Spooky Scarecrow Read online

  They still caused all sorts of trouble, but it was mostly the kind that could be ignored. They liked to steal things, trade things, and perpetrate other petty crimes.

  Murder wouldn’t have been tolerated.

  So far they had kept that agreement, as far as we knew. Other criminals had taken lives in the neighborhood recently, but none of them had been from Down Below.

  I wasn’t the first Garbo family member at Haunted Bluff to fill the liaison’s role. My father had once held it, and reportedly he’d had a very good relationship with Down Below. After he died, the role had eventually fallen to me. I had never thought I’d get the job, and then one day my mother had given it to me.

  I thought I was pretty good at it, but even for me it was difficult to get anyone from Down Below to pay much attention to what I said. Oddly enough, they weren’t fans of authority or compromise. My mom said they were a lot like teenagers.

  I often felt that if I didn’t go down there fairly regularly, they wouldn’t even notice. Well, they might notice enough so that their behavior might get a little worse. Lately, given the season, I hadn’t had much time to go down there at all.

  On top of everything else, Down Below had a printing press that they used to publish the Spooky Times. The newspaper went all over the country to scattered enclaves of supernaturals everywhere. Grant had gone to Arizona a couple of times for work, and the Spooky Times had followed him there.

  The paper reported on all sorts of things, a particular specialty being to make up stories about the witches who lived above Down Below in Haunted Bluff mansion. This annoyed my mother no end, but the Spooky Times had been quiet recently, and I was beginning to think the silence was almost worse.

  Regardless of all that, today was another day when I was just too busy to visit the basement. I missed my friends down there. Peter, an incorrigible skeleton, timid and amusing all at once, had started coming upstairs to help out. But Peter had a lot of responsibility Down Below, so he couldn’t come up and help as much as we would have liked him to.

  Another friend of mine who lived Down Below was a le-haunt by the name of Jefferson Judge. As his last name suggested, he acted as a judge. He was the only honest supernatural in the entire basement. If I knew nothing else about Down Below, I knew that.

  “I think Mama outdid herself this year,” said Lark. We were standing in the haunted house, looking around the space that was usually called the laundry room. Meg had recently taken it up a notch, devising a scene of ghosts through which visitors could filter, opening washers as they went. Each time someone raised a lid, a ghost would pop out and terrify the guests. Somehow the ghosts managed to be very realistic, probably because they were in fact real ghosts.

  “Let’s get back to work,” said Pep, glaring around the room.

  We worked through the afternoon as the gray day got grayer, taking regular breaks to tend the fires we’d lit in the fireplaces around the mansion. The family had to make do with fireplaces; the haunted house was the only part of the mansion that was properly heated. There was no way my mother was going to let paying guests be uncomfortable. Her own family was another matter.

  For most of the cold season—which, given that we lived in Maine, was neither short nor mild—we tried to get away with stoking the fires because it was so much cheaper than turning the heat on. But that meant uneven heat, the more so as the fires died down. Sometimes we got so cold we became foolish.

  I once asked Cookie why we couldn’t just use an enchantment to keep the house warm. She’d been furious with me. That’s not how a real witch behaved, she’d explained crisply.

  I was pretty tired of cleaning when dinner time finally came. The day had already been long, and it was far from over. But at least we had more help coming that evening, and more would arrive in the morning. Then this little family gathering would be complete.

  Dinner was a subdued affair. We three cousins ate alone again, everyone else having cycled in and gotten something to eat before we got there. Everyone, that is, except Cookie, who had demanded that Audrey take her a five-course meal in her room.

  “I could have refused, but then she would have joined us in the kitchen,” said Audrey ruefully as she disappeared with a tray.

  We were just finishing up the lasagna when the doorbell rang.

  “That will be the new recruits,” said Lark. “We’ll run out of rooms in the mansion if we’re not careful.”

  “Mom said her friend Marsha gets the guest room,” I said.

