The Haunting Hour Read online

ILLUSTRATED BY ROZ CHAST

  I don’t like going into antique stores, because I know ghosts are lingering there.

  I know that the old items on display are haunted by the ghosts of people who owned them. Look around the store…

  The silver hairbrush is still held by the hand of the woman who brushed her hair with it so many years ago. The old leather chair isn’t empty. There’s the man who sat in it day after day, leaning his ghostly head against its soft back.

  The antique jeweled beads rattle against the throat of their long-dead owner. And the wooden fire truck is still treasured by the ghostly children who played with it a hundred years ago.

  Ghosts everywhere you turn.

  I know. I can see them.

  This is a story about a father who brings a beat-up old steamer trunk home from an antique store. And guess what is waiting inside….

  Dad found the old trunk in an antique store and brought it home. The trunk was long and black and covered with dust. The top had a dozen dents and scratches, and the metal clasp was totally rusted.

  “Amber, this is a great find!” Dad said.

  I groaned. “Bor-ring.”

  “But this will be perfect for the cruise,” he said. “Won’t you feel cool boarding the ship with a real old-fashioned steamer trunk?”

  “No way,” I told him. “It’s so old, it will probably make my clothes smell horrible.”

  But does Dad listen to me? Not too often.

  He insisted on dragging the huge trunk to my room. It weighed a ton. I helped him set it down in front of the glass cabinet where I keep my doll collection.

  Dust flew everywhere. I sneezed twice, but Dad didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy struggling with the clasp.

  He gave a mighty tug—and stumbled into the glass cabinet. The dolls all bounced on the shelves, as if they were startled.

  “Be careful! My collection!” I shouted.

  “I won’t hurt your precious dolls,” Dad said. He started to the door. “I need a screwdriver.”

  I reached across the ugly trunk to straighten the dolls. I have eight Barbies in my collection, four Jean dolls, a couple of American Girl dolls, and ten dolls that I bought just because I thought they were cute.

  I’m twelve, way too old to play with them now. I only collect them.

  But Kat, my eight-year-old sister, is starting her own doll collection. That’s why I call her Copy Kat. She always wants what I have.

  A few seconds later Dad was back, carrying a screwdriver and a claw hammer. He squatted in front of the old trunk and went to work on the clasp. He hummed to himself as he worked.

  “Dad, I’m not taking this ugly trunk on the cruise,” I said.

  “Let’s just see what’s inside,” he replied. He opened the rusty clasp. Then he made me help him lift up the lid.

  “Yuck!” I cried out as a puff of sour, gray air rose up from the trunk like a dust cloud. I know it sounds weird—but the dust made a sighing sound as it escaped the trunk.

  Holding my nose, I watched the cloud float up to the ceiling and disappear. “Dad, please!” I begged. “I’m not taking that trunk on the cruise! Close it!”

  But he was already bending over the trunk, picking around at the bottom. “Wow,” he muttered. “Amazing!”

  “What’s amazing?” I peered into the trunk.

  Dad picked up a stack of lace handkerchiefs. They were all yellowed. I saw a pair of old-fashioned black lace-up shoes. Dad lifted out a long gray pleated skirt. Everything looked a hundred years old.

  “There’s not much in here,” Dad said, studying the shoes. “It’s as if someone had started to pack and stopped.”

  “Maybe I could start a smelly-old-clothes collection,” I said. It was meant to be a joke. But he thought I was serious.

  At dinner he was still talking about the old trunk. “It’s a real treasure,” he told Mom. “Once I get it cleaned up, Amber will love it.”

  “What’s wrong with a nice new suitcase?” I said.

  “People always take trunks on cruises,” Mom said.

  “If Amber has a trunk, I want one too,” Kat chimed in.

  I sighed. “I can’t believe you’re making me go on this trip.”

  I know, I know. I sound like a real whiner. But last summer I went to camp with Amy and Olivia, my two best friends. And I really wanted to go back to that camp again this summer.

  I stared at my spaghetti. I hadn’t taken a bite. “I’ll be the only kid on the ship,” I grumbled. “Everyone else will be old geeks.”

