Ghost Invasion Read online

  Kate was reaching for the nearest photo album when Aurora grabbed her hand and pulled it back. “No,” she said. “Not yet. Here she comes.” And a second later Mrs. A. came back into the room carrying a tray.

  “Here we are,” she said. “Now if you’d just push those albums over a bit, Aurora, I’ll put the tray down right here where we can all reach it.”

  As Kate watched, Aurora reached out quickly and moved the stack of heavy leather-covered books to one side of the coffee table. After she moved them she took her hands and eyes away very slowly, as if she were trying to get a message right through the leather covers. And later while Mrs. A. was passing around cookies and cider and chattering away about the things her kids used to do on Halloween, Aurora’s eyes kept going back to the albums.

  Kate sipped her apple cider and nibbled a cookie, listening to Mrs. A. and watching Aurora. Finally Mrs. A. seemed to notice too.

  “Aurora,” she said, “you seem to be interested in my albums. Do you like to look at family photographs?”

  Aurora’s enormous gray eyes turned toward Mrs. A. and her solemn face glowed into a smile. “Oh yes,” she said. “I do. I love to look at photographs. Especially old ones. We both love to look at old photos. Don’t we, Kate?”

  “Yes. Yes. We really do,” Kate said eagerly. “Looking at old photos is one of our favorite hobbies.”

  Mrs. A. put down her glass of cider and reached for one of the albums. “Well, in that case,” she said, “you might enjoy seeing this. There are some very old pictures in this album. Anderson family pictures that date back past the turn of the century. Even a few old tintypes. Here we are. Perhaps if you’d move over just a bit, so I could sit between you …”

  So Mrs. A. sat between Kate and Aurora and turned the pages of the album, and they looked at old pictures. Lots of them. At first Kate was very interested, but there were an awful lot of people in the pictures who couldn’t possibly have been Addie, and after a while they all began to look alike.

  There were lots of pictures of wives in long, high-necked dresses standing stiffly beside stiffly seated husbands. Also lots of pictures of stiff-looking babies in long white dresses. Not to mention dozens of big family groups where rows of people of all ages posed stiffly in long straight lines. Looking at so many pictures began to give Kate a stiff neck.

  There were a few interesting possibilities—portrait-type pictures of young women. But none of them were named Addie. Kate knew they weren’t because all the pictures were carefully labeled. There were Marys and Ediths and Bridgets and Augustas and lots of others, but not a single Addie among them.

  In between looking at all the pictures, Kate watched Aurora because she was sure Aurora would know if something important turned up. But, for a long time, Aurora didn’t say or do anything special. She did look at one photograph for a long time, but it was just a picture of a little girl about ten or twelve years old sitting on a big horse. And her name was Liza. “Liza on Champion” it said under the picture.

  “Who is Liza?” Aurora said.

  “Who was Liza?” Mrs. A. asked. “Oh yes. I believe she would have been my husband’s aunt, but I don’t think he even remembers her. She died quite young, as I recall.”

  “But she loved horses?” Aurora asked.

  “Loved horses?” Mrs. A. looked at the picture of the little girl on the big horse. “Why, yes, I suppose she did. If I remember correctly she had a serious illness as a young child and lost her hearing completely. And after that, since she wasn’t able to talk to people, she spent all her time with animals. Particularly with the horses.”

  “Liza,” Aurora said. She stared at the picture for quite a while, but at last she let Mrs. A. turn the page, and they went on looking at other boring pictures.

  Kate was feeling more frustrated all the time. Here they were sitting indoors on Halloween night looking at old pictures because they were hoping to find one of Addie before she was a ghost. But there didn’t seem to be an Addie in the whole book. As Mrs. A. turned the pages more and more slowly and went on talking and talking, Kate tried to get Aurora’s attention. If Aurora would just look up she could make a bored face and nod toward the door. But Aurora wouldn’t lift her eyes from the pages of the album. At last Kate decided to take charge on her own, just to get things moving.

  “Isn’t there a picture of Addie anywhere in there?” she asked.

