From the porch came a cry of delight. Clothing aflutter, Miss Duvall hurried down the steps and threw her arms around the man, almost knocking him flat on his back.
Chester Coakley had arrived.
The Jennings gang poured out of the inn and raced across the grass, calling out greetings. As Miss Duvall introduced them, they formed a respectful circle around Chester Coakley.
Catching sight of Corey and me, Miss Duvall beckoned to us. "Come and meet Chester."
Chester regarded us with the saddest eyes I'd ever seen. His face was long and narrow, and his brow was carved with deep lines. He shook our hands and in a melancholy voice said, "Eleanor has told me all about you."
Turning to Corey, he added, "You are a sensitive, I hear."
For the first time, Corey seemed a little uneasy about her newly acquired psychic powers. With a shrug, she backed away from him.
"Don't be so modest!" Miss Duvall engulfed Corey in a smothering hug. To Chester, she said, "This little girl has witnessed several psychic manifestations. Indeed, I believe she's the catalyst for everything that's happened."
Chester nodded. "The catalyst. Of course. The one who sets everything in motion."
Miss Duvall returned her attention to Corey. "You see, dear, ghosts will not manifest unless someone sensitive to their presence is nearby. Obviously, the inn's previous owners were sensitives, like you. When they left and your very rational grandmother arrived, the ghosts became dormant. Now you're here, and they're once more on the prowl."
Corey shook her head, clearly alarmed.
"Don't be frightened," Miss Duvall said softly. "You have a great gift."
"No," Corey said. "It was a—"
I think Corey would have confessed everything if Grandmother hadn't arrived just then and interrupted her.
Barely concealing her dislike for the newcomer and his vehicle of choice, she gave him a teacher look that once must have terrified her students. "Mr. Chester Coakley, I assume?"
Chester gave a little bow and removed his baseball cap. "At your service, Mrs. Donovan." Grandmother didn't return his smile. "I've given you a room on the second floor. Would you like to see it?"
"Sure—just give me a minute to grab my gear."
With obvious distaste, Grandmother watched Chester pull a tripod, strobe lights, and a camera bag out of the hearse. Miss Duvall took a crate of recording equipment and trudged into the inn behind Chester and Grandmother. The Jennings gang traipsed through the door after them, leaving Corey and me alone in the driveway.
"What a pair of nut cases." Hoping for a laugh, I tried to imitate Miss Duvall and Chester. "Oh, she's a catalyst, there has to be a catalyst."
Corey didn't even smile. Without a word, she turned her back on me and walked away.
"Where are you going?" I called after her.
"To my room. I want to be alone for a while."
I watched her go, hair swinging, shoulders squared, obviously upset. "Don't be stupid," I shouted. "You aren't a catalyst. They're crazy—and so are the Brewsters!"
But she kept going. Didn't look back. Didn't slow down. I could've run after her, but I knew it wouldn't do any good. When Corey got into one of her moods, you just had to wait until she got over it.
Not used to entertaining myself, I wandered around the grounds looking for something to do. I tried batting a tennis ball against the wall, but I kept missing it. I went inside and played a video game. I read a few pages of a Harry Potter book I'd already read three times. I started a crossword puzzle, but it was too hard.
Too lazy to put on my bathing suit and swim, I went back outside and walked through the garden to the place where I'd found the row of stones. I stared down at them, still puzzled.
Suddenly, a shadow fell across the weeds. Mr. Brewster stood a few feet away, blocking the sun. "What are you doing here?"
From the way he said it, you would've thought I'd climbed over a fence and trespassed on his own private land.
Instead of answering his question, I asked him one of my own. "What are these stones for? Why do they have numbers on them?"
He studied me as if I were a subspecies of the human race that should be extinct by now. "There's copperheads round here. Lots of 'em. Best stay away lest you get bit."
I looked at the mass of weeds and brambles growing over everything. Mr. Brewster had a point. It was snake territory, for sure.
I followed him back to the inn. "You didn't answer my question."
