Crandalls' Castle (12 page)

Now she wouldn't have to do any of those things. How long would it take for a plumber to fix what was wrong at the Castle? A long time, she hoped. A long, long time!

“Well, come on,” Ray teased, “how does it feel to know you can spend the day lying under a tree reading again?”

“You think I'm lazy,” Charli said, but she was much too relieved to be angry. “I can do chores around here,” she said. “And I can go swimming.”

“Both good ideas,” Ray said. “Only you don't go swimming alone. It's not safe.”

“Ask Sophia,” Rona suggested. “She'll be looking for things to do, too—for a while anyway.”

Charli nodded, but she knew she wouldn't ask Sophia. She wouldn't ask her for anything ever again. Sophia tried to be mysterious with her talk about knowing things before they happened, but the truth was, Sophia was a snob. She definitely didn't want to be Charli's friend.

“How about some salad?” Ray asked, pushing the bowl across the table. “Your mom's a terrific salad-maker.”

Charli speared two slices of ham from the platter and took a big helping of salad.

“Well, thank goodness,” Rona said, and she and Ray looked at each other again.

They were laughing at her full plate, but Charli didn't mind. Tomorrow she would clean the whole house to show Ray she wasn't lazy, but all she could think about now was how good the food tasted. “What's for dessert?” she asked, so she could look forward to it. “I'm starving.”

It was going to be a neat day. No Castle, nothing to be afraid of, just hours and hours to use however she pleased. Charli stretched, yawned, and pressed her cheek into her pillow where the morning sun had warmed it. Uncle Will had crossed the street last night to tell her himself that he wouldn't need her and Sophia for a while. A plumber was coming to the Castle today to decide what needed to be done. It would be at least a week before he could get started.

“We'll just have ourselves a little vacation,” Uncle Will said. “You kids won't mind that, I bet. And it'll give me some time to talk to the bank—maybe round up a few folks around town who know a good investment when they see one.”

Charli tried not to look pleased. “Mom and Ray are in the backyard if you want to talk to them,” she said, but Uncle Will just tousled her hair.

“Not right now,” he said. “I've got some paperwork to do.”

There was something different about his walk, Charli thought as she watched him cross the street. His thin shoulders were hunched, and he walked more slowly than usual. She was glad Ray hadn't been there to laugh at what he'd said about rounding up folks who knew a good investment when they saw one.

So what should she do with this lovely, empty day? The library first, she decided. As soon as her mother and Ray left for work, she got her bike from the garage and swung out onto Lincoln. From across the street came the sound of Aunt Lilly's laughter and the twins squabbling. The familiar voices made her feel lonely and left out, but only for a moment. Then she pushed the feelings away and pedaled faster.

When she returned an hour and a half later, her bike basket was stacked with three mysteries, a collection of short stories for teens, and a true tale of dogsled racing in Alaska. Enough for a week, she thought contentedly, as she parked her bike and headed for her favorite spot under the crab apple tree.

The first mystery was so exciting that she almost, but not quite, forgot about lunch. Still reading, she ambled into the house to make a sandwich and check the cookie jar. Have to do some chores, she reminded herself. Just a few more pages …

It was after three when she finished the last chapter. Ray would be home in a few minutes—not enough time even to wash the kitchen floor or clean the bathroom. There had to be something else she could do, something he would surely notice.

The living room was a mess, with his favorite magazines scattered around his chair and even behind it. She scooped them up and arranged them in two neat piles on the coffee table. Then she straightened the towels in the bathroom, put her lunch dishes in the dishwasher, and was giving the counter a quick wipe when the front door opened. Just in time, she thought, but it was Dan, not Ray, who appeared in the hallway.

“Hey,” he exclaimed in mock surprise. “Do you still live here? Could have fooled me.”

“I was sick,” Charli said, not quite meeting his eyes. “And I went to Madison. Why aren't you at work?”