  Mrs. A. looked puzzled. “Of me?” she asked. “My given name is Adelaide, you know.”

  Kate ignored Aurora’s warning frown. “Yes, I know that,” she said. “But I didn’t mean you. I meant another Addie who lived a long time ago.” Kate gave Aurora a “try and stop me” look. “I mean, the one who had a boyfriend who was a bandit.”

  Mrs. A. looked puzzled. “I don’t know of any other Addie,” she said. “Or anyone who had a …” She paused for a minute and then went on. “Who told you about this Addie and her boyfriend, Kate? It wasn’t … it wasn’t our Bettina, was it?”

  Kate looked at Aurora, asking for her help, but Aurora’s face said something like “You got yourself into this mess. It’s your problem.” That made Kate even angrier. All right. If Aurora wouldn’t help out, she would decide what to tell all by herself, and she’d tell everything—if she wanted to. Everything they knew about Addie and the bandit.

  So she did. All about what Bettina had said about the two ghosts and how they were the ghosts of Addie and her boyfriend. And how the boyfriend had been shot, and perhaps Addie had too. When she finished, Mrs. A. was smiling. A strange, sad-looking smile.

  She sighed. “Bettina,” she said and sighed again. “I’m afraid Bettina is a great storyteller.”

  Kate stared at Mrs. A. and then at Aurora and then back at Mrs. A. “You mean,” she said finally, “that Bettina just made up all that stuff—about the ghosts and everything?”

  Mrs. A. nodded. “I’m afraid so. I think she just wanted to upset you. I’m afraid Bettina likes to be upsetting.”

  Kate didn’t know what to say. What she wanted to say was “But there is a ghost in the old barn. Aurora knew there was one before we even met Bettina. And Aurora knows about things like that.” Instead she just shrugged and said, “Yeah. Well, I guess I knew that Bettina was joking. I kind of thought it was just a joke.”

  That was all she said out loud, but inside she was thinking a lot of other things. One of the things she was thinking was that she was angry—and getting angrier every minute. She was angry at Bettina for lying to them. And she was angry at Mrs. A. for keeping them there looking at her boring old pictures when they could have been out trick-or-treating. But most of all she was angry at Aurora for not telling her that there wasn’t any Addie ghost, because she must have known all along. Aurora always knew about things like that.

  Chapter 14

  WHILE KATE AND AURORA were hiding behind the shrubbery and then being caught by Mrs. A., the rest of the Castle Court trick-or-treaters were leaving the cul-de-sac and heading down Beaumont Avenue. And by the time the girls were sitting on Mrs. A.’s sofa looking at old photos, the Castle Court gang were knocking on doors up and down the avenue—and beginning to run into bunches of kids from other neighborhoods. Before long the gang started to look more like a swarm.

  Ari couldn’t keep track of everyone. There were now at least three Fred Flintstones in the mob, although he was still the only one in an angora goatskin. There were a couple of new gypsy girls, too, and so many ghosts he lost count.

  Halfway down the sidewalk to the third house he stopped and looked around anxiously. He’d just realized he hadn’t seen Kate and Aurora for quite a while. They might still be around, mixed up with the confusing mob of masked and costumed trick-or-treaters. Or they might have already split off from the group and headed for the barn.

  He gave up on Kate and Aurora then and started to look for Web and Carson, but for quite a while he couldn’t find them either. Once when he grabbed a ghost and said, “Stay with me, Carson. We have to stay close togethe
r,” a girl’s voice said, “Hey, back off, you nerd. My name isn’t Carson.”

  The whole mob had straggled up to two or three more houses before Ari finally located the right ghost and astronaut. “We’re going to have to leave,” he whispered urgently. “Right away.”

  “I know,” Web whispered back. “We should have gone before this, but I lost you back there. We’re going to have to get going or it will be too late.” He glanced up at the darkening sky. “It’s just about time—right now. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Ari nodded. Grabbing Carson’s arms, they pulled him back behind a fence and waited for the last few trick-or-treaters to move on down the sidewalk. Then they ran back toward Castle Court, dragging Carson between them.

