Ghost Stories (12 page)

Suddenly the silence was broken by a loud thump in the passageway, and a stiff gust of air caused the flambeau to go out!

Frank and Joe bounced to their feet.

“The ghost may be in the hall!” Frank exploded.

“And he may have blown out our torch,” Joe muttered. “I hope we can see enough in the dark.”

The boys rushed into the passageway and looked around. But they saw nothing in the dense gloom. Frank peeped through the grill in the dungeon door, but all was black inside.

“Joe, light the flambeau,” he suggested.

Joe used the lighter to get the torch burning again. They decided to investigate the hallway, which ended at a wooden door. It was unlocked, and, going through, the brothers found themselves in the garden. They saw nothing out there and returned to their room across the dungeon.

“Maybe the door was open and blew closed,” Frank speculated. “And that was the noise we heard.”

“And the wind in the passageway put out the flambeau,” Joe completed the thought. “Nothing spooky about that, if that's what happened.”

They sat down on their cots again. Frank stretched out to go to sleep while Joe stood guard.

Suddenly a ghostly voice began to sing a sea chanty in the dungeon! The words told of pirate voyages and buried treasure:

The Jolly Roger flies on the Spanish main,
The pirate ship is sailing toward the land,
And Captain Kidd has brought his treasure back,
But who knows where he'll hide it in the sand?

As the strident tones rose higher and higher, Frank and Joe raced out of their room. Joe grabbed
the flambeau while Frank unlocked the dungeon door. There they barreled into the prison cell.

They came to a skidding stop in the middle of the dungeon and stared bug-eyed at a wraith near the leg irons on the wall! The ghost was dressed in a pirate costume, had a black patch over one eye, and waved a cutlass. The face was that of Rollo MacElphin!

He broke off his sea chanty. Leering at them, he shrieked, “Hardys, leave the castle!”

The mention of their name startled Frank and Joe out of their trance.

“How do you know who we are?” Frank asked boldly.

“I know everything that happens here!” the specter replied.

“Why should we leave?” Joe asked.

“Because you are meddling in things that do not concern you! Leave now, or we will meet again!”

The outlines of the wraith became dim. Frank and Joe could see through it to the wall behind. They leaped forward with their hands outstretched, but the ghost had vanished and Joe found himself clutching nothing but one of the handcuffs.

The Hardys stared at each other in the flickering light of the flambeau.

“Frank, the ghost is for real,” Joe muttered. “And he's threatening us!”

Frank shuddered. “I wonder what it means. Well, we'll be ready for him if he comes back tonight.”

But the ghost did not return. In the morning, the Hardys informed Lord MacElphin.

“So, the ghost talked to you,” he marveled. “But
since it threatened you, I'll understand if you boys want to go home to America.”

Frank shook his head. “We came to do a job, and we're not about to be scared off.”

MacElphin looked relieved. “When you see my ancestor again, try to find out why he's haunting the castle.”

Joe suggested questioning the servants. “They may have heard something last night that will give us a clue,” he said.

“Go ahead.” MacElphin shrugged. “But the wind was howling so loudly that I doubt anyone noticed anything. I certainly didn't.”

Frank and Joe began with the cook. Then they talked to the gardener, the gamekeeper, and the maids. They all had rooms in the attic, and all denied hearing anything.

Mrs. Crone was hostile when they approached her. “You two let the ghost get away last night!” she shouted. “You should go home!”

“Why do you want us to leave?” Joe challenged her.

The housekeeper looked down. “I don't want you to be in danger,” she whispered.

“Then how do you suggest we get the ghost to stop haunting the castle?”

“Tear the place down!” She walked away without another word.

The Hardys were startled at her outburst. “I'm suspicious of Mrs. Crone,” Frank declared. “I think she knows something, and she's afraid we'll find out what it is. We'd better keep an eye on her.”

Joe nodded. “Good idea. But now let's search the castle. Maybe we'll find a clue somewhere.”

