Footsteps approached the bed.
I tried to shrink myself smaller.
Suddenly the bed was lifted off the floor as the creature let out another angry bellow. She flung the mattress against the wall and it slid back down. I was still hidden.
The dead thing grunted as she bent to look under the bed. I held my breath, trying not to shake so hard.
I knew she had me.
I flattened myself against the wall.
Screeee … screeeee …
Her claws scraped the floor an inch from my face.
25
Scrunching my eyes shut, I waited for her claw to shoot out and snag me. I tried to think of a way to get out of this but my brain was in slow motion.
I’ll kick and scream, I thought. Maybe Mom and Dad would hear me.
Her garbagey breath was suffocating. My skin crawled as I waited for her to grab me.
But nothing happened.
Then I heard soft, evil laughter, moving away. As if the witch had thought of something worse than grabbing me.
My bedroom door closed softly.
She was gone.
I counted to a hundred to be sure and then crawled out from under the bed, a queasy feeling stirring in my stomach.
I should have been relieved. I had won, hadn’t I? At least for now.
But the old witch-thing was up to something. Her laughter echoed in my brain, sending fear rippling up and down my spine.
I put the letters in an old paper bag and stuck them under the trunk in the closet. She’d already looked in the trunk. She’d never look there again.
As I started to close the closet door, the empty mirror frame started to glow with a blue light. The mirror reappeared on the door and the mist began to swirl.
Blood rushed to my head.
I bolted for the door. The knob turned uselessly in my hand, round and round. I couldn’t get the door open!
“Bobby!” I shouted angrily, “Open this door! The witch is going after Sally. You have to let me out right this second.”
The image of the little boy swam in the mist. He looked sad.
I tried the door again but it still wouldn’t open. Anger swelled in my chest like a giant bubble.
I grabbed the first thing that came to hand—my Boy Scout hatchet—and heaved it at the mirror as hard as I could.
But the satisfying sound of shattering glass didn’t come. Instead the hatchet blade sank into the mirror and vanished with a faint pop!
From the mirror the ghostly image of Bobby just looked at me with a sad expression. He was glowing, filled with the blue light.
As I watched in horrified amazement he raised a finger and began to write another message on the other side of the mirror. This time the message was different.
I scowled, reading, “THE SECRET IS IN THE ATTIC.”
My anger started charging up again. “Whatever happened to ‘Find the witch’? That was the message last night, right? So I got the trunk, I found the witch,” I shouted. “What about that?”
But the image began to fade, taking the light with it.
What was going on here?
26
I was alone in the dark bedroom.
All around me the house was deathly quiet.
Had the witch already grabbed Sally while Bobby kept me in here trying to get me to do stuff by making up spooky messages?
Sally was so trusting. She would never suspect anyone wanted to harm her. It would be easy to get her to go along with anything.
One thing for sure. I was not going to the attic.
I had to get to Sally.
I rushed at the door. If it still wouldn’t open, I’d smash it down.
But as I grabbed for the knob, the door swung open on its own. It caught me on the shoulder and knocked me back inside the room, flat to the floor.
The hall outside the door was pitch-dark, like the rest of the house. Dark and deathly quiet.
I pushed myself up cautiously. What now? There was no sign of the dead witch-thing.
Then I heard it.
Out in the hall. Small squeaky sounds, coming closer.
It sounded like Sally, pulling a toy. Only there were no footsteps. Just the squeee-uup, squeee-uup of small wheels.
“Go back to bed, Sally,” I called out. Hoping it was my little sister.
There was no answer.
The house seemed to snatch up the sound of my voice and bounce it from wall to wall. It felt like the house was laughing at me.
The squeak of the little wheels got louder as whatever-it-was rolled along the hallway coming closer, heading for me.
I scrambled to my feet. Maybe it would go on past my room. All I wanted was to get to Sally’s room, make sure my little sister was all right.
The trundling noise stopped. It was right outside my door. My heart sank.
My eyes popped as a small red wagon turned and glided through the open door into my room.
The wagon was empty. And no one was pulling it.
All of a sudden, my muscles turned to soup and all the strength went out of my body. I flopped onto the floor like one of Sally’s rag dolls. I couldn’t move.
The little red wagon rolled toward me and bumped gently against my knees. All I could do was stare at it helplessly.
Suddenly I felt invisible fingers grip my shoulders and reach under my knees. The ghostly hands were gentle but I shuddered at their cold touch. I hated not being able to at least fight back.
The invisible hands lifted me up and laid me down in the wagon.
The wagon began to move.
27
The wagon rolled on its squeaky wheels out of my room and down the hall.
I was frozen in place. I couldn’t even turn my head to see if anyone—Sally? the witch-thing?—was following. But I heard no footsteps.
“If you’ll just let me up,” I whispered through clenched teeth, “I’ll come where you want. I promise.”
But the ghosts weren’t listening.
Between feeling silly and angry and scared out of my wits, I couldn’t think what to do.