  “Hey! I’ll be there!” Kat protested.

  “You’ll find someone to hang out with, Amber,” Mom said. “You’ll probably make a lot of new friends.”

  “Why can’t we go on a normal vacation?” I whined.

  “Eat your spaghetti,” Dad replied.

  After dinner, I hurried upstairs to call Olivia. The musty, sour smell from the trunk greeted me before I stepped into my room.

  I stopped at the doorway. The trunk stood open. I raised my eyes to the cabinet—and gasped.

  My dolls!

  When I left the room, they were standing or sitting in neat rows. Now they were sprawled in every direction. Tumbling off the shelves. Piled on top of each other.

  I spotted two Barbies on the floor beside the trunk. Their heads were on backward. Another doll was propped on the top shelf upside down!

  Pressing my hands against my cheeks, I stared in disbelief. “Kat!” I screamed. “Kat—get up here right now!”

  Kat came running up the stairs, followed by Mom and Dad. “Amber? What’s wrong?” Mom asked.

  “Kat messed up all the dolls!” I screamed.

  “I did not!” Kat protested.

  “Kat was downstairs the whole time,” Dad said. “Besides, she would never do something like this.”

  “I didn’t! I didn’t!” Kat repeated.

  “Well, somebody was up here!” I said. “Somebody did this! The cabinet doors are wide open!”

  I felt Mom’s hands on my shoulders. “Easy,” she said quietly.

  Scratching his thinning brown hair, Dad turned to me. “I know what happened, Amber. When I bumped into the cabinet earlier, I must have loosened the doors and knocked over a doll.”

  “But all the dolls have been messed up,” I said.

  Dad frowned. “Well, if one doll falls, it could start a chain reaction, right?”

  I stared at the dolls, tossed all over the place. It didn’t look like a chain reaction to me.

  But how else could it be explained?

  It took forever to put the dolls back just the way I like them. Then I talked to Olivia for nearly an hour. When I told her about the dolls, she just laughed and said maybe it was an earthquake.

  I tried to get Dad to take the smelly trunk out of my room. But he said he was too busy.

  I’m usually a sound sleeper. But that night something woke me up in the middle of the night. A voice. A girl, whispering to me.

  “Take…me…with…you.”

  “Huh?” I jerked straight up, instantly alert. A chill froze the back of my neck. “Who’s there?” I asked in a tiny voice.

  I reached in the dark for my bed-table lamp and clicked it on. Blinking in the light, I repeated my question. “Who’s there?”

  No one.

  I gazed around the room. The bed-table lamp cast long shadows over the floor. The old trunk was closed. I stared hard at it. The whisper seemed to come from that direction.

  I clicked off the light and settled back on my pillow. I started to think maybe I’d been dreaming—when I felt a blast of cold air and heard the whisper again.

  “Take…me…with…you—please.”

  The trunk! The voice had to be coming from the trunk!

  “Who’s there?” I shouted. “Where are you?”

  The bedroom door swung open, and Mom and Dad came bursting into the room. “Amber—what’s wrong?”

  I sat up in bed, gripping the sheet between my hands. “A gir
l whispered,” I told them. “She whispered, ‘Take me with you.’ ”

  I could see right away that they didn’t believe me.

  “I heard whispers too!” Kat called from down the hall.

  “Kat—go back to sleep,” Dad shouted.

  Mom stepped up to me and smoothed my hair back tenderly. “You were dreaming,” she said. “You’re nervous about the cruise. So you dreamed about it.”

  “I’m not nervous about the stupid cruise!” I screamed. “Open the trunk. Her voice sounded as if it came from the trunk.”

  Dad lifted the trunk lid. “Oh, yeah. There’s a whole bunch of kids in here,” he said. “Having a party.”

  “It isn’t funny!” I shouted angrily.

  “Go back to sleep,” Mom said. “Everything is okay.”

  I let them go back to their room. I wasn’t going to argue. I knew they wouldn’t believe me no matter what.

  I tried to fall back asleep but I was totally alert, listening…listening for the girl’s whisper. Finally I buried my face in the pillow and forced myself to sleep.

