The Mystery of the Whispering Witch
Your TRIXIE BELDEN LIBRARY
1 The Secret of the Mansion
2 The Red Trailer Mystery
3 The Gatehouse Mystery
4 The Mysterious Visitor
5 The Mystery Off Glen Road
6 Mystery in Arizona
7 The Mysterious Code
8 The Black Jacket Mystery
9 The Happy Valley Mystery
10 The Marshland Mystery
11 The Mystery at Bob-White Cave
12 The Mystery of the Blinking Eye
13 The Mystery on Cobbett’s Island
14 The Mystery of the Emeralds
15 Mystery on the Mississippi
16 The Mystery of the Missing Heiress
17 The Mystery of the Uninvited Guest
18 The Mystery of the Phantom Grasshopper
19 The Secret of the Unseen Treasure
20 The Mystery Off Old Telegraph Road
21 The Mystery of the Castaway Children
22 Mystery at Mead’s Mountain
23 The Mystery of the Queen’s Necklace
24 Mystery at Saratoga
25 The Sasquatch Mystery,
26 The Mystery of the Headless Horseman
27 The Mystery of the Ghostly Galleon
28 The Hudson River Mystery
29 The Mystery of the Velvet Gown
30 The Mystery of the Midnight Marauder
31 Mystery at Maypenny’s
32 The Mystery of the Whispering Witch
33 The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim
34 The Mystery of the Missing Millionaire
Copyright © 1980
by Western Publishing Company, Inc.
All rights reserved. Produced in U.S.A.
GOLDEN® , GOLDEN PRESS® , and TRIXIE BELDEN® are
registered trademarks of Western Publishing Company, Inc.
No part of this book may be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from the publisher.
ISBN 0-307-21553-9
All names, characters, and events in this story are entirely fictitious.
CONTENTS
An Unexpected Visitor ● 1
Trixie Is Warned ● 2
Touring a Haunted House • 3
The Witch’s Curse ● 4
Night of Terror! ● 5
The Odd Odd-Job Man ● 6
Dark Suspicions 7
Is Fay Possessed? ● 8
An Astonishing Confession ● 9
Mashed Potatoes ● 10
The Psychic Medium ● 11
A Ghostly Presence ●2
The Eavesdropper ● 13
Questionable Antiques ● 14
Trixie’s Suspicions • 15
Strange Behavior! • 16
Return to Lisgard House ● 17
Sarah Sligo’s Revenge ● 18
An Unexpected Visitor ● 1
TRIXIE BELDEN GROANED and clutched her short, sandy curls with both hands. “Oh, woe!” she exclaimed. “Someone in Washington ought to pass a law about this, and if I had my way, they would.” Her best friend, Honey Wheeler, looked up from her English textbook and grinned. “What law do you want passed now?” she asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. Let’s see—last week you wanted to pass a law ending all chores for teen-agers forever, so it can’t be that one again. A week ago, you wanted to pass a law about skirts. No one should ever have to wear one, you said, particularly Trixie Belden.”
Trixie sighed. “I still like those ideas,” she replied stubbornly, staring down with troubled blue eyes at her math book, which lay open on the kitchen table in front of her. “But this law would be about weekend homework.”
“You mean you want more of it?” Honey asked, pretending to misunderstand.
Trixie made a face at her friend. “You know I didn’t mean that! What I meant was that there shouldn’t be any—especially on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Jeepers! It doesn’t seem right, somehow.”
Honey giggled and leaned back in her chair. “Let’s face it, Tjix. There really isn’t any weekend that you and I like doing homework. Anyway, we’ve almost finished—at least, I have. I’ve only got one more paragraph to write for my English composition. How are you coming with your math?”
Trixie groaned again. “Terribly!” she exclaimed. “It’s true I’ve got only two more problems to do, but the trouble is, I can’t do either of them.”
Reddy, the Beldens’ mischievous Irish setter, lay sleeping on the braided rug at Trixie’s feet. Trixie nudged him gently with the toe of her sneaker.
“It’s all right for you,” she told him gloomily. “You don’t have to worry about anything.”
