Chapter Six:
Beth burrowed down into the blankets she'd slept in, not so much for warmth as for comfort, and fought the inevitable process of waking up. It was no use, and after an indeterminate time of seeming to float in nothingness, her eyes drifted open almost of their own accord.
The light in the room was a warm lemony yellow, streaming in through a half-closed shade, and for several moments she had no idea where she was. She looked around slowly, feeling decidedly subdued despite her general uncertainty of her whereabouts.
It came back to her in a flood, mostly of embarrassment: humiliating herself at 2 am in front of everyone in the Mallard household, Launchpad insisting on taking the couch and letting her have his bedroom. She sighed, adding guilt to her humiliation. He was probably still down there, while she was languishing in his bed. It was a nice bed, though - very well-worn. Still - it was hardly fair of her to hog it any longer.
She retrieved her glasses from the little table next to the bed, then checked the clock they'd been resting on. 6:45 - she'd had less than 5 hours of sleep. Surprisingly, though, she felt wide awake; maybe she'd just managed to sleep off the tension that had been building up at home over - whatever. She changed her train of thought before she had to think about whatever it was that had happened the night before.
Well, if she let Launchpad have his room back now, he could sleep in for the rest of the morning, and maybe then she wouldn't feel so guilty. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, taking in the room as she did. It was small, a bit cluttered, and he obviously didn't dust much since she could see little motes dancing in the beams of light streaming in from the window. But somehow it was all so cozy. Warm and comfortable and ... she didn't know a good word for it, really, but just safe. She straightened out the bedspread, then took her robe and went downstairs.
Launchpad was sound asleep, and now that she was looking at him she felt guilty waking him. He actually looked pretty comfortable. She gave it a shot anyway. "Launchpad...?" she whispered, and got no response. She'd always hated waking people up, and it didn't help any that he looked so cute there.
She shook her head. Get over it, she thought, rolling her eyes at herself, and tapped on his shoulder gently. "Launchpad, wake up," she murmured. His response to this was to roll over, away from her hand, and stick his thumb in his mouth. Beth stifled a giggle.
Once more, she tapped him. "Launchpad. Launchpad, wake up."
He stirred. "Huh? Somethin' wrong?"
"No, um..." She blushed, feeling silly. "You can - um - go to bed now." From the expression on his face, he clearly didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "Upstairs," she elaborated. "I'm up - thank you for letting me use your room. You can go to sleep in there now."
"Oh," he said vaguely, evidently struggling to keep his eyes open. There was a long pause. "No problemo," he finally mumbled and, yawning, stumbled up the stairs towards his room.
Gosalyn passed him on her way down, and she had to hug the wall to keep out of his way. "Wow. Talk about Frankenduck," she commented, and came downstairs the rest of the way.
"What are you doing up at 7 am, Gos?" asked Beth, waffling between having a seat and going for the door.
"Cartoon day," Gosalyn said with a shrug. "Not as much stuff on as Saturdays, but they show some of the old stuff today between now and eleven or so."
Beth decided to go ahead and stall going home. "Old stuff?"
"Yeah, you know, like old Henna-Barbeara stuff. Hey, I bet they'll show a lot of the scary stuff for Halloween." She caught herself. "Um... sorry - "
Feeling sillier and sillier about it in the light of day, Beth chuckled. "Ah, forget it. I was never allowed to watch that stuff as a kid, y'know... Mom said something about it rotting my brain."
"Wanna watch it now? I got a lot of cereal if you want any..."
She smiled. "Sure, why not?" Might be nice to laugh about 'spooky' stuff now, instead of having to think about the reality of it. Beth continued to lock that away and not even address it long enough to debunk it, and she went to the kitchen to get the cereal Gosalyn instructed while the eleven-year-old tuned in the right channel.
Drake pulled himself out of bed at around ten that morning, and gave Beth an odd look as he passed her on his way to the coffee pot. She blushed, sinking down into her seat on the couch. By this point she really *should* have gone home, and the fact that she was watching cartoons from 1978 with Gosalyn didn't help her any. Nor did the fact that she was on her third bowl of Frosty-O's, come to think of it.
