Ghost Invasion
Authors: Zilpha Keatley Snyder
A Castle Court Kids Book
Zilpha Keatley Snyder
To kids and dogs everywhere
A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder
U
NDER THE TALL TREES
the shade was deep and dark and the only sound was a leafy whisper from high above. The air smelled of pine needles and sun-warmed dust. Kate Nicely and Aurora Pappas moved slowly and silently, watching and listening. They could see the barn now through the trees—paintless gray-brown walls rising to a sagging roof.
“Shh,” Aurora said suddenly. “There it is. Don’t you hear it?”
Kate listened. “Hear what?” she said softly.
“Nothing,” Aurora whispered. “That’s just it. How quiet it is. Everything’s holding its breath.”
Kate listened again. It did seem quieter, somehow. There were no bird sounds and even the leafy whisper seemed farther away. “What—what is it?” she asked again.
Aurora shook her head slowly and thoughtfully, and then suddenly froze. Her face turned upward and her hands, too, as if her open palms were receivers, sensing sound or motion. Kate watched her approvingly. Aurora looked so—mysterious. Even in her usual grungy T-shirt and ragged tights, and with her crinkly hair frizzing out in all directions, she still managed to look like an enchanted creature. A gray-eyed creature staring out through flyaway strands of hair, like a wild thing in a tangled thicket.
Following the direction of Aurora’s stare, Kate could see only trees and distant glimpses of barn, with slanting rays of sunlight making glittering pathways through the deep shadows. She sighed and went back to watching Aurora—and waiting. Like always. Every time they came to the barn they stopped and waited for a while before they went in.
They’d been coming to the old, deserted barn for months now. Not often, of course. Only now and then when Aurora got a mysterious feeling that it was the right time. They would walk around the cul-de-sac once or twice, checking things out and deciding which secret path to follow. Whether to take the short, dangerous route, right through the Andersons’ property, or the longer, safer way, by a trail that started behind Kate’s house, wound up into the hills, and came down again into the small pine forest that surrounded the old barn. And even then, after they’d finally arrived safely at the barn, they always stopped and waited. And waited …
“Now,” Aurora said. She turned toward Kate, her gray eyes glowing. “Let’s go in. It’s all right to go in now.”
The heavy barn door creaked, groaned, and swung open into a dark, confusing maze of passageways, bordered by horse stalls and other dark, cobweb-filled rooms. The brick floor was covered by a thick layer of dirt and straw. The light was very dim and, as always, there was a special smell. An old, dead smell of dust and decay with a ghostly hint of hay and horse. Aurora led the way through the near darkness, moving slowly but surely toward the ladder that led to the loft. Kate followed close behind her.
At the last box stall, an especially large one, Aurora stopped and, on tiptoe, looked over the door. It was a largish space, empty except for the remains of a wooden manger. They stood there staring into the stall for several seconds before Aurora sighed softly and moved on. They were almost to the ladder when Kate asked a question she’d been wanting to ask for quite a while. “Why do you always look in that stall?”
Aurora stopped and turned back to face Kate. “I don’t know,” she said. “Not for sure, anyway. There’s just something …” She shrugged and turned away. “Come on. Let’s go up to the loft.”
Kate liked the loft a lot better. She liked the open, soaring space and the beams of sunlight that drifted down through holes in the rotting roof. At one end of the huge floor a stack of straw bales made a good place to climb up and sit.
“About that stall,” Kate said when they had climbed up onto the bales, “what is it? I mean, what do you suppose it is?”
Aurora’s nod meant that she understood Kate’s curiosity. “I can’t exactly explain it,” she said. “But it’s like … like whenever I stop there she’s trying …”
“She?” Kate asked quickly. “Who’s a she? Is the ghost a she?”
Aurora thought for a while before she slowly nodded her head. “I think so. A girl, maybe. I think she wants to … Maybe she wants us to know something.”
Kate was fascinated. Aurora had never said much about the ghost before, except to agree with Kate that there must be one. Usually when they came to the barn she’d let Kate do most of the talking. They would sit on the pile of bales and talk about the pigeons and mice and bats that lived in the loft. And then sometimes they would talk about ghosts. Or at least Kate did.
Kate had always liked to read ghost stories. And she liked to talk about ghosts—and about what kind of ghost might live in an old barn. Usually Aurora would just listen. Actually, Aurora had never before said there was a ghost in the barn. Not in so many words. It was just that she acted as if there were. The main reason Kate was so certain there was a ghost was because of the way Aurora acted.
