
Mart exhaled heavily as they watched their friend leave. “Sis? When I said I didn’t think it would be that hard to convince her to carry a protection charm, this is definitely not what I had in mind.”
“I know. But how much longer did you really think we could keep her in the dark, short of avoiding her altogether which would have caused some serious problems down the line?”
“Not that I don’t consider our issues with Di important,” Dan said soberly, “but there’s not much we can do about her until we see her again tonight. Meanwhile, this probably falls under the careful-what-you-wish-for category, but I have to admit it makes me extremely nervous that all of a sudden we’re persona non grata in the spirit world.”
Despite everything, Mart found himself laughing. "Persona non grata? See? I told you Latin comes in handy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Lee stood in his old bedroom, staring at the trunk pushed to the very back of his closet. It had been years since he’d opened it and gone through the contents inside.
“David, dear? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes, Grams. Thanks. It’s right here.”
His grandmother stepped through the doorway, smiling warmly at him. “Oh, good. I’m glad. You know I really haven’t done much with this room since you grew up and moved out on your own.”
He knelt down and reached for the trunk, sliding it forward. It was heavier than he’d remembered.
“Will you stay for lunch? I could make us a nice pot of chicken soup.”
He was suddenly struck by the strangeness of it all. For so much of his childhood, he’d lived in this house, convinced that he and his mother and grandmother were not alone. He’d explored every facet of the paranormal and occult that he could, trying to bring to it the same logical, ordered thinking he used to excel in his math classes, but he’d never found anything that could be considered definitive evidence to confirm what he felt on some basic, almost subconscious level. Eventually, as he’d prepared to embark on his college years, he’d set aside his obsessive quest for proof and even convinced himself that none of it was real; that he could still study the history and beliefs that surrounded the idea of spirits walking among them, but do so as a “rational” academic, not as a practitioner of any kind of faith.
Less than two weeks before, he’d still been telling himself that same lie. Now, though, everything had changed. It was all real, just as his intuition had always told him it was. He was vindicated in his beliefs. It was thrilling. Exhilarating. Terrifying.
Yet despite the astonishing, life-altering revelations of the past several days, here he was, back in his family home where the progress of the outside world never seemed to intrude – here was a place where nothing had changed at all, right down to his beloved grandmother and her solves-any-problem-or-ailment chicken soup. He forced a smile as he looked over his shoulder at her. “Yes, Grams. That would be nice. Thanks. Uh, but I am due to meet some... students this afternoon, so I’m sorry I can’t stay very long.”
“Of course, dear. In that case, I’ll get started right away.”
As she retreated to the kitchen, he turned his attention back to his trunk. It had been a very long time, but he still remembered every single item it contained. His books and journals. His rune stones. His tarot cards and candles. His altar cloth. Everything he’d gathered in his youth, trying to reach out and communicate with the dead. He had never succeeded himself, but now, after all this time, he’d met three young people who had.
He really had no idea if any of his things could help his new young friends in any way, but he was willing to try. He understood they were looking to him for guidance and wisdom. He’d become if not a father-figure, at the very least something akin to a trusted older brother and he felt the weight of that responsibility settle uneasily on him. He had no intention of letting them down. He recognized that he would likely not be writing any more papers about supernatural concepts or activities ever again as he knew instinctively that he needed to protect Trixie, Mart, and Dan, guarding their secret closely. Overall, he felt unprepared and inadequate, still a student himself rather than an instructor, but he would do his best to fill the role he’d taken on and assist his friends how and whenever he could.
He carried the trunk to his car and put it in the back seat before rejoining his grandmother and offering to set the table. Reminding him very much of his teenage years, she asked him questions about school and his classes, before turning the conversation to his mother. He had not, he told her truthfully, heard from her for several months. Her last call had come from somewhere in California and she’d said something about her latest boyfriend and how she was now selling pottery at local craft fairs.
