A Gust of Ghosts (8 page)

“Will, get a bucket of water,” Mrs. Malone went on. “Rolly, don't move an inch until we have this cleaned up. I don't want you traipsing oatmeal all through the house with Mr. Farley about to walk through the door.”

“If we had a dog, you wouldn't have to clean it up,” Rolly said. “A dog would just lick it up off the floor. That's what a dog would do. If we had one.”

“I'd sooner bring a banshee into the house,” Mr. Malone snapped. “A dog would bark, it would run wild through neighbors' yards, it would bite people—”

“It sounds just like Rolly,” Will said. “Except with more fur.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Malone with the air of someone who has handily won a debate. “And one Rolly is, in my opinion, quite enough for this family to handle.”

Rolly slumped down his chair until only his eyes appeared above the table. “I want a dog,” he said under his breath.

“If we lose the grant, we'll just get another one,” Mr. Malone said airily. “Nothing to worry about. There are dozens of places that want to support our kind of work. If the institute pulls our grant, we'll just get another grant and go somewhere else.”

Poppy's stomach clenched. “You mean we would have to move?”

Mrs. Malone saw her stricken face and hurried to reassure her. “Don't worry, dear, it won't happen.” She bit her lip. Mrs. Malone was naturally honest, so she added, “Probably.”

Her soothing tones were completely undercut by her worried expression. “Oh, if only those Moldavian vampires had actually showed up,” Mrs. Malone said fretfully. “The cemetery seems promising, but it could take months of observation before we see any ghosts. And every other lead we've followed up on has turned out to be nothing. That UFO sighting was a weather balloon, the lake monster was someone's pet alligator that had escaped from the bathtub—”

“Yes, yes, all right,” Mr. Malone said testily. “I'll admit we've had a run of bad luck. But you're all worrying about nothing. I'll simply go back to the cemetery and pick up the film from the camera trap. We're sure to capture evidence of ghosts, which we can then show to Mr. Farley. Once he sees what we've discovered, our grant will be safe. In fact, we might even get awarded more money.”

“What if the camera doesn't record anything?” asked Poppy. “What then?”

“Highly unlikely,” said Mr. Malone. “There have been hundreds of sightings at that cemetery over the years. Couldn't you sense the atmosphere last night? The air was positively thick with ectoplasm.”

This was met with an unconvinced silence, broken at last by Franny. “Well, maybe we're wrong about Mr. Farley,” she said, trying to sound hopeful. “Maybe he's just a nice man who wants to meet us.”

“I wish you were right, my dear, but I have a sense that Mr. Farley is more than just a dutiful nephew,” said Mrs. Malone. “In fact, I fear that Mr. Farley is going to be our Nemesis.”

“W
hat do you think a Nemesis looks like?” Will asked. He was sprawled on the rug in Rolly's bedroom, with Poppy and Franny sitting cross-legged next to him.

“Move over,” Franny said, nudging him to one side. “I can't see.”

“Shh,” Poppy said. “Sound travels both ways, you know. We don't want Mom and Dad to hear us.” She scooted closer to the heating grate in the floor and leaned over to look through the metal bars. “Not to mention Mr. Farley.”

When the Malones moved into their new house, Poppy had been put in charge of organizing Rolly's bedroom. That was when she discovered that every word spoken in the living room floated up through this grate. By experimenting, she found that she could even see a little of what was happening below by lying on her stomach and peering through the opening at exactly the right angle.

They had taken up their positions in advance of Mr. Farley's arrival after convincing Rolly to stay in Will's room. (They did this by letting Rolly play with Will's video games, a sacrifice that Will had made for the greater good; they had all feared that Rolly would give away their position by barking through the grate at exactly the wrong moment.)

“I think a Nemesis sounds like a comic book character,” Will went on. “The Nemesis! Seven feet tall, hands of steel that can crush an ordinary mortal, and dark, glittering eyes that can freeze an opponent in his tracks!”

“Well,
I
think a Nemesis sounds dashing,” Franny said, rolling over on her back and smiling dreamily at the ceiling. “Like a wicked pirate or something.”

“I'm sure Mr. Farley looks perfectly ordinary,” said Poppy.

“Of course he does. That's how he hides his nefarious ways. During the day, he looks like a mild-mannered grant manager,” said Will, relishing the chance to use his most sinister voice. “But at night, he turns into his evil alter ego:
The Nemesis
—”

The doorbell rang.

They stared at each other, wide-eyed.

The Nemesis had arrived.

To Will's and Franny's disappointment, Mr. Farley didn't look like an arch villain or a dashing pirate. If anything, he looked like a timid woodland creature of some sort—a squirrel, maybe, or a mole.

He had rung the doorbell at precisely 1:00
P.M.
They could hear Mrs. Malone open the door and greet him, her voice pitched a little higher than normal from nerves as she invited him in.

They held their breath as they waited for him to come into view—and then he appeared. He walked into the living room with a soft step, as if trying to blend into the background. As he turned toward Mr. Malone, who was sitting in his favorite armchair, they could see that Mr. Farley was a colorless man, with thin hair and pale eyes. He wore a gray suit and rimless glasses and carried a nondescript black briefcase. His smile when he said hello was small and didn't quite reach his eyes.

Poppy distrusted him at first sight.

“Mr. Malone, I presume?” he asked, with a small cough.

“Yes,” Mr. Malone said, standing to shake Mr. Farley's hand. “Dr. Malone, actually. I have a PhD in applied physics, and my wife has a doctorate in wildlife biology and a master's degree in cryptozoology.”

“Ah, so it's Dr. and Dr. Malone,” Mr. Farley said with a dry chuckle. “It must get confusing sometimes, answering the phone.”

