Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary (6 page)

Holly and I circled around it, and when we got to the door, Lucinda said, “Come on in, take a look.”

We stood near the doorway, but when Lucinda insisted,
“Come in, come
in,
it's not going to bite,” Holly and I stepped inside while Dallas kept Penny company outside.

I've always thought that living at Grams' was tight. Confining. I mean, if there weren't walls in the way to stop you, you could hose the whole apartment down with the kitchen-sink sprayer. But as I stood there in Mary's cabin, Grams' apartment was starting to seem roomy. For one thing, there were no walls to hose down—there wasn't even a kitchen sink. For another, the roof was really low; I could almost reach up and touch it.

On one side of the room was a stone fireplace with its chimney poking straight through the roof. On the other side were a few grape crates tossed around, a flat-edge shovel, and a rusted old hoe. And in between was nothing but a dirt floor covered in mulch.

As I walked around inside, two things struck me: One, it smelled vaguely weird. Not like dirt or old wood or mulch, more like sweaty gym socks. And two, despite the condition of the planks, I could see traces of blue paint on the walls. I asked Lucinda, “Huntley isn't a
Dutch
name, is it?”

She says, “No…what makes you ask?”

“It looks like the walls…and the
ceiling
used to be blue.”

“That they were. It helped with the bugs.”

“The bugs?”

Lucinda nodded. “That's right. Bugs don't like blue. They won't light.”

“Really?”

She nodded again. “They didn't have the luxury of screening then.”

Holly says, “I guess this is what Mr. Holgartner means when he talks about one-room cabins in history.” She points to the arched fireplace. “This was for cooking?”

“And heat. They used to prepare meals here, eat at a small table right about there, and sleep across the room. Of course, the roof kept out the rain, and the walls were intact.”

I'm shaking my head. “But still…”

Lucinda grins. “Not exactly the lap of luxury.” We're all silent for a moment; then Lucinda says, “Shh! Shh…did you hear?”

Holly and I stand stock-still, listening. We both look at her like, Hear what?

She holds up a finger. “There! Did you hear her?”

Since Lucinda had said, “Did you hear
her?
”I knew right away that there was only one person she could mean: Mary. And she was looking so intense, with one crooked finger in the air and her blue eyes so wide open, that I held my breath and listened, too. Hard.

And what did I hear? Not a thing. Just the wind rustling the oaks outside.

Lucinda let out a deep sigh; then her face seemed to wash with a peaceful, faraway smile. “This is why I can't let Kevin tear the place down. I've told him her spirit's still here, but he doesn't feel it like I do. Dallas has heard her voice, but Kevin…I think he's afraid to. He seems to block her out.”

We listen for another minute before Lucinda says, “Let's go see her, shall we?” and shuffles out the door.

Holly and I back our way outside and practically trip
over Penny, who's rooting around at the base of the cabin. Dallas grabs her by the collar, and I whisper to him, “Have you really heard Moustache Mary's voice?”

He looks real serious and nods. “More than once. She has a very strong presence here. And you might want to leave off the Moustache…” He looks around cautiously, like someone might be listening. “Around here, anyway.”

We join Lucinda, who's standing a few feet from a stone grave marker, which reads
MARY ROSE HUNTLEY, BELOVED MOTHER
. “My father had her moved to the Stowell Cemetery to be with Ezekiel and the rest of the family, but I believe her soul didn't go with her remains. I believe she's still right here.”

Holly asks, “Why's there still a headstone here?”

“Father got a new one. Fancier. I prefer the original myself. I had no say in the move, mind you, but I've always disagreed with it. Once you're laid to rest, you should be allowed to rest, not dug up and moved across town.”

Dallas says, “You're right about that, Miss Lucinda. I sure wouldn't want someone moving me around.”

“Precisely.”

Penny shakes free from Dallas and heads back to the cabin. Lucinda says, “She'll be fine, Dallas,” but he follows her anyway.

Lucinda studies the tombstone a minute, then turns to us and whispers, “I've seen her. I'm sure of it.” She points across the vineyard to a faded yellow clapboard house in the distance. “From my window. Kevin thinks my eyesight's going”—she frowns—“or my mind, but I know what I know, and I know what I've seen.”

Holly whispers, “What did it look like?”

