The Mystery of the Whispering Witch Page 4

  Fay didn’t seem to be listening. It was as if she were following some thought of her own. All at once, she lifted her head and gazed steadily at Trixie. “And now tell me about the curse,” she said softly.

  Trixie had been half prepared for this particular question and had already decided not to answer it. “I don’t know anything about a curse, Fay,” she lied blandly.

  Honey’s eyes opened wide. “Why, Trix! You do, too! You told me that before she died, Sarah Sligo swore she would get her revenge. She placed a curse on this house and on everyone who would ever live in it—” She stopped in horror, clapping a hand to her mouth.

  “It’s all right, Honey,” Fay said quietly. “I only needed someone to confirm what I already knew.”

  “What do you know, Fay?” Trixie asked.

  Fay bit her lip. “I know that it’s bad luck to live in this house,” she replied. “I know that the first Lisgard who ever lived here went walking in the marsh one day and was never seen again. I know there was something funny about the death of the last owner, old Caleb Lisgard—”

  Honey frowned. “I hadn’t heard that. What sort of something funny?”

  “I’m not sure,” Fay answered, “but everyone in town has been talking about it for weeks.”

  Trixie made a mental note to ask Brian later. Perhaps he’d heard something about it.

  “And what’s more,” Fay continued, “we—my mother and I—haven’t had much luck lately, either. Last week I almost fell as I was coming downstairs. And now tonight”—her eyes filled with tears—“Mother’s in the hospital with a broken hip.”

  Both Trixie and Honey scrambled out of bed and hurried to Fay’s side.

  “You mustn’t listen to stupid stories about this house anymore,” Trixie said firmly.

  “And I shouldn’t have told you about the curse,” Honey added, looking as if she was close to tears herself. She put her arm around her new friend. “I’m sure that your mother merely had a nasty accident. It didn’t have anything to do with this house, or any stupid old curse, or any silly old witch.”

  “Honey’s right,” Trixie said. “There’re lots and lots of stories about spooky happenings in this part of the world. We’ve even had some spooky adventures, ourselves. For instance, did we ever tell you about the night we met a headless horseman in the woods?” She wiggled her eyebrows at Honey.

  “Oh, sure,” Honey said, realizing that Trixie wanted to distract Fay from her fears. “Then there was the time when we saw a ghostly galleon near an old pirate’s hideaway.”

  Fay looked from one to the other. “A headless horseman?” she echoed. “A ghostly galleon?” Honey nodded. “Would you like us to tell you about them?”

  Fay moved her legs to make room for the two friends on her bed. “I know what you’re doing,” she said, smiling through her tears, “and you’re very kind. So, yes, I’d like to hear about them.”

  “And when we’ve finished those,” Honey said with satisfaction, “remind me to tell you of the times we discovered an abandoned baby and searched for a phantom grasshopper!”

  It was very late when Honey finished the last exciting story. Fay was already yawning, and politely trying to hide the fact, while Trixie’s legs had long since gone to sleep. The rest of her was ready to join them.

  “Would you like me to tell you now about the time Trixie saw a shark in the Hudson River?” Honey asked, still anxious to make amends for upsetting Fay in the first place.

  She seemed greatly relieved when their new friend assured her that any more stories could wait until the following morning.

  Almost before Trixie and Fay had had time to blink, Honey had hurried to her own bed, had pulled the covers up to her chin, and was snuggling deep into her pillow.

  “I am a little tired,” she said apologetically and closed her eyes. Soon she was breathing deeply.

  “Is she asleep?” Fay asked softly.

  Trixie chuckled. “I’d say she’s good for at least eight hours.” She smoothed the blankets on the old armchair, then climbed between them once more.

  “Good night, Trixie, and thank you,” Fay called quietly as she reached for the light switch beside her bed. “Are you sure you’re comfortable? Would you like to change places with me?”

  “Don’t worry,” Trixie said, yawning. “It doesn’t matter to me where I sleep, and tonight I won’t need any rocking. I’m much too tired.”

