THREE:

The Search

Upon waking up that morning, Velma told everyone that it would be a good idea to go to the mayor after they ate breakfast to see if he had found any papers on Ben's brother. Everyone agreed and, as soon as their stomachs were full, they left Ben's house and loaded everything into the Mystery Van, (including them selves) driving away from the house not knowing if they would ever see it again.

Fred wasn't complaining. The last thing that he wanted to do was go back inside that house and Daphne agreed. As they drove through town, Daphne told him how she had felt about seeing Ben repapering and she hadn't liked it.

"Hey, there's the mayor!" Shaggy cried, suddenly, and Fred drove the van to a stop. They had found the mayor in pretty much the same way that they had found the Hex Girls: walking beside the street. Oakheaven was, indeed, a small place despite its vast history. You could just about run into anybody that you knew here with out any trouble. It was a small world.

So Fred was thinking as he rolled down his window and shouted, "Hey Mayor, we need to talk to you!"
The mayor halted in his tracks. "Oh hi, kids! What a surprise!" He walked up to the parked van. "So, how did your night go?"

Fred grimaced. "It was all right," he said, and Daphne nudged him in the shoulder. "So, uh, can we talk?"

The mayor nodded. "Oh certainly!" He patted the hood of the van nervously. "We can talk about whatever you like. Let's take it to that bench, over there, shall we?"

"Sure thing, Mayor," Fred promised. He saluted the town's leader as he drove the van a bit closer to the bench that the man had indicated. It was not too far up alongside the road and it was shaded by numerous bushes.

"Remember this place, Scoob?" Shaggy snickered as he and Scooby got out of the van and took a seat on the bench beside their friends. "This is where we fooled the mayor!"

"Reah, I remember!" Scooby giggled, recalling the last nightly adventure that he and Shaggy had undertaken in this town. At the time, they had been spying on the mayor to see if he were a prime suspect in the witch's ghost mystery. Turned out he had been!

"So, what I can I do for you kids?" the mayor asked as he caught up with them sometime later, and Fred and Daphne took turns telling him everything, starting with Thorn's phone call and stopping at their ghostly encounter with Ben Ravencroft.

"Well, that's quite a tale!" The mayor rubbed his bulbous chin. "But…you're wondering if I had any papers on Ben's brother?"

Daphne nodded. "Yeah, we have to find out why Ben wants to fight him!"

The mayor whistled."Sibling rivalry is always a nasty business," He began to dig through his pants pockets. "But…I did find this paper in the house that talks about another sibling in the family…don't know why I kept it but here you go!"

Taking the papers that the mayor had found for them, Fred tore into them and quickly scanned over them.

"Whoa, this is some heavy stuff." He motioned every one to gather around him to read the important information. What their eyes saw told them that Ben's lost brother was named James Ravencroft and that, growing up, the two had fought half the time and, when they had grown older, separated, one of them to go pursue a writing career and the other…well, at one time he had wrote dark fairy tales with his brother Ben but Ben, being more ambitious, wanted to try going for something more far-out while his brother…got to live and grow old by himself and was now living in an old folks home.

"We can't tell Ben that!" Daphne gasped.

Fred handed the papers back over to the mayor. "No, but we can call this guy and see if we can't bring him over here," He rose from the bench. He thanked the mayor for his time before he ordered, "Come on, let's go!"

With that, the gang leaped from the bench and started up the van, leaving the mayor once again to puzzle over what they were up to.

The Old Ones' Sanctuary, somewhere in Virginia…

The phone rang. Unable to get out of his wheelchair, James Ravencroft remained in his seat and allowed his maid to answer it.

Her voice said, "Hello? Yes, this is Mr. Ravencroft's room. How may I help you? Oh, his brother wishes to see him? Why can't he come here? Oh, I see never mind. Yes, I'll tell him right away! Bye-bye!"

Knowing what that phone call had meant, James twisted his snow-white beard, muttered a spell under his breath and vanished, wondering why he hadn't done so years ago but now knowing why: He hadn't had a reason to but now…he knew his brother was alive, and that was a good enough reason.

When his maid turned around to talk to him seconds later, she got a nasty surprise.

After they had called the old folks' home, the Mystery Inc. gang drove back to Ben's house, all of them trying to figure out what to tell Ben.

"We'll just tell him that we couldn't get a hold of him," Fred suggested, driving the van under the looming shadows of Ben's house once more.

"What about that part about him being in the old folks' home?" Daphne asked as they all got out of the machine. Fred shrugged.

"We'll work something out," he said.

Together the four friends and their dog walked into the dead man's house for the final time, not knowing what awaited them inside.