Before They Rode Horses (10 page)

I had just a few small details to take care of before I went back to Madeleine’s house. There was no time to waste.

IV

Y
OU
’
D THINK THAT
one doll tea party a week would be enough for anyone, but it seemed that Maggie and Madeleine couldn’t get their fill of doll tea parties. I guess it was some sort of tradition with them or, maybe and more likely, they both knew that it bored me and therefore it was definitely their choice activity. I didn’t mind. In fact, I’d been counting on it.

Once again, we packed up everything, selected the dolls that Maggie and Madeleine wanted to play with, and waited for Mrs. Pine to make a picnic for us. This time my mom decided to help, and the next thing I knew one of the sets of finger sandwiches was none other than peanut butter and honey. She was being just wonderful.

By this time, Mrs. Pine had figured out that
things weren’t exactly going my way, and I think she was a little embarrassed about the way her daughter and Maggie were behaving toward me.

“Perhaps you’d like to have your guest choose where you go on your picnic today,” she said to Madeleine.

“Okay,” Madeleine agreed. “Maggie, where would you like to go?”

I mean, she was really that obvious!

“Now, Madeleine,” said Mrs. Pine. “Maggie can choose anytime. Why don’t you let Stevie choose?”

“But Stevie doesn’t know where anything is around here,” said Madeleine.

I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass me by. “Well, maybe I don’t know where I do want to go, but I certainly know where I
don’t
want to go,” I said.

“Where?” Madeleine asked, as if she really meant it.

“Anyplace but that haunted house. It’s scary!” I said. “I don’t ever want to go near there again. In fact, if we could go someplace that doesn’t even pass it, that would be fine by me!”

Maggie and Madeleine looked at one another. I’d seen that look before. I’d seen Chad and Alex look
at one another like that dozens of times. It always meant trouble for me.

“I’d like to go back to the place where we had our tea yesterday,” said Maggie.

“Okay,” Madeleine agreed.

“But not past the haunted house,” I said.

“There’s no other way,” said Maggie and Madeleine, practically at the same time.

“Well, then I’m walking on the other side of the street,” I said.

Madeleine smiled. Maggie smirked.

We’d hardly gotten out of the house before the teasing began.

“Stevie believes in ghosts!” said Madeleine.

“Whooo-ooooo!” said Maggie. Can you imagine anybody making such a stupid noise, like that was going to frighten me?

Then Madeleine started talking as if she had come directly from Transylvania: “Com eento dee haunted house! Meet dee spirits that invade it ahvry single night!”

“Whooo-ooooo!” said Maggie again. She wasn’t long on imagination.

“Oh, come on,” I begged. “Don’t make fun of me! I wouldn’t be frightened if you hadn’t told me
about the old sea captain. I was looking at the house yesterday and I was just about sure I could see him through one of the windows!”

“Whooo-ooooo!” said Maggie.

“Oh, come on, let’s just have our tea party!” said Madeleine.

So we headed back to the spot in the woods. I was careful to walk at the very far edge of the far side of the road when we passed the haunted house. In fact, I ran as we passed it.

Madeleine stopped when we were just past the house. “Stevie, are you telling me you’re really afraid of that house?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I don’t usually believe in those things, like I told you yesterday. But there’s something about that place that gives me the creeps. One hundred percent!”

“Really?” Maggie asked. “You mean that you’d be afraid to go in there?”

“One hundred percent!” I said.

“Yesterday you said you didn’t believe in ghosts and you weren’t afraid.”

“Well, that was before you told me that scary story,” I said. “Now I’d hate more than anything in the world to go into that house.”

“I dare you,” said Madeleine.

I stopped in my tracks and just stared at her.

“Double dare!” said Maggie.

“No, don’t make me do it!” I said. I was so excited I’m sure I managed to make my face turn white.

“Only fraidy-cats won’t go on a dare!” said Madeleine.

“Whooo-ooooo!” said Maggie.

“I’m not a fraidy-cat!” I said, but I tried as hard as I could to look like one.

“Well, you are, too, if you won’t even touch the doorknob.”

“Doorknob?” I asked. “Just touch it?”

“Just touch it,” Maggie said.