Still, she really didn't feel like going home yet. Maybe Drake wouldn't make a big deal of it.
"So Beth, your ghosts won't even let you back in to get a change of clothes, huh?" Drake said as he reemerged from the kitchen. Beth sank lower into the cushions, her face bright red.
Gosalyn turned halfway to look in his direction. "Geez, Dad, twist the knife why don't you. Beth had a very traumatic experience last night, after all," she finished, taking a tone that might have been intended as comforting, but came out as oddly patronizing.
Intentionally or not, this comment only made Beth feel worse, and she stood up suddenly. "Drake's right, and I feel silly enough as it is, so why don't I just go home and we can all forget about it."
"You're going back?" Gosalyn sounded amazed. "After getting chased out that way last night?"
Beth gave a noisy sigh. "I didn't get chased out. I overreacted to something-"
"Nightmares can do crazy things to your mind at 2 am," Drake added, taking a seat in one of the armchairs.
"Right. There is nothing at my house that the light of day won't expose as having an earthly basis." Beth nodded, reaching the door. Gosalyn jumped up and ran at her, slamming it shut just as Beth got it open.
"You're not going back to that old line, are you? Are we really thinking this through??" she asked seriously, staring into her older friend's face.
Drake groaned. "Don't pay her any attention, Beth, it only makes her worse. And Gosalyn, stop trying to scare Beth outta going home!"
Beth stared back at Gosalyn, trying to look just as intense. "There's no such thing as ghosts. That's a fact."
Gosalyn raised an eyebrow. "Fine. But something factually sent you running over here screaming in the middle of the night."
The memory of what she'd heard the night before came back clearly, and she found she could no longer deny that it was something other than the house settling. She shivered. "Okay..." she said reluctantly, and avoided Drake's eye contact. "I admit that it wasn't my imagination. But it doesn't prove that there were ghosts."
Frustrated, Gosalyn threw her hands up into the air and stomped back to the television. "Okay, FINE. Things move by themselves, you hear voices, you see misty figures - "
"I haven't seen anything!" Beth cried before realizing that Gosalyn was just throwing out random "haunting" symptoms with no particular regard for whether Beth had experienced them or not.
"But they're not ghosts, oh nooooo. What else is it gonna be?" Gosalyn flopped onto the couch with her arms crossed, looking cranky.
Beth looked back at the door, and could see her reflection in the doorknob as she reached for it. She watched the distorted image of her hand block out her much smaller face, and shivered. "Prowlers," she said quietly, and turned back to them. Gosalyn was very carefully ignoring her, and Drake looked as though he'd prefer being able to do the same, but she continued. "Or - or supervillains. Or just some jerky teenagers who snuck in and planted a microphone."
Drake looked up finally. "I get the strangest sense that you're angling for something here."
"I heard something last night, Drake. Not just the house or the wind - something definite. Is it possible someone might actually be trying to kick me out of my house for some odd reason?"
He looked doubtful, but finally shrugged and slumped over. "Fine. What else is a detective for?"
A half hour later, dressed in clean clothes, Beth sat uncomfortably on her own couch while Drake searched the house at length. She had the feeling he was going out of his way to be nice to her, although with Drake she really never could tell; there were subtleties to the perpetual crankiness he seemed to have while he was with her, and they took forever to figure out. Getting a feel for Drake was never an exact science.
She sighed - at least he was there, even if it was grudgingly. She simply felt better with someone else in the house. No matter where she went, she felt like she was being watched. It was terrible to have no privacy in her own home. Of course it was all psychological; it was the same way she'd react if she'd been robbed, to feel that no place was safe. The silly ghost idea was just something that had been latched on to by her, and whoever was harassing her, because of the season.
Something Herb had said returned to her then, about the previous owners of the house - the Wrightsons. They'd gone away every year at this time. Gosalyn had acted like that was proof that the place was haunted. The reasoning there was pretty specious, of course, but... what had been their reason for leaving every year at this time? Suddenly she had to know. She jumped up and grabbed the phone book, then paged through it until she reached the W's.