Lucinda turns her blue eyes up to study Holly, and when she's sure she's not making fun of her, she looks back at the tombstone and says, “Not a ghost like you see on television—more a glow in the air. I've never gotten very close; she's always vanished before I could get down here, but it's definitely not my imagination.”

Well, I wasn't about to stand around Moustache Mary's old grave and ask a bunch of questions about ghosts. I mean, ghosts rank right up there with werewolves and vampires—if they
do
exist, I'm going to get as far away from them as I can, as fast as I can, and for once I'm not going to ask one single solitary question.

So we're standing next to Lucinda, looking at the tombstone, and I'm thinking it's time to get out of there, when I hear a twig snap, right behind us. I whip around and so does Holly, but Lucinda doesn't even blink. She keeps her eyes on the ground and says, “Hello, Kevin.”

Kevin's big. Tall and big. And for a guy who didn't actually cross the plains in a wagon train, he's sure looking like he did. He's got on a pair of baggy blue jeans, tied up with a length of thick rope, some cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, a flannel shirt, and a tattered scarf around his neck. And everything he's wearing looks sun-bleached and dusty. Even
he
looks worn out—like he's walked for days across the desert without sleeping.

Lucinda smiles at him and says, “Kevin, I'd like you to meet my new friends, Holly and Samantha—they walked me home from the Murdocks' today. Girls, this is my nephew, Kevin Huntley.”

He barely looks at us. “You actually went there?”

“It wasn't so bad. I feel better for having cleaned that slate.”

He shakes his head. “They must've thought you were crazy.”

“I don't much care what they thought. As far as I'm concerned, it's over.”

Kevin scowls, then notices Dallas holding Penny by the collar. He looks confused for a second, then says, “Didn't I give you the day off ?”

Dallas nods. “I wanted to catch up on a few things.”

“It'll keep. You should go enjoy the day.” He tips his hat without even looking at us and says, “Nice to meet you,” then heads off through the vineyard.

Lucinda sighs as she watches him go. “I'm suddenly weary.”

Dallas coaxes Penny along until she's beside Lucinda. “You want me to walk you up to the house?”

“That'd be nice. Girls, you should come this way, too. It's shorter for you to go back to the road out the front drive.”

So Dallas and Penny walk beside Lucinda while we follow, a few steps behind. And when we get to the Huntleys' house, it's easy to see that it's plenty big—it's got two stories with lots of windows and a big, shady porch— but it looks as worn and tired as Kevin. The yellow paint is faded and peeling, and the roof seems to sag under the weight of the sky.

When Lucinda steps onto the porch, Dallas rubs the tusk on his necklace and says, “You know, I should probably
stick around and help Kevin. He shouldn't give me the day off if he's not going to take it himself.”

Lucinda scolds, “No. Just because he's forgotten how to enjoy life doesn't mean you should. Go!”

Dallas laughs, then gives her a playful salute and hops off the porch with a “Yes, ma'am!” He turns to us. “Which way are you guys headed?”

Holly says, “Down to Meadow Lane.”

“Let me give you a ride on my motorcycle. We'll all fit, and we ought to let Lucinda get some rest, okay?”

We shrug and say, “Sure,” then wave good-bye to Lucinda. But as we're walking away, I glance over my shoulder, and there she is, looking small and frail on her broad, sagging porch. And I get this chill and an eerie vision of the house collapsing all around her—swallowing her up.

It's not like it was
that
far back to Dot's, and really, we probably wouldn't have taken a lift from Dallas if he hadn't insisted. But there we were, crammed onto the back of his motorcycle, me straddling big metal saddlebags, holding on to Holly, and Holly in the middle, hanging on to Dallas. It reminded me a lot of getting a ride from Marissa.

Dallas comes putting to a stop at the end of the Huntley driveway, and while he's waiting for a pickup truck to go rumbling by, he flicks away a few oak leaves that have wedged themselves between cables by the speedometer and says, “She's a neat old lady, isn't she?”

We both call, “Yeah,” and he calls back, “Too bad no one ever found that gold. Could've made all the difference.”

Holly says, “What gold?”

He checks us out in his rearview mirror, then rubs it clean with the sleeve of his shirt. “I thought she told you the story!”

“She didn't tell us about any gold!”

