The Legend of the Irish Castle

  “But it’s not,” Henry added, “because pookas aren’t real.”

  “I’m still not sure,” Violet said. “A lot of people believe in these creatures, and I might too.”

  “Let’s go look at the book again,” Jessie said, “and I’ll show you what I mean about the pooka.”

  The children went inside the castle and back to the library where they had been reading earlier in the day.

  “See, Benny,” Jessie said, crossing over to one of the leather couches. “In the book it says—wait.” Jessie stopped and looked around. “Where did my book go? I left it right here before we went to the gardens with Grandfather. I’m sure of it.” She looked among the books and newspapers stacked on a shelf nearby, but her book wasn’t there.

  “You don’t think someone could have moved it? Maybe Erin was cleaning up.” Henry said.

  But the rest of the books still lay on the table, right where the children had left them.

  Jessie felt a shiver. “I think my book has… disappeared,” she said.

  “Yikes!” Benny said.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Familiar Figure

  The search for the missing book was interrupted when Grandfather found them in the library and told them it was time for dinner. The children followed him into the dining room and took their places around the large table set with white linen napkins embroidered with DC for Duncarraig Castle.

  Erin poured water in the goblets on the table. Mr. and Mrs. Davison were already seated, and were chatting with the new guests that had arrived that morning, Robert and George. They told the Aldens they were visiting from Canada, and planned to play as many rounds of golf in Ireland as they could. Both men were dressed in garish plaid pants and brightly colored shirts. George pulled out a lime-green knitted tam with a huge pompon sewed to the top.

  “Whoever has the losing score has to wear this,” George said, and Erin laughed.

  George laughed too. “Half the fun of golf is the ridiculous outfits.”

  Robert nodded in agreement, then turned to the children. “Mrs. Davison tells us that you kids spotted a banshee out your window the other night,” Robert said. He had spiky gray hair and round pink cheeks. “George here doesn’t believe in ghosts, but I am inclined to be open-minded. A country with such a long history is bound to be full of spirits.”

  “Well, we aren’t actually sure what we saw,” Henry said. “I think there must be another explanation.”

  “Henry, you sound like a very sensible young man,” George said. “The only spirit I’d be willing to believe in is one who can make sure all my putts go in!”

  Everyone laughed.

  Then Erin said, “Joking aside, we know that all the hotel guests and staff were accounted for that evening. And there isn’t anyone else out in this part of the county. So I can’t really think of another explanation, except for a banshee.” She looked at all of her guests. “I think we have to accept that this castle is a little bit haunted.”

  Jessie gave her siblings a surprised look. Before, Erin had seemed to be half joking when she talked about the castle’s banshee, but now she sounded like she actually believed the banshee was real. What had changed?

  Mrs. Davison turned to her husband and said, “I am very glad we came to this castle after all, darling. A real banshee!”

  Erin and the kitchen helper served the dinner of roast beef and potatoes. After the long day of walking in the fresh air, the children were very hungry and they focused on their food, then helped Erin clear the dishes. After dessert, the adults wanted to linger at the table drinking coffee and tea, and Grandfather told the children they could be excused.

  Back in the library, the Aldens sat on the couches to discuss what they had learned about the mysterious figure in the meadow. Jessie was still confused about what Erin had said.

  “She seems sure now that the castle is haunted,” Jessie said. “Doesn’t that seem odd?”

  “I was thinking about that,” Henry said. “But I think I know why.”

  “Because the banshee is real?” Benny asked in a frightened voice.

  Henry shook his head. He put a comforting hand on Benny’s shoulder. “There’s no reason to be scared, Benny. Remember, banshees are just part of old stories.”

  “Then why would Erin say she believes the castle is haunted?” Violet asked.

  “This morning, Mr. and Mrs. Davison were about to check out, remember?” Henry said. “But then when they heard about the banshee, Mrs. Davison wanted to stay for another night. Erin is talking about the banshee because a haunted castle is good for business!”