  Thursday morning I woke up before my alarm went off. I felt as if I hadn’t slept a minute. Yawning, I made my way into the bathroom. I clicked on the light—and gasped.

  I blinked at the words on the medicine-cabinet mirror. Words scrawled across the glass in red lipstick.

  Take me with you.

  “Mom! Dad!” I shouted for them.

  They were already having their breakfast. I heard the chairs scrape in the kitchen. They came running up the stairs.

  “Look!” I pointed frantically at the scrawled words on the mirror. “That’s what the girl was whispering! The same words!”

  They poked their heads into the bathroom. I saw Dad’s eyes go to the lipstick tube on the side of the sink. My lipstick tube.

  Mom shook her head. “Amber, that doesn’t prove anything,” she said softly. “Writing words on the mirror with your lipstick isn’t going to convince Dad and me that the voice you heard last night was real. It was a nightmare. Everyone has nightmares.”

  “But I didn’t write those words!” I said.

  “We know you’re tense about the cruise,” Dad said, patting me on the head as if I were five—not twelve. “But you have to stop this.”

  “We have to run,” Mom said. “We have to buy swimsuits for the ship. Amber, clean off the mirror and go to school.”

  They hurried away. I listened to the door slam behind them.

  My parents didn’t believe me. But I knew the truth.

  I ran into my room. I pulled on my clothes in two seconds flat.

  My heart pounded like crazy. The voice last night seemed to come from the old trunk. Was the trunk haunted or something? No way I wanted to be alone and find out!

  I was nearly out the back door when I felt a burst of cold air on the back of my neck.

  And then I heard the whispers again.

  A girl’s voice. Right behind me. Right in my ear.

  “Take…me…with…you.

  “Take…me…with…you.”

  I brought Amy and Olivia home with me after school. I really didn’t want to be alone.

  They made me show them the old trunk. When I pulled up the lid, I expected a hideous ghost to leap out at me.

  But except for the old clothes we’d found, the trunk was empty. My friends agreed with me that it smelled disgusting.

  “If you cleaned it up, this would make a good camp trunk,” Olivia said.

  “But I’m not going to camp!” I wailed.

  They both hugged me. I knew they really felt sorry for me.

  “Hope you don’t get seasick and spend the whole time barfing,” Amy said.

  Wow. That cheered me up a lot.

  That night at dinner I begged Dad to take the trunk back to the store. He said he’d try to get around to it, maybe Friday or Saturday.

  My parents went out to visit friends. When I went to bed, I left my desk lamp on. I thought it might keep the whisperer away.

  But I was wrong.

  I had just settled into bed when I felt a gust of cold wind chill the room. “Take me with you…please….”

  I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  The air grew colder. A strange stillness fell over the room. And in the hush I heard the whispered words one more time.

  “Take…me…with…you.”

  Then a cloudy figure floated out of the open trunk. A girl. An old-fashioned-looking girl with long, dark ringlets framing her face. Dressed in black. Her eyes big and dark and deep.

  “No! No—please! Go away! Wh-what do you want?” I gazed up at her in horror as she floated above me.

  The light formed a ring around her dark, pretty face. The eyes gazed down at me…such sad, empty eyes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for letting me out of my trunk. I’ve been locked in there so long.”

  “You’re a ghost? You’re really a ghost?” I gasped. “Go away! Please—don’t hurt me!”

  She floated closer. “Take me with you,” she repeated. Her eyes grew even wider. They appeared to sink deep into her head. Her dark hair floated around her face as if she were swimming underwater.

  “Go away!” I said again. “Please—go away!”

  “Take me. You must take me with you.”

  “NO!” I cried. “I can’t! Go away!”

  I raised both hands to bat her away. My hand grazed her arm. She felt so cold. Her skin was freezing cold!

  “Please—don’t hurt me!” I pleaded again. “Don’t hurt me!”

  Her eyes glowed. “I hope I don’t have to,” she said.

  I tried to jump out of bed. To run. But she floated close. And the cold air around her…it held me in place.

