Malice (6 page)

Perdita

1:06 am

I woke in alarm. Boges was shaking me. I had been dreaming of my mother holding me, hugging me, but then she just faded away.

‘Listen,' he hissed, squatting beside me, his hand hooding the torchlight. Ryan was standing at the door.

‘What is it?' I asked, fully awake now.

‘Listen. Those noises.'

I strained to hear and sure enough, there were weird rustling and knocking sounds, as if the walls of Perdita were alive—and breathing!

‘That's what I heard the night the ghost appeared,' I whispered back.

‘It's like it's coming from the walls,' Ryan whispered. ‘And the ceiling, too.'

‘
Now
do you believe me? Kill the light,' I said,
and we were plunged into darkness as we groped our way down the staircase. We crept to the main room window to look outside.

Nothing.

And then suddenly, unbelievably, a burst of light and—she was there! Drifting and floating where I'd seen her almost a week ago. We all jumped in shock.

‘I don't believe it!' Boges swore under his breath. I heard Ryan gasp.

The ethereal spectre hovered and wavered against the backdrop of the grove, just as she had before, with her head turned away from us. From somewhere, an unearthly howl arose, making my skin prickle.

‘
What was that?
' Boges whispered. He was gripping my arm and I was gripping Ryan.

The ghostly figure slowly turned its head towards us and we were menaced by the black pits where the eyes should have been and the haunting skull grin.

‘Sheesh! That's horrible!' Ryan's voice was strangled with fear. Then she was gone!

The deep silence exaggerated the sound of my beating heart. We stood there, transfixed, until Ryan said, ‘Right, so who's game to go outside with the torch and have a look around?'

I took a deep breath. ‘I guess I am. What about you, Boges?'

‘Let's do it,' he said. Boges switched the torch back on, and keeping each other close, the three of us crept outside and into the cold air of the night. We kept going until we came right up to the spot where we had seen the apparition.

‘There's that smell again,' I said, sniffing the air.

‘I'm having some serious doubts about this ghost,' said Boges, as he sniffed around nearby.

‘Man!' said Ryan. ‘It was just here. We all saw it!'

‘We saw
something
,' said Boges. ‘Let's go inside. It's really cold out here.'

1:41 am

We huddled around the remnants of the fire.

‘OK, Boges,' I said, carefully watching his face in the firelight. ‘You're the scientist. What do you think is going on?'

‘You said you were going to bring ghost-busting gear,' said Ryan. ‘Did you?'

‘You bet I did,' Boges smiled.

‘Where is it?' I asked.

‘Right here,' he said, tapping the side of his head. ‘In my prodigious brain box.'

‘Ah, your modesty,' said Ryan, grinning. ‘Glad you haven't forgotten it.'

‘Let's work out what we know,' Boges said, ignoring the jibe. ‘Now, what would you say our ghost was made out of?'

‘Some sort of ghosty stuff?' said Ryan. ‘Stuff you can walk right through.'

‘Yeah,' I agreed. ‘Like mist or smoke.'

‘And you said it was a bit foggy when you went out to look for her the first time, Winter?' Boges added.

‘So she's made out of fog?' Ryan asked. ‘Is that what you're suggesting?'

Boges didn't say anything for a while. ‘I'm not sure, I need to take a closer look before I start laying out my theories. I'm going back to bed for a few more hours' sleep,' he finally yawned. ‘Somehow I don't think there'll be any more apparitions tonight. Let's sleep on it, and tomorrow we'll do a proper search.'

Despite our complaining, Boges refused to say any more without sleep. Annoyed, but relieved I now had witnesses, I had no choice but to wait until morning.

9:19 am

In the morning, we were eager to search the grove.

‘OK,' said Boges, handing out the hatchets and clippers he'd brought with him. ‘We're going to stay pretty close together and we're going to search around the area where we saw the “ghost” last night. We're going to do a fingertip search, just like the cops do. That means covering every single square centimetre of ground. Got it?'

It took us over an hour to make any headway, but as we cut and hacked our way, we checked out every bit of the overgrown ground.

