Chapter Three:
Beth finished her costume by noon but with an unfortunate and uncharacteristically high number of needle pricks to her finger. She was thankful that she had left the costume supplies in her room, because frankly the idea of setting foot in the sewing room right now was giving her butterflies in her stomach. Telling herself it was silly - and she knew it was - didn't help. She certainly didn't believe in ghosts, of course it wasn't that, it was just that... that... it was unpleasant in there and she didn't want to go in. Pure and simple. Yeah.
She took the leftover material and thread back upstairs, lay them carefully on her dresser top (and was quite pleased that they seemed to stay put there), and spread her costume out over the bed. She sighed, still not certain she'd actually be able to bring herself to wear it, especially now that she looked at the finished product. This has the potential to humiliate me into never showing my face out of doors again, she thought nervously. Yet, somehow, she was almost looking forward to it.
On her way back downstairs, she slowed down and looked at the wall at the end of the hallway.
It looked back.
She shuddered involuntarily and shook her head. How on earth had she gotten that little nightmare into her head?! She put her hand on the wall almost angrily, and didn't let herself flinch when she found that it was body temperature and vibrating a little. That made it clear, then - it was obviously the furnace. She'd have to call in a repairman after all... Well, Launchpad had tried his best.
She stayed on the side of the steps away from the wall on her way down, regardless of her rationale.
The Muddlefoots' house was something to be proud of... any casual observer would have taken it for haunted, in a cheerful kids-cartoony kind of way. Cobwebs fluttered at the windows, the rain gutter had been carefully detached on the side of the house and was hanging low, the spider's legs were uncomfortably visible from any direction you viewed the house from... and she swore she saw something in one of the upstairs windows. She'd have to ask about that when she got to the party tonight.
She passed it by, continuing on her way to the Mallards' house on a whim visit - she had nothing to do there, but she had nothing to do at home either, and it was better to be bored with other people than bored alone.
After receiving no answer when she knocked, she shook her head and nerved herself, as she always had to, to enter the house without waiting to be let in. "Hello?" she called, stepping inside.
No answer.
Feeling a bit uneasy, not the least for the fact that she was technically trespassing, she cleared her throat and tried to repeat her yell louder. Unfortunately, it came out several degrees more quietly. "Hello...?" she squeaked, then shook her head. Giving it all she had, she called "ANYONE HERE?"
At that, Gosalyn came barrelling down the stairs. "Sorry! I was just giving Lauchpad a hand with his costume!"
"Oh! What is it?"
Gosalyn smiled wickedly. "He said not to tell you." Raising an eyebrow, she added, "You, specifically."
Beth pouted. "I didn't realize he was into retaliation."
"Of course, I could be convinced to let it slip... for a reasonable price..." Gosalyn said in a sing-song voice, batting her eyelashes innocently. Beth looked at her like she was nuts, and the young girl sighed. "Well, it was worth a shot."
"So, Launchpad's upstairs; is your father in?"
Gosalyn shook her head. "Naaahhh, he's got some kinda delivery from SHUSH and he's setting it up. He says he's decided he won't go to the party, since Morgana said she couldn't go."
Beth blinked, and was surprised to find that she wasn't as let down as she thought she'd be. "Oh? Oh, make him come. You know he'll have a good time if he goes."
"Of course!" Gosalyn said, snorting indignantly. "As if I wouldn't make him go!" She walked over to the couch, flopped onto it, and turned on the TV before turning back to Beth and asking, "So what's up? You got nothing to do?"
Shrugging, Beth slid down onto the couch as well, turning occasionally to look upstairs when she heard bumping coming from the second story. "Um... No, I don't... Is Launchpad okay up there?"
"Just a big costume," Gosalyn said dismissively. "Um... You know libraries and stuff, right?"
Beth beamed. "Do I! I was offered a job there because I kept putting all the books away for the volunteers more quickly than they could."