And now she was actually saying there was a ghost and it was a girl. Kate was very interested.
“What makes you think it’s—” she was starting to ask when Aurora suddenly grabbed her arm.
“Shh,” she said. “Listen. Someone’s coming.”
T
HEN KATE HEARD IT
too. The creak of the barn door, a thud, and then the soft whisper of footsteps. Kate and Aurora stared at each other.
“Mr. A.?” Kate whispered hopefully.
Aurora shook her head. “I don’t think the Andersons come here very much. Not anymore.”
The sounds continued. A door creaked open and slammed shut and the footsteps began again, moving on toward the ladder to the loft.
Suddenly Kate clenched her fists. “Those creeps,” she said. “I’ll bet it’s Bucky and the PROs. I’ll bet it’s those creeps again.”
Bucky Brockhurst, who was in Kate’s fifth-grade class, was a world-class pain in the neck. He was always teasing Kate and Aurora. And sometimes his friends, Carlos and Eddy, were in on his dirty tricks too. “They must have followed us here,” Kate said. “Come on. Let’s hide.” Kate grabbed Aurora’s arm and pulled her down behind a bale.
Kate was still crouched down in the straw when she heard Aurora whisper, “No, it’s not the PROs. Look, Kate. Look.”
Kate raised her head in time to see an unbelievably weird figure rising into the loft. At first it was only the top of a head. A round, smooth, perfectly bald head. Then came eyes. The head turned from side to side and big dark eyes looked around the loft. Kate ducked down behind the straw and then raised herself up again in time to see ears appear. Small ears hung with all kinds of dangling, sparkling earrings.
Suddenly she gasped with relief and poked Aurora. “Hey, it’s all right,” she said. “It’s just Bettina. Remember? I told you about meeting her. Last week while you were gone?”
A body was now appearing. A tall, thin shape wrapped in something long and flowing and flowery. Something that looked more like a drape than an actual dress. And below the uneven skirt there was a pair of enormous, clunky army boots. The weird figure finished the climb, straightened up, put its hands on its hips, and looked around. The bald head swiveled from side to side, setting the dangle of earrings to flashing and dancing.
“Come on,” Kate said to Aurora, who was still crouching behind the bales. Climbing out of their hiding place, she yelled, “Hey, Bettina! What are you doing here?”
When Kate yelled her name, Bettina Katzenbach whirled around and stared with wide, startled eyes. Kate had met her only once, because Bettina lived in New York City and had just arrived at Castle Court a few days before. But no one who had ever met Bettina would forget her. Not likely.
Bettina was, believe it or not, an Anderson grandkid. Believe it or not, because she was sixteen, which was older than most of the other Anderson grandkids. Older, and also weirder. A lot weirder.
When Kate called her name, Bettina jumped and whirled—but then she grinned. “Oh, it’s just you. What are you little dweebs doing up here? You really freaked me out, yelling at me that way.”
Kate, followed by Aurora, climbed down off the stack of bales. “Sorry about that,” she said. “We didn’t mean to scare you. But you scared us too. We thought you were a ghost.”
“Yeah? A ghost?” Bettina sounded interested. She started across the loft, in a flutter of flowery cloth and sparkling earrings. “Why’d you think—”
“Watch out!” Kate yelled. “Look out for the chute.”
Bettina had nearly stepped in one of the two hay chutes that led down to the stables below, but she managed to stop in time. When she got to where Kate and Aurora were standing she looked them over carefully, nodding her shiny bald head. “Yeah,” she said to Kate, “I remember you. You’re the kid who lives in that last house before the avenue. Right? The one with the geeky dog.”
Kate had been walking the Nicelys’ poodle when she met Bettina, and Fifi had almost had a heart attack. Fifi did get kind of hysterical at times, but for once Kate hadn’t exactly blamed her. Meeting Bettina unexpectedly could do that to anybody. For instance, at the moment, Aurora was looking pretty freaked herself.
“Relax,” Kate said to Aurora. “Bettina just dresses like that because she’s going to be a singer. You know, the kind that sings—” She paused. “What kind of songs did you say you sang?” she asked.
“Well, kind of like grunge, maybe. And protest,” Bettina said. “I sing protest songs a lot. That’s why I shave my head. You know, it’s like a protest.” She looked Aurora over, obviously checking out the baggy T-shirt, ragged tights, and wild, crinkly hair. “You protesting something too?” she asked.