  All the way back down the sidewalk and across the court Ari was wondering about Kate and Aurora. They must have left the group some time ago, and by now they had probably reached the barn. And that might be a big problem unless … unless he could get Web and Carson to be very quiet. But Web and Carson might not be quiet enough if they didn’t have a good reason to be. Particularly Web. Web liked to have good reasons for everything he did.

  They had crossed the Andersons’ yard and were safely into the deep shadows of the forest before Ari decided what to do. He would tell Web and Carson the truth. Or at least part of it.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “I have to tell you something before we go in the barn.”

  Web stopped. “Okay. What?” he said.

  “Well, somebody else might be there already. I mean, it might be Kate and Aurora. They were planning to come here tonight too.”

  “Kate?” Carson sounded horrified. “She won’t let me. Kate won’t let me do it.”

  “Yeah, I suppose not. But don’t worry, I’ve got it all figured out so she won’t see us. At least not until we’re all finished. If we don’t have to climb up the ladder they won’t even know we’re there because they’ll probably be in that big stall right next to the ladder. That’s where they usually go.”

  “But I have to go up in the loft,” Carson said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Ari said. “I know you do. But you don’t have to go up the ladder. The way Web and I have it figured out, you won’t have to go anywhere near that big stall. Right, Web?”

  Web nodded doubtfully. “Yes,” he said. “If it works.”

  “It will work,” Ari said. “But the thing is, we’re going to have to be very quiet when we go in. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Web and Carson whispered, and they started toward the barn again—on tiptoe. They were almost to the door when Web stopped and whispered, “Why? I mean why are Kate and Aurora going to be here?”

  That was the question Ari had hoped he wouldn’t have to answer.

  “Well.” Ari was trying to come up with a better way to put it, but he couldn’t think of a thing. Finally he gave up and said, “I guess they think there are going to be some ghosts in the barn tonight. But we don’t have to worry about stuff like that. I mean, you don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

  Web shook his head uncertainly.

  “How about you?” Ari asked Carson. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

  Carson shook his head and then nodded. “Don’t I?” he said.

  Chapter 15

  CARLOS FELT DUMB IN the crummy tramp outfit. And when a little kid dressed like a bumblebee asked him when he was going to put his costume on, he felt even dumber.

  “This is my costume,” he told Athena. She was wearing a mask, but you could tell it was Athena by the ponytail. “Why don’t you go put yours on?”

  She glared at him. Even with a mask on you could tell that Athena was glaring. Her lower lip poked out and her chin quivered. “You’re a creep,” she said, and then she ran off to where her sister and Karate Kate were standing. It was easy to tell that it was Kate and Aurora. Nobody had hair like Aurora’s and almost nobody had muscles like Kate’s. Except, of course, Bucky. Right at that moment when Carlos was thinking about Bucky’s muscles somebody punched Carlos in the ribs so hard it almost knocked the air out of him. It was Bucky, of course. Who else?

  “Look, there they are,” Bucky whispered, nodding toward the two girls. “Wooee. Are we going to give them an exciting evening.”

  “Yeah, I guess we are,” Carlos said.

  “Well, keep an eye on them,” Bucky said. “You too, Eddy. So we’ll know when they leave to go to the barn. We’ll wait till they go and then we’ll split right afterwards.”

  Eddy said he would and so did Carlos, but it turned out to be harder than you might think. What they hadn’t counted on was running into the big gang of Beaumont Avenue kids as soon as they left the cul-de-sac. Another thing they hadn’t counted on was some typical Brockhurst behavior. They should have but they didn’t. They didn’t realize that Bucky was going to insist that everybody play Bucky Wins all the way down the avenue. Whether they wanted to or not. Bucky never played anything but Bucky Wins if he could help it.

  The problem was that you-know-who had to be at the head of the line at every house they came to so he could have his pick of the goodies. Whenever he saw a bunch of kids heading toward a different front door, he had to get to the head of the line—no matter how many people were in the way and how many little kids he had to tromp on to get there. Which meant Eddy and Carlos were pretty busy just keeping track of Bucky.

