Rules for Ghosting Page 3

  The three of them moved inside the house and Oliver trailed behind them up the stairs.

  “There’s a calendar in every room!” Mom exclaimed, poking her head inside a door. “And every one of them fifteen years old. It certainly has been a while since this house has been lived in, Mr. Rutabartle.”

  “Naturally,” the town official replied. “This is why you’ve been hired.”

  “There is a lot of work to be done,” Mom continued. “But I’m up for the challenge. We all are.”

  “Next April,” Dad said thoughtfully. “That’s the date you’ve set for the auction?”

  Rutabartle waved a hand. “Give or take, you know. I can be flexible at this point, though I do wish to turn the property around as promptly as possible. Six months should be long enough to restore the image of the house. As you can imagine, current interest in the property is limited at best. With your help, I’m sure we can bring this sale to a much more satisfying conclusion.”

  Mom seemed to come to a decision. “I think perhaps we’ll start with a party,” she said. “A combination housewarming, getting to know the townspeople, introducing ourselves, and so on. A Halloween party, I’m thinking. Isn’t this house just right for it? And with Halloween only two weeks away. How perfect!”

  Rutabartle frowned. “I don’t think that is quite the impression—”

  “Nonsense!” Mom flipped a page on her notepad and started scribbling. “It’s exactly the right impression. People will see those rumors are just part of the house’s charm and mystique. Everyone loves a haunted house on Halloween, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I’m not sure—” began Rutabartle, but it was obvious that Mom wasn’t waiting for his approval.

  “Excellent. We’ve only got a couple of weeks and there’s a lot to do, so we’d all best get busy.” And she zipped off down the hallway, with Rutabartle fast on her heels. JJ clattered away in the distance, probably planning some new and spectacularly evil prank, and Poppy had disappeared. Oliver stood next to his dad in the huge entrance area. Under its thick coat of dust, the dark wood floor was heavy and smooth. The staircase with its fancy marble banister curved invitingly out of sight, like a finger beckoning him to come. On the walls were oil paintings and one very tall vase with Egyptian-looking etchings.

  Six months didn’t seem nearly long enough to inhabit a place like this. It was the kind of house you wanted to take your time to explore, savoring every room and introducing yourself to each doorframe and wall hanging. It was the kind of house you wanted to make friends with slowly, because you knew it would be a friendship worth keeping, one that could last a lifetime.

  Years and years ago, almost as far back as Oliver could remember, the Days had been a normal family, and Dad had had a normal job as a tax accountant. But one day, as Dad told it, he had accidentally walked into the wrong convention center and had come out reborn into a brand-new career. For the last six years, Dad had been working hard to make it big with his online puppet show, The Jolly Marzipans. The side job of being professional long-term house-sitters had fit perfectly well with Dad’s new life goals. Which was all well and good for a while. But Oliver was tired of constantly packing and unpacking and moving and getting to know new places and trying to make new friends over and over, as often as once or twice a year. More than anything, he wanted a home of their own, someplace they would never have to leave.

  And now …

  This was it, Oliver thought. Silverton Manor was the house he had been waiting for, looking for, hoping to find someday. Something big and warm surged inside him. He had come home.

  “We’ve got to find a way to stay in this house,” Oliver whispered to himself. “We’ve just got to. I’ve got to.”

  Chapter 5

  Dahlia couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she watched the door shut behind the last member of the Day family. All these living people! In her house! It had been so many years since anyone had lived here that she almost didn’t know what to do with herself.

  “We’ve got company!” she crowed, twirling in circles around Mrs. Tibbs. “And they’re staying all the way until spring. Think of all there will be to do here now. And there are kids too. This day is just too good to be true!”

  Mrs. Tibbs had her head inclined to the side. “Well, my gamboling gumdrop, so long as they are settling in, perhaps we ourselves should settle in with some hands-on training in the finer art of ghosting. Do you have any lookout places of a certain height?”

  Dahlia beamed. “I know just the spot.” She drifted back the way they’d come, through the manor wall and out toward the property’s forested edge. “After my cubby, this is my second-favorite place,” she confided. “I’ve never had anyone I could show it to before.”