"You didn't answer mine," he said.
"But don't you wonder about those stones? Somebody went to a lot of trouble to line them up and write numbers on them."
"Whoever done it's dead and gone." Mr. Brewster stopped and scowled at me from under his bushy eyebrows. "Told you before. Leave things be that don't concern you."
With that, he walked a little faster, as though he was anxious to get rid of me. I slowed down and let the gap between us widen. Grumpy old man. Grandmother should fire both of the Brewsters. Surely she could find a good-natured hired man and a cook even better than Mrs. Brewster—people who might smile once in a while.
Although—or maybe because—Miss Duvall and Chester were looking for her, Corey stayed in her room until dinner.
I knocked on her door once, but she told me to go away. "I'm reading," she said.
"Is it a good book?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What's the title?"
"Go away."
I took her advice and left without even making a joke about a book called Go Away. In her present, very bad, mood, Corey wouldn't have been amused.
By dinnertime, the inn was full, and Tracy had to rush from table to table, taking orders, bringing food, and refilling water glasses.
Miss Duvall and Chester were holding forth at the Jenningses' table, describing their methods of discovering and recording ghostly presences.
Grandmother gave Chester a dark look. "Imagine a grown man driving around in a hearse, pretending to be a ghost hunter. Surely he can't earn a living doing that." She sighed. "Then again, maybe he can. Some people will believe anything."
For once, Corey had nothing to say. Still in her mood, she sipped her water and poked at the food on her plate, rearranging it instead of eating it.
"You're very pale," Grandmother said to her. "Do you feel all right?"
Corey shrugged. "I'm fine. Just not hungry."
Across the room, Chester's voice rose. "I tell you, the little girl's responsible. It's the same with poltergeists. They feed off the psychic energy of young people. Especially if the child is disturbed."
Chester had lowered his voice somewhat, but all three of us heard his last comment.
Corey looked at Grandmother, alarmed. "I'm not disturbed," she whispered.
Grandmother opened her mouth to speak, but I was too fast for her. Thinking to turn Chester's words into a joke, I said, "Of course you're disturbed, I've known that since the day Mom brought you home from the loony bin."
Grandmother stared at me, her face stern with anger. "That wasn't funny, Travis. Can't you see your sister's upset? Apologize for your insensitivity."
Before I had a chance to say anything, Corey jumped up from the table so hastily she overturned her chair. Without a word, she fled from the room.
Chester turned to us in dismay. "I'm so sorry," he said, "I didn't mean Corey's disturbed. I just—"
Grandmother rose to her feet with all the dignity of thirty years of teaching and stared the man down. "Please refrain from discussing the supernatural in Corey's presence. And mine and Travis's as well. This is our home, not a boardinghouse for ghosts."
With that, she hurried after my sister.
Tracy broke the embarrassed silence by entering the room with the dessert cart. Unaware of what had just happened, she moved among the tables, describing the evening's choices: apple pie à la mode, peach upside-down cake, crème brûlée, and "Death by Chocolate."
I guess if Tracy hadn't come along with the cart, I might
have run after Grandmother and Corey, but who can turn down the world's best chocolate cake? Not me.
No sooner had I taken the first bite than Chester and Miss Duvall joined me. "Do you mind?" Chester asked as they sat down.
Of course I minded, but I was too polite to say so. Wimp that I was, I swallowed my mouthful of cake and smiled.
"Is your sister all right?" Miss Duvall asked. "Chester didn't mean to hurt her feelings. He was speaking in general of children who cause psychic manifestations, especially poltergeist activity."
"I don't suppose Corey has a history of shaking beds, broken furniture, loud noises, flying objects, rappings and tappings, and so on?" Chester asked.
"My sister is not disturbed." I glared at the man, sitting there in his dopey cap, wearing his dopey T-shirt. Suddenly, I hated him and his gray ponytail and his hearse. I decided to tell him the truth—maybe he'd go away and take the Jennings gang with him. If these were the kind of guests who came to the inn to see ghosts, I'd like to see the end of them.