  Jessie nodded. “Now, that makes sense.” She thought for a moment and an idea came to her. “Do you think Erin is pretending to be the banshee? Dressing up in the hood and walking around at night, wailing?”

  Henry snapped his fingers. “That could explain why Fergus doesn’t want us exploring the property. If we uncover what she’s doing, then the guests will know that the castle isn’t haunted after all and they might take their business somewhere else.”

  “I don’t know,” Violet said. “Erin seems like such a kind person. I don’t think she would lie to us.”

  “Either way, we have to find out,” Jessie said.

  “We can watch out the window again tonight,” suggested Benny. “And maybe we’ll be able to see if the banshee is really Erin.”

  “But we need a way to be able to see for sure,” Jessie said. “Last time, we couldn’t see the figure’s face because he or she was too far away.”

  Henry noticed a pair of binoculars guests used for bird-watching sitting on the desk beside the window. “We could borrow these,” he said, picking them up. “Maybe then we could get a better look at the figure’s face.”

  The children took the binoculars up to their room and set them on the windowsill, then returned to the library to read. Soon, Grandfather joined them with his newspaper. Erin built a fire in the library fireplace, and the Aldens tried to concentrate on their books. Even though they appeared relaxed on the outside, they were impatient for the evening to pass. They couldn’t wait for it to get dark, and for bedtime to come, so they could start watching the meadow behind the castle. They didn’t want to raise anyone’s suspicions by going to bed early. If Erin was pretending to be the banshee, she might stay home if she thought the children were planning to watch.

  Finally all four Alden children had brushed their teeth and put their pajamas on. Sitting on the beds in their room, they made a plan.

  “Violet and I will take the first shift,” Jessie said, writing down the schedule on a piece of paper in her notebook. “I’ll take notes on anything odd we see. At midnight, we’ll wake Benny and Henry up to take over while we sleep.”

  Henry nodded. He went over to the door that opened onto a small balcony on the same side of the room as the window where they’d seen the mysterious figure the night before. “You might be able to get a better look from out here,” Henry said.

  Henry and Benny got into bed, and the girls stepped out into the night air. On the balcony, they could hear crickets chirping in the tall grass and watched an owl dive from a tree branch to catch a brown mouse.

  Violet looked at the side of the castle that was visible from where they stood. Many of the hotel’s guest rooms remained unfilled and the windows were dark. But there were a few lights on. Violet noticed that one of the windows lit by a lamp had a butterfly shape hanging on the pane.

  She pointed it out to Jessie. “That’s Erin’s room,” Violet said.

  Jessie nodded. “That’s right—I remember the butterfly sun catcher.”

  “If her light’s on, that probably means she’s in her room,” Violet said nervously.

  Jessie had to agree. “I don’t think she would leave the light on if she was going out,” Jessie said. “She probably can’t afford to waste electricity with all the other expenses she has running this place.”

  “And if she’s in her room,” Violet said, “that means she
can’t be the one pretending to be a banshee!”

  “Well, let’s wait and see,” Jessie said. “Maybe no one will come out tonight.”

  The sky grew darker as Jessie and Violet watched and waited. To keep from getting bored, they counted how many stars were in the sky, and tried to name the many types of plants they had seen in the walled garden with Grandfather. The time passed slowly.

  Around midnight, Jessie went inside to wake the boys, and Violet stayed outside with the binoculars. She was polishing the lenses with the cuff of her sleeve when she heard a noise in the meadow, a low wailing sound. Violet put the binoculars up to her eyes, her heart pounding. She panned across the meadow, along the tree line, in the direction of the noise. And then she saw it! It was the same figure from the night before, wearing the same gray hood.

  “Jessie,” Violet called in an urgent whisper. “Hurry!”

  Jessie rushed back out onto the balcony and took the binoculars. She looked through the eyepiece and moved the dial on top to focus in on the figure.