Reddy didn’t even bother to open his eyes. He thumped his tail once, just to let her know he’d heard, and immediately went back to sleep.
Impatient, Trixie sighed and ran one hand through her unruly curls. “What’s taking Brian and Mart so long, anyway?” she asked Honey, who merely smiled in sympathy and bent again to her work.
For a while, there was silence in the warm, fragrant kitchen of the old farmhouse. As always, it looked cozy in the lamplight. Its walls were hung with gleaming copper utensils. Treasured china was proudly displayed on plate racks and cup hooks.
Trixie gazed toward the kitchen door, hoping to see her two older brothers. Half an hour before, they had promised to be “back in a flash” from putting the youngest Belden, six-year-old Bobby, to bed. Judging from the muffled sounds of hilarity coming from upstairs, however, Trixie guessed that all three of her brothers had forgotten about her.
Normally it would havq been Trixie’s job to put Bobby to bed whenever her parents were out for an evening, visiting friends. This was not one of the chores Trixie disliked. Looking after Bobby was usually a pleasure—unless she also had math homework to do.
On this Friday evening in November, Trixie knew that Brian and Mart were trying to help her. All the same, she couldn’t help wishing that their help also included explaining all the puzzling problems she’d had to wrestle with all evening.
Honey smiled at a particularly loud thump that came from upstairs. “It sounds as if they’re having fun,” she remarked. “Maybe they’re having a pillow fight.” Her hazel eyes twinkled.
Trixie frowned. “If so, Bobby will be so excited, he’ll never get to sleep. Ooh, that Mart! He ought to know better. As for Brian, I’m surprised he didn’t put a stop to it long ago.”
Honey couldn’t help agreeing. She knew, as did everyone else, that seventeen-year-old Brian was the most level-headed and even-tempered of the Belden children.
Fifteen-year-old Mart, on the other hand, loved to entertain anyone who would listen to him. He used big words to confound his audiences—and, in particular, to tease Trixie. Just eleven months older than his sister, Mart was Trixie’s “almost-twin.”
Honey laid down her pencil at last. “There!” she said with satisfaction. “I’m all through for the evening. Would you like me to go up and get Bobby into bed?”
“That would be terrific,” Trixie said gratefully. “And while you’re at it, tell Brian and Mart that I need their help in the kitchen.”
“I’ll do my best,” her friend promised. “After all, if I’m spending the night, you could say it’s to my advantage to see that Bobby gets off to sleep pronto!”
Trixie smiled as Honey left the room. She thought, as she had so many times before, how glad she was that her friend felt almost as much at home at Crabapple Farm as she herself did.
The Beldens enjoyed a quiet but comfortable life at the old farmhouse, situated near the east bank of the beautiful Hudson River in New York.
Honey lived in nearby Manor House. It was a more luxur
ious and stately home than Trixie’s, with grounds that included a stable filled with horses, a lake for swimming and boating in the summer, and a game preserve that covered many acres.
Trixie and Honey, both fourteen years old, had been friends from the first moment they’d met. Honey was taller and slimmer than Trixie. Her real name was Madeleine, though no one had called her that for a very long time. Her nickname had come about because of her lovely shoulder-length golden hair and her sweet disposition.
Almost at once, the two girls had become involved in many exciting adventures and puzzling mysteries.
While Trixie and Honey were solving their first two mysteries, they had also rescued red-haired Jim Frayne from the clutches of his cruel stepfather.
Soon afterward, Honey’s parents had adopted Jim. Now Jim, Trixie, Honey, Brian, and Mart belonged to a semisecret club, together with Diana Lynch, who lived on a magnificent estate nearby, and Dan Mangan, nephew of Regan, the Wheelers’ groom. They called themselves the Bob-Whites of the Glen.
Tonight, however, Trixie wasn’t even thinking about the Bob-Whites, or even about the detective agency she and Honey hoped to open one day. She was too intent on trying to solve the riddle of her last math problem.
