Caught in the Web (9 page)

“Aimee, I really don’t think you girls should be going up there exploring. I don’t know how safe it is. And besides …”

“Please, Mom.” Fiona spoke up. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to come face-to-face with a ghost, but she also didn’t want to spend the rest of the night imagining what
might
be up there.

Mrs. Waters still wasn’t sure. “I just don’t know, dear.”

Aimee started pleading again. “We—but—Mrs. Waters—please—”

She could be very convincing when she wrinkled up her face and opened her eyes as wide as quarters. Madison thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

“Mommy, it’s a matter of life or death,” Fiona said.

“Life or
death!”
Mrs. Waters gasped, laughing. “Fiona Jane Waters, don’t be ridiculous.”

Madison finally butted in. “Mrs. Waters, there really could be a ghost up there. You see, there’s an old neighborhood legend about the attic in this house. …” Madison explained the whole thing all over again.

“You girls have some imaginations,” Mrs. Waters said. “I supposed I should be impressed. Old attics usually have a lot of secrets—but ghosts?”

“Please,” Fiona begged one last time.

“Well … I don’t think you’ll find much of anything, but … okay. Okay, you can go up there. Do you three promise me you will be careful?”

They all nodded.

“Let me go get the big flashlight, then.” Mrs. Waters disappeared out the door.

For some reason they were still all standing in the teeny bathroom, which now felt even more cramped and hotter than before.

Fiona sighed. “Let’s go back to my bedroom and make a plan.”

“I bet this wasn’t what you had in mind when you invited us over,” Aimee joked.

“Yeah. I thought we’d be painting our toenails by now,” Madison said.

“We can do that stuff later,” Aimee said. “This is better. Isn’t it? I’m so glad your mom said yes.”

“This is fun,” Madison said. “I can’t believe we actually told the truth about the ghost. I thought it would make her more worried.”

“She doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Fiona said. “She watches sci-fi movies all the time and never gets scared. Besides, even if Mrs. Martin came out, she could probably kick her butt.”

Madison laughed. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

“I told you ghosts could be anywhere, right?” Aimee said. “And now we’re going to see a real, live one. Right here in this house.”

T
HE STAIRWAY UP TO
the Waterses’ attic didn’t seem old or scary at all. Someone had redone the steps, so it wasn’t too treacherous to climb. Madison led the way, followed by Aimee and then Fiona.

“This isn’t so scary,” Aimee said as she stepped up.

“Speak for yourself, Aim,” Fiona said.

“We’ll have great stories to tell at the school dance next week, won’t we?” Madison said. She reached the top of the pull-down wooden stairs and poked her head up first.

“Wow,” Madison said, finally reaching the attic space. Her friends climbed in after her. They all looked around and saw an enormous chest.

“Oh-em-gee!”
Aimee screamed. “Mrs. Martin!”

“Girls!” Mrs. Waters called up to them from downstairs. “I don’t want you up there too long, make it quick!”

Madison poked her head through the opening just a little bit. “We’re only going to be here for a split second, I promise, Mrs. Waters. Right down after that.”

The friends walked over to where the chest had been shoved into place. It was obvious no one had moved it for ages. It was a big sea chest with chains and buckles on it.

“Maddie, it looks like the one you described in the story,” Aimee said.

“And it’s big enough for a person.” Fiona gulped.

The chest was enormous and covered in dust, nicks, cobwebs, scratches, dents, and other signs of a long, long life. On the side were carved the initials F.D.M. Everyone seemed to recognize what the letter
M
stood for.

Martin.

“This is crazy,” Aimee said, a little breathless.

After a moment, their eyes adjusted to the darkness some more. Fiona found a single lightbulb cord and pulled. The whole room lit up. The chest and the rest of the attic were covered in an inch-thick layer of dust.

“Madison!” Aimee cried out when the room brightened. “Watch out!”

Madison felt something on her face. Something sticky. She was snarled in a thick spiderweb.

“How disgusting,” Fiona said, trying to peel pieces of web off Madison’s shirt and hair.

“Grosser than gross,” Madison groaned. She’d have to reconsider her love of spiders and all things creepy-crawly after this.

“Let’s go back downstairs,” Fiona said, turning away. “We saw the chest. The ghost isn’t around. Okay?”

“We haven’t even opened it!” Aimee said.

“You guys seem to forget one very important thing,” Fiona said. “I live here.”

