CHAPTER 6
orning dawned cold and gray. October breezes stretched clouds
into thin wisps across a leaden sky. Inside the snug, pine paneled
kitchen at 13 Darkling Lane, Margo Wilde was determinedly making
blueberry muffins. The blended scents of fresh coffee brewing and
muffins baking were pleasantly homey and reassuring.
The telephone in the living room rang. As Oliver’s voice drifted in, Margo wondered vaguely who would have called this early in the morning. She reached into a cupboard next to the sink and took down three blue china cups.
“I can’t believe this!” Oliver shouted as he banged down the telephone receiver.
Margo jumped and a coffee cup shattered. Her lips narrowed into a frown as she fished ceramic fragments from the sink.
“At this rate,” she muttered, “I’ll need a whole new set of china pretty soon.”
The kitchen door flew open and Oliver stomped in, his face red with anger. “As if there isn’t enough going on around here! You won’t believe who’s coming to Whistlebrass in the middle of all this drama. Enoch Bloodwyn!”
Margo looked blankly out of the window without turning around. She dropped the broken pieces back into the sink, snapping water and tiny bits of china from her elegant fingers. Her eyes narrowed guardedly. “I haven’t heard his name in a while.”
“I just got off the phone with the dean. Apparently, news of important artifacts being shipped to Arcayne College by Victor Wilberforce has aroused quite a bit of interest in the scientific community which would be good news, but apparently I am not capable of handling the situation on my own. And somehow that self-satisfied snake, Enoch Bloodwyn just happened to materialize in the right place at the right time, ready to slither back into our lives.”
“You are more than capable, darling.” Margo picked up some potholders and walked across to the oven, avoiding Oliver’s gaze. “On the other hand, you could use some assistance and perhaps Doctor Blood—”
“Perhaps Bloodwyn is going to plunge another knife in my back at the first opportunity. It was his sabotage that caused my Costa Rica project to lose its funding,” snapped Oliver. He picked up a paper napkin and began tearing it to shreds. “After my research materials vanished, the celebrated thief published nearly duplicate research as his original work. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that his influence helped get me removed from the New Mexico dig either. And now he’s coming here.”
“In the first place, you don’t know for sure that he stole your research.” Margo took out the tray of steaming blueberry muffins and shook them into a little wicker basket. “In the detective stories, that would be considered circumstantial evidence. Neither of us wants some ogre from the past to come tripping back into our lives, Oliver. But you have to admit on top of all of the terrifying things that have been happening, this is rather minor.”
Oliver glowered and said nothing.
“It might not be so bad,” Margo offered gently. “After all, how much trouble can he cause?”
*
Casey brushed his teeth and ran a comb through his hair. The rejuvenating effects of sleep and a long hot shower had helped to bolster his confidence. He pulled on his jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers, headed out into the hallway, and then skidded to a halt. After a quick about face, he plunged back into his room and retrieved the howlite from under his pillow. With the white stone securely in his pocket, he started out again.
The door to Pearl’s room was open. Casey paused and chewed his lip for a while before stepping hesitantly inside. He circled around the bed, walked up to Pearl’s closet and patted his pocket to be sure the howlite was there.
“Here goes nothing,” he whispered. Then he took a deep breath, and pulled open the door.
Little dresses, blouses, and coats hung on their hangers as they always had. Shoes and boots stood in a line on the floor. Casey reached into the closet and pulled a thin brass chain. The bulb in the closet popped on, revealing a dark smudge near the doorknob that glistened like an oil slick, deep green and iridescent. As Casey bent close and trailed his index finger through the smudge, his mouth filled with ashes and a soft musical moan began to echo in his ears.
The wailing in Casey’s head became a throbbing howl and his panic rose as he raced, panting, down the hall and into the white tiled bathroom. He thrust his hand under a stream of hot water and scrubbed until the stain was gone. Slumping to the floor and breathing hard, he sat still, listening to the blessedly ordinary sounds of the creaky old house. After a few minutes, he headed back to Pearl’s room, armed with glass cleaner and a wad of paper towels.
“Okay,” said Casey as he cleaned the green streak off Pearl’s closet door, “I’m not imagining this.”
*
Casey padded downstairs to the kitchen, squeaked open the door, and slid a door stop in place with his foot. Pearl was seated in the breakfast nook, dismantling a blueberry muffin with extreme care, eating the plain cake sections and depositing the unwanted blueberries on a paper napkin. It was her firmly held conviction that blue food was not to be trusted.