“Early shift,” Dan said. “Right now I'm working at home—monster-sitting.” He glanced over his shoulder, and Charli heard the twins making engine noises across the street. “Mom's at the dentist and Dad's off trying to raise money”—he scowled—“and Sophia's on one of her long-distance runs. So that leaves me. There's a pan of fudge in our kitchen. Interested?” He grinned as Charli dropped the dishcloth.

The sky had turned gray and a breeze sifted through the trees that lined the street. Make-believe motors roaring, Terry and Gene pushed toy cars across the lawn in front of their house while Mickey cheered from his stroller.

“Give the fudge a few more minutes to cool,” Dan said when they reached the porch steps. “Sophia made it before she took off. Why can't you make great stuff like that?”

“I could,” Charli retorted. “If I wanted to!” She knew she should ignore his teasing, but she couldn't resist letting him know she was good at something, too. “I'm the only one who's figured out who the ghost in the Castle is. Not Sophia. Just me.”

Dan groaned. “Don't start that again.”

“I'm not starting anything!” Charli raised her voice above the
zoom zoom
of the twins' cars. “I'm just telling you.” Quickly, before he could interrupt, she explained what she'd learned from William Herndon's autobiography. “And besides that, I saw the ghost myself. In a window,” she finished. “It—she was horrible!”

She stopped, out of breath, and waited for Dan to tell her she was crazy.

“Okay, so you have it all figured out,” he said. “Big deal! What difference does it make? Nobody's going to take you seriously, except maybe my dad, because he'd like there to be a ghost.”

“My mom and Ray might believe it if you told them what we heard upstairs—that singing and the baby crying. Then they wouldn't make me work there anymore.” She looked at Dan hopefully, but, as she'd feared, he shook his head.

“Someone was playing a trick on us that day, kid. I don't know who or why, but it had to be a trick. So don't ask me to get mixed up in your scary daydreams. Ray would think I was nuts, and I wouldn't blame him. Get a life, Charli. Find something else to think about. How are the swimming lessons?”

“Good,” Charli said shortly. Her face burned. He was treating her like a baby again. Why wouldn't anyone listen?

“Here comes Mom.” Dan stood up, looking relieved. “That means I'm off duty as a sitter. Want to go in and check that fudge?”

Charli waved at Aunt Lilly, who had just appeared at the end of the block, and followed Dan inside. The Crandalls' kitchen, once her favorite place in the world, looked unfamiliar. It had been a long time since she'd stopped in to sample whatever had just come out of the oven.

“Help yourself,” Dan said. “I'm going to check the voice mail.” He sprawled at the table with the phone clamped to his ear and a faraway look in his eyes.

Charli searched a drawer for a knife and reached for the pan of fudge. It looked delicious. It
was
delicious. Perfect Sophia had done it again! She was finishing a second piece and considering a third when Dan finally put down the phone and grabbed a pencil and notepad. He wrote busily for a moment, then took the piece of fudge she passed him.

“I cut some for the twins,” Charli said, so he wouldn't notice how much she'd eaten herself. “Can Mickey have a little piece, too?”

“Ask Mom,” Dan said absentmindedly. He was staring at the note he'd just written, as if it puzzled him. Then he gave Charli a startled look. “Hey, it's awfully quiet out there,” he said. “I wonder—”

Abruptly, he pushed back his chair, almost knocking it over in his rush to the front door. Charli hurried after him, licking crumbs from her fingers.

“They're gone!” Dan exclaimed. “All three of them. Now where in the heck!” He dashed out into the street.

Charli stared at the bright-colored cars scattered like flowers on the grass. “Maybe they're in the backyard,” she suggested, but she knew they couldn't be. The kitchen windows were open. She would have heard the boys if they were playing back there.

“They can't be far,” she hurried on, because the look on Dan's face was painful to see. “Maybe they took Mickey down the block to meet Aunt Lilly and she stopped at somebody's house and—they're okay.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dan said in a tight voice. “They're okay.” He started to run.

Chapter Twenty

SOPHIA'S JOURNAL

It's five-thirty, but Lilly said forget about dinner till Will comes home, and she said it in such a sad, un-Lilly-like voice that I wanted to be somewhere else. So here I am, talking to you, because if ever I needed to talk it's now. When I tell you about today, you're going to think, oh, that never happened. But it did.

