Paul and Meg both came down to breakfast bleary-eyed and scared. Heavy rain was beating against the large round windows in the dining room, the perfect weather for ghosts. They had a filling breakfast with scrambled eggs mixed with mushrooms and bacon, which they ate in silence while Uncle Tobias and Aunt Mabel read the paper. “Paul, Margaret, whichever of you is not taking your turn at practicing the piano will study in the library, which Cornelia will show you,” Aunt Mabel decreed as the dishes were being cleared away. “Today, the weather does not permit going outside and walking in our fine garden. Perhaps the weather will so permit tomorrow if your behavior has not prohibited it by that time.” The children dutifully followed Cornelia into and through the living room. When she opened the doors to reveal a room filled with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, both children held their breath. Ladders leaned against two of the walls to help readers get to the top shelves. Large, round windows with padded window seats were the only things that broke up the shelves. The overstuffed chairs on the dark blue carpet seemed likely to swallow any child who sat in them. Cornelia fixed a solemn look on Paul and Meg. “You must respect this place,” she said. “I am the one who has to clean it. Mrs. Honeysuckle expects decorum from you befitting a place of this nature.” With that, Cornelia glided away, presumably to clean some other part of the house. “Who’s first?” Paul asked his sister. “At what?” “At either, I guess.” Meg peered into the library and shrank back a little. “I’ll start with the piano if you don’t mind.” “I don’t care.” Paul sauntered into the library and closed the door. He didn’t expect to find anything he wanted to read there, but it looked like an interesting place to explore. He doubted that the books on the top shelf were better than those lower down, but climbing the ladder was fun, so that was what he did. The desks and chairs and round windows with rain beating on them made the library look like the sort of magical room where a ghost could appear any second. Paul shuddered at the thought, unable to make up his mind if he wanted the excitement of seeing the ghost again or not. Turning his attention to the books, Paul looked at the spines in vain for an interesting title. He recognized some names like Plato and Aristotle, but nothing he had learned about them in school motivated him to ditch his comic books and adventure novels for them. A tingling feeling followed by a wave of sorrow and anger warned Paul that the ghost was back and close to him. He slowly turned his head and saw the ghost with the blurred face sitting on the rung of a faint ladder at the top shelf next to his. Paul grabbed the side of his ladder to keep himself from falling. Another wave of sorrow and loneliness and anger blindsided Paul so suddenly that he was sure the ghost was causing these feelings in addition to his own sorrow, loneliness, and anger. He was torn between waving to the ghost in an effort to be friendly to a possible ally in this horrible house and telling the ghost to stop making him feel so bad. Before Paul could bring himself to do anything, the ghost disappeared and the wave of sorrow lifted. A sour note from the piano followed by some odd-sounding chords startled Paul. Meg usually didn’t make such spectacular mistakes, not even when practicing. In the silence before Meg resumed playing, Paul thought he head the organ, but that was impossible. Aunt Mabel would never have allowed Meg to touch even one key of that instrument. What had caused Meg to play a sour note was hearing some weird chords from the other piano in the living room. She lifted her hands and looked to the other piano, where she saw the faint outline of a child sitting on the other piano bench. Meg was too fascinated to look away, much as she wanted to. Again she was overwhelmed by feelings of loneliness and even despair. She tried to say something to the ghost to comfort it, but she couldn’t make her voice box work. When the ghost faded out, Meg felt free to work on her music in spite of her shaking fingers until her time was up. When Meg came into the library to tell Paul it was his turn to practice, she couldn’t find him. For an awful moment, she was afraid the ghost had come into the library and carried her brother off, but then she heard a rustling sound above her. “Is it time?” Paul asked from his perch. Meg could only nod and tap on her watch. She stared out into the rain as her brother climbed down the ladder, left the room, and started to play Bach. She stuck to looking at the books close to her level but with little interest. Even when she found an old travel book and sat down to leaf through it, she could hardly see the pictures for all the questions about the phantom child flooding her mind. for more, see bit.ly/T8hcQB
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 14:53:58 +0000
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