  Fay sighed. “I wish I were. As it is, I’m sure I’m going to do nothing but wonder how Mother is doing at the hospital, and, what’s more....”

  Fay stopped talking.

  Trixie frowned and raised herself up onto one elbow. “And? Fay? And what?”

  There was no answer. All Trixie could hear was the rhythmic sound of deep, heavy breathing. And now it came not only from Honey’s bed, but from Fay’s as well.

  Trixie chuckled, tucked her legs under her, shifted her pillow, and settled herself down to sleep.

  Ten minutes later, she realized that the armchair was just as uncomfortable as Fay had guessed it would be. No matter which way she turned, a part of Trixie stuck over or under a part of the chair.

  Too, she had to admit to herself that she was worried. There was something about their new friend that made Trixie feel uneasy. It was as if Fay were hiding something—some knowledge that she didn’t yet want to share.

  It was certainly unfortunate that Fay had already learned of the curse of Lisgard House. It had seemed to upset her, Trixie thought.

  She sighed, turned over, and for the tenth time, rearranged the blankets that kept slipping to the floor.

  Again and again, Trixie’s thoughts returned to the strange figure she’d seen outside the house. She remembered the mysterious voice she’d heard when she stood alone in the kitchen. Who or what was it?

  All at once, Trixie remembered something else and sat bolt upright. She had meant to see if the back door was locked and bolted.

  In another instant, she had slipped from between the blankets and was feeling her way along the dark passage toward the back door.

  She thought at first that her eyes had become adjusted extra quickly to the gloom around her. Then she realized that there was a dim, shimmering light coming from the open kitchen door off the passage.

  When she poked her head around it to see, she noticed that Fay had failed to turn off a small light over the stove.

  Trixie meant to go and turn it off, but at that moment, there was a small movement in the hallway behind her.

  She gasped and, whirling toward it, saw a sight that took her breath away.

  A strange figure stood by .the back door. The outlines of it were fuzzy, almost as if Trixie were seeing it through some sort of distorted lens.

  It wore a tall, pointed hat. It wore a black cloak that reached almost to the floor.

  As Trixie watched, frozen to the spot, it raised an arm. Trixie saw one long, bony finger pointing straight at her.

  Then the terrible figure spoke.

  “Beware!” it whispered. “Beware!”

  And then it vanished.

  Trixie took a faltering step forward—and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Night of Terror! ● 5

  BACK IN FAY’S ROOM only minutes later, Trixie was still struggling to recover her composure as her two worried friends watched her anxiously.

  “I still don’t understand what happened, Trix,” Honey declared, looking down at her friend as she sat on the edge of Fay’s bed. “One minute I was sound asleep, and the next minute, I thought the roof was falling in.”

  “You still haven’t told us why you screamed like that,” said Fay, who was seated beside Trixie. “What happened? What frightened you? Was it—” she hesitated—“something you heard?” Trixie wished that she could stop trembling and made another valiant effort to do so. “N-No,” she said uncertainly. “It—it wasn’t what I heard—or, at least, not just what I heard. It was something I thought I saw.” She frowned and pressed her hands togeth
er to try to prevent them from shaking. They felt as though they’d turned into two lumps of ice. She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “Of course, I couldn’t have seen what I thought I saw. What I thought I saw was something that nobody in their right mind could see. So I couldn’t have seen it, do you see?”

  “No,” Honey said flatly. “I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about.” She moved to Trixie’s armchair-bed, sat down, and tucked her legs under her. “Begin with why you were out of bed in the first place.”

  Trixie shot an apologetic look at Fay, who was, she thought, looking as upset and as apprehensive as Trixie felt.

  “I went to see if the back door was locked,” Trixie said in a rush.

  Fay looked surprised. “Why, thank you, Trixie,” she said. “That was thoughtful of you. But you didn’t need to worry, you know. That door works on a spring lock. Mother and I don’t bother about bolting that one because we know it can only be opened with a key. If only I’d known you were worried about it, I could have told you.