"Corey's not psychic," I said in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear. "If you want to know the truth, she and I—"
Before I could confess, Miss Duvall interrupted me. "I am so sorry, Travis. Chester has an unfortunate habit of asking thoughtless questions."
Here she broke off and scowled at Chester. He merely shrugged and leaned back in his chair, grinning in such a vacant way I wondered if he was on some kind of medication.
"As for Corey's psychic powers," she went on to me, "I've been in this field long enough to recognize the real thing."
I laughed. "You're wrong. Corey and I faked everything."
Miss Duvall gave me a long, thoughtful look. "No," she said. "You and your sister may have begun this as a game, but the ghosts are awake now. Putting them back to sleep will not be easy."
A twinge of alarm raced across my scalp. "Putting them back to sleep will not be easy" echoed Mrs. Brewster's words from this morning a little too closely. Suppose everyone was right, and we actually had woken the ghosts of Fox Hill?
I must have kept my fear to myself, for Miss Duvall got to her feet and beckoned to Chester. "We have equipment to set up in the grove."
"You and your sister are welcome to join us," Chester said.
"Thanks," I said. But no thanks. Watching them leave the room, I told myself they were crazy. But an annoying little voice whispered, "What if they're not?"
7
The Jennings gang followed Miss Duvall and Chester, twittering about the grove and what they might see.
Mrs. Jennings paused and smiled at me. "I know you're a skeptic, Travis, but I hope you and Corey will join us tonight. Eleanor is convinced we'll have a better chance of seeing the ghost if your sister's with us."
"Don't count on it," I told her.
Mrs. Jennings sighed. "Chester was very tactless at dinner, but then I suppose that's how it is when you're a genius. The ordinary rules don't apply." With another smile and a pat on my shoulder, she hastened after the others, leaving a trail of sickeningly sweet perfume behind her.
Across the room, Tracy cleared tables. The setting sun shone through the windows and backlit her hair, making it shine like fine threads of gold.
She turned and caught me staring at her. "What do you think of Chester and Eleanor?" she asked.
"Bona fide nut cases, both of them."
With a serious face, she set her heavy tray on my table. "If you'd been in the grove last night, you wouldn't sound so smug."
More embarrassed than smug, I scraped the last bit of chocolate icing from my plate and licked it off my fork, tine by tine. "It's all fake," I said. "Corey and I wanted to make people think the inn was haunted so Grandmother would get more guests. She dressed up like a ghost and—"
Tracy shoved her face so close to mine we were almost nose to nose. Which would have been a thrill if she hadn't been so mad. "There was something in the grove last night—and it wasn't Corey!"
She snatched up my plate and fork, dumped them on her tray with a clatter, and huffed out of the dining room.
There I was, all by myself, surrounded by empty tables covered with dirty linen and crumpled napkins. It was obvious Tracy was never going to be my girlfriend. Not only was I tactless and offensive, but I was shorter and younger than she was.
"It was your imagination," I called after her, but the only answer I got was the whop, whop, whop of the kitchen door swinging back and forth.
"But what if it wasn't?" the little voice asked, a little louder this time. "What if ... What if...?"
Exasperated, I tossed my napkin on the table and went to find Corey. I wished we'd never thought of the ghost game.
As it turned out, Corey agreed with me. I finally found her sitting on the patio in the dark all by herself. At first she refused to look at me or answer any questions.
"Why are you mad at me?" I asked her. "What did I do?"
She turned to face me. "I told you I wanted to read, but you made funny noises outside my door, threw apples at my window, and thumped on my wall. You even unplugged my light and my radio and changed the time on my clock."
I stared at her. "Are you crazy? I knocked on your door once, and you told me to go away and I did. I never made funny noises or threw apples or thumped on your wall or anything."
"Then who did? Mr. Brewster?"
"Corey, I swear to you I did not do that stuff."
"Oh," she said sarcastically, "then it must have been the ghost."
