The Haunting of Heck House (5 page)

“‘Once thought to be a … uh … a charl-a-tan and a sham'—”

“Lies!” the speaker blurted.

“Shh!” Cheryl silenced him and kept reading.

“‘Simon Omar, mystic and stage magician who claimed an ability to commune with spirits in the beyond, shocked and surprised his West End audience during one evening's performance in 1917 when he proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he possessed real magic powers'—”

“Seriously?” Tweed asked, a shadow of skepticism darkening her gaze.

Cheryl shrugged and kept reading. “‘The magician's arcane talents were fully demonstrated when he quite unexpectedly'—aw, holy moly, Tweed! listen to this— ‘when he quite unexpectedly blew himself to smithereens whilst summoning entities from the beyond!'”

“Right in the middle of my second encore!” the speaker enthused.

“Wow …” Tweed whistled low. “Way to bring the house down.”

“I'll say!” Cheryl peered at the last line of the information card. “Says here that ‘the ruby jewel from his gold-lamé turban was all that was left of him' … Yeesh. Messy.”

“Ah yes. I remember now,” said the voice wistfully. “That was the performance where I finally managed to punch all the way through to the spirit plane. The afterlife.”

“So … what happened?” Cheryl asked.

“It punched back.”

The twins flinched in tandem.

“A rather unfortunate incident, really,” Simon Omar's disembodied voice continued. “Some departed shades can be a tad on the grumpy side, you see. And if one of 'em decides to throw a spectral temper tantrum, and you happen to make contact at just the wrong moment, they can sometimes muster up an awful lot of arcane energy. The end result is usually nothing more than a dazzling light show and a deafening ka-boom. In
my
case, the entity I'd managed to disturb from eternal slumber decided if I really wanted to talk to the dearly departed
that
badly, then I might as well just … dearly depart.”

“Gah!” Cheryl shuddered in horror.

Tweed blinked. “You mean a ghost …
exploded
you?”

“Thereby turning me into a ghost, myself,” Simon Omar explained. “And then, it seems, the grumpy old spook trapped that remaining spectral essence in my turban jewel for good measure. Just to teach me a lesson, I suppose. Ah, well … as theatrical demises go, I'm sure it was spectacular! No doubt secured me a place in the annals of famous magicians, wouldn't you say?”

“Um.” Cheryl shrugged a shoulder. “We've never heard of you.”

“Nonsense.”

“No, seriously,” Tweed confirmed. “No offence, but you actually kind of wound up bouncing around in the back of a truck, part of a rinky-dink travelling carnival run by a nefarious scammer named Colonel Winchester P.Q. Dudley. Along with a bunch of fake stuff made up to look like rare artifacts. You and the mummy princess were probably the only real curiosities he had. And he probably picked you up at somebody's lawn sale or at a flea market.”

“Mummy princess? Dudley?” The speaker actually sounded like it was frowning in thought. “Dudley … ah, yes. It's coming back to me now … flashes of memories of my time with the carnival …”

“What do you remember?”

“Potholes.”

“'Scuse me?”

“The carnival truck had terrible suspension,” the speaker complained. “I rattled around in my case like a lone pea in a pod! I remember now! And that Dudley fellow. The Colonel. Dreadful showman. No panache!”

Cheryl leaned her elbows on the table, intrigued by the talking speaker. Tweed settled herself on a stool, likewise fascinated. Under normal circumstances, a pair of twelve-year-old girls might not have had such
cucumber-cool reactions to a piece of supernaturally possessed machinery. But, then again, Cheryl and Tweed weren't what anyone usually thought of as “normal.” And a magic speaker was kind of a step down from the paranormal encounter they'd experienced only a few days earlier (although they'd never suggest such a thing to it—that would be rude).

“D'you remember the carnival's mummy princess?” Cheryl asked. “She's a pal of ours.”

“Never met her,” Simon answered. “Although, now that you mention it, I do recall admiring her sarcophagus from afar. Never spoke though. I mean, it isn't like I've exactly been the life of the party for the last hundred years or so, y'know. All I could do was lie there like a piece of cheap costume jewellery on that ratty old velvet. That, at least, seems to have changed.”