“Yes,” Grams said with a sigh, not hiding her disappointment. “That’s the last I heard from her, too. I suppose this is better than that awful period where she was following that band around like some silly groupie.”
He didn’t know precisely what to say to that, so he simply nodded to indicate his agreement.
“I’m so thankful you’ve got such a good head on your shoulders, David. I’m afraid your mother always was a bit… flaky. She went through a phase when she was young, insisting she was a psychic, of all things. Oh, the nonsense of it all! Her head was always in the clouds. But you’ve matured into a wonderful young man with his feet planted firmly on the ground where they belong. I’m very proud of you.”
David swallowed hard before speaking. “Uh, thanks, Grams,” he said faintly. If she only knew!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I know Di was talking about holding a séance as part of the party theme, but what if we held one for real?” Honey suggested as they climbed from Dan’s van. He’d parked on the drive and left the gate open for the professor when he arrived.
“A séance?” Trixie asked, frowning in puzzlement. “Why?”
“To, uh, summon Sarah? To question her directly?”
“Do you think that would work? Could we really do that?” Trixie looked to Dan and Mart for their opinions.
“I guess we could try,” Mart replied after considering the idea, “though I would maybe hold that as a last resort.”
An unexpected and unwelcome sight greeted them when they walked through the front door of the house. Even from the foyer, they could see that extensive damage had been done to the library beyond.
Dan cursed as he hurried into the room, the others on his heels. The desk was pushed to one side, its drawers all hanging open. Most of the books were no longer on the shelves, but rather tossed carelessly to the floor. Sarah’s workshop had faced similar destruction.
“Do you think this was a p-poltergeist?” Honey asked them, her voice catching.
Trixie looked over at her friend, noting her pale face and wide eyes. “No. Someone living did this. See there? Footprints.”
“Those could be ours,” Honey pointed out. “From yesterday or earlier.”
Trixie shook her head emphatically. “No,” she said again. “The professor has worn loafers every time he’s been here and we’ve all been in our sneakers. These prints were made by someone wearing heavy boots.” She blew out a breath and looked around. “Someone was here, looking for something. The question is… did he find it?”
“Look. All I’m saying is, if she’s supposed to be our great-great-whatever grandmother, what was up with the not-at-all helpful cryptic message? Beware? Of who? Or what? It’s not like any of the other dead people we’ve met had trouble speaking to us, so how come all she did was pop in for a quick scare moment then disappear again?”
Mart reached for the door to The Crescent Moon and pulled it open, stepping to one side and waving his sister in. “I don’t know. All I have to go on is what you and Dan told me, and it does seem… odd, to say the least.”
“Oh! And that’s another thing,” Trixie continued, “Is she our great-great-whatever grandmother? Because that would mean she had to have had at least one child, and we’ve never heard anything about that. If she did, where was it – he, she… where was this child the night she was killed? And what happened to him or her after that?”
“Maybe we’re related by a different branch of the family tree,” Mart suggested. “Perhaps Sarah had a brother or sister and we’re part of that line.”
“Maybe so… but how do we find out for sure?”
“Ancestry dot com?”
“Ha.” Trixie’s grin was gone almost as soon as it had formed, but Mart figured he’d take what he could get in that department. At least it seemed her rant was winding down. He knew she was mostly blowing off steam, but he also recognized the core worry beneath her words. There was a growing feeling they both sensed that something was going to happen and in some way, they were supposed to play a large part in it, for good or for bad. It was like one of his worst reoccurring nightmares, only instead of discovering he had a final exam to take that he was completely unprepared for in a class he’d never even attended, this was no dream, and the stakes, he suspected, were considerably higher than a failing grade on his transcript.
Trixie pursed her lips and looked around, nodding to acknowledge the friendly greeting the girl at the register called out to them. “Okay. So… the stones were in the back, right?”
“Yeah. This way.”