“Isn’t that a better reason for wanting to see what’s in this?” Madison asked. “Just in case …”

“In case
what?”
Fiona asked.

Aimee was already kneeling down, trying to open the latch. “Drat,” she wailed. “It’s locked.”

“I’m going back downstairs.” Fiona turned again to walk away from her friends. “I don’t wanna see this Martin lady or anything else that’s inside that chest. I’m going back to have another cup of hot chocolate even if it doesn’t have little baby marshmallows in it.”

Aimee struggled with the bolt. “Dean showed me once how to pick a lock.”

“Really?” Fiona stopped short, incredulous. “Your brother picks locks?”

“Whatever,” Aimee said. She took a clip from her hair and worked the lock. “They do this on TV.”

Fiona looked at Madison. Madison shrugged. Aimee liked to exaggerate, but she really seemed to know what she was doing.

“Try this,” Fiona said, handing her a piece of scraggly metal from the floor of the attic.

“Weren’t you leaving?” Madison asked.

“Maybe,” Fiona shrugged and stayed put.

“Is this against the law? I mean, opening someone else’s chest?” Madison asked.

“Got it!” Aimee smiled and tossed the metal piece aside. Madison was shocked. Upon closer inspection Madison noticed that the lock had not, in fact, been picked. The whole contraption was rusted and had broken open.

“Now, everyone, on the count of three,” Aimee said. “We’ll open it together.”

“One …”

“Two …”

“Three!”
Madison sneezed on the count. There was a lot of dust up in this attic. The lid popped open. Fiona shrieked.

“Oh-em-gee!”
Aimee yelled.

It was empty.

“What a gyp!”
Aimee yelled again.

“Where did Mrs. Martin go?” Madison asked aloud.

Fiona looked all around them. “Did she fly out, maybe? Ghosts do that, don’t they?”

“She’s a sneaky one, that ghost,” Madison teased.

“Was she even here?” Aimee asked. “I mean, come on.”

“What did we really expect to see?” Madison asked. “A skeleton?”

Fiona shuddered. “She’s still here. I bet she’s watching us. Right now …”

“Girls!” Fiona’s mother called from downstairs.

“Ahhhhh!”
This time Aimee was the one who jumped.

“Did someone fall? I thought I heard a loud noise. Girls?”

Aimee clutched her chest. “It’s just your mother.”

Madison started to laugh. They all did.

“Don’t worry, Mom.” Fiona giggled. “Don’t worry. We’re just—”

“Scaring ourselves silly,” Aimee said.

They all climbed back downstairs, giggling all the way. “Dinner is ready, girls,” Mrs. Waters said. She closed the attic door and hustled the friends into the kitchen.

After dinner the trio headed back into Fiona’s bedroom. Aimee offered to French-braid Madison’s hair, and Fiona tried her new Frosted Grape nail polish.

“Maybe instead of a hula dancer I should go as a witch to the school dance,” Fiona said. “I could put white in my black hair. Something to look weird. It gets all frizzy when I let my braids out.”

“It looks so cool down,” Aimee said.

“A little nappy,” Fiona said, “but I like it this way.”

Fiona looked so good all the time—and even more with her hair down. Madison figured that every seventh-grade boy would be asking her to dance next week. Fiona was a perfect combination of pretty and smart and athletic.

“So where’s Chet tonight?” Aimee asked.

Fiona explained that Chet was staying over at Hart’s house with Egg and Drew. Madison wondered what they were doing. Were they talking about
girls?

“It’s like
Night of the Twin Sleepovers,”
Madison joked.

“Night at Haunted House,
you mean,” Aimee added.

Fiona grimaced. “No more ghosts!” She sat back to admire her perfectly painted toes.

“Is Chet going to the dance?” Madison asked, putting some Frosted Grape on her own toes.

Fiona shrugged. “Probably. But he won’t dance or anything. Chet’s scared of girls. He likes to act cool, but he’s a real chicken.”

“I’ve never danced with a boy,” Madison admitted aloud.

“Really?” Fiona said.

Aimee got quiet all of a sudden. “Me neither,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” Madison said. “All you do is dance.”

“Not the kind we’re talking about, though. Not real dancing. Not with a real boy that I like or anything. What about you, Fiona?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I had a boyfriend in California and we—”

Squeeeeeeeeeak.

