Spooky Skeleton Read online

  “What if you needed a rush job?” Pep asked.

  “He didn’t like those, but you could call and ask and see what he’d say. Same deal. Drop it off and come back in an hour,” she explained.

  “What if you wanted a price quote before he did the work?” I asked.

  “Elton was always the most reasonable mechanic in the area. Given that he was never seen, I doubt he spent his money on much.”

  “I’ve heard of him. We never get our car fixed, though,” said Lark.

  “I noticed,” said Wallis with significance.

  Lark clapped her mouth shut. We never fixed the car because we always just performed an enchantment on it instead.

  “Elton was murdered how?” said Cookie.

  The crowd around us was shifting a bit. We were keeping our voices low and most people were trying to hear what the police standing at the end of the driveway were saying. There was activity at the mechanic’s place, and everyone was waiting to hear what was going on.

  “Pipe hit over the head. Sounds brutal,” said Wallis with relish.

  “That’s awful,” Pep confirmed.

  “Can’t see why anyone would want to marry a recluse,” mused Wallis.

  “Do you know where he lived?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t. I imagine the police are trying to figure that out as well. My understanding was that his mailing address was the shop,” she said.

  “Maybe he lived there,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” said Wallis.

  Already Cookie was backing away. I couldn’t understand why.

  “Thanks for the information,” said Cookie.

  Wallis, whose eyes were now glued to the police, looked at her in surprise. She clearly wasn’t going to move until they made an announcement, but she was still curious about what Cookie was up to.

  “Sure thing. Leaving so soon? We don’t know anything yet,” she said.

  “Going back to our perch,” confirmed Cookie.

  Lark, Pep, and I were reluctant to follow our grandmother. Pep was especially irritated, though she did follow along as we headed back to the car. When we were almost there Cookie paused and looked over her shoulder, then kept walking a bit before spinning around and getting on her tiptoes to look over the whole scene.

  Lark and I both tried to ask her what she was doing, but she shushed us with an irritated hand and pointed toward the woods.

  At first none of us understood what she meant. Rolling her eyes, she pushed us out of the way and went in that direction herself.

  We understood that we were supposed to follow her again, and again we did so reluctantly.

  “Why don’t I ever wear the right footwear at the right time?” breathed Pep once we were a good way into the thick branches.

  Cookie seemed to be intentionally taking us though the thickest part of the forest. We held branches for each other and stepped carefully to avoid tripping over hidden branches and rocks.

  “Where are we going?” Pep demanded.

  “You’ll see,” said Cookie.

  We went further and further into the woods, not moving very fast. Cookie was spry enough, but this was a long walk for her. Eventually she started to slow down and look tired, and finally she stopped. We had cleared the thickest part of the forest and were now back in a more open area.

  “I think it’s this way,” Cookie murmured as if to herself. “It’s been so long since I came by.”

  Then she continued forward even more carefully than before, veering to the right. We had long ago stopped hearing noises from the police and the watching townsfolk.

  We continued to follow my grandmother, but I still had no idea what the woman had up her sleeve. Shimmerfield had a lot more land than people, including acres upon acres that were technically part of the town but covered not in house lots but in field or forest.

  Cookie started tapping her cane against trees, just one or two taps at a time, as if she wanted to assure herself that the ground was solid.

  “Okay, stop! This is ridiculous. I’m getting blisters! We’ve gone far enough,” said Pep, coming to a halt.

  Cookie ignored her and kept going. After taking a second to think about it, Pep decided she didn’t want to be left alone in the woods. There wasn’t really another choice. It wasn’t as if she was going to stop the old woman from doing exactly what she wanted.

  Just then we turned again, making our way around one particularly wide tree. And there, hidden deep in the middle of the woods, was a rather large house with a small front porch.

  It was in good condition, and it had obviously been created to blend in with its surroundings. It was painted brown with green trim, and it blended so well with the trees that it wasn’t that easy to see even when you were looking right at it.

  “Wow,” breathed Lark.

  Cookie had also finally paused. Whoever owned this house was also a fan of Halloween, judging by the fact that there was a skeleton leaning against the front door that had never been put away after the holiday.

  “How did you know this house was here?” I asked.

  “I’m a powerful witch who has lived in this town for far longer than you’ve been alive. I know things, especially about these woods,” Cookie said, more distracted than usual.

  Suddenly, everything made sense. The murdered mechanic didn’t live above his shop. He lived here. “Is this Elton’s house?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact it is,” she said.

  “You knew him?” I demanded.

  Cookie pursed her old, cracked lips. “I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that. We certainly met at one point.”

  “Thanks. That explains so much,” I said dryly.

  Chapter Four

  As we moved, we continued to discuss the house.

  “I don’t think the police will find this place today. Maybe in the next few days. It depends on how many officers they assign to searching the woods. Still, we don’t want to take our time. Let’s look around and get back out of here,” said Cookie.

  Already she was walking toward the house, but it took me a minute to really grasp what she had just said. Once I did I was very concerned.