“You’ll come with me?”

“That would show how brave we are, not how brave you are,” said Madeleine. “We’ll watch from here.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What’s the big deal?” asked Madeleine. “The ghost is only on the inside. The doorknob is on the outside!”

“Well, if I don’t have to go in …”

“Triple dare!” said Maggie. That sealed it.

“I’ll show you!” I said.

“I’m sure you will,” smirked Madeleine. She was
totally pleased with herself, and so was Maggie. They’d figured that touching the doorknob would be enough to melt me into a shivering mass of nerves, which, as we know perfectly well, is exactly what they were after.

I ran. I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast in my entire life. I had to cross the road, cross the lawn, cross the porch, and get to the door. I grabbed for the doorknob, twisted it, and, just as it had the night before, the door slid open easily. I screamed loudly while I slipped into the darkness of the house and let the door slam behind me.

In a second, I got to the front window and peered through a crack in the boards. There, on the other side of the street, were Madeleine and Maggie, totally engrossed in a fit of giggles. That, I sincerely hoped, would be the last laugh they had for some time.

They looked at one another. They looked at the house. They waited. They peered at the door. Maggie glanced at the windows. Madeleine shaded her eyes to see the house more clearly. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear. Nothing was happening. There was no sign of a ghost and there was no sign of me.

Madeleine shrugged. Maggie put her hands on her hips. They waited.

Finally they’d had enough. They couldn’t leave without me. How would they explain it to our mothers, especially since I’d made that scene about the haunted house? They had no choice but to come after me. They put down the tea party stuff and walked across the street and the porch to the door. They were good and angry with me. I heard their steps on the front porch. I watched them open the door, slowly. Madeleine came in first, followed by Maggie. They looked around. The door slammed behind them, making them each jump again. I loved it—every minute of it.

Then there was a totally startling sound. It was a howling cackle coming from the second floor of the house. Madeleine jumped. Maggie’s jaw dropped. I screamed.

“Stevie!” Madeleine howled.

Maggie grabbed her. Madeleine grabbed the doorknob. It fell off in her hand. The door was locked. They were trapped.

The fact that each of them knew, really knew in their heart of hearts, that there was no such thing as a haunted house, that Madeleine had made up
the dumb ghost story about the sea captain, and that this was all supposed to be a trick on me didn’t change the fact that they were scared. They were so scared they could hardly talk.

“W-W-W-W-W- …” was all Maggie could manage. This from a girl whose only word earlier had been
whooo-ooooo!
I loved it.

“Where is she?” Madeleine said.

The horrendous cackle erupted from the second floor again.

“That’s her! I’m gonna get her and I’m gonna brain her!” said the previously refined Madeleine.

I screamed. From the basement. They couldn’t fail to notice that the cackles and the scream were from different ends of the house.

“We have to find her,” said Madeleine. Maggie would have disagreed if she could have talked, but she was too frightened now to make any sound at all. And although the second-to-last thing in the world she wanted to do was to take one step farther into the house, the last thing she wanted to do was to be separated from Madeleine. She clutched her arm tightly. Together, they stepped forward. They walked to the basement steps.

A ghastly gust of wind penetrated the room, raising all the long white curtains at the same time.

Maggie’s mouth opened to form a scream, but nothing came out.

“Come on!” Madeleine demanded.

There was a thump from upstairs, then a muffled dragging sound:
thump-drag, thump-drag, thump-drag
, across the floor above. They glanced at the ceiling, following the sound. It might have been the sound of a lame man. Maybe a one-legged sea captain’s ghost?

“Stevie!” Madeleine called out loudly. “Stop that!”

From the basement came my feeble voice, now too weak to scream.

“Hellllllp!” I cried, gurgling as if I were drowning in the briny sea.

“Where is she?” Maggie asked, looking first at the ceiling, then at the basement door.

The kitchen door slammed and the water pipes screeched in protest. In the attic, an old ceiling fan sparked to life, slapping noisily at scattered airborne papers on each turn. And if that weren’t enough, a bat flew across the living room, squeaking loudly.

Madeleine screamed and clutched Maggie. The two of them stood frozen in fear, holding one another tightly.