They stopped at a table with five baskets arranged in a circle. Each one held a collection of polished rocks of various sizes, shapes, and colors. After only a brief hesitation, Mart selected several of a pale reddish-pink shade. “We’ll need to stop in at the hobby shop, too. We need paint and a paint brush.”
“Oh. I thought we’d just ask Di if we could borrow some of her art supplies?”
“Yeah… no. With as excited as she is about all this, I didn’t want to really go into an explanation for why we’d decided to paint a bunch of stones with mystical symbols.”
“Fair enough,” Trixie agreed. “But keep in mind, we’re intending to make one for her, so at some point we’re going to need a plausible reason for why we want her to keep a protection charm with her at all times.”
“I don’t think it will be that hard to convince her. I’m more concerned with Moms and Dan. And Regan. What on earth are we going to say to them?”
“I’m hoping the inspiration will hit us when the time comes,” Trixie admitted ruefully. She glanced at her watch and frowned. “If we’re making another stop, we should really pick up the pace. We still have to run by the library before we meet everyone at Wimpy’s.”
The hobby shop was located a few blocks east of The Crescent Moon. The Saturday shopping crowd was out in full force, and Trixie impatiently stepped around a slower moving family. She bit back a groan as she found herself staring up into the eyes of a man dressed in clothing that had gone out of fashion in the early 1980’s. “What do you want-“ she began. She didn’t bother finishing. His expression was one she could only describe as “fearful.” Without a word, he vanished, leaving her flabbergasted by the entire shockingly brief encounter.
“What do you suppose that was about?” she asked her brother. “Because I haven’t got a clue.”
Mart grimaced and shrugged one shoulder. “No idea. Maybe he was up to no good and didn’t want to get caught?”
“Caught? By who? Us? All our kidding aside, it’s not like we really are the Ghostbusters.”
“Yeah. I know. But let’s go with the idea that we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. We really didn’t have time to help him anyway.”
They walked on, falling into silence as they each got lost in their own thoughts. As they crossed Banes Avenue, Trixie spotted a familiar figure on the street corner. “Hey, look. There’s our pirate friend.”
The diminutive spirit noticed their approach at almost the same time as she’d pointed him out. His eyes widened and he shook his head before disappearing.
Mart’s brow furrowed in a deep scowl. “All right. Something’s up. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say for some reason the ghosts are suddenly afraid of us. I wonder if Professor Lee’s protection spell worked too well?”
“I don’t think it could be that,” Trixie said slowly. “That was designed to ward off evil, and I’m pretty sure Davie Mark’s worst crime is his choice in costumed characters. I certainly don’t think he’s evil. Maybe we have Vernon to thank?”
“What do you mean?”
“He said he was going to get out word that we had ‘office hours,’ remember? Maybe it worked?”
“But would that really account for the fear? If it was just about respecting our time, would the ghosts look so scared simply to see us on the street?”
“No,” Trixie replied with a sigh. “My explanation doesn’t really make sense, either. All right, we’ll be seeing the professor this afternoon. I guess we’ll get his opinion on the matter then.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Something… strange happened to me on my way here,” Dan said slowly, with a significant look in Trixie and Mart’s direction. “I parked my van over on First and when I got out, there was this guy standing there, but he took off as soon as he saw me.”
“Maybe it was just a coincidence and he had somewhere he had to be,” Di suggested with a small shrug. “Or are you worried that he was… I dunno about to break into someone else’s vehicle or something and panicked when he saw you?”
“No. I don’t think it was that.”
Trixie traded a look with her brother. “Funny you should mention it, but we had a similar experience with someone we ran into while we were out shopping. And then we saw someone we, uh… used to know. You might remember him? An actor. He kinda blew us off, too.”
Dan’s expression darkened. He glanced at Di and Trixie knew he was frustrated with the need to deliberately choose his words. She hesitated for a moment, then came to a decision, hoping she wasn’t about to be making a huge mistake. “Di? We really need to talk.”
Di paused in the act of salting her fries. “Huh?”
