Spooky Skeleton Read online

  I glanced down at Rose. “Good find,” I muttered.

  “This is bad,” said the cat. “All the mice are getting away.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Pretty sure that’s the least of our problems. There will always be more mice,” I informed her.

  So there was a hidden way out of the mansion. Even worse, there was a hidden way in.

  Chapter Seven

  The whole family gathered around this unused part of the haunted house and stared at the opening. My mother looked furious. Meg and the rest of them looked angry. The haunt hunters had returned home for the day so they were there too. Lizzie didn’t see the problem with the hidden entrance.

  “If anything was damaged or taken, we would have known about it. The supernaturals probably just put it there so they could get in and out with less bother,” she said.

  “They would never do that. If they had, we would have known about it. They would have told us,” said my mom.

  “It must have been the supernaturals one way or another. Was it the Root?” Meg asked.

  Cookie stumped forward and stuck her nose into the opening. By this time night had fallen and it was very cold outside, but we were all trying to ignore it.

  Cookie glared at the hole in the wall. “This is recent. You see the jagged edges? They haven’t started to chip. I wonder what night this happened,” she mused.

  Nobody else seemed to be concerned about which night the vandalism had taken place, and I wondered why Cookie was. Since it was Cookie, I doubted I was likely to find out right away.

  “Maybe it was one of us,” Lizzie speculated.

  “Which one of us exactly did you have in mind?” Lark asked.

  Lizzie smirked. “We know that you don’t exactly like the rules around here.”

  “So you think my solution to that would be to drill a hole in the wall and then hide it because I didn’t know where the front door was?” Lark said indignantly.

  Lizzie rolled her eyes. “That’s just silly.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Lark.

  “I’ll talk to the skeletons when I go out to the lab,” said Corey. “I’m sure they can board this up in no time. It’s good that Jane noticed the draft, though. Otherwise who knows how long this would have sat here leaving the mansion open and vulnerable.”

  “I’m sure Kip would have noticed it soon,” said Lizzie.

  Kip shrugged. “I’m really not that observant.”

  Lizzie had a huge crush on the leader of the haunt hunters; it had been going on for years. At first she had dealt with it by being mean to him. Then she’d moved on to trying to talk herself out of it. Now she was on to justifying it. Not long ago she had tried to come up with a love potion designed to make him feel the same way about her. He was “good at heart even if his shoes were scuffed” was one of her more memorable comments.

  Kip had no clue about her feelings.

  Lizzie’s shoulders slumped and her lower lip protruded. Kip never even noticed when she tried to compliment him, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

  Corey, just as oblivious as Kip to Lizzie’s sideshow, took off to his lab, where he was happiest anyhow. He wanted to speak to the skeletons about the breach, and he had had enough of socializing. As a scientist he was much more comfortable with his files and measurements than he was with dealing with family problems. This was especially true if it happened to be evening of the same day when some of us had gone out without permission and the rest of the family had been furious.

  Meanwhile, equally uninterested in Lizzie’s antics, Cookie, Meg, and my mother had been throwing enchantments at the wall, trying to figure out what had happened. When none of the spells would stick, they finally gave up, frustrated and forced to face the fact that someone with talent and skill had created this secret entrance. We now knew at least that much, but it wasn’t comforting.

  We also now had a problem to deal with. The mansion was vulnerable. The front and back doors were spelled to protect us, as were the windows. Ever since the Root of All Evil had developed into a master criminal organization that was trying to destroy to our family’s future, we had taken extra precautions to protect the mansion. This hole in the wall was not spelled for protection. Ergo, we were now in extreme danger.

  “While Corey is talking to the skeletons, I want the rest of you to search the mansion,” my mom ordered. “Look everywhere, in every nook and cranny. We don’t know exactly what happened here, but we are going to find out. Also, somebody ask Erika what could have created this hole.”

  Erika was the leader of the skeletons, who were very good at carpentry and did a lot of the repairs around Haunted Bluff. Erika would know, if anyone did, what could have cut through stone like this. I was desperately afraid it was a spell, but it would have had to be a deeply obscure one to beat the collective knowledge of my mom, my grandmother, and my aunt.

  Everyone else started to disperse, but I paused for a moment and wandered over to the opening. A crisp wind blew gently into my face. The handful of trees crowding up against house made it difficult to see anything beyond them. I supposed that was how somebody had accomplished this secret entrance in the first place.

  Lost in thought. I knelt down to examine the ground.

  I wasn’t a trained tracker, and at first I couldn’t tell what I was looking at. Surely somebody who was trained would know more than I would about what to look for and what to do. But I still managed to discern some patterns, chief among them something that scared me so much I nearly fell out of my crouch when I realized it.

  There were two sets of footprints. One was human, and one was from a very large animal. The human footprint was significantly longer than my own, but it was the other one that was so unexpected. The second prints were paw prints.

  I stood up and glanced back inside. Everyone had taken off to get to work except Cookie, who was watching me with a far-off expression on her face. When I raised my eyebrows, she glared at me. “Didn’t your mother tell you to get to work?”

  “I suppose she did,” I agreed.