Casey poured himself a glass of orange juice and leaned against the counter.
“Dad, what does ectoplasm look like?”
“That’s a peculiar question to ask first thing in the morning,” said Oliver, looking at his from over his coffee cup. “Where did you hear about ectoplasm?”
“Uncle Simon was talking about it the last time he came to visit. He said he attended a séance in London and…”
“What’s echoplastic?” asked Pearl, pausing her dismemberment of the muffin for a moment.
“Ectoplasm is supposedly a physical trace of a spectral presence,” said Oliver.
Pearl looked at her father quizzically, and then returned her attention to the troublesome blueberries. “What’s that mean?”
“Ghost glop, honey,” said Margo, pouring milk into her tea. “Simon took me to one of those séances once. We held hands and sat around a table. There was a crazy old spiritualist…Madame Something-or-other. I remember she had earrings that looked like tin can lids and a turban with a big fake jewel…the whole nine yards.”
Margo paused to break off the corner of a muffin top and pop it into her mouth.
“Anyway, Madam Whatchamacallit went into a trance and tried to contact the dearly departed. She did it very convincingly too. The table twitched and knocked, and ectoplasm poured out of her like sour cream.”
“So the ectoplasm was milky?” asked Casey. “Do you suppose it could ever appear as sort of an oily substance with iridescent green…”
“The spiritualist at your mother’s séance was undoubtedly a fake. There is no such thing as ectoplasm, so you can imagine it to be any color you like.” Oliver sighed and leaned back against the back of the breakfast nook bench. “You can’t have a physical trace of something like a ghost that wasn’t there in the first place. Margo, your crazy brother, Simon, might believe in all that spooky mumbo jumbo, but surely you realize it’s all just a hoax.”
Margo just sipped her tea and shrugged her shoulders. Casey decided to drop the subject. His father was right that something which wasn’t there couldn’t leave a mark. But going at it from the other direction, the presence of a mark, like the smear on Pearl’s closet door, meant that something had been there.
“Pearl, is Penny still up in your room?” asked Margo.
“Nope, she’s back there,” she said, pointing toward the rear of the house.
“That makes sense,” Oliver said, “She must have gone looking for Dot.”
“The poor thing is probably hungry by now, and so am I.” Margo opened the refrigerator door and surveyed the contents. “I want to scramble some eggs before you all fill up on muffins. We don’t have dog food, but I can make Penny a hamburger. Casey, please let Dot know breakfast will be ready shortly.”
A little arched doorway under the staircase in the foyer led to a shadowy wing split in half by a long hallway. There was a laundry room on one side, and a guest bedroom and bath on the other. At the archway, Casey paused and looked down the back hall. Penny stood frozen in place, staring intently at the closed guestroom door. As Casey stepped closer, he could hear a low rumbling growl.
“Good girl,” whispered Casey.
There was a slight tremor in his voice. Penny was an impressive animal even in repose. Standing at attention with fur bristling, she was undeniably intimidating. Conscious of the goose bumps rising on his arms, Casey inched his way closer to the door until he and Penny were side by side. Penny growled again. Casey reached forward hesitantly, as far above the dog’s head as possible, and knocked.
“Mrs. Clydesdale? It’s Casey. Penny is here, and my mom sent me to tell you there’s coffee and breakfast in the kitchen…”
There was no response. Dot Clydesdale was probably just a sound sleeper.
Probably.
Casey considered his options.
“Here goes nothing,” he said, carefully turning the doorknob.
As the latch released, Penny lunged forward, banging the door hard against the wall. A spindly table crashed to the floor and a ceramic vase shattered into pieces. The dog flew directly to the closet door and stared at it for a moment. Then the growls turned to furious barking. Casey could hear his family reacting to the noise followed by hammering footsteps headed his way.
Dot Clydesdale’s coat was folded neatly over a chair. Her shoes stood at the foot of the bed. Next to the lamp on the little nightstand was her handbag, a pair of reading glasses, and a paperback mystery novel.
The blanket was still pulled up over the pillows. The bed hadn’t been slept in. There was no sign of a struggle. Dot Clydesdale was just gone.
Casey went to the closet and threw the door open, causing some of the empty hangers to jingle together. The closet was virtually empty except for a few winter coats and some blankets up on a high shelf. He pulled a beaded metal chain and a light clicked on.
On the back wall of the closet was the oily imprint of a hand.
Dark, greenish, and faintly iridescent.