My stomach was in knots. I could tell they didn’t believe me. They were trying to look understanding but the strain of it kept breaking through.
I felt like I was beating my brains out on a wall of soft pillows.
Finally Dad stood up. “Well, there’s one thing we can check,” he said. “This witch of yours is still nailed in the basement, right? Let’s go find her.”
14
Dad got his big torch flashlight out of the car.
He pried the nails out of the door and headed down without hesitation. I followed, feeling queasy.
It was different going down there with Dad. For one thing his big light cut through the gloom like a knife through butter. All the junk looked lifeless and ordinary.
And I knew the witch would never show herself to Dad. I could feel those eyes burning holes in our backs as we picked our way through the junk. I could almost hear her cackling silently.
Dad shone his light into every corner but we didn’t see a thing. No ghosts. Not even a mouse.
“What about the attic, Dad,” I said when we were back in the kitchen with the basement door closed and bolted. “You can see what she’s capable of up there.” I was pretty sure from things that happened before, that Bobby couldn’t fix things the witch did on her own.
“Okay, son. Let’s take a look.”
He marched all the way upstairs to the attic. I followed—my stomach felt rotten and my knees were shaky, but I couldn’t let him go up there alone.
“I don’t believe it!” Dad said, stepping into the attic.
The walls were still smashed up and there was broken plaster everywhere. So I hadn’t imagined this attack, that was for sure.
My dad looked stunned and baffled as he examined the wreckage.
“See, Dad?” I couldn’t help being a little excited. “Now do you believe me? Now do you see how dangerous it is in this house?”
“I see that something very strange has been going on,” he said slowly. “This is awful. This kind of destruction is very serious.”
He thought I did it!
“But Dad—”
“Let’s go downstairs, son. We’ll talk about this later.”
I shivered, feeling cold from the roots of my hair to my toes.
Nobody said much at supper.
I wasn’t hungry—the hamburgers tasted like sawdust to me. My brain was numb and I didn’t know what to say.
I escaped to my room as soon as I could.
After a while I heard Mom and Dad go into the living room. They were talking in quiet, urgent voices and I knew they were talking about me.
I opened my door and snuck down the hallway to the stairs.
“I can’t believe Jason would deliberately smash up the attic,” said Mom. “He’s not like that. And what about the baby-sitter? She thought she saw something, too.”
“I can’t believe Jason would do it, either,” Dad admitted. “But what other explanation is there? You’re not saying you believe all this nonsense about a haunted house?”
“No, of course not. All I’m saying, Dave, is that I think we should move to another place for the rest of the summer. Ghosts or no ghosts, something weird is going on in this house.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Dad. “We’re out of our depth with this. I’ll go see the real estate agent in the morning.”
I wanted to jump up and down for joy.
My parents still didn’t believe in the haunting. But they were going to get us out of here. By tomorrow, maybe.
Sally and I could survive anything for one more night.
Couldn’t we?
15
No matter how much I tossed and turned I just couldn’t get to sleep that night.
I tried sitting up and staring out at the windows, but the tall, shadowy trees made the yard look spookier than ever. So I got back in bed and pulled the covers over my head and tried to relax.
Not a chance. A million thoughts were racing through my mind. Thoughts about the ghosts and what they really wanted and why it had been my rotten luck to spend summer vacation in a haunted house.
I even tried counting sheep, but nothing worked.
Maybe if I fixed myself a glass of warm milk. That was supposed to make you sleepy, right?
But that would mean getting up and going downstairs to the kitchen, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Because whenever I ventured outside my room at night in this house, something terrible happened.
I was thinking about that when I heard somebody tiptoe down the hall to Sally’s room. Must be Mom, checking to see that my little sister was okay.
I lay there waiting, expecting to hear Mom go back to her own room. But there was nothing.
Nothing but a faint, creaky noise.
Something was wrong.
I got up and went out into the darkened hallway.
Sally’s door was a few inches open, like always.
And light was coming from the door. Not the little night lamp by her bed, but a strange, glowing light.
I pushed open the door.
“Sally?” I whispered.
The bedclothes were rumpled and bunched up. But the lump underneath was too small to be Sally. Wasn’t it?
Maybe I was wrong.
I tiptoed to the bed and eased the blanket back. Winky, the stuffed bunny, lay in the center of the mattress where Sally should have been.
The room seemed to get darker as the bottom dropped out of my stomach.
I heard a moaning noise and whipped around, only to realize it was coming from me.
Then I noticed that Sally’s closet door was open. She liked it closed. Maybe something had frightened her—a dream maybe—and she was hiding in there.
Without Winky? I knew that was a no-hoper even as I tiptoed to the closet. The door creaked as I eased it open the rest of the way and looked in.
It was black in there. Totally dark.
I leaned in. “Sally?” No answer.
It was a deep closet. I got down on my hands and knees and poked my head in,