  “Did you find anything out there?” she asked.

  I stepped inside and said, “Nothing much. Nothing I know the meaning of.”

  She looked at me suspiciously, as if she was about to come out and check on what I was talking about. To be fair, she might have had a better idea of what those prints belonged to than I did. But just as she was about to come forward, someone started yelling for her. Audrey needed her help with something.

  Cookie rolled her eyes and stomped away. Meanwhile, I went to find my cousins. We could look together.

  The skeletons wanted to fix the wall properly, but it was going to take some time. While we were waiting, Cookie did manage to spell the entrance effectively enough so that there was no more draft and nothing was going to come in or go out. Rose was remarkably happy that the mice were once again prisoners.

  We spent the rest of the evening looking around the mansion for anything that might be missing. We went into the sword room, the silver room, the museum, the library, and every other nook and cranny. Even with a careful search, there was a good chance that a book or some other small thing could have been taken, and we simply wouldn’t notice.

  My mother had enchantments against that sort of thing, but they could be overridden. Our search at least reassured us that no obvious valuables had disappeared.

  Toward the end of the search, Uncle Taft joined us.

  Taft rarely made an appearance these days. He was ancient and more than half crazy. He had predicted the rise of the Root of All Evil—accurately, as it turned out—but since then he had barely made any sense at all.

  Still, I tried to be nice to him when I saw him, even when he was saying something incoherent. Tonight was one of those nights.

  “Flowers,” he said, as he walked up to me.

  We were just finishing up in the library. Everyone was exhausted, and I couldn’t wait to get to sleep.

  Pep had gone through every shelf
trying to see if any books were missing, with no luck. Lark searched every map drawer and cabinet in the place. As far as we could tell, everything was in order.

  “It’s too cold out for flowers, Uncle Taft,” I said.

  He shook his head and pointed at me. “Flowers,” he repeated.

  I frowned, having no idea what he was talking about.

  “What about flowers?” I asked him.

  “They’re pretty,” he told me.

  Lark walked up to us and covered a yawn. “He’s right about that. I wish somebody would give me flowers.”

  “If he wants flowers, we should get him some soon. Maybe when we go into town tomorrow,” Pep suggested.

  “Are we going into town tomorrow?” Lark asked curiously.

  “Of course we are. We have an investigation to conduct,” said Pep.

  I shook my head. “I don’t see how you have any investigation to conduct. We don’t look into human deaths. I’m sure the Chief of Police has it in hand.”

  “Elton had a skeleton. Humans aren’t supposed to have skeletons that talk and walk,” Pep pointed out.

  “Cookie seems to think it’s none of our business, so we aren’t going to look into it. We don’t investigate human deaths,” I repeated.

  Pep looked skeptical but didn’t say anything more.

  As we walked out of the library, Uncle Taft repeated the his word of the night: Flowers.

  “Glad we can all agree on that,” said Lark dryly.

  We said good night to Uncle Taft and made our way upstairs. Lark and Pep disappeared to the fourth floor where the family rooms were, but I had another stairway to climb to my room in the attic.

  I had left for the big city at one point, not expecting to come back, and my mother had given my fourth-floor room to Lizzie. When I came back home to the mansion, my mother had assigned me to the attic.

  At first I had been angry, but I had come to enjoy having a space of my own that was a little more private than the fourth floor rooms.

  I shared the attic with a ghost named Lady Oakley; we had learned to coexist reasonably well. Lady Oakley had told me forthrightly that she didn’t like me, and that she wanted me to leave. I had told her I wouldn’t. On that basis we mostly just left each other alone.

  Rose had formed the habit of coming upstairs to stay with me at night. At first I thought she was doing it out of the goodness of her heart, but I soon realized that it was the best place to catch mice.

  Either way, I didn’t mind.

  As I climbed the stairs after a very long day, I caught the scent of something delicious. Fragrant and warm, it smelled like a spring day. I didn’t know what it was, but I was pretty sure it was wonderful. Maybe Lady Oakley had found out how to burn potpourri in her ghost state. Maybe someone had lit a candle of lavender and vanilla. I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to duplicate the scent and have it go on and on.

  Though the stairwell was dark, I often left the light off when I was just walking up; I knew the way, after all. This time, after the scare of finding a hole in the wall of the mansion, I told myself I should keep more lights on, but even now I was just too tired and lazy to bother. I’d take care of it eventually, is what I told myself.

  Anyhow, I was a witch, and I wasn’t going to be afraid in my family’s own house.

  At the top of the stairs, I nearly tripped over something that wasn’t usually there, so at last I flicked the lights on. The iridescent glow cast an ugly shadow over everything except what was at my feet.

  I gasped.

  What I had almost tripped over was the most beautiful arrangement of pink and red flowers I had ever seen. My hand went to my mouth to cover my shock. I didn’t know anything about flowers, but these were stunning. The bouquet was so large that it barely fit in my arms when I picked up the vase.

  I buried my smile in the flowers. Had my uncle sent me flowers? What on earth had he done that for? He was so far gone, he barely knew we were related!

  Looking back, I was pretty sure no one had ever sent me flowers in my entire life. This was a first.