  Naturally, we always make sure the other outside windows and doors are safe from intruders. We don’t want anyone bursting in on us unannounced, either.”

  Trixie sighed. Why didn’t she ever give anyone else credit for a little common sense? Why did she always assume that she was the only one who had the bright ideas?

  One of these days, Trixie Belden, she thought gloomily, you're going to realize that you're not nearly as smart as you think you are. Next time Mart calls you a pea-brain, don't be so quick to disagree with him. He might be right!

  She jumped to her feet and began pacing up and down in the small space between the two beds. “I should have known there was nothing to worry about,” she said at last. “Anyway, I’d got as far as the kitchen when I noticed we’d left a light burning there. It must have happened when we were making that hot chocolate, I think. So I was about to go in and turn off the light, when—”

  She stopped suddenly as she caught sight of her new friend. Fay’s face was white as she looked up at Trixie. Her dark brown eyes looked anxious and fearful.

  Trixie was about to rush on impulsively with her story, when she noticed that, unconsciously, Fay was wringing her hands. She couldn’t help herself. She was actually wringing her hands!

  Trixie had often read about fictional characters who did that, but she didn’t remember ever seeing a real, live person do it.

  Fay’s hands clutched each other nervously. Their fingers intertwined, then released their grip. Each hand “washed” the other, then clutched at the other once more. Fay did it over and over.

  Trixie thought back over the events of the evening. She recalled how hard Fay had tried to conceal her worry about her mother’s accident. She remembered Fay’s reaction to that small room off the living room that had been the scene of the long-ago tragedy. She remembered Fay’s intense, almost unnatural, interest in Sarah Sligo’s story.

  “Yes?” Fay prompted her. “You were about to go into the kitchen and turn off the light when you saw—what?”

  “A mouse,” Trixie said, crossing her fingers behind her back. Surely it wouldn’t matter if she told another small lie if, by doing so, she would protect a friend in trouble.

  Honey stared. “You—you saw a mouse? Do you mean to tell me that was what all this—” she waved a hand in the direction of her warm and comfortable bed—“is about?”

  Trixie swung around to face her. “It—uh— startled me,” she finished lamely.

  Fay sighed and seemed to relax at once. “Is that all it was? I thought—that is— Maybe it was just a little field mouse from the marsh you saw, Trixie,” she said. “We do get them sometimes. When we can catch them, Mother and I always put them back outside where they came from.”

  Trixie nodded her curly head vigorously. “Yes, that’s what it must have been—a field mouse from the marsh. It was white and brown and had a little pink, twitchy nose.”

  Honey was far from satisfied. “I still don’t understand it,” she declared. “You’ve never been scared of a mouse in your life, Trixie Belden. In fact, one time you told me you thought they were cute.”

  “They are cute,” Trixie replied firmly, “but not at this time of the night—morning, I mean. Gleeps! Look at the time. We’ll never get any sleep at this rate.”

  Still talking, she shooed Honey back to her own bed and stood over Fay as she swung her slim legs back under the covers. In another few moments, Trixie had arranged herself, if not comfortably, then at least in a position in which she thought she could sleep.

  When Fay turned out the light once more, however, Trixie found that her brain was just as active as it had been earlier.

  She tried to remember every single detail of the apparition she had seen in the hallway—if, indeed, it had been an apparition at all. Had she seen the witch’s ghost? Had Sarah Sligo appeared in order to warn her of another impending tragedy? If so, what tragedy? And when was it supposed to happen?

  On the other hand, it could have been someone playing a trick on her. But how had it been accomplished? The more Trixie thought about it, the more she was certain that the figure in the hallway had not been anything like the one she’d seen outside the house. The one outside had been real and solid, while the figure in the hallway - Trixie gasped and sat bolt upright in bed. What she had been about to say to herself was that the figure in the passage had been transparent.

  Trixie had been able to see right through it!

  Later, Trixie could have sworn that she hadn’t closed her eyes even for a second. It had seemed to her that after her last startling thought, she was so wide-awake that she never expected to close her eyes again.