We looked at each other in the moonlight, electrified by the same thought.
"No joke," I whispered.
"No." Corey folded her arms across her chest and shivered. "No joke."
Delicate shadows from the wisteria vine patterned the table and Corey's face, shifting as the breeze blew. From somewhere in the darkness, an owl hooted and another answered. Much closer, I heard something that sounded like a muffled giggle.
"Did you hear that?" I whispered.
Corey shuddered. "A mouse," she said. "A cat, a bird. Nothing to be scared of."
"Admit it," I said. "You are scared—and so am I."
She shook her head stubbornly. "Speak for yourself." At the same moment, we heard a whispering sound in the bushes and then the giggle—louder this time, followed by an eddy of cold air that tousled my hair and then Corey's.
My sister jumped to her feet. "Let's go inside."
The two of us ran to the inn and dashed through the kitchen door, sure we were being chased by an invisible gang of ghosts.
Mrs. Brewster was scrubbing the sink. She frowned when the screen door slammed shut. "What's the big rush?" she asked. "A person would think something was after you."
Neither Corey nor I knew what to say. We just stood and stared at Mrs. Brewster, wishing we were safely home in New York or even at Camp Willow Tree—anywhere but here.
"I thought you two were out there with them so-called psychics." She waved a hand in the direction of the grove, where flashlights bobbed about in the dark. "They're aiming to take pictures of things that don't want their pictures taken," she muttered.
Grandmother opened the door to her apartment and poked her head into the kitchen. "Corey and Travis," she said, "it's time you were in bed."
At that moment, the power went off, and the inn became totally dark and silent—no lights, no radios, no humming refrigerator. Not a sound.
"Go get Henry," Grandmother told Mrs. Brewster. "The power's out again. I meant to get the wiring checked the last time this happened."
Grandmother had no sooner lit a candle than we heard a commotion outside—shouts, screams, the sound of people running toward us as if they feared for their lives.
Tripping over each other in their haste to get inside, the Jennings gang poured into the kitchen. Behind them, Chester was yelling, "We got an image!"
Grandmother closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't believe this." In a louder voice, she repeated herself. "I do not believe this."
&nbs
p; Someone giggled, and Grandmother glared at me, her face stern in the candlelight. "This isn't funny, Travis!"
"I didn't laugh."
The guests milled around the kitchen, stumbling over things in the darkness. "Why are the lights off?" Mrs. Jennings cried.
"Please turn them on," Mrs. Frothingham begged. "We've had a terrible scare."
"Serves you right, you silly old scaredy cat," someone whispered, causing an outburst of giggles.
"Travis, apologize at once!" Grandmother said, shocked.
"It wasn't me!"
"I don't care who said it," Mrs. Frothingham cried. "Just turn the lights back on."
"I'm sorry, but the power's off." Grandmother lit more candles. As the kitchen brightened, something scurried into the shadows, too quickly to be seen.
"I can fix tea," Grandmother offered.
Some wanted tea. Others wanted something stronger. Two or three wanted to leave the inn at once.
The only ones in need of nothing were Eleanor Duvall and Chester Coakley. They were ecstatic. Not only had they seen something, but they'd captured its image on video.
"See?" Chester showed us a grainy image in the camera's monitor. Whatever it was wore a long dress and its hair was loose, but its face was too blurred to make out any features. "She came like a blast of cold air," Miss Duvall said. "Silent, not a sound, but emanating malice."
"You probably saw the strobes light up," Chester put in. "She tripped the wires like I hoped and triggered the camera. It's the best paranormal experience I've ever had—and the best footage I've ever shot. Or seen, for that matter."
Mrs. Jennings clutched her teacup with shaking hands. "I'm very glad you children were not with us," she quavered. "I'll never get another good night's sleep."
Her friends nodded and cooed to each other in soft, comforting voices. Mrs. Frothingham sobbed into a wineglass. The wives were done with ghosts. No one wanted to see another one. In fact, they wished they hadn't seen the one they just saw.