The Legend of Ghost Dog Island, page 12
“We will. We solved the last one, didn’t we?” She took the note from my hand. “First of all, she wants dragon fly wings.”
“How do you know?”
“You don’t know of any dragons living around here, do you?” She giggled.
“Okay, smarty pants.” I pushed my shoulder against hers. “I wonder what she wants with ’em?”
“Probably part of the spell,” she said with sudden confidence.
“Right. So she wants twenty of the wings. I think they each have four wings. So we need to catch five flies. She can pull the wings off herself.”
“Ee-ew.” Patti wrinkled her nose.
“So what’s next on the list?” I leaned over the note. “Wheat turned white to make a roux.”
“Oh, that one’s easy.” Patti grinned wide. “Grandma uses flour to make a roux in order to make gumbo. Flour is white, but it’s made from wheat.”
“You’re pretty good at this. Okay…A Mason holding something sweet.” I poked my lips out. “What’s a mason?”
“I don’t know about that one.” Patti jumped up and opened the screen door. “I’ll go ask Grandma.”
I heard Spikes’ noisy bike coming down the levee. I jumped off the step and went to meet him. I waved my arms in the air. “I’m over here! I found the note.”
“What does it say?” he asked as he hit his brakes in front of me.
I handed him the wrinkled paper.
He took it and stared at it. “You can read this stuff?”
“Sure. It’s cursive, is all. But it’s in a poem-riddle sort of way. So far we got dragon flies and flour. We’re still trying to figure out the rest.”
“So, you told Patti what we saw out there?”
“She already knew. She just didn’t know if it was true or not.”
“There’s no way that girl isn’t going to blab,” he said. “You know how she is. And if we don’t get laughed at when we go back to school, her grandma will tell my mom, and I’ll be in more trouble.”
“Well, she did pinky-promise not to tell,” I said. “If we cut her out now, she might get her feelings hurt.”
“Remember the convent trip?” Spikes twisted his face into a frown. “That man she went after told my parents where he found me.”
“Well, I’d say she did you a favor. How were you planning on getting home?”
“Find a way to ditch her before we go back out there, or I’m out. I’ll get the dragon flies and the flour. Get what you can and meet me at that old house where the boat is after supper. I gotta go. Still have a few logs yet to split.” He took one last look at the list, handed it to me, and jumped on his bike.
He didn’t even give me time to tell him about the bottle…or the diary. I walked back to Patti’s front steps and sat down with my chin in my hands and started thinking on what to do.
First off, he was crazy if he thought I was going to tell Patti she wasn’t welcome to help us. Who did he think he was anyway? I slapped my knee. But I surely didn’t want to go back to that island by myself, and I still had to go get that book. I was positive Patti wouldn’t go with me either place. What was I going to do?
Patti came up behind me and sat down. “Grandma said the only mason she knows is this jar I got for the dragon flies.” She held up the jar.
“Well, wait a minute,” I said. “A jar can hold something sweet, like jam.”
“She must want a jar of jam. There’s no way she can get something like that on the island.”
“Oh, and Spikes is going to get the dragon flies and the flour.”
“Was he here?”
“Yeah. He wants to meet back up after supper.”
“Well, we need to get busy figuring out the rest of this stuff before it gets late.”
We sat reading the next item on the list. “Leather and lace to fit bare feet.”
“That could only mean she needs a pair of shoes,” I said. “She didn’t have any on.”
“I can get some out of Grandma’s closet. She has tons of shoes.”
“You’ll have to sneak them, Patti. Otherwise she’ll start asking questions.”
“Um…she has some stuff in a bag she was going to give to charity. I’ll take some out of there.” She smiled. “That’s not stealing.”
I stared back at the stained note. “The next two things are pretty easy. A printed cotton frock to wear, and Teeth to tame long knotted hair.”
“Yeah, a dress and a comb,” she said. “I can get those too.”
Patti and I went to her room and started gathering the things from the list and stuffing them into a pillowcase.
I picked up a comb Patti had laid on the bed. It had pretty red stones in it. “This is too fancy for an old witch.”
“Grandma gave it to me. I don’t have enough hair for something like that.” She flipped one of her ponytails. “And if Zel has a pretty comb, maybe she wouldn’t be as mean.”
“Oh, Patti, you’re hopeless.” I threw the comb in the sack. “Now I gotta go get that book.”
“You are not really going back there, Nikki, especially by yourself. Remember what happened to Nana?”
“What else can I do?” I looked her in the eye. “And she ain’t out there anymore, remember? She’s on the island.”
“I…I’ll go with you.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
She looked around to see if her grandparents were anywhere around. “Yes.”
“Well, we have to head out soon, so we can get back here for supper, otherwise, your grandma will notice we’re gone. You gotta promise not to breathe a word, okay?”
“Okay.”
We hooked our pinky fingers together to make it official.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pages of Rhyme
“NIKKI, ARE WE ALMOST THERE? I can’t see where we’re going,” Patti said from her seat on the back of my bike.
“We’ve passed the bridge, so we can’t be that far.”