  Lark frowned but nodded. I knew she was a bit worried about the fact that there were a lot of extra supernaturals staying at Haunted Bluff, but it was busy, and we needed them, so that was that.

  The three of us made our way through the grand foyer to the door. Mom was nowhere to be seen, but she had said that we were to greet the guests if she didn’t show up when they arrived.

  Darkness had fallen by the time I opened the door, but the lawn was lit up with torches and I could see Cookie’s cauldron from the doorway. The fire burning beneath it cast an eerie cloud into the air. Several bats swooped overhead and the gargoyles perched on the walls seemed to stand out more than usual.

  All in all, the Garbo mansion was properly spooky.

  “Evening,” said a woman’s voice, bringing me back to the matter at hand.

  I recognized Marsha immediately. She didn’t look that different, even though I hadn’t seen her in at least ten years.

  “Hi, Marsha,” I said. “Thanks so much for coming back. It’s great to see you.”

  Marsha smiled. She was a beautiful older woman with a twinkle lighting her eyes. The supernatural standing next to her, however, could not be described as beautiful. In fact, the skeleton was wide and sagging. His bones clicked in a way that made me flinch, and as he stood there at the door his jaw clattered up and down even though he wasn’t even speaking.

  “Aren’t you going to let a dear friend in the door? Matthew needs to get the weight off his feet,” said Marsha.

  Marsha greeted Pep and Lark just as warmly as she had me. “You’re growing into such lovely young ladies,” she gushed. “I can’t believe it! It feels as if I was here just yesterday.”

  Her long velvet dress scraped the top of her black boots as she carried an old suitcase into the foyer. She was wearing a number of trinkets and jewelry, the overall effect of which might have been to make the average onlooker wonder whether she played a witch on TV. Little did anyone know that she was not a play witch, but a real one.

  “How’s your grandmother doing?” she asked, setting her suitcase down in the hallway.

  “She’s the same as ever. Nothing is going to take her down,” said Lark.

  “I would expect nothing less,” said the skeleton, his jaw clattering even more.

  “I didn’t realize you knew her,” I said.

  “Crescent Garbo is known far and wide,” said Matthew. “That’s why I applied to work at this haunted house instead of the others.”

  “He was really hoping for a professional organization,” Marsha supplied.

  I exchanged looks with my cousins. That was certainly not how I thought of this haunted house, but it wouldn’t do to say so.

  “I’ve heard so much about you three young ladies,” said Marsha warmly.

  I sincerely hoped she was lying, but I didn’t think she was.

  The skeleton stepped forward and extended his claw-like hand to each of us in turn. I shook his hand reluctantly, trying not to show it. The fact that I was a witch didn’t mean I liked all parts of the supernatural world equally much.

  “Marsha!” my mom exclaimed, hurrying down the big staircase at last. She looked happier than I’d seen her in a long time as she threw her arms wide to greet her old friend.

  “So glad you finally returned to Shimmerfield! The holiday season has officially begun!”

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here,” said Marsha. “I didn’t think I’d make it this year, but then my schedule cleared up.
Has anyone else arrived?” she said.

  “Many of the supernaturals have been here for a while. We’re only expecting two more for the holiday season. Clover the traveling salesman and his assistant said they plan on arriving tomorrow. When he arrives, he should have plenty of business through the season.”

  “We’re in full swing here at the haunted house and we can use all the help we can get. Matthew, there’s a skeleton named Steve down that hallway,” said my mom. “He’ll show you to the barn where the other skeletons stay.”

  Matthew the skeleton nodded his head slowly, his jaw no longer clattering, and made his way down the hall to find Steve. Steve would take him to Erika, the leader of the skeletons, who currently represented them at community meetings.

  “Let me show you to your room,” said my mom to Marsha. “We kept one open especially for you.” They sauntered off down the hallway arm in arm, leaving us to decide what to do next.

  Once they were out of sight Lark said, “What do we do now?”