“Well …” Tweed considered that, her head tilted to one side. “I think it might have been the mystical shockwave blast from opening that portal into the Egyptian afterlife. You remember, Cheryl?”

“Sure.” Cheryl nodded. “That explosion lit up the sky like a firecracker going ka-boom!”

“Right! And remember how the portal kinda spat out all of Dudley's carnival junk that didn't belong to the princess?”

“Oh yeah.” Cheryl nodded. “It was like a mini meteor shower. There must be Duds—y'know, carnival bits and bobs—all over town! Tweed's right—that must have
been what happened to you, Mr. Speakie! That blast shot you through the air with enough force to jam you into that speaker. Well, not you. Your turban-bauble thing.”

Tweed peered at the speaker closely. “That was some pretty powerful magic … maybe it gave you the ability to talk, too.”

“Maybe it's just 'cause he's a ‘speaker' now!” Cheryl tried not to snort in amusement at her own pun. The speaker sort of glared at her. “Um. Heh. Kinda neat that you managed to keep that funny accent and all …”

“Now, listen here, missy—”

Suddenly, there was a knocking on the barn door. The twins jumped.

“Hide the squawk box!” Cheryl hissed, shoving the stack of note cards into the front pocket of her knapsack, which was hanging on a hook on the work table, and flapping her hands at Simon Omar. “It's probably Pops!”

“Roger, roger!” Tweed whispered as Cheryl ran for the door.

“Hey!” the speaker protested. “Mfff!”

“Shh!” Tweed said as she grabbed the thing, muffling the sound grill with one hand. “Be quiet now or you'll get us in a heap of trouble!” She stuffed it in a drawer, slamming it shut just as Cheryl pulled back the bolt and a bright flood of sunshine spilled through the doorway, buttering the dusty floor of the shadowy interior like a fresh-popped piece of toast.

It wasn't Pops. It was Pilot.

“Oh, hey there, Flyboy!” Cheryl said brightly, tossing a relieved wave at Pilot as he stepped through the door. “Howzit goin'?”

“Well, my day was going along just fine,” Pilot said with a crooked grin, “right up until Pops asked me to check if you girls needed a hand with anything …”

Cheryl and Tweed noticed then that there was a hopelessly knotted bit of bubblegum-pink skipping rope tangled around Pilot's ankle. In one hand, he carried a beat-up-looking pool noodle, and there was a Nerf dart stuck to the brim of his baseball cap with its suction cup. A light dusting of something that resembled powdered sugar coated one shoulder of his jacket and the side of his face.

Pilot had obviously run afoul of the twins' ACTION!! set-up out in the lot.

“Where in the Sam Heck did you two find a giant Styrofoam mini-donut, might I ask?” he asked, brushing at the fake sugar.

Cheryl grinned and waved in the direction of the empty field across the road from the Drive-In. “Carnival leftovers,” she said.

“Ah.” Pilot plucked the baseball cap off his head— and the Nerf dart off his cap—and with the sleeve of his jacket wiped his brow, pushing the sweat-damp blond hair back from his face. The day was already growing hot and he wandered over to the big old fridge that sat
chugging away in the corner of the barn and fetched himself a cold bottle of soda. “That repair job is thirsty work but I think we've almost licked it. Anyway, Pops wanted me to ask you two if you'd managed to take care of that tweaky speaker. I'm guessing that mess of booby traps out there means you're on the job in your usual no-nonsense fashion.” He grinned, knowing full well that the girls never could perform mundane tasks without resorting to a game of ACTION!! “Did you find out which squawk box was wonky?” he asked.

“Yeah! We found it all right!” Cheryl blurted, hardly able to contain her excitement at the girls' new-found mystical phenomenon. A spirit-possessed piece of equipment from right there in their own beloved Drive-In! Pilot would be amazed. “See,” she continued breathlessly, “the wires were all frayed and stuff and so we took it down—'cause we figured you could give us a hand later rewiring it, after you're done helping Pops with the second projector—but
that
wasn't what was making it act up!”

“Okay.” Pilot shrugged. “I'll bite. What was it?”

“That's just it …” Tweed took up the tale, serious and ominous. “We were right in the middle of an ACTION!! sequence. But then … something weird kind of … happened.”

