Meg stared up at the top of the hole. She called out again.
“Will! Will!!”
She strained to hear his answering shout. Even a cough, or the murmur of Will’s voice comforting Ariel, but Will didn’t answer. Her own voice echoed eerily about the pit.
Meg squatted on the subterranean tree root. No rope. No cheerful Will voice telling her it would be okay, to just hang on. She’d been so focused on getting Ariel out of the pit and avoiding the ghost that she hadn’t noticed the dark so much. Now she was alone. The darkness collected about her, thick and terrifying.
Meg’s ankles wobbled as she crouched. She sat down quickly and gripped the tree root with both hands. Steady, steady. Far below she heard a soft splash as more dirt fell. If she slipped, she’d plunge into the waiting, menacing inky water.
Meg closed her eyes. It was dark either way, and she preferred blocking out the well. Will wasn’t coming. Not yet, she corrected herself. If Will couldn’t come at all, someone else would find her. They’d have to look down here eventually. When she heard the rescuers, she’d yell and they’d hear her. Of course, that was only sensible. She’d had plenty to eat for lunch. All she had to do was wait. Someone would come.
Meg shifted her position, careful to stay on the ledge. As she did, her hand touched something. Not wood like the rest. The object was hard and curved. She shrank back. Of course. Many years ago another girl had waited here. Another girl had called and cried and waited for someone to come.
High above, the church bells began to ring.
The bells tolled four and stopped. In Meg’s mind, the bells kept playing, bonging mournfully off the stone walls of the well pit, swirling around her. Alone with the bells. Far overhead, the sun-drenched, living world had disappeared. Meg curled into the smallest bundle she could and pressed her eyes tightly closed, trying to shut out both the bells and the darkness.
A new sound entered the pit. A regular rhythm. Meg sat up. Could it be? Yes, amazingly, it was. A blaring, blasting, honking sound. She clutched the ledge and stared at the circle of light above. Sirens were screeching toward the Griffinage.
The next minute, two heads poked over the well hole and blocked the sky.
“There she is! Hello, Meg!” cried the head that was Will’s.
“All right. No worries, we’ll get you out,” said the new head.
The new head lowered down a rope and a harness—a real nylon harness with a padded waist belt and clips for carabiners—not a toolshed rope. This was like climbing-wall harnesses she knew from school. Meg wrapped her arm around the sturdy tree root again for balance, automatically stepped into the harness, and adjusted the straps. She tugged on the line to indicate she was ready. Then, marvelously, she was rising. Rising up the shaft, secure and snug and safe at last.
At the top, Meg stood blinking in the bright afternoon daylight as her eyes adjusted from the dark pit. She could make out a bright yellow-and-green ambulance parked on Aunt Effie’s grass and a police car beside it. Two emergency workers were fussing over something in a stretcher and shifting it on to a wheeled hospital bed. Ariel, thought Meg. The body was still and covered with a sheet. She stumbled toward the ambulance, but a strong arm stopped her.
“Whoa, girl.” Meg was face-to-face with her rescuer, a man dressed in dark green with embroidered medical patches on his uniform. He gripped her shoulders with both hands.
“Easy there, slow down, I’ve got you,” said the medic. “Your sister will be all right. Looks as if she has a broken ankle and certainly a bit of a shock. They’ll get her sorted out at the hospital.”
“She’s alive,” stammered Meg.
“Yes, she’s very much alive.”
Meg relaxed in his grip, and the medic eased her down to sit next to a tangle of rope that lay pitched on the grass. She was glad to sit. Her stomach felt queasy. Meg noticed Uncle Ben was there too. If Uncle Ben was home, maybe that meant Aunt Effie was home, but no, that didn’t make sense. If Aunt Effie were here, she’d be darting all over, talking about Roman well construction and fussing over everyone. There was no one darting around except Will, who was dancing from foot to foot trying to talk to Meg.
“Let me get this straight, young lady,” said the man. “You didn’t fall?”
“No, I went down on a rope.”
“This rope.” He held up the toolshed rope. It was grey and thin and noticeably frayed.
Meg blinked. She hadn’t noticed the rope’s condition when they’d grabbed it from the toolshed. Some strands were newly frayed, maybe from rubbing against the walnut bark.
“Right. You’re a brave girl, but mostly a very lucky one. Abandoned wells are nothing to play around with. Ever. They’re death traps.” He paused and stared at Meg and Will hard, then gently began examining Meg’s hands, legs, and torso. “Seems you’ve got by with nothing but some slight rope burns. Those will heal up. Lucky, as I said.” He stood up and called to his colleague. “Right, Jack! This one’s checking out fine.” He gave Meg a quick playful salute, then turned to join the other rescue workers.
Will took his place the moment the medic turned away. He poked her in the ribs.
“Ouch—don’t. Where is she?”
“Over there. In the ambulance already.”
“No, the girl.”
“Up the walnut tree. I think. Or maybe gone dormant. I can’t see her,” said Will. “Uncle Ben scared her off and now I’m sure the sirens really freaked her. Maybe she’s hiding. I don’t sense any sign of her.”