  Whatever the truth of the matter, the next thing she knew was that someone was shaking her. Trixie tried to bury her nose deeper in her pillow.

  “Go ’way!” she mumbled. “I’m only waiting till

  Fay’s asleep. Then I’m going to wake Honey up, and we’re both going hunting for that ghost.”

  “What ghost?” Honey’s voice said in her ear. “Oh, please, wake up, Trix! Listen, can’t you hear it?”

  At first, Trixie could hear nothing but the beating of her own heart. Then, as if from a great distance, she could hear the sound of marching feet, and the sound of angry voices. They grew louder.

  Every nerve in Trixie’s body seemed to snap to attention. Her eyes, which, until this moment, she hadn’t known were closed, popped open. She turned her head and gazed up at the white blob that was Honey’s face bending over her in the dark.

  Trixie gasped and sat up. As she did so, Fay snapped on the light and stared, white-faced, across the room at them.

  “What was that?” she asked in terror.

  As if in answer, fists pounded at the front door. “Open up!” a man’s rough voice roared. “We know you’re in there! Open up!”

  Trixie leaped from her nest of blankets and stood quivering, every muscle alert. She stared toward Fay’s bedroom door as if, by her will alone, she could see through it.

  Fists continued to pound on that distant front entrance. Now the first voice was joined by others.

  They were angry voices—hateful and hate-filled.

  Soon Trixie fancied she could hear other feet tramping across gravel and onto the porch. As she strained her ears, she could detect a low persistent muttering. It sounded just like the noise of an unruly mob.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said, staring at her friends with wide eyes, “but it’s almost as if we’re reliving the death of Sarah Sligo!”

  Fay and Honey were beyond speech. They stared back at her in horror.

  In the next instant, it seemed that strong axes were biting into wood. Somewhere a door had burst open, as if made of cardboard. The sound of angry voices grew louder—and closer.

  “Come out, you witch!”

  “Find her!”

  “Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!”

  Then there was silence.

  The three
girls stared toward the bedroom door.

  A long moment passed. Finally, her voice trembling, Honey asked, “Is—is it over?”

  “Oh, please, please let it be over.” Fay’s eyes were closed. She was kneeling in bed, hugging her arms across her chest and rocking herself back and forth.

  “Stop it, Fay!” Trixie’s voice was sharp. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here, now! I have a feeling that this—this—whatever it is—isn’t over at all. If we’re fast, we can run before it starts again.”

  She ran to the door and reached for the knob. But it was too late.

  Someone in the passage outside was shuffling slowly toward their room—and the someone was moaning!

  “Come on!” Trixie yelled and yanked at the door.

  “We’re ready, Trix!” Honey gasped from behind her.

  Fay was sobbing, her hands clutching Trixie’s outstretched arm. “Open it!” she screamed. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get out of this dreadful place.”

  Trixie turned to face them, her face white. “We can’t get out of here,” she answered deliberately. “We seem to be locked in!”

  The next few minutes were a haze of terror for the three friends. The footsteps shuffled closer and closer toward them. The moans grew louder, as if the person making them were in agony.

  Then they heard the voice, begging, pleading with them to open the door.

  “Let me in!” the voice screamed. “For pity’s sake, do something. Help me! Oh, help me!”

  Next, Trixie heard the terrible sound of frantic fingernails scrabbling over woodwork. Then someone’s fists pounded against their door—and pounded —and pounded –

  Trixie backed away in horror. “We—we can’t let you in!” she shouted at last. “We’re locked in ourselves!”

  “Go away!” Fay screamed.

  “Leave us alone!” Honey yelled.

  For a moment, all noises stopped. Then someone laughed softly.

  “Then open thy ears and listen well,” a voice whispered. “Thou thought to burn me—and mayhap thou hast! But curses be upon thy heads— yea, even unto thy children and thy children’s children. Thou wilt be sorry for thy actions this night. Burn me, would ye? Then watch!”