“Weird?” Pilot grinned. “Now why doesn't that surprise me where you two are concerned?”

The girls gave him identical looks.

“Okay, okay.” He put up a hand, forestalling outrage. “What weird thing kinda … happened?”

With a dramatic flourish, Tweed yanked open the drawer and presented the mystically compromised speaker box. “This,” she said, gesturing (appropriately enough) like a magician's assistant, “is what happened!”

Cheryl emulated her cousin's flourish (only with a bit more of a jazz hands/ta-da! kind of vibe) and the two of them waited to see how Pilot would react to the talking magic speaker …

Which suddenly refused to utter a word.

A long silence stretched out in the dusty air of the barn. Pilot scratched at his ear and cocked an eyebrow. The girls exchanged a confused glance and Tweed poked the speaker with a fingertip.

“Uh … Mr. Omar? Sir?”

More silence.

“Simon?”

No response.

“Who are you talking to, Tee-weed?” Pilot asked.

“The magician,” she said, frowning. “He's trapped in the speaker.”

“Magician …?”

“Not the
actual
magician,” Cheryl attempted to clarify, adding her own finger-pokes on the speaker's other side. “More like … his spirit. Mojo. Thing.”

The speaker remained utterly inert.

“Hey! Speaker Boy!” she yelled in what would seem most likely to be the speaker's ear. “Wake up!”

Pilot crossed his arms and looked like he was trying really hard not to laugh. Tweed nudged Cheryl with her elbow and gave her a slight head shake. Maybe they'd lost the trans-dimensional connection or something. But one thing was certain: if the not-quite-departed spirit of the magician wasn't going to cooperate, there wasn't much they could do about it.

“Yup,” Pilot said, struggling to keep a straight face. “I can see what your problem is. That there is one defunct speaker.”

“Oh … never mind.” Cheryl glowered at the speaker.

“If you want, I can take it apart and see what the trouble is once Pops and me are done with the projector repairs,” Pilot offered good-naturedly as he pulled up a stool to the work table and plunked himself down on it.

“No!” the girls protested in tandem. What if such meddling released the magician's spirit? Or—horrible to think—destroyed it altogether?

“Well, whatever.” Pilot shrugged. “Let me know if you change your minds.”

Truthfully, Pilot was pretty used to strange behaviour where the twins were concerned, and so their current speaker-based wackiness wasn't all that provoking. He took a long sip from his bottle of soda and put it down on the table, beside a small stack of envelopes and junk flyers. On top of the pile was the strange invitation
the girls had received the day before, and the way the sunlight streaming through the barn door shifted in that instant made the embossed gold lettering seem to gleam and pulse with its own light.

“Oh …” Pilot winced a bit. “I get it.”

“Get what?” Tweed asked.

Pilot gestured at the mail. “I see you two got that invitation that was sent out to some of the sitter kids in town.”

“Of course we did!” Cheryl said, brandishing the envelope. “It's an invitation to compete for a super-sitter job!”

“Yeah, I know.” Pilot raised an eyebrow at the invitation, as if he'd been somehow personally insulted by the little envelope. “And I'm sorry. But, you know. It sounds stupid, and just because you girls can't go is no reason to start acting all crazy. I'm sure there'll be other invitations.”

“What?” Cheryl asked. “What are you talking about? Why are you sorry? Why wouldn't we go? This Heck Fellow is looking for the best Wiggins has to offer!”

Pilot looked back and forth between the two girls for a long moment. Then he sighed. “You didn't read the fine print did you?”

“What fine print?” Tweed asked ominously.

Pilot pulled the invitation out of the envelope and pointed to the very bottom. Where there was, in teeny-weeny letters, fine print.

Participants must be 13 years of age or older.

“I thought that was just a decorative squiggle,” Tweed muttered, as she reached into a work table drawer and pulled out the magnifying glass the girls had used only the week before to ingeniously pop a kernel of popcorn using only sunlight and patience. Cheryl peered over her shoulder as Tweed hovered the big round glass over the invitation, and together they read the words:

Par
tic
ipants
must
be
13
years
of
age
or
old
er
.