  It wasn’t until they’d gone almost two blocks down Beaumont Avenue that Carlos realized he hadn’t seen an ancient Greek and a muscle-bound gypsy for quite a while. Grabbing Eddy, he pulled him aside and whispered, “Hey, have you seen Kate and Aurora lately? I haven’t.”

  Eddy was looking worried. “No. I haven’t. I’ll bet they’ve already split. We better tell Bucky.”

  But where was he? Just then they heard a big commotion up ahead, and sure enough, there was Bucky having a shoving match with Elvis Presley. Elvis was actually Gabe, of course, Carlos’s thirteen-year-old brother, one of the people who was supposed to be in charge.

  “Quit crowding in, Brockhurst,” Gabe was yelling, and Bucky was yelling a lot of other stuff back at him. Carlos and Eddy looked at each other and started to run.

  They got to where the shoving match was going on just as Bucky started to take a swing at Gabe, but when they grabbed his arms he let himself be pulled away.

  “Hey, cool it,” Carlos whispered in his ear. “We have to go. Kate and Aurora split a long time ago.”

  That brought Bucky back to his senses, or at least partway. But all the way back down the avenue he kept gloating about how he’d gotten all the best stuff and didn’t have to settle for any of that healthy junk. He didn’t really get tuned in to what they were doing until they were sneaking across backyards in Castle Court heading for Carlos’s backyard.

  Just the way they’d planned, they changed into their real costumes in the Garcias’ pool house. Bucky had a complete skeleton outfit. And not your ordinary bare-bones skeleton either. The bones painted on the black stocking suit looked as if they still had blood and rotting flesh attached to them, and so did the rubber skull that went over his head.

  Eddy had a long black cape and a Dracula vampire mask with long bloody fangs. Carlos was more of a werewolf. His rubber mask had hairy ears and long bloody fangs, and there were rubber gloves that made his hands look like huge paws with long bloody claws.

  It took a while for them to get into all the stuff, but when they finally were ready to go Bucky lined them up in front of the mirror in the pool house dressing room and laughed his most fiendish “He, he, he.”

  “Wait till old Karate Kate gets a load of this,” he said. “She’ll probably freak out so bad they’ll have to put her back together with Krazy Glue.”

  Carlos looked in the mirror. He opened and shut his werewolf mouth and flexed his bloody claws. He had to admit they looked pretty impressive. All three of them.

  They started off across Prince Field, climbing over the fences on either side. That slowed them down a bit b
ecause Eddy’s cape kept getting hung up on fence posts, and Bucky lost his skull once when he tripped doing a high-hurdle-type jump.

  Sneaking through the Andersons’ yard made Carlos a little nervous. There was a jack-o’-lantern burning on the front porch, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had suddenly come out to check on it or to watch for trick-or-treaters. It wasn’t until they finally reached the safety of the pine forest that Carlos allowed himself a deep breath of air.

  “Okay. We made it,” Bucky whispered. “Remember. We go in very quietly until we see them. No moaning or growling until we see the whites of their eyes.”

  The old barn was very near now, a huge black shadow looming up in the twilight gloom. Suddenly, as one person, they came to a stop—looking and listening. Dark shadows seemed to squirm like living things across the barn’s gray walls, and a soft moan drifted through the air. A moan that maybe was just the wind, or possibly—something else.

  Bucky shrugged and tried for a grin that didn’t quite come off. “The wind,” he said. “It’s just the wind.”

  “Yeah,” Eddy agreed. “Just the wind.”

  They stood there looking at the barn and then at each other’s gruesome masked faces. “Uh, what did the thing you found say—I mean about ghosts?” Eddy asked finally.

  Bucky made a gulping noise before he answered, “Oh, you mean the little nerd’s notebook? Well, it said that some people got killed in the barn a long time ago, and ever since then their ghosts come back on Halloween. It said the ghosts would be there on Halloween.” Bucky’s laugh had a hollow sound. “But you don’t believe stuff like that, do you? I sure as hell don’t.”

  “No.” Eddy shook his head, and Carlos did, too, but right at that moment he wasn’t too sure he meant it. Nobody moved.