Above them, the thump-drag sound continued slowly and relentlessly toward the rear of the house.

Madeleine took a deep breath. “I’m going to kill her,” she said. “Come on.”

The two of them headed for the stairs. Slowly, step by step, they came up to the second floor. They were greeted at the top of the steps by a weak flicker of light. Maggie sighed and nearly collapsed.

“It’s just a mirror,” said Madeleine, dragging her friend to the top of the stairs. To one side of the mirror was a window shade, flapping wildly in the wind caused by a fan next to it.

There was no lame sea captain limping across the floor.

Thump-drag, thump-drag.
It was now in the attic above them.

There was a drop-down ladder in front of them that reached up to the attic. The ceiling fan there flap-flapped and the thump-drag sound persisted. They knew they were getting closer. They could smell victory.

Madeleine went up the ladder first. There was no light in the attic. There was only the thump-drag sound, calling invitingly to them.

“We’re coming up, Stevie,” Madeleine said. “We’re not afraid.”

She really said that, but I can tell you she’d never been so afraid in her entire life. I knew Maggie was afraid, too, since she was clutching Madeleine’s ankle and wouldn’t let go.

As soon as the two of them stepped off the top of the ladder, it swung up behind them and slammed shut as tightly as the front door had a few minutes earlier. A bright light came on and the ceiling fan sparked into its highest speed, stirring up a decade of dust bunnies and cobwebs.

“Aaaarghhhh!”
said Maggie.

Madeleine dropped to the floor in a clump of nerves.

And then everything stopped. The lights went out. The fan halted. There was no more thumping, creaking, cackling, or screaming. There was only darkness and silence.

“Madeleine, are you there?” Maggie asked.

Madeleine sat up. She reached out her hand until she found Maggie. “I’m here,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Maybe. How about you?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Madeleine. “Let’s get out of here.”

Slowly, Madeleine got herself to her feet. It took her a few minutes to find the release for the ladder. The ladder dropped down smoothly, and in a second
the girls were on the second floor of the house. They looked around. No light flickered in the mirror. No fan flapped at the window shade. The house was quiet. There was no sign of the mayhem that had so recently terrified them. It was an empty house, empty of ghosts and goblins, and mostly empty of one Stevie Lake.

It didn’t take the girls long to figure out that they could leave by the back door. It opened easily, leaving the two of them standing, still terrified and confused, in the broad daylight of their very own neighborhood.

They ran around the house, across the lawn, and across the street to where their dolls, blanket, and lunch box had all been dropped. They found the blanket neatly folded and the dolls seated in a tidy row on the blanket. The lunch box had been set upright next to the blanket.

When the girls got home and walked in the door, they found the one thing they’d most feared. I was sitting at the kitchen table, having a cup of tea with Mrs. Pine and my mother.

“Oh, I hope you had a good time,” I said. “I’m sorry I had to leave you, but my stomachache is almost all better now that I’ve had a nice hot cup of tea. Did you have fun at your party?”

Maggie, in what had become her most familiar state, could say nothing. Madeleine stammered. “Um, uh, sure. It was … it was … um, ah …”

“Interesting?” I suggested.

“Very,” she said.

“I bet you’d like to put the dolls away now so that they don’t get mussed sitting around the kitchen,” I said. “Then maybe we could all climb a tree. I’m pretty sure I feel up to it.”

Maggie finally said something. What she said was that she was sure her mother was expecting her home now so she couldn’t stay another minute. She shoved the blanket and the dolls into Madeleine’s arms and ran out the door.

“Um, I don’t think I really feel like climbing a tree right now,” Madeleine said. “Perhaps we could play with my dolls? Would you like to play with Elena?” she asked.

Elena, the doll that belonged in a display case, and Madeleine was offering her to me. It was a bribe and I knew it. She was trying to buy my silence because she didn’t ever want her mother—or mine—to know that she and Maggie had dared me to go into the haunted house. I grinned to myself. I didn’t need to play with Elena. I didn’t have to play
with Madeleine, either. I just needed to do one more thing.

“No thanks, Maddie,” I said. “I guess I’d rather just sit here for a while to be sure my stomach is really okay. I’ll see you later.”