Eventually I spotted something gleaming, and I pushed and shoved until I could get close enough to retrieve it. I called out to the others as I picked it up. It was a cylinder, like an empty cartridge shell, only larger and wider.

‘What's that?' asked Ryan. ‘It looks like someone's been firing bazookas!'

‘They've been firing something,' said Boges.

‘Is this some kind of pre-packed concentrated ghost mix?' I asked, pointing to the empty shell.

‘Winter, this is the shell of a smoke flare. Depending on how much combustible material you put in it, it creates very dense smoke.'

‘I don't get it,' said Ryan. ‘OK, so it smokes for a while, but how does the smoke make itself into a ghost?'

‘It doesn't,' said Boges. ‘It makes a screen that images can be projected onto.'

‘Like a movie?' I asked.

‘Exactly like a movie. Do you remember the whistling sound you said you heard? That was the flare whizzing through the air, and which also created the bad smell. Then all that's needed is a video projector pointed at the smoke and there's your ghost.'

‘Hang on a minute,' I said. ‘Do you mean someone was in the house using a video projector?' I thought for a split second. ‘I bet I know where he was!' I turned and ran back into the house and up the stairs, hearing Boges and Ryan charging after me. I ran up to the third floor lookout room facing the garden. Sure enough, on the window sill were fresh scrape marks in the dust.

‘So,' I said, ‘he had the video projector set up here, then he projected some ghost footage onto the smoke screen.'

‘Spot on!' said Boges, his face alight with enthusiasm. I grinned as I saw Ryan looking at me with admiration.

‘That's why she went through the exact same routine the second time,' I said. ‘He just repeated the footage.'

‘I wondered how come you were so brave about a ghost, Boges,' Ryan teased.

‘But what about that weird knocking and scratching in the walls? How do you explain that?' I asked.

Boges shook his head. ‘Sorry,' he said, ‘I may be brilliant, but sometimes even a genius needs a little time to work things out.'

‘We didn't find anything else,' I reminded him, ‘no clues as to who might be trying to frighten me out of the place. We need to gather more intelligence first, and I've got an idea how. We should have a chat with my neighbour.'

‘Crash girl? No way!' said Ryan.

‘Good idea,' said Boges sarcastically.

‘Her name's Harriet,' I said defensively. ‘And she's lived here most of her life, so she's probably got a lot of local knowledge. How about a neighbourly visit?'

Abercrombie House

11:26 am

We decided to walk to Abercrombie House. We went up the winding driveway to the old colonial stone mansion—what was left of it. The house stood on a slight rise with a few ancient rose bushes growing along the front. To the left was a wide, dry gully that ran the length of the house and beyond. Several chickens scattered at our approach. Across the gully, I could see the stooped figure of Harriet, working in a vegetable garden. As I called out and waved, she made her
way over, her hair pulled back from her face under a knitted beanie—clearly dressed for work in a checked shirt and overalls.

I properly introduced her to Ryan and Boges and she shyly shook hands, excusing herself for the soil that clung to her fingers. ‘I've been digging potatoes,' she explained. ‘Please come in. I'll make us something to drink.'

We went down a dim hallway to a big kitchen at the back of the house.

‘We brought these over,' I said, placing some chocolate biscuits and cheeses on the kitchen table. ‘Boges bought far too much for us,' I lied. ‘I was hoping that you might be able to tell us a little bit about the local history.'

‘Oh yes?' Harriet said as she poured boiling water into a teapot.

‘Harriet,' I said, munching into a chocolate biscuit, ‘some very strange things have been going on at Perdita lately.'

‘What sort of things?' Harriet asked, her brows contracting into a frown. ‘I did wonder when you acted pretty weird the other day, coming out of that grove looking like a ghost.'

‘Actually, I was
looking
for a ghost—well, evidence of how the ghost had happened.'

‘You saw the White Lady?'

‘I think I'd better explain,' I said. I told Harriet about the scary noises and the ghost, and how we'd finally worked out what had really happened.

‘But why?' she asked, exactly echoing our own questions. ‘Why would someone be doing this to you?'