  Pep checked the hall clock. “It’s pretty late. Maybe we should see if there’s any music Down Below, then call it a night? Tomorrow I’d like to go into town and see all the other scarecrows one last time before Ben picks them up. Besides, it’s farmer’s market day. We can pick up some fresh produce to help Audrey out. With everything going on, she’s had to do an awful lot of extra cooking.”

  We agreed to Pep’s plan and made our way into the mail room, where the door to Down Below was located, along with a mailbox that I always checked to see if there was any news from the basement. Sometimes Peter would leave me notes about what needed to be discussed, or things I was supposed to be doing or topics we needed to discuss. As the liaison to Down Below, I tried to respond promptly. I wanted my mother to be proud of my work.

  Tonight there were no messages from Down Below, nor was there a new edition of the Spooky Times. I expected another issue of the paper to drop on us any day, but for now we were spared. With nothing from Down Below to deal with, Pep, Lark, and I agreed to call it a night.

  I said goodnight to my cousins on the fourth floor, where they had their bedrooms. As I made my way up to my room in the fifth floor attic, my mind drifted to what it always did nowadays.

  I wondered how Grant was doing. His Majesty of Magic now lived on the grounds of Haunted Bluff, close by but still very busy with investigations. He had gone out of town recently and was due back any day. My emotions were mixed about his presence. I couldn’t wait for him to get back, but I was also kind of dreading it.

  We had gone on our third date, and that meant only one thing: I was supposed to talk to my mother about our status as a dating witch and warlock. It was now time she knew, if for no other reason than that Cookie knew exactly what was going on. If I let things with Grant go on for too much longer, Cookie would tell my mother about him and me whether I liked it or not, and that would be far worse than telling her myself.

  As I had for the past week, I promised myself that I’d go to the library as soon as I could and do some research on dating rules. One of the magical volumes on witch and warlock customs would surely have some materials about dating. I would remind myself of the conventions, then I’d talk to Mom, but only when I was prepared with as much information as possible.

  The trouble was, I kept putting off doing the research as a way of putting off the conversation with my mother. It wasn’t that I was scared to talk to her. I was terrified.

  My feet were dragging by the time I reached my attic bedroom,. I didn’t even have the energy to talk to Lady Oakley, the ghost who lived with me up there. When I ignored her, she glared at me and went to sulk in a corner. I just changed into sleeping clothes and fell into bed. The attic was freezing, and I had stolen two extra comforters to keep myself warm.

  Chapter Three

  One way to stay warm in a cold bed was to find an animal to sleep with. Since I didn’t have permission for Grant to join me just yet, Rose would have to do. The fluffy white cat liked cheese, mice, and waking me up in the morning by purring in my ear. She usually thought it was acceptable that we share a pillow. That meant I had to be careful how I moved in the night.

  True to form, the white cat was curled against my side when I woke up the next morning. “Are you going to get up?” she asked, looking at me questioningly with her one open eye.

  “It’s too cold,” I grumbled. Not only was Maine not a warm state to begin with, but we lived on the coast. The wind off the ocean was chilly at the best of times, and winter was not one of them, weather-wise.

  “You need fur,” she said.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said dryly. Steeling myself, I threw off the covers and put on two more layers of clothing as fast as I could. Once my feet were stuffed in slippers, I made my way to the bathroom, then headed downstairs.

  The mansion was already coming alive with activity. The haunted house opened earlier than usual during this season and we offered hayrides, candied apples, and fun and games around the grounds until then. My brother took charge of those. All the activity meant that we were all busy all the time.

  “Personally, I can’t believe you’ve been put in charge of anything,” Lark said to Cam as we sat around the kitchen island eating breakfast.

  Cam glared at Lark over his spoon and started his third bowl of cereal. “Don’t see why not,” he said. “I’m perfectly capable of running the hayrides. It’s fun. We even borrowed a horse. We decided not to ask the spiders for help.”

