Authors: P. J. Bracegirdle
Fiendish Deeds (18 page)
Joy had never seen behind the walls of the sprawling mental institution, a setting she recognized from various terrifying tales in
The Compleat and Collected Works of E. A. Peugeot.
Now she’d heard enough—sneaking onto the grounds was definitely going to the top of her to-do list.
“Speaking of your husband,” said Joy, changing the subject, “did you hear all the news about his discovery?”
“I most certainly did,” replied Madame Portia, beaming. “Our beloved bog is finally safe from that gang of greedy
idiotas
. What wonderful news! And not only that, that handsome man from FISPA informs me that the scientific community has decided to name the plant in honor of my dear Ludwig:
Sarracenia zweig
!”
“That’s awesome!” cried Joy. “If only he knew, he would be so proud,” she added sympathetically.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, dear—I’m going to host a séance soon and let him know all about it. I just first need to sign up a few residents to make a workable spirit circle. But all in due time. Anyway, enough about me—how is young Byron doing? Still as heroic as ever?”
“He’s all right, I guess,” reported Joy. “He seems a bit weird lately, kind of like he doesn’t want much to do with me anymore.”
“Miss Joy, I’m sure that isn’t true,” said Madame Portia gently. “He’s just getting older, that’s all. I’m certain the little bear knows he’s lucky to have a sister like you.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied Joy. “I’m the kind of sister who nearly got her brother killed, remember.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Madame Portia. “All boys love adventure, but precious few have a sister who would ever take them on such an exciting one. Usually the most a little brother can expect is to be forced into a frilly dress and covered in lipstick. Now you go and ask Byron which he would prefer—a near-death experience or being dressed up like a little dolly. Then you will see exactly how thankful he is.”
“Actually, I did once make him wear eye shadow,” Joy admitted, “and a tweed skirt.”
Madame Portia laughed until it looked like she might fall over. “Spooking is lucky to have a daughter like you,” she said, wiping away the tears streaming down her face. “You children are the future of towns such as these. Don’t forget it. But excuse me—I must hurry back. Hamilton is moving his things up today and I need to unlock the gatehouse for him.”
“It was great to see you again,” said Joy, still blushing from her kind words.
“I’ll see you soon, I’m sure. Good-bye for now!” called the old fortune-teller as she hurried off.
Alone again, Joy decided to stroll around the cemetery for a while longer. She read the pitted gravestones, each one a familiar old friend. Then the heavy sky cracked above her. Huge wet snowflakes began falling like broken bits of cloud. She stood catching them with her tongue, blinking as they clung to her eyelashes.
Joy squeezed through the rusted cemetery gates and headed along the road back into town. To the right, she could see Darlington stretching out in a neat grid, strangely sunlit and gleaming below. Up ahead, snow continued to whirl around Spooking’s steep tangle of avenues, sticking to the hulking houses and ancient trees. Joy stopped, sighing at the beauty of its sudden transformation into stark black and white.
Spooking wasn’t dying, thought Joy, whatever that horrible Mr. Phipps said.
Joy had seen him again, stumbling out of his car just after the accident. He’d turned toward her for a moment, glaring at the school bus murderously as she shrunk in her seat. Joy then watched as he flapped in front of a television camera like some tormented crow. There was something familiar in those fierce eyes and lost-in-time features, she was convinced of it.
Whoever he was, he knew nothing about Spooking. Children were its future, just like Madame Portia had said. And people weren’t leaving, they were actually coming back! Soon a few dark windows would once again be lit. Spooking did still exist, Joy declared to herself as she walked its streets, and everywhere else could just be a figment of the imagination for all it mattered.
That wasn’t exactly true. Spooking was surrounded, Joy knew, and under siege from very real enemies, she now realized. An army of Darlings sat camped at the foot of the hill, planning their next attack. And no doubt they’d soon come up with some other scheme to make the town into their plaything.
Well, it wasn’t going to happen, she decided. Spooking was the inspiration of the famous Ethan Alvin Peugeot! There was no way it could be reduced to some plastic attraction. Someone would have to stop them—a resident expert of the fearless adventuring type.
But who?
“Ah—Miss Joy Wells.”
Joy turned with a start. She had just drawn up to the old music shop, a little two-story building standing on a wind-blasted lot, abandoned for as long as she could remember. She hadn’t noticed the black car with the smashed-in front and cracked windshield now sitting outside.
It was Mr. Phipps.
“Sorry for scaring you,” he said, standing in the doorway of the shop, his arm in a black sling. “I was just trying to be neighborly, seeing as how we’re going to be living so close to each other now.”
Joy stood speechless for a moment, unable to move as she stared back at the man lurking half in shadow. “You’re actually moving up here?” she finally asked incredulously. “To Spooking?”