Frank agreed and they investigated the building room by room. At last they arrived on top of the tower. Standing under the pirate flag, they could see over sinister woods where large black ravens perched on branches of tall evergreens. Their harsh croaking echoed dismally through the trees. In the distance was a small village.

Joe pointed. “We haven't found anything here,” he said. “What say we try the village?”

“The local people may know something that might help us,” Frank agreed.

The young detectives went downstairs again and walked through the woods until they reached the small hamlet, which consisted of a business center surrounded by houses. The Hardys stopped passers-by and inquired about the castle. But everyone they questioned looked frightened and refused to answer.

“You better go away,” one man warned. “Even though we may know about the ghost at the castle, we don't want to admit it. Nobody wants to get involved.”

Only the postmistress was willing to talk to them. “The village suffered when the Wicked Lord was alive,” she explained. “That was centuries ago, but now people are afraid that his ghost may haunt them forever.”

“Has the ghost been seen in the village?” Joe inquired.

“Not yet.” The woman shook her head. “But you never know, do you?”

Frank raised the question of the witch's curse.

“I have only one thing to say,” was her reply.

“What's that?”

“There will be a full moon tonight!”

“What do you mean?”

But the woman would tell them no more. Instead she turned to a customer to sell him stamps.

Puzzled, Frank and Joe went back to the castle. “What's a full moon have to do with the witches?” Joe wondered.

An idea occurred to Frank. “Maybe there'll be a meeting tonight, Joe! Witches get together under a full moon, don't they? Suppose they gather on the castle grounds, near where they used to meet before the place was built?”

Joe became excited. “Could be someone in the castle is a witch!” he declared. “Mrs. Crone, for instance. She's been acting kind of strange all along.”

Frank nodded. “We're supposed to hunt for the ghost, but we'll keep an eye on her at the same time.”

That night after dinner the Hardys went into their room opposite the dungeon. Frank took the first watch while Joe tried to sleep.

About an hour later, Frank heard footsteps on the spiral stone staircase. Quickly he lay down on his cot, closed his eyes until he could barely see, and pretended to be asleep. The footsteps advanced along the passageway until they stopped at their door. The next moment, Mrs. Crone looked in!

Satisfied that the Hardys were asleep, she turned
and peered through the grill into the dungeon. Frank felt the hair rise on the back of his neck when he heard her speak.

“You are not here, Rollo MacElphin!” she intoned in a hoarse whisper. “Return soon!”

Then she continued walking down the passageway. Frank silently got up from his cot and shook Joe awake.

“It's Mrs. Crone,” he whispered. “We'll have to follow her and find out what she's up to.”

A moment later, both boys were on the trail of the housekeeper. She was just about to walk through the rear door of the hallway. The Hardys tiptoed behind her and soon found themselves in the garden bathed in the light of the full moon.

Mrs. Crone went straight into the woods until she came to a broad, open space between the trees. Hiding behind a clump of bushes, Frank and Joe saw several women already assembled in the clearing. They greeted Mrs. Crone as their leader.

Then they formed a circle around her and began an eerie dance, spinning slowly at first, but getting faster and faster as the tempo of their chant increased. Mrs. Crone stood silently, gazing at the moon.

Suddenly the dance ceased and the women went down on their knees, starting another rhythmic chant. “We are witches!” they cried. “We know the magic spells and will bring the powers of darkness down on anyone who tries to cross us!”

Finally the chanting stopped and the witches
held their hands out toward Mrs. Crone. She extended her arms to the full moon.

“The curse is on MacElphin Castle,” she shrieked. “It shall remain until the castle falls! Then the domain of the witches will be ours again as it was in centuries gone by.”

Frank nudged Joe. “That's why she said the place should be torn down,” he whispered. “She wants to get their old meeting place back!”

“No wonder she's not afraid of the ghost,” Joe added. “They're both occult.”

After some more chanting and dancing, the witches disbanded. Most of them moved off into the woods, while Mrs. Crone headed back to MacElphin Castle with the Hardys dogging her footsteps. She went through the garden door into the passageway. Silently they came after her.

Again she stopped at the dungeon grill. “Are you there, Rollo MacElphin? No? Well, there is still time,” she murmured.