“Freckles…” Dan shook his head slightly in an unspoken caution. Mart, too, was regarding her with obvious doubt.
“Guys. C’mon. She’s one of us. She’s a Bob-White. She should know the truth.”
“The truth?” Di echoed. “What’s going on?”
Trixie offered her friend a weak smile. “It’s real, Di. Everything I told you? About the amulet and spells and seeing ghosts? It wasn’t just an idea for the Halloween bash. Ghosts are real and Mart and Dan and I really can see them. Also? Uh… it turns out we’re sorta witches.”
“I’d start laughing now at the big joke,” Di said carefully, “except that you all look completely serious.” Her eyes cut to Honey. “This is true? And you knew?”
“I didn’t know right away,” Honey replied quietly. “I figured it out and confronted Trix about it. Di… we weren’t deliberately cutting you out. Trixie did try to tell you. We just figured you’d never believe it.”
“Or go back to your ‘you guys must be on drugs’ theory,” Trixie added.
“Well, to be honest, between the two? My friends are high seems like the more plausible explanation over, ‘Hey, so we’re witches and we see dead people.’”
“And I can definitely understand why you would say that. But we aren’t doing drugs of any kind. And we aren’t suffering from some sort of mass delusion, either. I know it sounds crazy… but it’s the truth.”
Di reached for her purse and dug around for her wallet. She removed a ten dollar bill and set it on the table. “That’s for my share,” she said. “I - I need to get going to meet my mother and the twins. I also need some time to think, okay? Can we meet again tonight after the game?”
“How about at my place?” Honey offered. “Mother and Daddy are in the city for the weekend, and you know how good Miss Trask is about respecting our privacy. We can talk there without any interruptions.”
“Good. Okay. Your place it is.” Di slid out of her seat and stood. “Honey, I’ll see you at school. Don’t forget we’re meeting an extra half-hour early to go over our new cheer one last time.”
Mart exhaled heavily as they watched their friend leave. “Sis? When I said I didn’t think it would be that hard to convince her to carry a protection charm, this is definitely not what I had in mind.”
“I know. But how much longer did you really think we could keep her in the dark, short of avoiding her altogether which would have caused some serious problems down the line?”
“Not that I don’t consider our issues with Di important,” Dan said soberly, “but there’s not much we can do about her until we see her again tonight. Meanwhile, this probably falls under the careful-what-you-wish-for category, but I have to admit it makes me extremely nervous that all of a sudden we’re persona non grata in the spirit world.”
Despite everything, Mart found himself laughing. "Persona non grata? See? I told you Latin comes in handy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Lee stood in his old bedroom, staring at the trunk pushed to the very back of his closet. It had been years since he’d opened it and gone through the contents inside.
“David, dear? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes, Grams. Thanks. It’s right here.”
His grandmother stepped through the doorway, smiling warmly at him. “Oh, good. I’m glad. You know I really haven’t done much with this room since you grew up and moved out on your own.”
He knelt down and reached for the trunk, sliding it forward. It was heavier than he’d remembered.
“Will you stay for lunch? I could make us a nice pot of chicken soup.”
He was suddenly struck by the strangeness of it all. For so much of his childhood, he’d lived in this house, convinced that he and his mother and grandmother were not alone. He’d explored every facet of the paranormal and occult that he could, trying to bring to it the same logical, ordered thinking he used to excel in his math classes, but he’d never found anything that could be considered definitive evidence to confirm what he felt on some basic, almost subconscious level. Eventually, as he’d prepared to embark on his college years, he’d set aside his obsessive quest for proof and even convinced himself that none of it was real; that he could still study the history and beliefs that surrounded the idea of spirits walking among them, but do so as a “rational” academic, not as a practitioner of any kind of faith.
Less than two weeks before, he’d still been telling himself that same lie. Now, though, everything had changed. It was all real, just as his intuition had always told him it was. He was vindicated in his beliefs. It was thrilling. Exhilarating. Terrifying.