“You sure freaked me out too.” Meg’s lip trembled. She felt more like crying now that she was safely out of the well. She couldn’t throw off the ache of darkness and despair when no one answered her calls. Down among the moist stones, lost in the dank pit with nothing but the bells ringing. In those few minutes, she’d glimpsed the ghost girl’s everlasting loneliness.
She tried to shake off the feeling. She turned, and her eyes landed on the ambulance sitting there on the Griffinage grass, squat and blaze yellow, with checkered green squares painted on the side.
“The ambulance,” Meg said. “How did it get here?”
Will smiled his great goofy, Griffin grin. “I phoned. Just dialed 911 and it automatically rerouted the call to the right emergency number. It’s 999, by the way.”
As they watched, the ambulance back doors slammed shut, showing neon orange stripes. Meg startled into action.
“They’re leaving!” she yelled, and scrambled up, dashing toward the vehicle. Her rescuer was in the driver’s seat, but Meg ran up beside him. She grabbed his sleeve through the window.
“Wait! Where are you going?” she cried.
“South Mendip Community Hospital,” said the man. “Don’t worry, the constable will take care of you.” He pointed to the police car, where a tall, overly freckled policeman stood. Then the siren pierced the air and the yellow ambulance drove off.
“Whew. I’m sure glad Ariel’s getting far away from the well,” said Will, as they walked over to the police officer. “I think that’s where the ghost is strongest. It’s like her power center or something. I’ve never seen a ghost so bright.”
“And how many ghosts have you seen?” countered Meg.
“Two.”
After the storm, the manor ghost had holed up in her tower. The tower had been her home for so long. It usually brought comfort, but now she was restless. The pull was too strong. She’d have to return to the peasant cottage. She glided out the West Tower window, slid down the tower’s curved stone, then sidled through the trees near Mendip Brook, finally drifting over the fields toward Cook’s Cottage. She could already see its thatched roof.
Then she stopped midfloat. Something was different. It wasn’t there. The powerful tug came from another location now, farther away, and moving fast. She changed direction and sped up.
“Can you take us to the hospital? We’ve got to stay right with our sister when she wakes up!”
The police officer bent down and smiled, spreading out his freckles.
“You’re the boy who called. Will Griffin, am I right? I’m PC Targent. And you must be another Griffin,” he said, turning to Meg. “I can always spot a Griffin. Look just like your aunt.” Meg didn’t flinch at the reference to her hair.
“I’m Meg,” she said simply.
“Will you take us?” persisted Will. “It’s very important.”
“Jump in the back. I’ve already called your aunt. Might as well have you all together in one spot when she comes to get you.”
“Thanks!” said Will. He immediately crawled in the back seat. The police car looked different than the ones at home. This one was white with giant yellow and blue squares decorating the sides like a checkerboard. Up top, the lights were bright blue, not red.
Meg didn’t follow. “Will!” she whispered. “We’ve got to bring Uncle Ben! We don’t know what might happen.”
Will swallowed hard. The excitement of riding in a real police car had temporarily made him forget about the ghosts. Of course, Meg was right. Even in the hospital, Ariel could still be in danger.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Officer Targent, seeing them bring Ben over. “No room for muddy dogs.”
Meg burst into tears. “He’s just got to come, Officer! Oh, you’ve just got to let Uncle Ben come,” she sobbed.
It was false crying, Will could tell at once. A real blubbering, whining show. But Officer Targent didn’t seem to notice. He blinked his eyes and shuffled his feet. He probably didn’t have kids, Will decided.
Meg kept blubbing: “I’ve never been so scared in my life, and he’s part of the family—oh, please!”
The policeman’s face softened. Meg shot Will a conspiratorial look through her tears. Will hissed, “Come on, boy,” under his breath, and Uncle Ben leapt into the cruiser.
“Oi! Got me clean seats all muddy. And the windows!” Officer Targent protested. He flicked ineffectively at the mud prints with a paper napkin. Uncle Ben wagged his tail and spattered more mud as he turned around, then dropped a long strand of dog slobber that fell on the policeman’s neck. Officer Targent crumpled up the napkin, mopped his neck, and stared at his unwanted back seat passenger.
“You’ve made your mess now,” he said. “Might as well stay for the ride.” He paused and his face crinkled into a smile. “To tell the truth, I always liked dogs. Would love to be a handler on the dog unit,” said Officer Targent, swinging his shoulders back to the steering wheel. “We’ll put the siren on, shall we?”
Will grinned in delight. Wait until he told his friends back home about riding in a cop car. With the sirens on.
“Not far to South Mendip,” the officer said, raising his voice as the sirens kicked on. “Just the other side of McBurney’s west pastures. By road it’s twenty minutes, but it’s a straight shot through the pastures; you could walk in half the time.” He stepped on the gas. “Off we go! Make way for the Griffinage dog.”
Will felt a flush of excitement as the siren blared. It wasn’t as loud as he’d expected from inside, but much more exhilarating. Again, he momentarily forgot about the ghosts as Officer Targent swung the patrol car up the Griffinage driveway, honking the horn for good measure. They were turning onto Queensway Road when Meg tugged Will’s arm and leaned over to cup her hands over his ear.
“I saw bones down there, Will. I’m sure I did. I felt them on that ledge. A skeleton. I’m sure it was a real human skeleton.”