After a long but silent stare at her older friend, Gosalyn continued, "...Um... that's... good... So you wouldn't mind taking me there so that I can get some books for a project I have due on Monday?"
"It's due Monday, and you left it until now?"
"Well - it was actually due yesterday, but don't tell Dad, okay??" Gosalyn blinked, her eyes wide and sincere, and Beth could only put her hand over her eyes and shake her head.
"...being silly, Gosalyn, and I'm tired of this subject."
Gosalyn walked through the door Beth was holding open for her and flung her arms to the sides in an impassioned sort of way. "But how is it being silly? I just think you should look up the history of your house and see if anything bad ever happened there! How is that silly? You're researching, right?"
"What on earth will it prove? If I find something, how does that prove that there are ghosts? If I don't find anything, will you give up this ridiculous assertion? Probably not. So I really won't be finding anything out, will I? And we're inside, so we have to be quiet." She walked ahead, towards the children's non-fiction section.
Following her, Gosalyn frowned. "You're in a bad mood all of a sudden."
"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night," Beth said shortly, then sighed. "But you're right. I'm sorry. It's just not my favourite subject right now, Gos, you understand? It might be cool to you, but even though I don't believe it, it still sticks with me at night and you're not the one who has to sleep there alone all night long."
"Well..." Gosalyn reluctantly nodded her head. "Okay, granted, when you put it that way..."
Beth smiled slightly and started walking again. "So, I figured we'd start with non-fiction and see what books we could find, then look a few things up in the encyclopedia, and if we have time, we can look in the periodicals!"
Gosalyn sighed. "Oh, joy." Beth was cooler than she seemed at first glance, sure, and Gosalyn related with her pretty well, but... man, she got kicks out of the weirdest things sometimes.
As they passed an elderly librarian, Beth smiled and gave a big wave. "Hi, Mrs. Quackenbos!"
"Hello, Beth!" the woman replied with a smile of her own. Gosalyn rolled her eyes in disgust.
They lost track of one another when Beth found the card catalog. She took down notes of the best books for reference while Gosalyn made her way through the shelves looking for anything on the topic she was supposed to write a paper on. Evidently the books Beth was finding had deceptively different titles, because she couldn't find anything. Well, if Beth was going to do all the work for her, she was going to entertain herself some other way.
When Beth found her, about twenty minutes later, she was carrying a stack of about ten books. "You're so in luck, Gos! I went through them all and they all have glossaries and bibliographies and everything! I see you're already looking through periodicals - skipped right to the good stuff, huh?" Her smile faded as she got closer. "What're you looking at?"
Gosalyn jumped. "Um, nothing," she said, trying to cover the old yellowing newspaper with her hands. Although, privately, she wondered if she should bother to try to hide it; Beth was going to want to see it now anyway, and besides, it was exactly what she had been looking for earlier. The young girl found herself with a sudden new respect for libraries.
Beth leaned in closer. "C'mon, let me see. You've got me all curious now." She lifted Gosalyn's hand from the paper, and then froze.
With a sigh, Gosalyn took her other arm away so that Beth could read the rest of the headline. "I got bored," she said, not entirely unhappy at showing her find to Beth. Her friend's eyes widened as she took in the boldened letters.
"'The House on Avian Way: 20-Year Anniversary of Strange Disappearance'," she said aloud, eyeing Gosalyn. "What kind of weird stuff are you reading?" she asked, sounding amused, and she pulled up her chair. "This looks like some kind of tabloid article! 'It was early on the morning of November the 1st, 1951, when Stella D'Oro , 24, breathed her last.' Oh, please... My baby sister could write a better newspaper article. Where did you get this?"
"I was just looking through some old copies of the St Canard Sun and found it," Gosalyn said innocuously, not bothering to mention that she'd asked a stone-faced librarian to do a search of articles to see if there were any relating to 541 Avian Way. She hadn't exactly expected to hit jackpot in such a way.