He pulls out onto the main road and shouts, “Maybe she's given up. When I first came on, she had me digging holes all over that property. There's some crazy riddle in
Mary's diary about rocks and ridges and hidden treasure, but
I
sure haven't been able to help her out.”

I shout, “You've seen the diary?”

“What?”

I shout louder, “Have you seen the diary?”

“Oh, sure. Ask her. She'll show it to you.”

Now I've got a million questions colliding in my brain, but it's kind of hard to ask questions in a sixty-mile-anhour windstorm when you're hanging on for dear life. So I just hunker down, and before you know it, we're squeaking to a stop at Meadow Lane.

We peel ourselves off the bike and try to sound grateful when we say, “Thanks!” And I was planning to ask him some questions about the gold, but then I notice that Holly's looking kind of green. Besides, Dallas doesn't give me the chance. He flashes us a smile, calls, “See ya!” and then kicks up dust getting back on the road.

The second he's gone, Holly fans the air in front of her and makes a choking sound. “Oh my god.”

“What?”

“I need a bath. Oh, yuck!”

“What do you mean?”

She's still fanning air. “Didn't you
smell
that?”

“No…”

“Oh God, you are so lucky. I can't believe you couldn't smell him.”

“Dallas?”

“Yes, Dallas! That guy has the worst B.O. I have
ever
smelled, and believe me, I've been around some pretty rank people.”

I guess I was looking pretty surprised because Holly fans the air one last time, then heads down Meadow Lane, saying, “Next time you ride in the middle. Oh, pew!”

So much had happened since we'd left Dot's house that you'd think Holly and I would be jabbering about Moustache Mary and Lucinda and what Dallas had said about some stash of missing gold, but we weren't. We just walked along, doing some mental sorting. Then, when we get to the DeVrieses' porch, Holly asks, “Do you think they should've moved her?”

Right away, I know she's talking about Mary. “To the cemetery downtown?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don't know.”

“Well, do you think she's still there?”

I look at Holly. “I guess it depends on whether or not you believe in ghosts.”

Dot throws the door open and says, “Why are you guys just standing there? Come on in!” She practically drags us in, then shuts the door behind us. “What took you so long? We were starting to think you got lost.”

Now this is not a question you can answer in one word, or even one sentence, so I guess it's a good thing Dot forgot she had asked it in the first place. She heads off, saying, “C'mon! We've got to set up the carriage house before it gets dark. Marissa's out there putting up the cots. Can you help me with these sleeping bags and pillows?” Then she loads us both down with flannel bedrolls and leads us outside.

Their carriage house is actually really neat. It's like a
barn, only without hay or horse poop. Not that there isn't the
potential
to have fresh and processed hay— there are two stables with a loft over the top—but both are empty and the room smells more like bleach than organic oats.

Marissa sees us and says, “Oh,
now
you show up. I've pinched about every one of my fingers.”

Marissa's not what you'd call a mechanically minded individual, so I probably should've known better, but I flopped onto one of the cots and right away,
snap! snap!
I'm trapped in a tangle of springs and aluminum.

It might have only hurt, except the place that got hit the worst was my arm—right where I'd scraped it on the asphalt—so it
killed
.

Marissa comes running over and does the McKenze dance, trying to figure out how to untangle me. She pulls down one end, but it snaps back before I can get out. Dot rushes over to help her, and Holly pulls down the other end, and I roll out.

Marissa squats beside me and says, “Sammy, I'm so sorry! Are you all right? I guess I forgot to push the locks down on that one.”

I hold my arm and glare at her, so she says, “Sammy, I'm
sorry
. It was an accident. Sammy, stop it! What else do you want me to say?”

I mutter, “How about ‘Timber! ’?” then force up a little grin.

At first she doesn't get it, but when Dot and Holly laugh, she remembers my little adventure on her handlebars. She says, “Oh, Sammy. I'm so sorry!”

The throbbing in my arm's starting to go away a bit, so I stand up and say, “Yeah, right. I know what's really going on: Heather's hired you to kill me, hasn't she?”

Marissa's eyes pop wide open. “Sammy!”

“Why else would you catapult me through the air and feed me to a man-eating cot?”

She's looking really worried, like she's not sure if I'm kidding or not. So I grin and say, “Marissa, it's all right. I'm fine.”