  Pep squirmed. “You wanted hayrides with spiders in place of horses?” she gasped.

  “It would be a talking point, wouldn’t it?” Cam shot back. “I thought it was a good idea. I said the spiders would probably be into it as well. They’d find it amusing, since they never get to work at the haunted house. But Mom said no. She thought it would be a bit much.”

  “I’d have to agree with her on that one,” said Lark, shaking her head. “That would be terrifying.”

  My brother just shrugged. “It’s kind of nice not to be out hunting for once. Everyone’s so busy, there’s no point. Corey is helping me with the details, and Kip is doing a bit of everything.”

  We knew all this, of course. Lizzie was overjoyed to be around the mansion with her crush. She kept following him from place to place, but true to form he hadn’t noticed.

  “What are you three doing today?” Cam asked.

  Pep was so excited, I let her answer.

  “We’re headed into Shimmerfield,” she said. “The farmers market is today, and we need to stop at the post office. Plus, we’ll get a look at the new holiday decorations.”

  Post office was code for checking on the Root of All Evil, the group of supernaturals that had been waging a surreptitious war on Haunted Bluff led by our former longtime butler, Mirrorz the vampire.

  No matter how busy we were, we couldn’t lose sight of the fact that our archenemy was not only still at large, but growing in power. I worried that Mirrorz would take our being busy as a sign that he could do as he pleased. I wanted our presence in Shimmerfield to serve as a warning that in fact he could not.

  “Before we head to town I need to stop in the library,” I told my cousins.

  “Hurry up and get on with it then,” said Pep. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Whoever thought you’d be so excited to see the decorations,” Lark muttered.

  “I like seeing Christmas lights every year. I can’t wait,” said Pep. Lark shook her head again, but Pep paid her no mind.

  I finished my breakfast and excused myself. The library door was closed, but I could feel the heat wafting toward me from under the door. I sighed in relief as I stepped into the warmth. The fireplaces in the library were very good, and the closed door kept heat in the room. The foyer was more like a sieve for warmth. Leaks and cracks around the door and the windows made the space cold.

  Inside the library, the big bank of windows overlooking the lawn was filled with light, so the space was not only warm but
bright.

  “Just going to do a quick mouse check. For your own good of course. Then I’ll be back,” said Rose, who had followed me from the kitchen. Without another word she trotted away.

  I made my way to the reference section. Once a long time ago I had heard Meg talking about a specific reference book on supernatural dating. At the time I had never thought I’d need to read it myself. The idea that I would find a warlock to date was too silly for words.

  Until it wasn’t.

  If I had ever been confused about how broad and strange the supernatural world was, the reference section in our library easily reminded me. There were references to The Great Ghosted Sheet Blanket Fiasco of the Seventies and The Smoked Lily Pads of the Eighties and Beyond. There were references to all kinds of things, but I quickly passed over them all until I finally got to the references about supernaturals themselves. There were entire volumes on all the different ways that vampires can be killed and thick volumes on the evolution of the magical. There were even more volumes on enchantments of all kinds.

  Maybe someday, if I ever had time, I’d come and read some of this information. At the moment I was very busy, so I made myself focus on the task at hand. I moved into the last, darkest, and most cramped corner. Covered with dust and looking as if it had been abandoned, the small green volume I was looking for finally showed itself.

  I glanced over my shoulder but saw no sign of Rose or any other family members. I hurried over to my favorite chair and sat down near the fire. Warm for the first time in ages, I started to leaf through the book, which was called Enchanted Dating in a Magical World: Problems, Rules, and Benefits If You Can Find Them.

  The title did not give me a lot of confidence, but I forged ahead, thoughts of Grant giving me courage.

  I flipped to the first chapter, which was about problems. It was over fifty pages long. For a small book, that was a long chapter. When I saw the words warlock mildew, I decided to skip to the next section, where I found what I’d been looking for at last: directions on exactly how I was supposed to handle my mother according to the formal rules.