  “You aren’t going to tell the police yourself?” I asked.

  “Certainly not. I’m not a sharing sort of person,” she said.

  As I debated with my grandmother, I was also busy taking in our surroundings. At first the oddities about this place didn’t register, but as we got closer to the front door, I started to notice things.

  For starters, there was no driveway.

  That made sense, because if there had been a driveway it would have been easier for people to find the house. As it stood, the only way to get there was to stumble upon it while walking in the woods. Given how unpleasant the walk had been, I wasn’t surprised that nobody seemed to have bothered.

  A driveway would also have increased the chance that someone would drive to Elton’s house accidentally. Given that we were dealing with a determined recluse, I wasn’t surprised that he wanted to discourage that as well.

  The front steps were just big enough to let us pass in single file. As we did, the skeleton sat unmoving.

  My grandmother tried the door. It was, of course, locked.

  “I don’t think we should be doing this. If somebody takes their privacy so seriously that they don’t have a driveway, I’m sure breaking into that person’s house is a terrible idea,” said Pep.

  “He would rather have me come here than anybody else. I promise you that. Whatever locks he has on the door, I’m sure I can break them,” said Cookie.

  “Because you’re a powerful witch and all of that?” Lark asked.

  “Because of all of that, yes,” said Cookie impatiently.

  Pep was still looking around nervously, while I found myself marveling at how difficult it would have been to build a solidly constructed house of this size in the middle of the woods without being able to drive a vehicle anywhere near it. Where had the long boards come fr
om? The stones? All of the other details of finishing and furnishing?

  “This guy must have been in pretty good shape,” said Lark, clearly thinking along the same lines.

  Meanwhile, Cookie whispered an enchantment. The door started to smoke, then to shake and rattle. The three of us jumped off the stairs. Whatever damage Cookie was about to do, it wasn’t going to be to my face. As the one who had performed the enchantment, she should be all right even if there was a blast.

  Just when I thought that the door was going to explode, it swung open instead.

  “There. That wasn’t so difficult, now, was it?” Cookie asked.

  “It really does depend entirely on who you ask,” Pep muttered.

  Without bothering to respond, my grandmother strolled into the house that she had just broken into.

  My cousins and I exchanged glances. Unsurprisingly, the outcome was not in doubt. We followed our grandmother inside.

  The house was a series of small rooms, with one big room in the back that had obviously functioned as a kitchen and a dining room combined. The decorating was sparse, but Elton had somehow managed to get a couch out here into the wilderness. Yet another impressive achievement.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” I asked.

  “Papers that look expensive. I don’t suppose they’ll just appear, but you never know,” said Cookie. She went so far as to lift the cushions on the chairs and peer under them. She clearly thought that whoever lived here had something to hide.

  I was beginning to think she was right.

  We searched for a while, finding nothing of interest. Once we were satisfied that there wasn’t anything on the first floor, we headed upstairs.

  “I can’t believe someone just put this house together by himself,” said Lark.

  “It does seem impossible, doesn’t it?” Pep agreed.

  “How else would it have worked, though?” I mused.

  “Answer that and we’ll know a lot more,” said Cookie.

  The upstairs was one large open space, as if the builder had gotten bored or run out of energy and hadn’t finished the second floor. The space was filled with boxes.

  It was only from the upstairs that I could see the back of the house, through the one window that looked out in the opposite direction from where we’d come. I hurried over and peered out.

  “What do you suppose he has such a tall fence for?” I asked.

  Lark and Pep joined me at the window, while Cookie continued to rummage around, apparently determined to find whatever it was she was looking for.

  “Does he have a dog?” Lark asked.

  “I highly doubt it,” said Cookie. She was looking through a box and throwing papers and books and articles of clothing over her shoulder as she went. “The fence is irrelevant. At least, it keeps deer and the like from wandering into his garden.”

  She was right about that. Elton had kept a magnificent garden. I felt sad that it would now fall into disrepair.

  “Here they are. That took longer than I expected,” said Cookie, holding a leather-bound stack of papers aloft.

  She stuffed the papers into a satchel that she grabbed up from the floor, where she had thrown it while she was looking through the boxes. She slung the satchel over her shoulder and asked, “Everybody ready to go?”

  The three of us stared at her, mouths agape.

  “That doesn’t belong to you. You can’t just take it,” said Pep.

  “He kept it in his attic. Clearly he wasn’t going to use it again. Besides, I need something to carry the papers in,” said Cookie.

  “Fine. Just do whatever you want,” said Pep, throwing up her hands in frustration.

  “Yes, I will. As a matter of fact, that’s how I’ve been living my life all these years,” Cookie said in a tone of mock patience, as though explaining the obvious to a kindergartener.

  “We know,” said Lark. Then she looked around the room one more time and asked, “What kind of guy has so many pictures of moons?”

  She had a point. The decor was simple, mostly plain furniture and framed pictures of moons. It all seemed very strange, especially for a mechanic. “And what kind of mechanic doesn’t have any cars, either?” Pep asked.