  Violet’s hand flew up to her mouth, and she pointed to the window with the butterfly. “Jessie, Erin’s light is still on in her room. Oh, this is all so spooky!”

  “That figure I see is definitely not Erin,” Jessie said. “And I don’t think it’s a ghost either. But…”

  Just then the boys came out, rubbing their eyes and trying to wake up.

  “But what?” Benny asked. Jessie shook her head and lowered the binoculars in surprise. “I can’t explain it, but her face looks so familiar somehow!”

  “Familiar?” Henry asked, holding out a hand. “Here, let me have a look.”

  But just as he raised the binoculars to his eyes, the figure disappeared into the woods once more.

  CHAPTER 6

  A Creature in the Forest

  The Aldens didn’t fall asleep until almost one in the morning, so the next day they slept later than usual. Violet woke up first, and roused Jessie and her brothers so they’d have enough time to get dressed and into the dining room before they missed breakfast.

  The promise of more eggs and bacon made Benny get ready faster than anyone else. While the others tied their shoes, he looked out the window.

  “The meadow is gone,” Benny said.

  “Gone?” asked Henry.

  “And the woods too, and the garden,” Benny said. “It’s all gone.”

  Jessie gave Violet a funny look, and they joined Benny at the window. In a way, the youngest Alden was right. From where they stood, they could no longer see anything that was more than a few feet away from the window.

  “Benny, I can see why you’d think that, but don’t worry. The meadow is still there. We just can’t see it because of the fog.” Jessie said.

  “It’s the thickest fog I’ve ever seen!” Henry said.

  Benny remembered their lunch on the pier at Howth when they’d first arrived. “Now I can see why those ships needed the lighthouse,” he said. “You can’t see anything out there.”

  “We’d better go,” Jessie said after checking her watch. “It’s nearly ten o’clock.” The children hurried down the stairs and into the main hall. Mrs. Davison stood at the front desk, and Grandfather and Mr. Davison were just coming back inside after loading the Davisons’ luggage in their car. Mrs. Davison was wearing a large yellow hat and sunglasses.

  “Oh, just look at these little darlings,” Mrs. Davison said to her husband. “Could they be any cuter?” Jessie tried not to let the comment bother her. She knew that Mrs. Davison had good intentions, but some people just didn’t know how to talk to children.

  “Well, kids,” Mr. Davison said. “This is good-bye.” He shook Grandfather’s hand and gave the children high fives. “We’re off to Galway this morning.”

  “In a convertible!” Mrs. Davison said.

  “I hope you enjoy the rest of your honeymoon,” said Violet. “May I take your picture for my scrapbook?”

  The couple posed together. “I hope you find the banshee,” Mrs. Davison said as she smiled for the picture. “Make sure to keep us posted!” She wrote down her email address on a slip of paper and gave it to Jessie, who stuck it inside the pages of her notebook.

  Erin was behind the desk checking out the Davisons. She gave them a receipt. “Thank you very much for staying at Duncarraig Castle. Please be careful driving in this terrible fog!”

  The Davisons went out to the circle drive in front, where a yellow convertible was parked. It was so bright they had no trouble seeing it in the fog.

  “The car matches Mrs. Davison’s hat,” Benny said.

  Jessie laughed. “It sure does!” Grandfather and the children waved to the newlyweds as they drove away.

  Henry glanced in Erin’s direction and noticed that the bright smile she’d had while saying good-bye had fallen away, and her forehead was once again creased with worry.

  “Is everything all right, Erin?” Henry asked.

  She looked out the window again and muttered to herself. “I just hope the road between here and Dublin is clear.”

  “Me too,” Henry said. But after he thought for a moment about what she had said, he paused. “Why the road between here and Dublin? Aren’t the Davisons heading west to Galway, not toward Dublin?”

  “Or maybe you are expecting more new guests today, arriving from Dublin?” Grandfather asked.

