Read The Bloodwater Mysteries: Skullduggery Online

Authors: Mary Pete/Logue Hautman

The Bloodwater Mysteries: Skullduggery (3 page)

Roni plopped her backpack on the floor of the cave and rooted around in it. Her mom laughed at her for having so much junk in her backpack, but as she liked to say, you never knew what might come in handy. She found the lavender-scented mood candle she had bought a few days ago. In one of the side pockets she located a really cute box of matches she had nabbed from Bratten's Café and Bakery.
She lit the candle and held it out in front of her. Not much light, but enough to let her see where she was going. “I'm coming,” she yelled.
As the passageway opened into a chamber, she heard an odd beeping sound, like someone's cell phone put on hyper-speed. She looked up and almost dropped her candle. At first she thought the ceiling was alive. Then she
knew
it was alive. Alive with bats. They covered the ceiling like thick, leathery, wriggling carpeting.
Roni wondered if they were disturbed by the candlelight. Too bad, she thought, I gotta see. She forced herself to enter the chamber, making a promise to herself that she would make Brian pay for this. She would have him tortured and killed. Why had he left her side? What good was a sidekick if they weren't there to kick when you needed them?
She tried calling again. “Brian!”
“Here,” a thin voice squeaked out of an opening in the far wall.
She crossed to the opening. It was low and narrow. She would have to crawl. What if she got stuck? How embarrassing would that be? She didn't like tight places; they made her feel squeamy.
“Come out,” she shouted.
“I can't see! My flashlight died!”
She held out the candle. “Can you see my light?”
“Yes! But I need your help.”
“Help doing what?” she asked.
“There's a guy in here. I think he's hurt.”
Roni wished that she and Brian had a secret word they could say when they were in serious trouble to let the other one know to run as fast as they could and get help and not enter the scary other chamber. But they didn't.
“Hurry up!” Brian said.
Roni ducked her head and crawled into the opening, holding the candle in front of her. A few seconds later the passageway opened into a chamber, and she was able to stand up.
“I love it!” Brian said when he saw her. “A candle! How nineteenth century.”
“At least the batteries don't give out.”
Brian pointed down and Roni saw a thin, bearded man slumped against the wall. He looked like he was about her mom's age. His eyes were closed.
“Is he alive?”
“Yeah, but he's not making much sense.”
Roni knelt down next to the man. “What happened?”
The man's eyes popped open. “Sweetie Pie?” he said in a quavering voice. “Is that you?”
Roni looked at Brian. “Sweetie Pie?”
“He calls everybody that,” Brian said. “He's a little out of it.”
Roni noticed a trail of dried blood winding down the man's neck. She bent closer to him and saw that he had a large cut on the back of his head.
“What happened to your head?” she asked.
“Somebody hit me.”
“Who?”
“It must have been a ghost,” said the man.
Roni stood up straight. “Oh, great. A ghost.”
“Or maybe a skinwalker,” he said.
“What's a skinwalker?” Brian asked.
“An evil shape-changing shaman.”
“Oh. I'll take the ghost,” said Brian.
“Can you get up?” Roni asked. “Can you walk?”
“I could if everything would stop spinning.”
“What's that he's sitting on?” Roni asked. It looked like a pile of oddly shaped yellow sticks. She moved the candle closer, then gasped. “It's
bones
!”
“Bonesy bonesy bonesy,” the man cackled. He brought up his right hand, holding a human skull.
Roni let out a yelp and jumped back.
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio!” The man laughed, then suddenly became very serious. “Whatever you do,” he said, looking straight at Roni, “don't let them eat your brains.”
8
bulldozers and ghosts
“You stay with him,” Roni said. “I'll go get help.”
“Okay,” Brian said. “Except how about if
I
go for help, and
you
stay.”
“I don't think so,” said Roni.
“Let's flip a coin,” Brian suggested.
“You should stay. You've known him longer.”
“I don't actually know him that well,” said Brian.
The man held up the skull and said, “He can
hear
you.”