“Time for what?” Frank demanded. “To haunt the castle till it has to be torn down?”

Mrs. Crone whirled around. Her eyes blazed in the dancing flames of the flambeau on the wall.

“I told you to leave the castle!” she hissed.

“We know why,” Joe said. “You're a witch! We followed you to the meeting and saw everything! You want this land back. That's why you're so friendly with the ghost.”

“Rollo MacElphin did the damage,” Mrs. Crone muttered. “He must undo the damage!”

Frank looked sternly at the woman. “Did you
summon the ghost of the Wicked Lord to haunt the place?”

Mrs. Crone smiled, the corners of her lips curled slyly. “Ask Rollo MacElphin when you meet him!”

Frank made a quick guess. “Mrs. Crone, you slammed the garden door last night and made the flambeau go out. You thought we'd be scared and leave. You were worried we'd find out you're a witch; that's why you told us the curse was just a superstition.”

“And you don't
want
to get rid of the ghost,” Joe accused the housekeeper. “You just want to get rid of us!”

Mrs. Crone's guilty look showed the Hardys they were right. But she did not reply. Instead, she turned and hurried up the spiral staircase.

The boys let her go and went back into the room opposite the dungeon to resume their watch. Frank dozed off while Joe stood guard in the silence that blanketed the castle. Thinking he heard a noise in the dungeon, the younger Hardy quickly stepped across the room into the passageway and stared through the grill on the prison door.

Rays of moonlight slanted between the bars of the window, throwing shafts of yellow light across the floor. The handcuffs and leg irons, as well as the chains from the pirate chest, hung on the wall as before, but there was no sign of the ghost.

“I must be imagining things,” Joe muttered to himself.

He was inspecting the flambeau to make sure it was burning properly when a furtive movement
caught his eye. Startled, he swiveled around in time to see a large black cat scoot off along the passageway into the darkness.

They say a black cat brings bad luck, he reminded himself. I wonder if that was a ghost cat. Maybe Rollo MacElphin brought it back from a pirate voyage!

Ruminating over such thoughts, Joe returned to his post. He resumed his watch, sitting on the edge of his cot and straining his eyes and ears as the minutes ticked away slowly. Frank was still asleep.

Suddenly a noise brought Joe to his feet again. He awakened Frank as he heard the sound of metal striking stone!

Both boys darted across the room and out to the prison door. Through the grill they saw the Wicked Lord materializing through the wall beneath the window. The ghost swung his cutlass as he came, and the strange sound was caused by the blade striking against the blocks of stone!

Again Joe grabbed the flambeau while Frank unlocked the door. They burst into the dungeon, determined to corner the phantom, yet afraid it might vanish before they had a chance.

However, Rollo MacElphin did not disappear. He glared at them malevolently, his flattened nose, leering mouth, and crooked yellow teeth just as in the portrait.

The Hardys stopped a few feet away from the uncanny specter, who now spoke in an eerie voice that gave them cold chills.

“I have tested you before and you do not seem to
be afraid, strangers from another land. By the laws of the occult, I must speak to you! What I say may chill your blood. Do you dare hear it?”

Frank roused himself to a bold reply. “Yes. We do. Let us hear whatever it is!”

“I have been haunting this castle for nearly three centuries,” the ghostly image said. “I was doomed to it by the witch's curse!”

“What is the witch's curse?” Joe asked, holding his voice steady in spite of the specter's evil look.

The ghost rested the cutlass in the crook of its arm and recited the lines in a harsh voice:

Lord MacElphin at night shall roam
Around the castle he made his home
Until he returns the woods and land
To the women of the witches' band.

The Hardys felt goose bumps as they listened to the ghost intone the weird verse. The uncanny creature went on, “The witch leader, an ancestor of Mrs. Crone, warned me not to build my castle on the meeting ground of her coven. But I scoffed at her. Therefore she placed the curse on me at the time of my death!”

The Hardys looked at each other. Both realized the clues of the MacElphin mystery were beginning to fall into place.