  Mrs. Tibbs zipped along behind Dahlia toward a tall oak tree with rough, leaf-stripped branches jutting out to each side.

  “Well, I do say,” exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, striking a jaunty pose and propelling herself upward in a standing position. “Have you ever seen a tree that looks better for haunting?”

  “It’s perfect, isn’t it?” said Dahlia, grinning. She couldn’t manage the same pose as the older ghost, nor could she rise in place without moving her body. That was a trick she had to get Mrs. Tibbs to teach her the moment she got the chance. But for now, she went with the usual: churning a little whirlwind and then hopping from gust to gust, getting to the topmost branch with a spin and flourish.

  Only to find that Mrs. Tibbs was still hovering halfway up the tree trunk. “What are these etchings?” she asked curiously.

  Dahlia felt her cheeks heating up. “Oh, don’t mind those—they’re just something I do to … pass the time. You know.”

  “Are these star charts?”

  “I’ve always loved astronomy,” Dahlia confessed, sinking back down next to Mrs. Tibbs. “It’s something I know about, the sky, the stars—something that never goes away. The stars’ positions change, but they’re always predictable.”

  “So you carved these charts in the bark? There must be dozens of them!”

  “Well, Mrs. Silverton—my mother—lived and breathed her calendars. She kept dozens of them, in just about every room. And me … well, I don’t know all that much about who I was. So it always seemed important to be able to remember when I was.”

  Mrs. Tibbs ran a finger over the careful sketches, the meticulous night-sky impressions that Dahlia had spent so many lonely hours carving into the side of her tree.

  “Once my mother went away,” Dahlia said, “there was no one to change the calendars in the house anymore. So I needed another way to keep track of the days and years. We used to watch a lot of astronomy shows on TV together, you know. Or as together as we could be, anyway, between living and ghost. I suppose this was my way to try and recapture some of that. But the stars … I can’t seem to get enough of them.”

  “And this way you’ve been able to track the passage of time. Fascinating!” Mrs. Tibbs’s tone was full of admiration, and Dahlia felt her face grow warm again.

  “It’s nothing, really,” she said quickly. “Should we get on with our lesson?”

  With a nod, Mrs. Tibbs shot up the rest of the way. Lifting her skirt, she folded her lean legs over the uppermost branch and settled the carpetbag on her bony lap. Dahlia raised an eyebrow. Was that ghost really sitting on the branch? The more she watched, the more things there were to learn. Mrs. Tibbs was already talking, though, so Dahlia found a wind pocket next to her and curled up to listen.

  “… the house,” concluded Mrs. Tibbs. “Do you see what I mean?”

  “Hmm,” Dahlia mused, hoping she sounded convincingly thoughtful, not quite ready to admit that she’d missed the first part of the speech. “I suppose so. But you might explain it once more, to be sure I’ve got it right.”

  “I call it Clearsight, though I’m sure the Ghouncil has some formal term for it. I never can quite keep track of all their fancy names …” She faltered. “Of course, you won’t know about th
e Ghouncil, will you? Officially, the Spectral Investigative Council, but who wants to chew that mouthful all day long?”

  “The Ghouncil,” said Dahlia thoughtfully. “They’re like … the ghost police?”

  “You could say that. Police and congress and government all rolled into one. Fire department too, I’d reckon.” Mrs. Tibbs chuckled. “My, er, bosses, you might say. There’s a call for a Liberator and the Ghouncil sends the directions to my Pin and I’m off! But as I was saying: Clearsight. It’s a way to get past all the clutter you find in the living world. So, take a good look back at the house.”

  Dahlia tilted her head and inspected Silverton Manor. She studied the four stories and the turrets. She saw walls and windows, balconies and rough-shingled rooftops. A dozen windows winked like giant eyes. She turned back to Mrs. Tibbs, who was gazing at her expectantly.

  “Well?”

  Dahlia looked again. “What am I supposed to see?”