  “You shouldn’t pigeonhole people. A mechanic might not like cars,” said Cookie, leading us down the stairs and out of the house.

  “I’m pretty sure most mechanics like cars,” I said. “I don’t think it’s pigeonholing people to assume so. You like glop, and you spend most of your time stirring a cauldron. See how that works?”

  My grandmother rolled her eyes as if she was only half listening to something of no importance. “Shall we look around back before we go?”

  We obediently headed off around the corner of the house, then realized that Cookie wasn’t with us. I stopped and turned around, only to see her sitting on the front steps with the stack of papers in her lap.

  There was something funny about the porch, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “I guess she isn’t coming,” I said.

  We continued around back, but saw nothing there except the garden and the fence.

  “Why did Cookie want us to come back here, and then she doesn’t even come?” grumbled Pep.

  “She wanted to look at the papers in peace and quiet,” said Lark.

  I nodded in agreement, then looked around and asked, “What about that end of the house?”

  “We didn’t go into that part when we were having our look around inside,” said Pep.

  From this angle, it was obvious that there was an extra wing on one end, which would have been next to the living room. But there had been no door; if there had been, we would have investigated. Yet, here was a room, or rooms, and there was even a door that we could use to get in from the outside of the house.

  “Should we tell Cookie?” I asked.

  “Why bother?” said Lark.

  We walked over and tried the door, but was locked. Worse, it stayed that way no matter what we did. We whispered the same enchantment Cookie had used, but it didn’t work this time.

  “I guess we have to get her,” I said.

  Lark turned toward the side of the house, but just as she did so Cookie came around the corner. Lark gave a little surprised yell.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Cookie asked.

  “More like grandmother. You scared me,” said Lark.

  “I was merely trying to walk,” said Cookie. “I was wondering what took you three so long.”

  “There’s a room here that we didn’t see from inside. How could you miss this?” I demanded.

  “I’m old,” she said.

  “You only say that when it’s convenient for you,” Pep pointed out.

  “Because I’m old,” Cookie said.

  “Are you going to open the door, or not?” I asked.

  We had now been out here for quite a while. Despite the fact that Cookie didn’t think the police would find this place today, I didn’t want to stick around and risk finding out. Part of me thought somebody might indeed show up, and then what would happen?

  “Oh, very well,” said Cookie, stepping up to the door that led to the extra room.

  She did the thing where she touched the lock, and the door did the same shaking and sputtering thing that the first door had done. Just like last time, I thought it was about to blow, but this time I held my ground.

  At the last instant, when I was sure the door was going to explode, it swung open.

  Inside was a very shabby series of tiny rooms, actually more like stalls than actual rooms with doors. Unlike before, when Cookie had led the way, she now insisted that we go first. She gave a slight bow and ushered us forward. “This is your bright idea.”

  Trying to exude a confidence I didn’t feel, I stepped through the door first.

  “Well,” I breathed. Once I was inside, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The place was a shrine to a bygone era. There was a stack of old typewriters in one corner, and old dishes and furniture in
another, and piles of miscellaneous other junk everywhere else.

  “Was this maybe the original structure?” Pep asked.

  “It was indeed,” said Cookie. “Elton didn’t want to get rid of anything, including the original house. He had his reasons.”

  We had barely made it into the space when I heard a scraping sound and stopped dead. We were all inside, and the door had closed behind Cookie.

  A shiver suddenly ran down my spine as one thing became abundantly clear.

  We weren’t alone.

  Chapter Five

  The next realization hit me quickly. As Cookie had lounged on the steps, while Lark, Pep, and I had come out back, something had seemed off, and now I knew what. The skeleton that had been sitting on the front step when we arrived had disappeared.

  Now my mind raced. The skeleton hadn’t been a Halloween decoration at all. Oh, no. It was a “living” skeleton, just like the ones at our haunted house.

  How could I have missed that?

  Cookie had been in the back of the four of us as we moved into the hidden wing, but now she came forward. I had to give her at least that much credit. In times of danger she did usually put herself between us and whatever was threatening us.

  Now my grandmother whirled sideways, then stepped forward. She looked more like she was dancing than performing an enchantment, but her eyes were hard and cold. She came to stand between us the mysterious noise on the other side of the doorway.

  “Show yourself!” she demanded. “I am Crescent Garbo of the Garbo Witches of Shimmerfield and Haunted Bluff. I demand that you present yourself for inspection.”

  The clanking on the other side of the wall stopped, but then another noise emerged. This one was more like a blubbering.

  “Don’t shoot! I’m innocent, I swear!” the voice on the other side wobbled.

  “Show yourself! I won’t shoot unless you give me reason. Same thing I always tell my kids,” she added.

  There was more clanking, and then the skeleton that had been on the front porch appeared, looking even more dilapidated up close. Bones are usually a grayish silver, but some of his were brown. He also squeaked horribly when he moved.