  “I never got to go on my journey,” she whispered. “So long ago…I was going to visit my grandparents in Scotland. I started to pack the trunk. But then I fell ill. And I died. Poor me. I died before the ship sailed.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” I replied, still shivering. “But, please—I can’t help you. Please—”

  “Take me with you. You MUST take me! Take me in the trunk! I can’t stay out of the trunk for long—or I will disappear forever. Take me! Take me with you!”

  “No!” I opened my mouth and tried to scream. But a heavy blast of sour air muffled my shout. The ghostly girl floated low over my bed.

  “I won’t take you! I won’t!” I insisted, my voice trembling.

  Her expression turned angry. Her pale lips curled in a sneer. “You WILL take me,” she rasped. “Because I’ll be YOU!”

  “What do you mean?” I gasped.

  But already I felt her pressing down on me. Felt a cold, heavy sensation that began at the top of my head. A frozen weight sliding into my brain.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Suddenly it took an effort to breathe. I felt the cold weight of her, pressing into my brain, my body.

  “I’m possessing you, Amber,” she whispered. “I’m taking over now. And I will go on the cruise in your place.”

  “No…”

  The room filled with clouds. Heavy gray clouds. I couldn’t see the light from the desk.

  “I’m going on the cruise, Amber,” the girl said. “In a few seconds you won’t feel anything. You won’t feel anything at all. You’ll be gone.”

  Nooooooo.

  I thought I screamed the word, but I heard it only in my mind.

  I have to fight her off. I have to push her away.

  Gathering all my strength, I heaved myself up from the bed—and staggered to my feet.

  I’m still in control, I realized. I’m still in control of my own body.

  “Don’t fight me, Amber,” the ghost warned. “You can’t win.”

  Yes, I can, I decided. Yes…yes…

  Battling her, battling the weight that pushed down on me, I lurched blindly across the bedroom.

  I reached out both arms, and through the cold, deep blackness I grabbed on to something. I grab
bed a doll in each hand. Grabbed them off the top of the cabinet and clutched them to my chest.

  “These are mine!” I cried, finding my voice. “These are mine—and they prove I’m still me!”

  To my surprise the darkness lifted, like clouds floating out of the sky, and I saw the ghost girl beside me. Back in her old clothes. Back in her ghostly body. A startled, angry look on her face.

  Angry because I had pushed her out.

  I saw her stagger back a step. Saw the flash of fear in her eyes. And I dove forward. Forced my body—my body!—to leap. I slammed into her with all my strength.

  She opened her mouth in a gasp as she fell back into the trunk with a startled groan.

  Her dark hair flew over her face. Her body appeared to fold up. I heaved the trunk lid shut and snapped the latch.

  Then I threw myself on top of the trunk. Wheezing, panting, my heart racing, my entire body dripping with sweat.

  I held on to the trunk as if it were a life raft. And waited. Waited to see if the ghost girl would rise up howling from the trunk.

  Waited…struggling to breathe…forcing my heartbeats to slow.

  No. She couldn’t escape. I had locked her in. I had defeated her. I had sent her back to the darkness of the trunk forever.

  Wearily I climbed to my feet and staggered to my bed.

  “Amber? What’s all the noise up there?”

  Mom and Dad had returned. I let out a long sigh. “Nothing, Dad,” I called down. “Everything is okay now.”

  Sunday morning the sunlight poured into my room. I peered out at a solid blue sky. Birds sang in the trees.

  “Beautiful morning to start a cruise,” Mom said.

  She and I left for the pier after breakfast. Dad and Kat stayed behind to deal with the luggage.

  As Mom and I boarded the enormous, white ship, I suddenly felt excited. I don’t believe it, I thought. This ship is so cool. And there are other kids my age. This is going to be awesome!

  Kat and I were going to share a cabin. It was next door to Mom and Dad’s. When the white-uniformed steward showed me inside, I gasped.

  It was totally beautiful. Luxurious leather furniture. A TV and VCR. And our own private deck where Kat and I could sit and watch the ocean go by.

  Wow!

  A short while later I was checking out the candy bars in the mini bar. I heard a knock on my cabin door. It swung open, and Dad and Kat walked in.