Beth didn't seem to be paying her much attention anymore. She was reading the article, mouthing along with it and occasionally reading some of it aloud. "...'Police declined to say that it was a murder situation' - Yeah, that's because they need a body or signs of struggle... oh, wait. '-despite the evidence that D'Oro's house was ransacked by her attacker. Every room in the house appeared to have been turned inside out...'" She trailed off again, evidently skimming more rapidly now. "'...seemingly ordinary house on Avian Way in suburban St. Canard is still filled with yearly apparitions... Reports of voices, nightmares, footsteps...' Did they say where this house is?"
"There's a picture," Gosalyn offered, turning the page and pointing. "Here." Beth didn't answer, just put her hand over her mouth. The house had been reconstructed some in the intervening 20 years, but it was still unmistakably her own. "They say a little more about the hauntings-"
"There are no hauntings," Beth said firmly. A bit too firmly. She turned back to the paper and read sharply, "After standing empty for more than five years, the house once again became occupied, but has quickly gained a reputation from being the house with the highest turn-over of owners in the state. Few previous owners could be contacted, but those who were reported strange disturbances which grew more and more violent as Halloween approached. None of them admitted to staying past October 30th, and studies show that the house was put back on the market around that time more often than any other time of year. However, no realtors admit to ever having seen so much as a candlelight flickering.' This is garbage," Beth said angrily, and seemed to be about to tear the page out of the old journal. "This is a Halloween edition from 1971. It must just be a gag. We shouldn't take it -" she broke off suddenly, and gasped quickly.
"What?" Gosalyn leaned forward as Beth's eyes went wide and focused on a picture near the bottom of the page.
Tapping the faded black-and-white image, she said in a whisper, "Her." The picture was of a blonde duck, pretty enough in an old-fashioned sort of way, her hair pulled back from her face into a high ponytail and a smile gracing her youthful face. The caption beneath read, "Stella D'Oro, who disappeared from her home 20 years ago on November 1st".
Beth shook her head. "I know her, I know her. I've seen her. How have I..." She trailed off again, and her hand went to her mouth in a gesture of shock.
Gosalyn looked briefly at the other picture, of a rather shifty-looking tomcat dressed to the nines and leering at the camera. According to the caption it was Richard Kaspar, Stella's suspected murderer. The article had said that he'd been hanging around her house for a few weeks before Stella's disappearance, but after that, he had vanished as well. She looked back up at Beth, who was staring at her with wide, wet eyes.
"My nightmares. She's the woman in my - she can't be..."
With a sudden forcefulness, she slammed the journal shut, picked up the books she'd collected for Gosalyn, and walked out. Gosalyn blinked, then followed her, nearly having to jog to keep up with Beth's lengthier strides.
"You saw her in your dreams? Did she tell you to 'GET OUT' or anything like that?" she asked eagerly.
Beth wouldn't answer, and the books were checked out summarily and silently. Beth remained quiet during most of the bus ride home, until Gosalyn said in a definite tone, "Well, I guess that clarifies it."
"Clarifies what?" Beth asked tiredly.
With a smug grin, Gosalyn said, "You've got ghosts. But the article said they'd go away after Halloween, so you don't have to worry for too much longer."
"I don't," Beth said, her voice as firm as it had been the night before. Gosalyn stared at her, open-mouthed, and Beth elaborated: "There are no ghosts. If I thought I recognized that woman, I must have seen her picture somewhere before and worked it into my dream for some reason. It's entirely possible... I might have even read that article. In fact, I think I did read it, years ago; I forgot about it until now, or never made the connection, but now that we've all been talking so much about ghosts it's just naturally turning up in my nightmares. Makes perfect sense." She struggled with the pile of books she was holding, and finally gave a few to Gosalyn. "Here, you can carry some, they're for your report," she said good-naturedly.
Gosalyn realized then for the first time just how much denial was a firmly-established habit with Beth.