“Listen to this, Reddy,” she said, nudging the Irish setter once more. She picked up her math book and read aloud, “ ‘Take two apples from three apples and what do you have?’ ”
Reddy’s eyes popped open, and he raised his head.
“Well, come on,” Trixie said impatiently. “What’s the answer? I’ll bet you think this is an easy one, right? I’ll bet you’re thinking to yourself, Take two apples from three apples, and you have one apple.”
Reddy gathered his legs under him and lurched to his feet.
“But that’s the answer I gave in class today,” Trixie continued, “and it’s wrong. Do you hear me, you dumb dog? It’s wrong!”
Reddy growled deep in his throat. Then, to her astonishment, he barked loud and long.
For a moment, Trixie thought that Reddy had understood every word she’d said—particularly her statement concerning his intelligence, which she hadn’t meant. A second later, though, she understood the family pet’s agitation. Someone was pounding urgently on the front door.
Just before she hurried to see who could be calling on them at nine o’clock at night, Trixie flung over her shoulder at Reddy, “Whoever it is, I hope they’re better at math than you are.”
Reddy, apparently deciding that he’d done his canine duty for the time being, merely tried to look wise, smug, and reproachful all at once and promptly collapsed again onto the kitchen floor. He had gone back to sleep before Trixie even left the room.
Reddy’s barking had also summoned Brian, Mart, and Honey. As Trixie reached the front door, the three were hurrying down the stairs.
“Who is it?” Brian called.
“Methinks our sibling is not gifted with X-ray vision,” Mart said loftily from behind him. “Let her open yon portal first. Then, mayhap, she can respond to your interrogation.”
Trixie grinned as she opened ‘yon portal,’ but her grin faded as she found herself staring at the slight, disheveled figure of one of her classmates, Fay Franklin. Fay was new in the neighborhood, having moved to Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson with her mother only a few weeks before.
There was no doubt that Fay was upset. Her winter jacket looked as if it had been thrown hastily around her slim shoulders. Her short, dark curls were tumbled about her pretty face, which, at the moment, seemed pale with shock.
“Why, Fay!” Trixie exclaimed in surprise. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
It was soon obvious that Fay was too breathless to do anything more than lean against the doorjamb and gaze at the circle of concerned young faces around her.
Willing hands reached toward her and drew her into the warm, cozy living room.
Fay struggled to catch her breath. “Oh, please,” she gasped at last. “I—I’m sorry to burst in on you all like this, but I need your help. It—it’s my mother. She’s had an accident, and our phone is out of order.”
Brian’s gaze sharpened at once. As always, he was instantly concerned when he heard of anyone being sick or injured. He intended to become a doctor, and everyone who knew him was certain he would make a very fine one.
“Accident?” he echoed now. “What kind of accident? Is she badly hurt?”
Fay gulped. “It—it’s her hip,” she explained. “I—that is, we—think it’s broken.”
Trixie listened closely as Fay told them that her mother worked as a housekeeper for one of the local residents. Fay was still unsure exactly what had happened. But something, she thought, had startled Mrs. Franklin as she was reaching into a kitchen cupboard.
“And she slipped and fell,” Fay finished, catching her breath on a sob, “and now she can’t move. I’ve had to leave her alone to come and get help....” Brian didn’t need to hear any more. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to this. I’ll get in touch with Dr. Ferris at once, and then I’ll drive you home. We can wait for him there. Once he hears about this, he’ll probably send for an ambulance. Where did you say you lived?”
“Lisgard House,” Fay answered.
Mart’s jaw dropped. “Lisgard House? But that’s the place—I mean, isn’t it haunt—?” He «topped abruptly as Trixie dug him in the ribs with her elbow.
Fay didn’t appear to have heard Mart’s remark. She was still watching Brian as he strode quickly across the room toward the telephone.
“Trix, Mart,” Brian ordered over his shoulder, “you’d better plan on coming with us to Fay’s house. We may need all the help we can get.” Soon he was engaged in a low-voiced conversation with someone on the other end of the line.
“I’ll come, too,” Honey announced suddenly. “Maybe there’s some way I can help, too.”
“How ’bout me?” a forlorn young voice asked from the stairs. “Can I come?”
