33

“Get her!” shouted Lucy, diving for the witch’s legs.

Steve grabbed her cloak and yanked her back toward us while I flung myself on her, gagging as she hissed into my face. I held my breath and flung my arm around her neck.

Pain burned as her claws gouged at my eyes. But I kept my grip and Steve pinned her arms while I got her in a headlock.

“Careful,” said Dad, wiping blood from his face with one hand while he took hold of the witch with the other. “She’s an old lady. You don’t want to hurt her. Here, let me take her. Lucy, go up and tell Mrs. Winter to call the police.”

Lucy ran and the witch growled and spat as Dad dragged her, grunting with effort, toward the stairs.

Miss Everett twisted in the policemen’s grasp and looked back at the house. “I’ll get you,” she shrieked as they wrestled her toward the waiting ambulance. “You can’t stop me, I’ll get you all!”

Dad followed them outside and she spat horrible curses at him, words I’d never even heard. Mom kept us inside and we watched from the window as the police had to put her in a canvas straitjacket and carry her out to the waiting van.

The witch swept her eyes over the house until she found me. I flinched back from the window but her burning gaze stayed fixed on me.

“Get ready to die!” she screamed. “You’ll never have the ruby. It’s mine! I’ll kill you slow and painful, all of you, one by one. The little girl first!”

Her evil laughter rang out over the trees and through the house. “HAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAEEEEEE …”

Even after the doors to the ambulance were slammed shut and the vehicle made its slow way down the drive and out of our lives, her laughter seemed to rattle in our bones.

Mom shuddered as she turned away from the window. “To think we had that living in the basement the whole time.” Her eyes widened at the unspoken pictures forming in her mind and she shivered again.

“We’d better get the basement cleaned up before Sally comes home from her play group,” said Mom. “Let’s try to make this a normal house again, how about that?”

“Good idea,” said Dad, coming inside.

“I’ll help,” I said, hoping I might still find some clue to the missing jewel.

“We’ll help, too,” said Lucy. “I can’t believe the whole town thought she was dead all these years.”

I felt my stomach climbing up into my throat as we looked into the old lady’s hiding place. She’d stuck a narrow cot between the wall and a stack of boxes. Around it was piled what seemed like years of garbage and food wrappers. But no missing teddy bear. And no jewels.

Dad waded in with a garbage bag. As he disturbed the mess, the witch’s rotten stink rose into our faces in powerful waves.

Steve gulped. “Uh, I think I hear my mom calling,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Phew, me, too!” said Lucy, edging toward the stairs holding her nose.

After they left we all got to work, getting rid of every trace of the old witch.

“Your mother and I thought you had quite an appetite,” Dad said, sweeping doughnut boxes and ham wrappings into a garbage bag. “But she must have been stealing food every night. No wonder you thought we had ghosts.”

“It gives me the creeps to think of her having the run of the place while we slept,” said Mom. “But at least now we know where all those mysterious noises came from, right, Jay?” She looked at me with a shaky smile.

Dad tied up the last garbage bag. “And now everything will be back to normal around here.”

I grinned back at him. I didn’t think this house could ever be normal. But with the wicked witch gone at least the bad stuff would be over forever.