Yet despite the astonishing, life-altering revelations of the past several days, here he was, back in his family home where the progress of the outside world never seemed to intrude – here was a place where nothing had changed at all, right down to his beloved grandmother and her solves-any-problem-or-ailment chicken soup. He forced a smile as he looked over his shoulder at her. “Yes, Grams. That would be nice. Thanks. Uh, but I am due to meet some... students this afternoon, so I’m sorry I can’t stay very long.”
“Of course, dear. In that case, I’ll get started right away.”
As she retreated to the kitchen, he turned his attention back to his trunk. It had been a very long time, but he still remembered every single item it contained. His books and journals. His rune stones. His tarot cards and candles. His altar cloth. Everything he’d gathered in his youth, trying to reach out and communicate with the dead. He had never succeeded himself, but now, after all this time, he’d met three young people who had.
He really had no idea if any of his things could help his new young friends in any way, but he was willing to try. He understood they were looking to him for guidance and wisdom. He’d become if not a father-figure, at the very least something akin to a trusted older brother and he felt the weight of that responsibility settle uneasily on him. He had no intention of letting them down. He recognized that he would likely not be writing any more papers about supernatural concepts or activities ever again as he knew instinctively that he needed to protect Trixie, Mart, and Dan, guarding their secret closely. Overall, he felt unprepared and inadequate, still a student himself rather than an instructor, but he would do his best to fill the role he’d taken on and assist his friends how and whenever he could.
He carried the trunk to his car and put it in the back seat before rejoining his grandmother and offering to set the table. Reminding him very much of his teenage years, she asked him questions about school and his classes, before turning the conversation to his mother. He had not, he told her truthfully, heard from her for several months. Her last call had come from somewhere in California and she’d said something about her latest boyfriend and how she was now selling pottery at local craft fairs.
“Yes,” Grams said with a sigh, not hiding her disappointment. “That’s the last I heard from her, too. I suppose this is better than that awful period where she was following that band around like some silly groupie.”
He didn’t know precisely what to say to that, so he simply nodded to indicate his agreement.
“I’m so thankful you’ve got such a good head on your shoulders, David. I’m afraid your mother always was a bit… flaky. She went through a phase when she was young, insisting she was a psychic, of all things. Oh, the nonsense of it all! Her head was always in the clouds. But you’ve matured into a wonderful young man with his feet planted firmly on the ground where they belong. I’m very proud of you.”
David swallowed hard before speaking. “Uh, thanks, Grams,” he said faintly. If she only knew!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I know Di was talking about holding a séance as part of the party theme, but what if we held one for real?” Honey suggested as they climbed from Dan’s van. He’d parked on the drive and left the gate open for the professor when he arrived.
“A séance?” Trixie asked, frowning in puzzlement. “Why?”
“To, uh, summon Sarah? To question her directly?”
“Do you think that would work? Could we really do that?” Trixie looked to Dan and Mart for their opinions.
“I guess we could try,” Mart replied after considering the idea, “though I would maybe hold that as a last resort.”
An unexpected and unwelcome sight greeted them when they walked through the front door of the house. Even from the foyer, they could see that extensive damage had been done to the library beyond.
Dan cursed as he hurried into the room, the others on his heels. The desk was pushed to one side, its drawers all hanging open. Most of the books were no longer on the shelves, but rather tossed carelessly to the floor. Sarah’s workshop had faced similar destruction.
“Do you think this was a p-poltergeist?” Honey asked them, her voice catching.
Trixie looked over at her friend, noting her pale face and wide eyes. “No. Someone living did this. See there? Footprints.”
“Those could be ours,” Honey pointed out. “From yesterday or earlier.”
Trixie shook her head emphatically. “No,” she said again. “The professor has worn loafers every time he’s been here and we’ve all been in our sneakers. These prints were made by someone wearing heavy boots.” She blew out a breath and looked around. “Someone was here, looking for something. The question is… did he find it?”