  “Why, the big picture, of course! What do you see?”

  “I see a house.”

  “Yes, of course you see a house, child! But keep on going. Don’t stop at the front wall … look further, into the house.”

  Dahlia’s eyes widened. She could easily pass through objects; why had she never thought of deliberately looking through them too? They sure seemed insubstantial enough to start with! It took her more than a few tries, and much coaching from Mrs. Tibbs. But after long minutes of eye-crossing effort, the walls finally brushed away to a ghostly shell, leaving the first layer of rooms clearly visible. Seizing upon her success she kept going, tunneling her vision until, to her amazement, she could see a panorama of the entire house. Each room looked outlined in Christmas lights, with the people inside resting on walls and floors of tracing paper. In one glance Dahlia could see everything that was happening all over the house.

  “Well, knock me over with a feather,” she breathed.

  Each member of the new family was like a figure in a life-size dollhouse—the father lugging suitcases down the hall toward the master bedroom; the mother leaning halfway out of a lower kitchen cupboard, emitting horrified yelps at whatever she’d found in there; a boy around Dahlia’s age and a slightly younger girl racing each other down the hallway that led to the upper turret and yelling about who would get to claim that room; and the little twins bopping up and down on a sheet-covered couch like a pair of jumping beans. In between were countless empty rooms, and at the very top of the house was the attic, curiously dark and gray compared to the rest of the house. It felt almost rotten, stewing in the upper part of the house like a bad spot on a potato. But Dahlia was too entranced to give much thought to one sour room.

  “I’m starting to get what you mean about the house being a walnut,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Who knew that changing your perspective could make such a difference in what you see!” Dahlia wanted to keep playing with this new Clearsight, but Mrs. Tibbs’s face was drawn up into a serious look, which told Dahlia that instruction was on the way.

  “The time has come,” said Mrs. Tibbs, “to make plans about how we are going to get you Liberated.”

  “Oh, yes!” Dahlia cried. “And I think the first thing I need to know more about is being Anchored. What exactly does it mean? How does it work?”

  Mrs. Tibbs considered. “You know how you like to catch objects as they expire, and hold them here?”

  Dahlia nodded.

  “Well, in much the same way, ghosts can become Anchored when their death involves unfinished business. When that happens, it’s like the object—your Anchor, that is—catches and holds on to you. Then you cannot leave the place where that object is.”

  “Can’t leave that place … ever?”

  “No, not forever—just until you’re loosed,” said Mrs. Tibbs. “And that’s where I come in. A Liberator can help you examine your memories and find the object that’s trapped you. Once that Anchor is found you can release its store of memory, which looses its hold, and then—eureka! You are freed to move on.”

  “But, Mrs. Tibbs, I don’t remember any objects. I don’t remember anything from when I died.”

  “Hmmm, then I suppose we shall have to indulge in some good old-fashioned treasure hunting. Wouldn’t you say?” Mrs. Tibbs shifted position on her branch. “And I’ve still got a trick or two up these voluminous sleeves, my dear, which I think you will quite enjoy.”

  Dahlia looked back at the house. Her little cubby room glowed like a warm beacon, banking the sheet-filled downstairs rooms where she’d spent so many lonesome days and nights. And the upstairs, where she didn’t really like to venture, given how the floors got all sucky-gooey and she could never properly rest on them. She knew the house inside out, sure—but only on the surface. She’d put her hands through just about every drawer, surface, and hidden nook and cranny. But in all those things she’d never been able to touch or hold, might there be clues to her forgotten past? Somewhere deep inside herself Dahlia began, very quietly, to hope.

  “Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Tibbs. “I suppose we had better get started. We have a rollicking big job ahead and, very likely, not quite enough time to do it.”

  From the courtyard below came the sound of an engine starting up. The town official had stuffed himself and his bushy mustache and gleaming sunglasses into his sports car and was calling last-minute instructions out the window. There was something greasy about the man that made Dahlia want to run a squeegee across her eyeballs every time she looked at him.