“What was that?” Madison asked. “Did you guys hear that? Right above us?”

Fiona, who’d been sitting sprawled on her own bed, grabbed a pillow and pushed herself up against the wall. “I don’t know. Did you hear it?”

Squeeeeeeeeeak.

“Heard it,” Aimee said as the noise repeated itself. “Twice.”

“It’s Ma-Ma-Mrs. Martin!” Fiona stuttered, scared.

“No way!” Madison said.
“No way.”

The three girls dove under the quilt on top of Fiona’s bed and vowed never to come out until they had a surefire plan on how to deal with the situation.

“It could just be the floor up there,” Madison said.

“Yeah, with the sound of a ghost walking on it!” Aimee said.

“Isn’t there any nice way we can ask her to leave my house?” Fiona said.

“Wait! Did you bring the Ouija board, Aimee? That might work,” Madison suggested.

“You really want to try talking to this ghost again?” Fiona cried.

“Yes!” Aimee said. She bounded off to get the Ouija board from her overnight bag.

Fiona’s room was covered with a plush green carpet. The trio sat down on it like they were setting up some kind of ghost picnic.

“Now, you have to take this seriously,” Aimee warned the other two as she opened the box and the board. “No laughing in the middle of it like before.”

“Who’s laughing?” Madison said, checking out the plastic pointer. Aimee called it the planchette, but to Madison it looked like the little plastic holder found in the center of a takeout pizza.

“Hey, Maddie.” Fiona leaned over and picked a string off Madison’s shirt. “You still have spiderweb on you. Which is now probably on my bed, thank you very much.”

“Sorry,” Madison said. “Okay, what question do we wanna ask?”

Aimee clucked her tongue. “We want to ask about Mrs. Martin. Why is she here? Something like that. We want to know about the ghost.”

The Ouija “Mystifying Oracle” board looked ominous. It was a special edition that Aimee’s mother bought. At the upper-left corner was the word
yes.
In the upper-right corner was the word
no.
At the center were all the letters of the alphabet, the numerals one through nine, and then on the bottom were two more words:
good
and
bye.
Aimee turned the lights down lower and the board glowed.

“Again with the lights?” Fiona said. “Jeepers.”

“Let’s start with something simple,” Aimee suggested, putting her fingertips on the pointer. “I’ll ask. ‘Will I be a dancer when I grow up?’”

“That’s the question we’re asking?” Madison asked, incredulous.

“For now. Like a test.”

Fiona giggled. “What does your dancing have to do with ghosts, Aimee?”

“Okay, fine. You ask the question, then.” Aimee backed away from the board. She handed the planchette to Madison.

“We need to concentrate,” Madison suggested.

“I thought you always made fun of this stuff,” Aimee said.

“That was before I saw Fiona’s attic,” Madison said.

The three girls closed their eyes tightly and placed the pointer back onto the Ouija board.

“Is Mrs. Martin in this house?” Madison asked.

Fiona freaked out as their fingers moved across the board. The planchette pointed to
yes.

“Did you guys press it that way on purpose?” she asked.

Madison and Aimee shook their heads no.

“Is Mrs. Martin unhappy?” Aimee asked.

The second answer was
no.

“Well, is she haunting my house?” Fiona asked.

The third question spelled something out very slowly.

“M-a-c-h-k-l?”
Fiona asked. “What’s that supposed to be?”

“The first two letters are
ma
like Martin,” Madison said.

“The last two letters look like
kl.
It could be like kill,” Aimee said. “Maybe Mrs. Martin is trying to tell us that she was killed.”

“So then what’s
ch
for?” Fiona said. “Chocolate? Hot chocolate!”

They all laughed and collapsed onto the carpet. Aimee put the game away. Even ghost hunts could get boring.

“Hey, let’s go online,” Fiona suggested. They went back downstairs into the den to log on to the computer. Fiona booted up the computer and logged on to TweenBlurt.com.

On-screen, skeleton fish were swimming around inside the home page fishbowl with little bubbles over their fish heads: BOO! OOH! NOO! They looked so cute. Aimee started pointing and naming them after horror movie characters like Dracula and Swamp Thing. She called one “The Wolf-Fish.”

At the top of the home page was the banner invitation to enter the Caught in the Web contest. There was a countdown clock in a sidebar to show the deadline fast approaching. Madison bit her lip. With all the ghostly excitement, she’d nearly forgotten about the contest.