Dead Voices

“No—wait,” said Brian. “What’s that?” He pulled out his phone and shined the light into the closet. Ollie, standing behind him, saw a curving line carved raggedly into the back wall, half concealed by the mops. Above the line were two vertical slashes. Together they made . . .

“It’s a face,” said Coco, whispering. “It’s sort of like a smiley face.”

“Old graffiti,” said Don. “Not everything has to do with ghosts. Even the sturdiest ghost isn’t going to go carving things into walls.”

“Still it’s weird, though,” said Brian. He started to edge into the closet, pushing the mops to one side.

A whole sentence flashed through Ollie’s brain. Stay out of closets. Without thinking, she jumped forward, grabbed Brian by the hoodie, and hauled him back.

“Hey,” she said. “It might not be safe.”

“It’s just a closet,” said Brian.

Behind them, Coco suddenly cried out in a trembling voice, “Look! Look!”

They all whirled around. A tall black shape stood at the end of the hallway.

Ollie recognized it. She’d seen it in a dream, whispering bad in the dark. It wore a black dress that swept the carpet, and they couldn’t see its face at all, because the dim light shone behind, casting its shadow long over the floor.

It pointed at them. It smiled, a vast, bony smile. They shuddered.

And then it turned and vanished, as quickly as it had come.

They all stared in stunned silence.

“I think,” said Coco in a very small voice, “that I don’t want to look for ghosts anymore.”

“What was that?” demanded Brian.

“Mother Hemlock, maybe,” said Mr. Voland, looking positively delighted. “Unless we are all hallucinating. Shall we continue?” He was staring eagerly down the hallway, like a dog pointing after a bird. “Make sure you write down your impressions for future comparison.”

“Absolutely not,” said Coco, with surprising force. She didn’t move. “I want to go back to the lobby.”

“Me too,” said Ollie, just as strongly. “There’s something wrong.”

5

“NOW,” SAID MR. VOLAND. He looked annoyed. “I am sorry that the first appearance of an unearthly being has alarmed you, but—”

“But, nothing,” said Ollie firmly. “That was scary and it might be dangerous. We’re going back to the lobby.”

“Ghosts, while sometimes sinister, are rarely dangerous,” said Mr. Voland. “What makes you think that one was?”

Ollie glanced down at her watch. Still blank. “Just a hunch,” she said.

Mr. Voland looked like he didn’t believe her. But without letting him say anything else, Ollie turned and headed down the stairs. Her friends followed. “Suit yourselves,” said Mr. Voland, shrugging, and took off by himself down the hallway. Ollie glanced back just in time to see him disappearing into the dimness after the gaunt, grinning ghost. She shivered.

Ollie, Brian, and Coco hurried down the stairs. Brian looked surprised that Ollie had changed her mind. Coco just seemed happy that Ollie had backed her up. “You know,” said Brian as they walked, “that was—freaky, but we did kind of sign up for ghost hunting. Not that I’m complaining, but what made you change your mind, Owl?”

Coco and Brian were the only two people in the whole world who knew what Ollie’s watch could do. In a hurried whisper, Ollie told them about BEWARE. “I thought we just needed to be extra careful,” Ollie explained. “Until we know why it said that.” She added, hesitating, “And—that ghost in the hallway—I recognized her. I saw her in my nightmare last night.” She shot another glance back up the dim stairwell. “I figured that can’t be a good sign.”

“You dreamed about who—Mother Hemlock?” Brian demanded. “If that’s who she was?”

“I think so,” said Ollie. “But last night, I didn’t even know she existed.”

Coco said suddenly, “I had a nightmare on the road last night. About a little girl who kept saying she’d lost her bones. There was a scarecrow in it too.”

“There was a girl in my dream too!” exclaimed Ollie. “She said she’d lost her bones. And she said don’t listen.”