“We manage to keep things straight most of the time,” said Mrs. Malone in an artificially bright voice. “Would you like a cup of tea or coffee, or maybe a lemonade?”

Poppy held her breath as Mr. Farley said, “Thank you, no,” and turned to sit down. If he chose the rocking chair, they would only see the back of his head, but if he sat on the couch—

“Yesss!” Will said as Mr. Farley chose the couch. He squirmed closer to the grate, pushing Franny out of the way.

“Stop it!” Franny hissed. “I can't see!”

“I'll let you look in a minute,” said Will, putting one eye closer to the grate.

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Move over!”

Poppy glared at them. “Be quiet! I can't hear what they're saying.”

Scowling at Will, Franny inched forward and tilted her head in order to see what was happening below.

“… and so, you see, I really had no choice,” Mr. Farley was saying. “My great-aunt is, I'm sorry to say, very fickle in these matters.”

“But the letter she sent when she gave us the grant was so lovely!” Mrs. Malone cried. “Warm, encouraging, full of interest and enthusiasm for the world of the paranormal—”

“As I said.” Mr. Farley sighed. “Fickle. One day she has a passion for UFOs or ghosts; the next day she can talk of nothing but antique harpsichords or ancient Peruvian poetry. You aren't the first scholars I've had to give bad news. Why, I remember when I told Professor Rutland that his study of cave petroglyphs would no longer be funded. After twenty years of research, he felt that he was close to making a great discovery, but my great-aunt had met a young man who believed that there was a code hidden in an ancient Sanskrit manuscript that would reveal the day when the world would end. I have to admit, his theory sounded more interesting than anything Dr. Rutland had found looking at cave drawings, but still, it was a blow. Professor Rutland wept. A grown man, crying like a small child.” Mr. Farley shook his head. “And, of course, there were the wild accusations of lawsuits and other threats of a more personal nature. It took me almost half an hour to pry his hands off my throat.”

“That must have been terrible for you,” said Mrs. Malone. “He sounds rather unbalanced.”

“Unfortunately, even the mildest researchers react badly when their money is taken away,” Mr. Farley said. “That's why I carry a small can of pepper spray with me at all times. Of course, it's always very upsetting to lose a grant. However, if one can't show any results....”

His voice trailed off.

“But this Professor Rutland had twenty years of funding with no results,” Mr. Malone said quickly. “We've barely had a chance to get started!”

“And we came so close a few weeks ago,” Mrs. Malone added with rather desperate brightness.

Will closed his eyes. “Please, please don't mention the vampires,” he murmured.

“You see, we had heard on very good authority that there was a horde of vampires headed our way,” continued Mrs. Malone, rather breathlessly. “Our esteemed colleague Dr. Oliver Asquith had actually been
attacked
by one of them and had developed quite a bad limp as a result. He managed to kill a few of them, so of course the rest were bent on revenge. We had high hopes that they would track him to our door and that we would be able to interview them, perhaps take a few photos—”

Will closed his eyes and let his head drop so that his forehead rested on the grate.

“Maybe it will be all right,” Franny whispered, nudging him to move over so that she could get a better view into the living room. “Maybe Mr. Farley likes vampires. Some people do, you know.”

“Even though Dr. Asquith had actually encountered the vampires, unfortunately, so many supernatural experiences simply cannot be replicated,” Mrs. Malone was saying earnestly. “As he explained to us later, the undead are quite sensitive to atmosphere. Apparently the vibrational frequency of our house simply did not appeal to them, and so they passed us by.”

She finally came to a halt. There was a brief silence. Then, feeling perhaps that her story had not ended as impressively as it might have, she added, “It was still a very interesting experience, as well as quite educational. I'm sure that we'll be able to use what we learned in our next investigation.”

From the expression on Mr. Farley's face, he did not find this convincing. He also appeared to be one of the few people on the planet who did not find vampires glamorous, charismatic, or even all that attractive.

“Indeed,” he said dryly.

The word seemed to hang in the air.

“Not every investigation pans out, of course,” Mr. Malone said hastily. “And that was only our first try! Perseverance, that's the key! And we just so happen to have discovered a very promising new area of study.”

“Ah?” Mr. Farley said absently, glancing at his watch. “And what is that?”

A self-satisfied smile appeared on Mr. Malone's face. “An old cemetery with documented hauntings that span decades,” he said proudly. “We've unearthed a treasure trove of eyewitness accounts in the archives of the local library. Newspaper reports, letters, diary entries—”

Mr. Farley didn't let him finish. “Yes, yes, that all sounds very interesting,” he said, sounding completely uninterested. “But unless you can prove any of it … well, I'm afraid my great-aunt's interest has recently been piqued by mini schnauzers. Especially the white ones.”

Mrs. Malone cast a nervous look at Mr. Malone, but quickly rallied.

“They're delightful dogs, of course,” she said. “So bright and perky! But, really, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think that any type of dog is quite as important as proving that the human personality exists beyond death, do you?”

“I completely agree,” Mr. Farley said. “
If
one were to see a ghost, it would be a memorable occasion. And
if
one were to actually provide evidence that ghosts exist—well, who could deny that that person deserved a most generous grant?”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Malone relaxed a bit.

“I'm so glad to hear you say that,” Mrs. Malone said. “That was exactly our thought.”

Mr. Farley gave them a cool smile. “Yes. As I said.
If
one were to provide proof.” He paused to let that sink in. “And you have not done that.”

“We have not done that
yet
,” Mr. Malone corrected him.

“Yes. Well.” Mr. Farley snapped his briefcase shut and stood up. “I came here to underscore one point and one point only: my great-aunt likes to see results. And when she doesn't—well, her mind does wander. I suggest that you find something to show her by this time next week. Otherwise, I can't guarantee that your grant will be safe.”