Patti leaned to the side about the time I pulled up to the sidewalk leading to the convent. The bike tipped over, and we both rolled onto the hard cement in front of the statue.
I looked up at the face that stared straight at me. “Behind St. Bart’s watchful eye.” I helped Patti to her feet and picked up my bike. I rolled it to the back of the building where we’d entered before.
“There’s the opening,” Patti said.
I ducked my head inside. “Drats, I didn’t think to bring a flashlight.”
“We should be able to see pretty good when our eyes adjust. Besides, we’ve already been in there. All we need to do is remember where we went.”
“Right.” I pulled the rest of my body through and reached for Patti’s hand.
“There’s the stairs we went up.”
We felt along the wall making our way to the stairway.
I glanced up, remembering the hanging rope that had scared me the last time. It still dangled from the ceiling. Nothing had changed…at least that I could tell.
I stepped onto the landing at the top. “It was the second room, right?”
“Yeah,” Patti said. “But don’t go near that edge where Spikes fell.”
I crept along the wall until I reached the second door. “I thought we left this open.”
“I don’t remember closing it, but we might have.”
I twisted the knob. “It’s locked.”
“Maybe it locked itself when we shut it.”
“I know I didn’t shut it, Patti.” I banged my shoulder against the door. It still didn’t budge.
“What are we going to do now? We gotta hurry and get the book and get home before supper or Grandma will be hunting for us.”
I leaned against the door. “Would you stop asking that? I don’t know.”
CLICK.
I jumped away from the door, bumping into Patti.
She grabbed hold of my arm. “What was that?”
“It came from the door.” My heart felt like it was pushing against my shirt every time it beat.
“I’d forgotten how freaky this place was,” Patti whispered. “Are you going to try the door again?”
I held my hand to my chest, trying to calm my heart down. I reached for the knob. It felt as cold as Snooper’s nose, even though it was middle of summer and the building was dry and hot.
The knob turned real easy this time, and the door creaked open. The light from the window lit up the room, just as it had the last time we were there. Everything looked the same…at first.
I stood in the doorway and scanned the room, trying to remember the details. The dress still hung in the closet. The top drawer to the chest was open. Did I leave it open? Where did I put the book? Did I put it back in the drawer? No, I laid it on the bed.
I felt Patti against my back. She stuck her head over my shoulder and whispered. “Where’s the book?”
I pointed to the bed nearest the door. “It’s gone.”
“It can’t be gone.”
I crept across the room to the chest. I looked inside the open drawer. It was empty. “Someone took that book, Patti.”
“Who?”
“I’m beginning to think someone still lives here,” I whispered.
I slid the drawer closed real slow and peered around the room. My eyes went up to the high ceiling. Cobwebs hung from the corners. The windows were thick with dust and black from smoke. I listened as hard as I could. I heard a rustling sound. “Do you hear that?”
“I think it’s time to go, Nikki, book or no book.” Patti jiggled up and down like she did when she was nervous.
I stooped down to the floor and looked under the beds. It was too dark to see. I turned toward the closet.
Eyes stared back at me from the darkness.
I fell backward and scooted across the floor on the seat of my pants.
EEOWWWWW!
It jumped toward me from the closet and ran past me then out the door.
“It’s only a cat.” Patti held her throat, and her eyes were wide.
“Gee willikers, that almost scared the hair right off my head.” I felt to make sure my braid was still there, then crawled closer to the dresser. “I guess if we can’t find the book, we’ll have to go without it.” I reached for the middle drawer and pulled on it. It seemed stuck. I kicked it with my foot, then tried again. I stood up and yanked it with all I had. It slid out, knocking me back on the floor with the drawer on top of me. The book fell out onto my chest.
“There it is,” Patti said.
“Is it the same one?” I sat back up and turned it over. It had metal corners and some letters on the cover. I rubbed them with my thumb then opened it to the first page. “Yep, it’s the same handwriting.” I read the heading on the first page, Pages of Rhyme. “This is definitely it.”
“Let’s go then,” Patti said. “We got what we came for.”
I turned to the next page:
April 20, 1912:
The sisters’ gift to me this day,
My 16th birthday, so they say.
A diary with my name in gold,
To mark my life till I am old.
“Don’t look like no spell.” I shut the book, pushed the latch in, and tucked it under my arm.
As Patti and I got to the bottom of the stairs, I heard a door slam. Then it sounded like footsteps stomping on the floor above us. We looked at each other and scurried toward the door. Patti held onto my arm trying to keep up with me. I squatted to crawl through the opening and into the daylight. Something had my leg.
“Patti, let go.”
“Of what?” she squealed. “Hurry and get through.” She gave me a shove. I fell through the crack in the door. Patti fell on top of me.
“Ow.” I glanced down at my leg. My pants were torn near my ankle. It must have gotten caught on a nail.
“You okay?” Patti struggled to her feet.
“My shoe is gone. But whatever is in there can keep it.” I limped toward my bike and stood it up. “Get on.”
Patti climbed onto the back. The bike wobbled as I headed down the sidewalk to the bushes surrounding the building. I looked back up at the large window on the second floor. Was that a face staring back at me? I tried to pedal faster. I hit a crack in the walkway and went headlong into a tree, then fell to the ground, Patti on top of me.