Phipps cocked an eyebrow, looking for a self-satisfied little smirk on the girl’s face. Finding no sign of one, he answered evenly: “Unfortunately, I’ve found myself between apartments, and since I still have the keys to this old place, I thought I would make myself at home for a little while.” Phipps nodded to the snow-covered boxes jammed in the open trunk. “I would ask for some help with my things, but I see you’re missing an arm as well.”
“It’s broken,” Joy replied.
“Painful, I know,” said Phipps, wriggling the fingers at the end of his own cast. “How did you hurt yours? In gym class? Falling down stairs, maybe? Or in some sort of bizarre Halloween accident, perhaps?”
“How did you know my last name?” demanded Joy.
“Oh, I beg your pardon—I suppose we haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Mr. Phipps. Octavio Phipps. I’m with the mayor’s office as I might have mentioned.” He held out his hand for a moment before drawing it back unshaken. “How did I know your name? Your friend Morris Mealey mentioned it, I should think.”
Joy made a face. “That weird little twerp isn’t my friend,” she told him sharply.
“My mistake, then,” replied Phipps. “I suppose that does make sense—he didn’t seem overly fond of you when I spoke with him last. He came right out and blamed you, in fact.”
“Blamed me?” exclaimed Joy angrily. “For what?”
“For the Misty Mermaid debacle, of course,” answered Phipps. “Wherein the biggest leisure project in the city’s history was summarily scuttled just to save some bulbous bit of vegetable matter. Morris said it was you who let FISPA know about the loathsome growths, just to ruin the whole thing.”
Joy felt a throb of fear. There was something in Phipps’s searching eyes that made her feel like she was standing at the edge of a black pit. “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she responded with a shrug.
“Well, that’s good to hear. I’d thought young Morris was probably mistaken—the boy does seem wound up a bit too tight. And you seem too smart a girl to have done something so silly—something pointless and destructive that only hurts everyone up in Spooking.”
“Spooking?” Joy blurted out. “How does losing that dumb water park hurt anybody up here?”
“How does it hurt anybody?” repeated Phipps with a note of comedic offense. “Surely you haven’t forgotten our chat about legacies already? Our discussion about the future of Spooking?” He stared at Joy, then shook his head sadly. “Just look here, at this particular legacy,” he said, gesturing to the tired-looking building behind him. “A broken-down shop full of expensive old instruments no one plays anymore. The whole thing is worthless now—it just sits here, waiting to collapse. And with no value, it has no future, as I tried to explain to you—no future, like everything else up here.
“But that dumb water park, as you call it, could have changed all that,” Phipps continued, his voice rising. “It could have brought people and business and investment like never before. And then this sad decrepit little hill—this legacy of ours—could have finally been worth something!”
“Spooking already
is
worth something,” Joy shot back at him. “And it does have a future, because people are moving back.”
Phipps beheld the scrappy little girl standing defiantly before him as her ridiculously old-fashioned coat pooled around her ankles. “Well, I suppose I can’t argue your point while unloading my belongings,” he said, chuckling. “But it will take a lot more to save this town, you know.”
At that moment, Fizz began clawing his way to the top of his bag and growling in his most menacing fashion.
“There’s a lovely innocence about you, actually,” Phipps continued. He then noticed snarling Fizz poking his head through the buttons of Joy’s coat. “And look, you even have a pet frog that thinks it’s a dog—how things truly never change around here. And how I would love to tell you not to change—to always stay the same way and never grow up. But that’s not possible. No one ever stays the same their whole life. No one stays innocent forever.”
Joy kept on her guard as the man gazed off toward the cemetery, its gray outline barely visible in the blowing snow. She held her breath as he suddenly whirled on her, his eyes narrowed to evil-looking slits.
“Which is just as well,” he continued. “Because the trouble with the innocent is that they’re easily made into victims, you see. And if you’re familiar with your scary old stories, you’ll know that it’s always healthier to be the monster than the victim.”
At those words, Phipps suddenly lurched forward. Joy recoiled, desperately holding Fizz back as his toothless jaws snapped viciously at the air. With a casual air, Phipps snatched up a snow-dusted suitcase by her feet.
“See you around Spooking, Joy Wells,” he said, stepping back into the doorway. Then he vanished—as if he’d suddenly dissolved into the black interior of the shop. The heavy door closed with an evil creak.
For a moment Joy stood there, rigid with fear in front of the paint-flecked shop. She then crammed Fizz back down into his bag and ran off, hearing him still snarling behind her buttons. The wind began howling, the driving snow blinding Joy as she stumbled past the avenues of Gravesend, Weredale, and Bellevue. Teeth chattering, she finally turned onto Ravenwood. She tore up the path to Number 9, fumbling for the keys in the depths of her coat pockets.
Joy flung the front door open, tripping over something as she leaped inside. It was a pillowcase, mud-streaked and full of candy—with a handwritten note pinned to its side.
Happy Halloween
, it said.