“I thought you were going to push me down the stairs,” she said, giddy with relief.
Why had I been so sure she was the thing in the black cloak?
But there was no time to think about this—the house was starting up again.
The warm light dimmed. The child’s chair began rocking crazily.
“Jason, what’s happening?” Katie asked, her voice rising.
“Just hang on,” I said.
A gale-force wind rushed up the stairs and began whipping around the walls of the little room. It snatched the breath from my mouth.
Then the wind grabbed Katie and—WHAM!—flung her up against the wall.
“I don’t think Bobby wants you here!” I shouted against the wind.
The mysterious wind let up slightly and Katie pried herself from the wall. “I’m staying,” she vowed defiantly. “Nothing is going to make me leave. I’m going to help, no matter what!”
Her jaw was clenched with determination, although her eyes darted wildly with fright as the wind slammed her once more against the wall. “No matter what!” she screamed again.
All the wind rushed together to form an angry funnel in the center of the room. It was like a miniature, deadly tornado.
We would both be dashed to pieces in its fury.
The funnel traveled back and forth between us. It sounded like an engine at the highest pitch, ready to explode.
“We want to help!” shouted Katie, her voice cracking with strain.
Suddenly the funnel moved to the old toy chest near the rocking chair. The lid blew back and papers swirled into the air.
And the wind was gone, just like that.
Katie and I stared at each other, catching our breaths.
A scrap of newspaper drifted to settle at my feet. I bent and picked it up. As I read, excitement stirred in the pit of my stomach.
“Now we know,” I said wonderingly.
“Know what?” Katie asked, craning her neck to see over my shoulder.
“Who Bobby was,” I said. “And how he died.”
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“Robert Wood, killed October 2, 1940, age five.”
Katie looked up from the old newspaper with tears in her eyes. “Fifty-five years ago!” she said. “The poor kid has been haunting this house for fifty-five years, waiting for someone to rescue him!”
I snatched the paper from her hand and read on. “‘Robert was killed instantly in a fall from the cherry tree outside his bedroom window. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Wood, his parents, were on a European trip at the time and Robert had been left in the care of a nanny, Alice Everett.’”
“The poor nanny,” said Katie. “How horrible I’d feel if anything happened to you or Sally while your parents were gone.”
I shivered. She was right—the situations were pretty similar. Did that mean the time was ripe for another fatal accident?
“‘The nanny,’” I read, “‘was beside herself with grief and there were signs the balance of her mind had been affected. Miss Everett, twenty years of age, kept repeating that the child’s teddy bear was missing. Oddly, this favorite toy had still not been found at the time of the child’s burial.’”
Katie shuddered. “I wonder what happened to the poor woman?”
We gathered up the other newspaper clippings that had blown around the floor. They were mostly repeats of the same story. One had a description of the teddy bear—brown with a mended ear.
As I put the clippings away I noticed another piece of paper face down at the bottom of the box.
“What’s that?” asked Katie.
It was stuck in a corner of the box and didn’t want to come loose. I tugged gently, afraid to rip the old paper. “I think it’s a photo,” I said. “But I can’t see who’s in it.”
“Here,” said Katie, nudging me aside. “Let me try.”
Just then the paper came free, slipping easily into my fingers.
“That must be Bobby with his mother,” exclaimed Katie when I turned over the photo.
It showed a small boy and a pretty young woman in a wide-brimmed hat, which must have been fashionable at the time.
“They don’t look very happy,” I said, noticing that both the boy and the woman had pretty grim expressions.
“That was the style then,” said Katie knowingly. “People never smiled for the camera. Picture taking was serious business.”
It was so sad, looking at the photo of a small boy who would never get any older and his pretty mother who would be so far away when he needed her.
“What’s that?” said Katie suddenly.
I heard it, too. Something small and furtive rolling along the floor.
Then we saw it. A piece of chalk skittering over the floorboards.
“That’s strange,” said Katie, reaching for the chalk.
Before she could touch it the chalk swooped into the air.
It flew over to the wall and began to write. Very slowly, in large, uneven, childlike letters, it spelled out:
SAVE ME
30
SAVE ME.
The childlike letters glowed for a moment and then faded away.
“Look!” said Katie.
I suddenly realized something had changed in the room. The little toy chest and the rocking chair were gone.
Bobby’s old bedroom had vanished and we were back in the dusty old attic.
The newspaper clippings were gone, too, but the old photograph remained in Katie’s hand.
“How can we save a ghost?” asked Katie. “A ghost is already dead.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “We’ll talk about it later.”
I didn’t want to stay in that creepy attic a second longer.
Downstairs in the hallway Katie studied the photo again. “Such a sweet little boy,” she said regretfully. “We must figure out a way to help him.”
“Right now all I want to figure out is how to get a night’s sleep.”
I went into the bedroom and shoved the bureau up against the door.
Try to get in now, I thought. Just try.
The next morning I came downstairs to find Katie pacing in the kitchen.
Sally had already eaten her breakfast and I was ready for pancakes or whatever, but Katie waved her hand and said, “How can you think about food at a time like this?”
“Easy,” I said. “I close my eyes and I see a huge plate of flapjacks.”
“Help yourself to a bowl of cereal,” she suggested. “When