I scrambled to my feet and helped Patti up. Then I pushed the bike as fast as I could to the road and out of sight of the building.
“You’re limping, Nikki. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I hurt my knee.”
“How are we going to get home? It’s a long walk.”
“I can do it.” I got onto the bike, but my knee was throbbing. “On second thought, I don’t think I can. See if you can pedal.”
“I know I can’t. I’ve never ridden a bike before.”
“Well, I think it’s time you give it a try.” I held it for her and pointed to the seat.
“I don’t know. What if I wreck us?”
“We get back up…like we did the times I wrecked us.”
Patti slowly placed her feet onto the pedals while I held it up. “I’m scared, Nikki.”
“I got it.”
The bike moved forward as Patti peddled.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Gathering
AFTER SUPPER, I GOT ON MY BOOTS, and Patti and I headed out. When we got there, Spikes’ bicycle was already against the side of the old house. The building had a couple of broken windowpanes, and the paint had almost completely peeled off. Weeds and overgrown bushes had taken over the yard, as if no one had lived there for many years. I parked my bike next to his and walked around the side to see a door that was slightly open.
“You in there?” I yelled through the doorway.
“Yeah, come on in.” Spikes pulled the door open, adjusting it on broken hinges.
“What you doing in here?” I peeped through the opening.
“I figured we’d need a place to put the stuff.” He held out his hand as if he were welcoming me into his home. “This seemed like a good enough place. We can load it in the boat when we’re ready and haul it all over to the island.”
The room was dark and dusty and smelled like levee mud after a long rain. I stepped inside and set the bag of stuff on an old wooden table next to a small white sack tied with a string and the jar he’d filled with the flying blue dragons.
Spikes began rummaging through the pillowcase. “Didn’t I see something on there about rhymes?”
“Long story,” I said. “I went back to the convent and got a book I’d seen. It has poems in it. I’m sure it’s what she wants.”
“You went out there by yourself?”
“Patti went with me. That place was even scarier than before.”
Patti stepped up behind me.
Spikes looked madder than a catfish on a hook. He stared at Patti, then back at me. “I told you there were ghosts there, didn’t I? And why’d you bring her along? She’s gonna rat on us, I tell you.”
“Will you stop with that, Spikes. She ain’t gonna tell. We gotta quit fighting and get this stuff to the island, before it’s too late.”
“Yeah, I ain’t gonna tell anybody.” Patti held her chin up and stuck out her bottom lip.
“Let’s double check to make sure you got everything,” Spikes said.
I pulled the list from my pocket and unfolded it. “Can you read it?”
“Yeah.” He snatched it from my hand.
While he took the stuff from the bag and checked off the items, I gazed around the dusty room.
“How do we know these clothes will fit?” Spikes held up the dress.
“Well, I don’t think she’ll be too picky, from looking at what she had on.” I walked around the room and peeked into an empty closet. “I wonder who lived here.”
“Grandpa says this house belonged to a woman named Nana and her husband Marcus,” he said.
“Nana?” Patti glanced around. “Grandma’s friend?”
“Really?” I said. Mrs. LeBlanc did say Nana lived nearby before going out to the convent and getting herself killed. Everything in the house looked as if somebody had just up and left in a hurry. A few dusty plates were stacked at the edge of the table. A melted candle and some cans sat on the counter.
“Some teenagers found old Marcus Trahan floating in the bayou a couple of years ago,” he said. “The story old lady Beacon from the church tells is Nana poisoned her husband, threw his body in the water, then ran off to New Orleans.”
I gasped.
He flashed his broken tooth. “But, Grandpa told me today he knows the real story.”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Y’all gotta promise y’all won’t breathe a word of it to anybody! He’s really scared that voodoo woman will find him, see.”
I swished my tongue around in my mouth, trying to soften the dryness, and traced my finger across my chest.
Patti raised her right hand and put her left hand over her heart.
“He says back near ten years ago, Nana Trahan had asked him to take her out to the abandoned convent to get some of her things, see, since old Marcus was out trapping. He says he knew both of them real well. He waited outside while she went in, saying she’d be right back. He saw smoke coming from the building and Nana running out. The witch stood in the doorway yelling something about a spell and looked straight at him through the smoke, pointing her finger, saying, ‘and your husband too.’ Then Nana fell to the ground dead, and he just took off. Then, when Mr. Trahan died, Grandpa figured the spell didn’t affect him, since he wasn’t Marcus, see. But, he’s been afraid ever since that the voodoo woman would catch up with him if he ever told anyone what he saw her do to Nana.”
“Why is he telling it now?” I asked.
“He said he had to get it off his chest, see, and since I kept asking him questions about it, he figured I was the one to tell.”
“Gee willikers.” I hugged my body.
“And Grandma thinks it was her fault,” Patti said. “She’d be glad to know Nana didn’t go alone.”
“You promised you wouldn’t tell.” Spikes balled his fists up and made a face that would scare even a witch.
“I didn’t say I was going to tell,” Patti said. “But, are you sure y’all want to go back to the island?”