Breakfast this morning was pretty grim, mostly because Lilly was so quiet. Usually she rattles on like a kid, but not today. At first I thought she was just tired after the drive to Madison, but then I caught her looking at me a couple of times and turning away, fast, when I looked back. Boy, do I know that expression! Good old Rita must have given her the job of telling me I have to go back to Sacramento.

I wondered if I should bring up the subject myself, so she could stop worrying, but I couldn't make myself do it. Instead, I took Mickey for a long ride in his stroller. I wanted to get out of the house, and besides, it might be my last chance to spend some time alone with him. He calls me So-ee now, and he listens when I tell him things. Today I promised I'd never forget him, and I might return someday to see what kind of man he turns out to be.

When we got back to the house, I made peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches for lunch. Lilly was getting ready to go to the dentist. She said Dan would be home early to take care of the boys, so I could do whatever I wanted to this afternoon.

“We take advantage of you, Sophia,” she said. “I'm sorry.” I suppose she was trying to convince both of us that I'd be happier someplace else.

As soon as Dan came home, I put on my running shoes and left. There were fat puffy clouds piling up in the west, some of them pretty dark, but I didn't care. The way I felt, I wanted a storm, with me in the middle of it.

By the time I reached the beach road the wind had picked up, and the lake was streaked with white-caps. People were gathering up their towels and their kids, and one little girl cried because she didn't want to leave. Farther along, I saw what was left of Gene and Terry's sand city. Another few hours and it would be gone, as if it had never been there.

I passed the breakwater, the place where I'd learned my great-grandmother was dead. Beyond, the summer cottages were strung along the shore like toy houses, each with its own plot of trees and straggly lawn. A few kids spilled out onto the road, and some of them ran beside me for a minute or two. I slowed down so they could keep up.

I'm telling you all this little stuff because I want you to see how ordinary it was and how unprepared I was for what came next.

The kids dropped back, giggling, so that by the time I rounded the next curve, I was alone again. What I saw then, as clearly as I'd seen the cottages behind me, was the Crandalls' gray house. It was a couple of hundred feet away and directly ahead, so that the road I was on ended at the porch steps.

I stopped. I knew the house wasn't really there, but I wasn't scared, not at first. It looked so peaceful—toys on the steps and on the porch, the screen door hanging open because the spring was shot—all just as I'd left it. Except, it was quiet.

Too quiet.

I told myself the twins and Mickey could have gone away with Dan—maybe across the street to Charli's house—but I didn't believe it. Suddenly I was terrified. The house had appeared because something awful was happening. It was the awful thing I'd sensed that night I met the Crandalls for the first time. And I hadn't tried to warn them—not then, not ever. It had always been more important to keep quiet.

All the way back to Lincoln Street I prayed, Let me be wrong. Let the kids be where I left them. But then I saw Lilly come out of Mrs. Kramer's house on the corner with Dan and Charli, and I stopped praying. If God heard what I was asking, the answer was definitely NO!

Dan said, “The kids are gone. We thought they might have walked down the block to meet Mom, but she stopped in to see—”

“Call the police, Dan!” Lilly interrupted. Her blue eyes were bigger than ever, and her face was white. “They can't be far. Unless someone picked them up …” Her voice shook.

“They've gone to the Castle,” I said. “They can see it from your yard. Will talks about it so much they think it's a big deal—like a castle in a picture book.”

“The Castle,” Lilly repeated. “How can you possibly know—”

“I do know!” I yelled. “I do! That's where they're going, and we have to stop them!”

I started to run again, and after a moment I heard the others running behind me. When we reached the house (toys on the porch steps, just as I'd seen them), I cut around to the backyard. The kids would have used the road that wound around to Barker Street—no way could they push Mickey's stroller through the field. We took the shortcut.

“If that's really where they went, they won't be able to get in,” Dan panted as we dashed through the trees and out into the field.

“They can,” I said without slowing down. “The plumber's coming today. Will said he'd leave the door unlocked for him.”