We told her about the Perdita file—about how it had been stolen and how we'd gotten it back. ‘You're so lucky to have such good friends,' she said to me. ‘Do you know much about the history of Perdita?' she asked.

‘Only that Captain Greenlowe built it over a hundred years ago for his daughter and she died in tragic circumstances.'

‘Well, there are two versions of the story,' said Harriet. ‘One is that Perdita Greenlowe and Daniel Abercrombie, my great grandfather, were hounded out of the country by Captain Greenlowe. They were in love, but he had forbidden their marriage after a terrible falling out with Daniel's father, Frederick Abercrombie, probably because of a dispute over the property boundaries. The second version is much darker.'

‘Uh-oh,' I said, guessing. ‘The ghost story?'

‘You got it! In that version, Captain Greenlowe, mad with rage about his daughter's relationship with Daniel Abercrombie, murdered Perdita and
then said that she'd taken her own life. The story goes that she can't rest because of her tragic end. The Captain himself was said to have become obsessed with the house. He fussed over the grove in particular, ignoring his responsibilities, making enemies of the wrong kind of people, and ran the estate into the ground. And that's why the house is cursed and anyone who lives there is driven away.'

‘Someone else must know that version,' said Boges, ‘to go to the trouble of making the ghost appear.'

‘And it gets even worse than that,' said Harriet. ‘Captain Greenlowe cursed the whole Abercrombie family, swearing that the property would fall into wrack and ruin and that the farm would never prosper again. Not long afterwards, the stream that used to run past the house started drying up. My great grandfather moved away, and ended up marrying my great grandmother Blanche. By then, the Captain had passed away, but his curse remained. When my parents moved us back to the family estate, nothing had changed.' Harriet gave a deep sigh.

‘Wow, heavy stuff,' Ryan said.

‘Yeah, I'm really sorry to hear that, Harriet,' Boges said gently. ‘But all that still doesn't explain why someone would want to terrorise Winter,' he added, ‘and try to scare her off so she sells Perdita.'

‘Well, there is one more thing I can think of,' said Harriet. ‘There were rumours that Captain Greenlowe was a smuggler. But when the police raided the house, they could never find any evidence. He was also rumoured to know the location of a ship that wrecked nearby.' She looked up from her cup of tea. ‘A lot of the locals still talk about that shipwreck, the Windraker, full of gold coins that never reached their destination.'

‘A treasure ship wrecked near Deception Bay?' I asked.

Harriet nodded. ‘It's just local legend, nothing more.' She stood up, signalling it was time for us to leave. ‘I'd love to chat more,' she said, ‘but I've got a lot of packing to do.'

As we walked outside, Harriet pointed to the dry gully running past the house. ‘That's the reason I have to go,' she said. ‘It used to be a really reliable stream which watered this whole property. But now, it's all dried up. I've never seen it flowing, I've only ever seen it in a picture.' She ran back inside and came out with an old, faded sepia photograph. A group of people dressed in old-fashioned clothes stood smiling by the house. Beyond them was the stream.

‘Now look at it,' she said, as we all turned to the dry riverbed. ‘I've given up hoping for a miracle,' she said, ‘although there are other rumours … about those strange noises in the walls of the house—' Harriet suddenly stopped speaking.

I waited expectantly for her to finish. This was exactly the sort of information we needed.

‘What sort of rumours?' I prompted. But something had changed; Harriet's face was closed.

‘Oh, just silly talk. Now I really must go.' She took the photograph out of Ryan's hands and flashed a quick smile. ‘Thanks for coming to visit.' With that, she hurried inside.

Perdita

12:52 pm

As the three of us walked back, I was deep in thought. ‘Harriet was going to tell us something about the knocking in the walls, but she stopped herself.'

‘She knows more than she's saying,' said Ryan.

‘Maybe. She's a bit of an enigma,' said Boges.

‘I thought you only found those in zoos,' joked Ryan.

‘I think we need to get serious with our investigation,' said Boges, ignoring Ryan's quip. ‘There's something going on and I want to know what it is.'