“The truth,” I said. “The solution to the haunting.”
22
I knelt in front of the trunk.
I was excited but scared, too. Who knew what was really inside, or why the ghosts were fighting over it?
“You’d better stand by the door, Steve,” I said. “You can run for help if we need it.”
The leather of the trunk was cracked and dry. My fingers trembled as I reached for the clasp.
Well, I thought, here goes. With still-shaking fingers I undid the clasp.
As I swung it open, the lid made a tremendous skreeky noise, like bones being pulled apart.
“What’s in it?” cried Steve breathlessly.
I stared in disappointment. The witch-thing must have gotten everything already. “Nothing,” I sighed. “Just a few scraps of paper.”
I lifted out torn pieces of newspaper. They were crumpled, like they might have been used to wrap something. But what?
“What’s that ribbon?” asked Steve, pointing over my shoulder.
“Ribbon?” There, caught in a corner of the trunk was a red ribbon. I pried at it, starting to feel excited.
A ribbon just like it had been tied around the letters I’d seen when Steve and I first found this trunk, weeks ago, but those old letters had disappeared before I ever got a chance to read them.
Slowly the ribbon came free—and with it some flattened papers! I slid the ribbon off. Here was the answer, I just knew it!
There were only two letters in the little bundle. I unfolded the first one and read:
Dear Alice,
I am beside myself with worry over the ruby. I can’t imagine where it could be. Did you look in the case in my room? I thought I packed it but it’s possible I never did.
We are retracing our steps in a desperate hope of finding the jewel. It’s the only inheritance I have from my mother and without it all our hopes for the next few years are dashed.
If you find it please telegraph me at once.
Take good care of little Bobby and give him a big kiss from his mom and dad.
Affectionately,
Sarah Wood
A missing jewel? The witch-thing had been screaming something about a jewel that night in the attic. But what would a ruby have to do with Bobby?
I spread out the second letter, hoping it would have some answers.
Dear Alice,
We’ve nearly given up hope of ever recovering the jewel. I’m afraid we’re going to be too poor to keep you on as a nanny for the next few years. But don’t worry. We’ll give you an excellent reference.
Our last hope is that the ruby is still somewhere in the house. We’re making plans to be home by next week and I’ll turn the place upside down looking for it. I can’t believe it’s really gone!
Tell Bobby how much we love him and miss him.
Affectionately,
Sarah Wood
I looked at the date on the top of the letter. It was written just a week before Bobby died. But I didn’t see how any of this solved the mystery.
Then it started to make sense, sort of. The jewel the witch-thing was looking for must be this same ruby Bobby’s mother had lost!
I turned to tell Steve. He was smoothing out a sheet of crumpled newspaper.
“There’s stuff in here about Bobby,” he said, sounding excited. “All about how he died and everything.”
I scooted over and grabbed the paper, feeling my heart quicken once again. But there wasn’t anything I didn’t already know from the papers Katie and I had found in the attic.
The newspaper described the tragic death of little Bobby Wood. He’d fallen from the cherry tree in his backyard while his parents were in Europe. Only the nanny, Alice Everett, had been home at the time of the accident.
“But Jason,” said Steve, frowning, “how could Bobby fall from the cherry tree? When you hear him at night, doesn’t he fall from the top of the stairs?”
“Exactly,” I said. “The newspapers got it wrong, that’s one thing I’m sure of.”
“Hey, here’s more,” said Steve excitedly. “Something about a missing teddy bear and a big ruby.”
“What?” I snatched it from him.
“Hey! I found it first,” Steve complained.
“Yeah, but it’s my ghost,” I reminded him.
The beginning of the article told of Bobby’s death again. Then it said: “In an odd coincidence, the child’s favorite plaything, an old teddy bear, is nowhere to be found and the same is true of the Wood family’s most prized possession, a magnificent ruby. The jewel was left to Mrs. Wood by her mother and provided the collateral for her husband’s business loan. If the ruby is not recovered it is expected Mr. Wood will lose his business. And if the teddy bear is not found, a little boy will go to his grave alone.”
“That’s creepy,” said Steve. “What’s ‘collateral’ mean?”
Proud to know a word Steve didn’t, I dug into what I could remember of my parents’ conversations. “It means something valuable. You take the jewel to a bank and ask the bank to lend you some money. Then if you can’t pay them back the money they keep the collateral—the jewel, in this case. But since the ruby was missing, the bank must have taken Mr. Wood’s business instead.”
Steve looked disappointed. “Oh. Well, I don’t see what all that has to do with ghosts,” he said, tossing the bits of paper back into the trunk.
“No,” I said slowly. “I don’t, either.”
But I knew there was a connection. Bobby’s ghost wanted me to figure it out, that’s why he’d urged me to look in the trunk.
And that worried me. Bobby was just a little kid. He expected older people to understand what he meant. When they didn’t he was likely to have a tantrum.
And Bobby’s ghostly tantrums were the most terrifying things I’d ever seen.
23
That night I asked for a glass of warm milk before I went to bed, just as a precaution.
“I hope you’re not staying up too late, reading those scary books of yours,” Mom said as she handed me the milk.
“Not a chance,” I