  “Yes,” Erin said, absentmindedly. Then she looked up from the front desk computer. “I mean…no! There are no guests arriving today. Please excuse me.” She rushed around from behind the desk, accidentally knocking over a stack of papers. The children rushed over to help pick them up, but she waved them away. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll get them.” Erin gathered all the papers in her arms and rushed off down the hallway.

  “What was that all about?” Jessie whispered to Violet and the boys.

  They shook their heads, bewildered. Something was definitely bothering Erin, but they had no idea what it could be.

  Grandfather decided to take a nap after breakfast, so the children set out to explore the castle grounds and see if they could learn any more about the figure Jessie had seen through the binoculars. Now that they were sure it wasn’t Erin, they didn’t have any other guesses for who it could be.

  As the day grew warmer, the fog was starting to lift, but it was still too hard to see very far in the distance. The Aldens walked across the broad meadow and entered the woods on the path that cut between the trees. Inside the forest, it was much darker than out in the field. They walked for a few minutes and came to a fork where the path split in two directions.

  “Maybe we should split up,” Jessie said.

  “I don’t know,” Benny said. “What if the banshee is down one of these paths?”

  “He won’t be,” Henry said confidently, “but I still don’t think we should split up. We don’t know these woods at all, and we don’t want anyone to get lost.”

  “I agree,” Violet said, taking Benny’s hand. “Let’s stick together.”

  The children chose the path that curved to the left because it was wider and looked like it had been used more often than the other path. They walked for a few minutes in the quiet, surrounded by green on all sides. The forest floor was covered with ivy and ferns, and the boughs above them were thick with leaves. Moss grew on the tree trunks, so even they were green.

  Just then, they heard a rustling sound off to the side of the path. The Aldens froze, and Benny squeezed Violet’s hand. A creature walked out of the bushes and onto the path in front of them. It was gray, with shaggy fur and a long pink tongue.

  “Is that a…wolf?” Benny asked in a small voice.

  “It’s a dog!” Jessie whispered. “A big dog.” From farther down the path came a call.

  “Arooo,” the voice said. Violet pulled out her camera and scrambled to turn it on.

  The dog responded with its own call. “Awooooo,” the dog wailed. It stepped off the path and bounded through the trees in the direction of the ca
ll before Violet could snap the photo.

  “The wailing we’ve been hearing from our room—it isn’t coming from a banshee,” she said. “It’s coming from a ghost dog!”

  CHAPTER 7

  The Inscription

  As they walked back to the castle, Jessie tried to convince Violet and Benny that what they had seen couldn’t possibly be a ghost dog.

  “Violet, we know ghosts aren’t real,” Jessie said, “so that means that ghost dogs aren’t real either. Anyway, my book on Irish fairy creatures didn’t even mention something like that. If only I could find the book, I could show you!”

  It was starting to sprinkle again, and the children ran the rest of the way up the lane. Inside they took off their jackets and hung them on hooks by the front door.

  “Maybe we can find another book in the library that would give us more information on…whatever that thing was!” Henry said.

  Jessie took a deep breath as they entered the library once more. The room smelled like old books and furniture polish. “It’s hard to feel worried in a room like this,” she said. “It’s the coziest part of the castle.”

  “Look,” Violet said, pointing at the old stone fireplace, where flames crackled on the logs. “Erin even built a fire.”

  Henry stepped closer to the fireplace to warm his hands. He thought for a moment, then said, “Isn’t it strange? Erin said there were no more guests arriving today, but she built this fire, and this morning I saw her checking her email over and over. It really does seem like she is expecting someone. I wonder why she would want to keep that a secret.”

  Jessie nodded. She had been wondering that too.

  The children fanned out across the library in search of clues. Benny pulled down a book about Irish dog breeds and started leafing through it. “Hey!” he said. “I think I found something!”

  He laid the book on the low table between the two couches and pointed to a picture. “Doesn’t that look like the ghost dog we saw?”