After scanning the page, she found it: B. Wrightson. It was the only one listed, so she circled the name and picked up the phone, dialing quickly with oddly trembling hands.
"Yes?" a low voice answered after the second ring.
"M-Mr. Wrightson?" she asked hesitantly, stalling for time as she realized she had no idea what she was going to say.
Sounding both impatient and puzzled, the voice repeated, "Yes?"
"Bernie Wrightson? Who used to live at 541 Avian Way?"
Now he sounded even more impatient. "Yes, that's me. Who is this?"
Her face felt hot. "I - um, Mr. Wrightson, you don't know me, but my name's Beth Webfoot..."
She was surprised by how shocked his voice sounded when he asked, "How did you get this number?"
"It's... it's in the phone book," she answered, confused.
"Phone book...?" he mumbled, probably to himself, and sounded puzzled.
Beth couldn't figure out why the phone book was such a foreign concept to him, so she changed the subject. "Um, I'm sorry to bother you, but... Well, this is going to sound really silly, but I live in your old house, and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about it."
"Ah," he said, sudden understanding in his voice, and she found that she was unnerved. "You live in the House on Avian Way, do you?"
"I... Yes, 541 Avian Way..."
He chuckled. "I suppose you're wondering about the noises. Let's see - it's the 29th, isn't it? Have you seen anything yet?"
She blinked. "Um, Mr. Wrightson... Are you saying that this house has... supernatural entities?"
This time he laughed outright. "Yep, it's haunted. I can't say the wife and I ever made it through an entire haunting, though - we usually took off around this time, and came back about the 2nd or 3rd of November just to make sure it'd all died down. So to speak." Apparently he determined from the silence on her end that she was shocked. "Hey, it goes away by the beginning of next month, honey, don't worry about it. Just do like we did, take off for a few days, and you won't have any trouble until next year."
"That's insane," Beth said forcefully, though suddenly the house felt very big and empty. "How - how could-"
"Look, I'm not saying you have to believe me or anything. I'm just giving you some advice. But hey - check the number you dialed, will you? My number's unlisted."
She barely registered the *click* as he hung up - she was too busy staring at the phone book, where her own name and phone number had been circled by her own hand.
"Well, surprise surprise, there's nothing here," Drake announced as he came down the stairs, and stopped when Beth jumped violently. "You might wanna lay off the caffeine, it's just me."
"Sorry," she said, breathing deeply, and wondered why she was apologizing for being scared by him. "I just... I was just thinking. So... um... you're done?"
"Yep," he said importantly, "and guess what I found? Nothing. Nada. Zippo. This house... is clean."
"Oh..."
"But," he said, moving past her to get to the kitchen, "your window might've been open in the sewing room. That room is freezing." She followed him into the kitchen and found him at the refrigerator, where he pulled out a can of Coo-Coo Cola. After opening it and taking a swallow, he continued, "Someone might've gotten in through there last night and just entertained themselves by terrorizing you. I'll check for fingerprints after lunch, and then we can nail that window shut. You should be fine tonight." He took another gulp of cola, and looked at her to find her eyes wide and worried. He sighed. It was the "I'm sorry, Drake, but..." face. If Beth ever found out what a sucker he actually was for that stupid expression...
"I'm sorry, Drake, but..." she sighed. "I feel so violated. And - and, whatever was here last night, it wasn't just in the sewing room - I heard noises - down here. Even in the kitchen here. Drake..." She looked up, and he could see her eyes were shiny and she was halfway to tears. It irritated the living daylights out of him, particularly because he knew he'd do whatever she asked now. "I'd just... I'd feel better if you were here. Then if something happens, you'll see it too, and I bet then you can figure out how it's being done, right? I know you can."
He already knew he'd say yes. Stupid Beth, with her stupid vulnerability... The only thing he was able to do was to at least make it look like he didn't know he'd say yes, so that at least she wouldn't start using that face just to get him to do her dishes or something. "You are personally going to help me track down all the perpetrators of any crimes that have happened while I've been babysitting you the past few nights, Beth," he said sternly. The look of relief on her face was actually quite gratifying.