Roni said, “Let's compromise. We both go back to the entrance, then you can have the candle and come back here to keep him company while I get help.”
“That's a compromise?”
“Yup.”
As usual, Roni got her way. Brian walked her out of the cave, then returned with the candle to keep the mad-man company.
The guy had the skull again and was staring into its empty eye sockets. He said, “Bloodwater owes you a debt of gratitude, Yorick. You have saved us from ourselves.”
“If you keep talking to that skull, I'm going to leave you here,” Brian said.
For several seconds, the man said nothing. Then he asked, “Are you going to get me out of here?”
Finally, he had said something that made sense.
“My friend went to get help.”
“Good.”
“What's your name?” Brian asked.
“I am Dart,” said the man. “Andrew Dart. Dr. Andrew Dart. Andrew Wyndham Dart, PhD. I am an archaeologist. I work at Bloodwater College.”
“Dr. Dart? I think you're supposed to talk to my class!”
“I'm afraid I may have to cancel—I have more important work to do!”
“Why were you in here?” Brian asked.
“I came to stop the bulldozers,” said Dr. Dart. He reached out and grabbed Brian's wrist. “You have to help me!”
“I am helping you. My friend—”
“No! I mean you must help me stop the bulldozers!” His eyes glittered in the candlelight, sane and sober. “Indian Bluff is one of the greatest archaeological sites ever discovered in the area. We can't let them destroy it!” Then he whispered, “But don't breathe a word of this to Jillian!”
“Um . . . okay. Don't tell Jillian. Right. Could you please let go of my arm?”
Dr. Dart placed Brian's hand on top of the skull. “Swear on Yorick. If anything should happen to me, you must save the bluff!”
“Save the bluff. Uh-huh.”
“You swear?”
“Sure . . . whatever.”
Dr. Dart released his grip. Brain wiped his hand on his shirt. He had never touched a human skull before.
“They didn't believe me,” Dr. Dart said. He reached into his shirt pocket and came out with something wrapped in a handkerchief. With shaking hands, he unfolded the cloth to reveal a flat, palm-sized stone. He held the stone out to Brian. “Take it.”
“What is it?”
“Take it!”
Clearly, this Andrew Dart was raving. Brian took the stone quickly so that Dart couldn't grab his arm again, and put it in his pocket.
“No matter what happens to me, you must save the bluff. I have enemies!” He looked over Brian's shoulder and his eyes suddenly went wide.
Brian whirled and held up the candle—but there was nothing there.
“They sneak up on you,” said Dart.
“Who?” Brian's heart was pounding.
“The ghosts,” Dart said. “The bulldozers and the ghosts.”
9
eric bloodwater
Roni pointed the way up the bluff for the two paramedics. She stood below and watched them climb the bluff and enter the cave. By that time, Professor Bloom's entire class had gathered in a clearing about fifty feet back from the base of the bluff.
“Is there really somebody in there?” Adam, one of Brian's nerdy friends, asked.
“Yeah,” Roni said. “We heard him yelling for help, so Brian and I went in and found him.”
“That is so cool!”
Roni was pleased. It
was
cool, not to mention courageous and brave. Her mother would probably add reckless and foolish to the mix. But that was cool, too.
After a few minutes, Brian emerged from the cave. He climbed down the bluff, walked up to Roni and said, “You took long enough.”
“I was on the bus driver's cell phone five minutes after I left you.”
“It felt like forever.”
“Sorry. I wonder who he is.”
“His name is Dr. Andrew Dart. He's the archaeologist who was supposed to talk to our class.”
“You actually got him to make sense?”
“Just for a minute. He made me swear to stop the bulldozers. He says the bluff is an important Indian site or something. Then he started talking about ghosts and stuff.”
A large, bony hand descended on her shoulder.
“Come along, Miss Delicata,” said Professor Bloom. “It's time for us to return to school and let the rescue workers do their job.”
“Can't I stay and watch? It was me and Brian who found him.”
“I am aware of that. You were supposed to be looking for skunk cabbage. What were you doing way up here?”
“We thought we smelled something skunky.”
“Perhaps it was a skunk. Now come along.”
The rest of the group, including Brian, were already walking toward the bus. Roni shrugged and followed them.
 