“Wow!” Trixie breathed. “We forgot all about Bobby!” She hurried toward the small pajama-clad figure. “You should have been asleep ages ago, you rascal,” she told him.
Bobby grinned up at her. “Mart gave me a bath with lots and lots of bubbles,” he announced. “There were so many bubbles that it took Brian ages and ages to clean them up. Then Mart told me a scary story about a mean ol’ witch who used to live in a big ol’ house around here.”
Mart shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortable. “Uh—I—er—this is kind of a coincidence,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know Fay would be arriving, and I—er—that is, I guess I got carried away. And then when Honey came up, she wanted to find out how the story ended...
All at once, Trixie realized which witch story Mart must have told. She smothered a gasp and said hastily, “You can tell me about it tomorrow, Bobby. Right now it’s time for bed.”
But Bobby wasn’t about to leave. “Mart said the witch lived in Sleepyside a long, long time ago, and she did bad things to people. She looked at their crops and stuff, like this.” He scowled ferociously. “And you know what else she did?”
“I already know,” Trixie replied, trying unsuccessfully to urge him back up the stairs.
Bobby stood his ground. “First you have to guess what she did next.”
Fay moved toward him. “Why don’t you tell me what she did next, Bobby?” she said gently.
Mart looked more uncomfortable than ever. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Listen, Fay, it’s just a dumb story,” he mumbled. “Anyway, you must have heard it all before.”
Fay nodded slowly. “I’ve heard some of it, of course,” she said, “but never quite this way. Come on, Bobby. What happened next?”
Trixie watched helplessly as Bobby promptly plopped down on a step and peeked at them through a banister railing. “So the mean ol’ witch made the crops die. And she made people sick, like this.” He clutched at his throat, rolled his eyes, and gurgled horribly in the back of his throat.
In spite of
herself, Honey giggled. Then, almost immediately, she looked sheepishly at Trixie. “I know we shouldn’t have excited Bobby,” she said, “but when I arrived upstairs, Mart was just getting to the most exciting part—”
“And Honey never heard this story before,” Bobby told Trixie proudly, “ ’cause she didn’t live here when she was a little girl. So Mart told Honey all about the witch’s piece of ’sistance.”
“That’s pièce de résistance," Mart corrected him, unable to resist it.
Fay smiled. “And what was the ‘piece of ’sistance’?”
“The mean ol’ witch chased bad little boys who wouldn’t go to sleep,” Bobby stated, a note of awe in his voice. “And when she caught them, she wiggled her fingers at them and said—and said— What did she say, Mart?”
“I’ve forgotten,” Mart replied, still avoiding Trixie’s eyes.
“But I’d like to hear it,” Fay said gently.
“Me, too,” snapped Trixie.
Mart sighed. “The witch wiggled her fingers and said: ‘Abracadabra and hair of a dog. Bat’s wings and spiders. Heh-heh! You’re a frog!’ ” Trixie moaned and glared at him.
“And she turned all the little boys into green frogs,” Bobby said. “They had to go hopping off into Martin’s Marsh forever. And today you can still hear them going ribbit, ribbit, ribbit!”
“Okay, short stuff,” Mart said, moving toward him. “That’s the end, so let’s go back to bed, okay?”
“But that’s not the end,” Bobby protested. “The people of Sleepyside didn’t like their crops and stuff turning brown. They didn’t like getting sick. And they didn’t like their little boys getting turned into frogs. So one night, you know what they did? They set fire to the witch’s house—with her in it! She was barbecued, Trix!” Bobby’s voice was triumphant.
“Oh, Mart!” Trixie said. “How could you tell him a story like that at bedtime?”
“I liked it,” Bobby told her, “and I liked the last part, too, ’cause you know what happened next? Someone built a new house where the burned-down one was. And the witch’s ghost still lives there! Mart says the witch goes moaning through all the rooms, like this: ‘Whooo! Whooooooo! Whooo—’ ” He broke off suddenly as he caught sight of Trixie’s determined face. “I think I’d better go to bed,” he finished hastily.