  I quickly hunted through the gift to see if there was a note, and indeed there was. The small card felt crisp in my hands, surely made of very expensive paper. I opened the envelope and lifted out the card. Scrawled in an elaborate hand was the following note:

  Jane, unfortunately I’m going to start this note with an apology. I’m sorry for my recent absence. I will be returning soon and wanted to collect on our agreement. I hope your notions haven’t changed. It would be my honor if you would accompany me on Friday night for our third date. Will you? Returning soon, Grant.

  I held the note to my chest. A more perfect message I couldn’t have received. In truth, I had started to despair that Grant would even come back. It had been so long since we agreed to go on a third date that I had become unsure of everything about our connection.

  Since he’d gone off to Arizona, we had heard from him a bit, but he’d sent nothing of substance. All he said was that he was working on a very difficult case and would be in touch soon. Meanwhile, his deputies here could assist in anything that we needed.

  Fine, that just wasn’t the personal contact I wanted.

  Now, here it was at last. The guy I was dating had sent me flowers.

  I carried the vase into my attic bedroom, where Lady Oakley was hovering over by the window as usual. She gave me an unimpressed look, but then her eyes lighted on the flowers and she smiled. “Those are lovely. If you got a man to give you flowers, you aren’t as foolish as I thought you were,” she said.

  “I had no idea you thought I was foolish,” I said. “They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “They’ll do,” she said. “I do wish I could smell them still.”

  “They’re the best-smelling thing in the world,” I said.

  I put the flowers next to my bed. I wanted to be able to smell them all night. The card I kept tucked under my pillow, but I took it out five more times before I fell asleep. I was searching for hidden meaning, and I needed to remind myself that Grant was out there and that he was coming back soon. I didn’t need to be reminded that I couldn’t wait.

  Chapter Eight

  First thing next morning, I sat up wide awake. Rose had decided to sleep on the couch, having gone out again and come in late after doing who knows what. She opened one eye and looked at me, judging my enthusiasm for the day, then closed the eye again.

  She needed more rest before she got up for the day, but I didn’t care. I smiled at my flowers and hurried to find Pep and Lark, taking the little note with me. I wanted to tell them all about it and show them what Grant had written.

  When I got to the fourth floor, I found Pep in the shower and Lark already gone to breakfast. Pep yelled through the bathroom door wondering if it was urgent. I told her we’d meet her in the gift shop. That’s where Pep worked, and I knew she’d be headed that way anyway.

  I hurried down to the kitchen to find Lark, who was barely awake and stumbling around the large island. Audrey was busy cooking as usual. “What do you want to eat today?” she asked.

  “I’ll just grab some croissants and muffins and go to the shop,” I said.

  Audrey looked at me sharply. “Just don’t go off anywhere. Neither of your mothers will tolerate that again.”

  “Very well,” I said. “We won’t.”

  Lark looked at me questioningly, but she didn’t argue. She gathered up her coffee, I gathered up food, and we made our way to the gift shop. Lark boosted herself up and sat on the counter next to where we had spread our breakfast, while I grabbed a chair from the corner and dragged it over. When Pep got there she could bring the chair out of her office.

  It was a ragtag setting, but it was comfortable. More importantly, it was free of prying eyes and ears. Cookie would just love to hear all of this, and I wanted to prevent that if I could. If she wouldn’t share information freely, why should we?

  “The Chief of Police phoned,” Lark began. “He wants to come
and see Evangeline. I guess he thinks she knew the deceased. He said he’d probably stop in and see us as well.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Evangeline was one of the tenants on the mansion estate. She and Cookie had once been friendly, but now they didn’t get along. Evangeline was a seamstress and a dressmaker and the best in the world at what she did.

  She was also meticulous and well put together, and not a witch I’d want to cross. “He’d better be careful talking to her,” I said.

  Lark nodded. “I think so too. If he isn’t, she’s likely to turn him into a disco ball or something equally offensive. I’m sure he doesn’t think she’s a murder suspect, though. He probably just wants to talk to anyone who might have known Elton. It sounds like not many people did.”

  That was true enough. The mechanic was a mystery, living hidden in the woods as he did and making himself almost impossible to find. At the very least he was hiding from something, if not someone. “Maybe there was a warlock out to get him,” I speculated.

  “Because he knew the warlock’s secret,” Lark took up the thread.

  “I just hope they get to the bottom of it quickly. Shimmerfield is going to be living in fear until we know who murdered him,” I said.

  “Morning. How is everyone?” Pep asked, coming in and closing the door behind her. Her hair was still wet and dripping. She peered at what was on offer for breakfast and chose a blueberry scone.

  As she started munching, she went to get her office chair. Once all three of us were settled, I said, “So, you know how Uncle Taft was talking about clocks and time and it turned out the Root of All Evil was rising?”

  “This discussion is a little bit heavy for first thing in the morning, but by all means go on,” said Lark.

  “So we thought he was crazy,” I said, “but as it turned out, he wasn’t. He was really saying something that made sense. Well, he was talking about flowers last night and it turns out that made sense too.”