  “—leave you to get settled in,” he was saying. “I will probably be around from time to time, checking up on things. Don’t mind me, I’ll just barge in and around as necessary. You have my number to arrange for repairs, and the landscapers should be on their way shortly.”

  The engine revved loud enough to drown out whatever Mr. Day was saying from the front porch, but Rutabartle didn’t seem especially bothered. He waved his hand briskly, then pulled it in the window and performed a sharp rotation, leaving a wide swath of bare ground in the gravel driveway.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Day, standing by her husband with hands firmly on her hips. “I can’t say I’m sorry to see him go.”

  “He’s gone! He’s gone! PLAYTIME!” the twins managed to yell in perfect sync. They were like a little Greek chorus, predicting future chaos and tragedy to come. Dahlia loved them already.

  “We certainly have picked an action-filled day to begin our search, haven’t we?” said Mrs. Tibbs with a quirk to her lips. “Let us go along inside. There is so much more to ghosting than you could possibly imagine, my glorious gal. And I can positively guarantee that you will love learning it nearly as much as I will love teaching it.”

  With a bob of her chin, Mrs. Tibbs rippled the air currents in front of her into a long sheer staircase leading from the tree branch right down to the ground. She crooked her elbow and leaned toward Dahlia, who took the proffered arm eagerly. The two ghosts marched down the invisible stairway, heading toward Silverton Manor and all the hidden mysteries to come.

  Chapter 6

  “And—that’s another win for me!” yelled Poppy, triumphantly pushing the chocolate bowl closer to Oliver. Death by Chocolate was their favorite way to settle arguments, a game of dueling dice throws where the goal was to throw the lowest count, and where the loser had to eat his score in chocolate. “That’s seven more squares for you!” Poppy looked almost ready to roll across the floor in glee. Oliver should have known better than to try to beat Poppy out of anything she really wanted. And she really wanted this turret bedroom.

  “Dig in, big brother,” Poppy said. “Or do you yield?”

  Oliver sighed. It was a great room, hexagonal rather than round, with tall windows and a ceiling that went up and up. A spiral staircase wound from the center of the room down to the lower floors. He gazed at the seven chocolate squares stacked neatly in front of him, then up at his sister. She rubbed her stomach and made encouraging munching noises. Oliver gagged. The game could last as long as
the players were willing to eat their losing chocolate piles. They had been eating for over an hour already. And Oliver knew he just couldn’t stomach another bite.

  “Fine,” he said. “You win.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!” Poppy crowed, pumping her fist in the air and strutting around the room with so much enthusiasm that Oliver was almost glad she had won. He wanted this room, but she really wanted it.

  Mom’s voice wafted up the staircase. “Lunchtime! Grilled cheddar-and-Nutella sandwiches in the kitchen!”

  All eighty-seven of Oliver’s losing chocolate squares rose in his throat, and for a second he thought he’d have to make an embarrassing dash to the bathroom—now Poppy’s bathroom—but he crossed his eyes and focused on the windowpane directly across from him, and the moment passed.

  He was concentrating so hard, in fact, that he almost didn’t notice the bright-red something zooming up the driveway outside the window. But once his stomach settled and his eyes uncrossed, he saw that it had wheels and a windshield and—it was a car! Another visitor, so soon?

  Oliver dashed out of the room, clutching his stomach, and ran down the spiral staircase. From outside came the screech of brakes and the disgruntled huff of an engine shifting gears. The front door was down one more flight of steps at the far end of the long hallway. Below, Oliver could see his father lumbering wearily toward the door, with the air of a man who has left a piping hot cheese sandwich to grow soggy on his plate. But immediately to Oliver’s right was a set of glass doors that opened onto a tiny balcony, just big enough for a boy to stand and turn in a full circle. It seemed like the most useless excuse for a balcony, but at this moment it was perfect. Oliver twisted the old iron knob and pushed the doors open.

  Outside, a gust of wind slapped him rudely in the face, reminding him that, despite the sneakily bright sunshine, it was still October. Oliver pulled up the collar of his sweater and stepped outside, leaning against the balcony railing to get a better view of the driveway.