When they got on the bus, Roni did not sit with Brian. She didn't want anyone—especially Eric Bloodwater—to think that she and Brian were boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe when Eric got on he would sit next to her. She looked around discreetly. Where was he?
Professor Bloom stood at the front of the bus and did a head count, using his cane as a pointer. He finished, frowned and counted them again.
“One missing. Does anyone know who that would be?”
Roni knew. It was Eric Bloodwater. But she was not about to publicly admit that she was aware of his existence.
“It's the new kid,” somebody from the back yelled. “The one who came in late.”
Professor Bloom consulted his notebook.
“Miss Kohlstad?”
“Yes?” said Gennifer Kohlstad.
“Where is Mr. Bloodwater, your partner?”
“He wandered off, I guess.”
Several of the students snickered.
“And when did this event occur?”
“Pretty much right away. I mean, I haven't seen him since we first went into the woods.”
Professor Bloom made an exasperated
pffftt
sound. “It seems we have a missing person, people. This is exactly the sort of inconvenient situation I had hoped to avert by employing the buddy system. Inconvenient for all of us, I might add. Now we are going to have to—”
“Hey!” said Eric Bloodwater, climbing into the bus. “You weren't going to leave without me, were you?”
 
Eric plopped down right next to Brian. Roni couldn't believe it. She had a seat free, but he had walked right past her. Maybe he'd sat next to Brian because Brian was a boy. Some guys were like that.
At least he hadn't sat by Gennifer Kohlstad. In fact, Gennifer seemed to be pointedly ignoring Eric.
Eric and Brian were one row back and across the aisle from Roni. She turned her head so she could hear them.
Eric asked Brian, “So what was going on up by the bluff? I saw a bunch of rescue workers hauling some guy out of a cave.”
Brian told Eric about the cave, and how they had found the injured archaeologist. “He sustained a head injury, which may have caused dementia and loss of motor function.”
Roni could tell Brian wasn't sure about Eric. His level of language elevated when he wanted to put someone off.
But Eric wasn't put off. He laughed and said, “Oh, you mean like he went wacko.”
“I guess so. He was raving about ghosts. And about stopping the bulldozers.”
“Stop the dozers?” Eric frowned. “How did he expect to do that?”
Roni leaned into the aisle. “He said he'd been attacked.”
Eric looked at her. “You talked to him, too?”
“We both went in the cave,” Roni said. “There was a skeleton in there.”
“Wow.” He grinned, showing big white teeth that were just ever-so-slightly crooked. Roni felt her heart turning to mush.
Eric said, “I thought this class was going to be beyond boring, but you guys are managing to liven it up.”
Brian beamed. “We do our best.”
Roni leaned closer to Eric and lowered her voice. “What happened with you and Gennifer?”
Eric rolled his eyes. “I ditched her. She was too slow and too talky. Besides, I wanted to check out the land on top of the bluff. It's all going to be my dad's property pretty soon.”
Professor Bloom, who apparently had very sharp hearing, turned in his seat and thumped his cane on the floor of the bus. “Not
all
of it, young man. The bottoms are safe from your father's predations.”
Eric sat back. “Well, maybe not the bottoms, but he's buying the bluff and the land up above. The bulldozers will be there in a few days.” Eric turned to Brian. “And that cave you found? That's going to be
my
cave.”
10
red bumps
“That's the scoop, Nick,” Roni said to her mom as they both picked away at a salad. “Just another ordinary day with mad-men and skeletons.” The salad had too much lettuce in it as far as Roni was concerned. Not enough artichoke hearts and chicken. She added another glob of bleu cheese dressing and mixed it into the relentless mound of green.

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