Chris Grabenstein - The Smoky Corridor

Azalea nodded.

“Until then, don’t say a word about Zack’s ‘special problem’ to anyone else.” Ms. DuBois had a far-off look in her eye. “I might need to bring a colleague with me tomorrow.”

“A child psychologist or something?”

“No. Somebody else. Someone who’s quite familiar with psychics and mediums and that sort of thing.”

“Great.”

Now Azalea felt better. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh, I almost forgot. I found out the coolest thing last night,” she said.

“What?”

“Well, I was working on my family tree, and my aunt Irene—that’s who we’re staying with—she tells me that she just found out from her mom that we’re all related to a woman named Mary Jane Hopkins, who’s like my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother or something. And guess what?”

“What?”

“This Mary Jane Hopkins—that’s her married name—was Horace P. Pettimore’s baby sister. So I’m related to the guy this whole school’s named after! Isn’t that awesome?”

62

Horace Pettimore’sspirit raced up to the history classroom the instant he heard the name.

“This Mary Jane Hopkins—that’s her married name—was Horace P. Pettimore’s baby sister.”

So.

Zachary Jennings wasn’t the one.

It was the new girl.

Fine.

He could be a girl.

63

When DaphneDuBois was absolutely certain Azalea Torres was gone, she unlocked the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet and pulled out a rolled-up tube of paper.

She spread the wrinkled sheet on her desk, weighing down the four corners with a stapler, a tape dispenser, and two ceramic apples.

CHILD YOUNG SETH SEER GOLD

The words Madame Marie had scribbled while communicating with the ghost of John Lee Cooper practically leapt off the page.

CHILD YOUNG

Daphne had been quite clever, spending time socializing with the school’s outcasts, the weaklings the popular kids picked on or simply ignored—the way she would have ignored them if she hadn’t been desperate to find her own Seth Donnelly.

She needed, as her heroic ancestor had said from beyond the tomb, a ghost seer—the same phrase Zack Jennings had used to describe himself to his raccoon-faced girlfriend.

After weeks and weeks of work—pretending to be sweet, sitting every day at the nerd table, smelling miserably malodorous cafeteria food, feigning enjoyment of the company of the school’s biggest losers—after a month of sheer hell, she had finally found her child.

Zack Jennings.

It made sense. Jennings was a sensitive sort. Always wasting his time worrying about others. Warped by a runaway imagination. Too compassionate, even to his dog.

She rolled the sketch paper back up. She returned it to the file drawer and pulled out the two small chalkboards sandwiched together, what the medium had called her spirit slates. She undid the strap.

During Madame Marie’s séance, the spirit of John Lee Cooper had written a message inside the chalkboards, words that the medium herself never had the opportunity to read, since Eddie had killed her shortly after she’d come out of her trance.

FIND THE BOY

BEWARE THE GIRL

Daphne assumed that the girl was Azalea Torres. If, as she claimed, she was related to the Yankee scallywag Captain Pettimore, she could prove problematic. No matter. Eddie would deal with Azalea. The ugly Goth girl would be dead before sundown on Saturday.

Daphne chuckled softly.

The thought of Azalea dead truly tickled her.

With all that ghastly makeup on her face, she looks half dead already .

Daphne needed to call her brother. Let him know they were a day away from redeeming their family’s honor. A day away from reclaiming the Confederacy’s gold.

She dug her cell phone out of her purse. Pressed speed dial number one.

Her brother answered on the first ring.

“Yes, boss. What’s up?”

“Eddie, I found him!”

“Our ghost seer?”

“Yes. Young Zachary Jennings.”

“Are you certain?”

“He confessed to a friend this morning. She, in turn, came to me.”

“What if this Jennings boy is just making it up, calling himself a ghost seer to impress the girl?”

“I sense he is for real. He fits the profile. However, if it turns out he’s lying, we’ll kill him, just like we killed the dowser and Madame Marie.”

“Good. When do we …”

“Tomorrow. I’m inviting Zack and two of his closest chums to come on a Saturday-morning field trip to the cemetery so he can receive further instructions from John Lee Cooper.”

“This is wonderful news, Daphne. Must I keep pretending to be a janitor?”

“Yes. Just for one more day.”

“All right. You’re the boss. I’ll catch up with you this afternoon. Seems Mr. Crumpler has another toilet for me to unplug.”

“Eddie?”

“Yes, Daphne?”

“Generations of Coopers, the living and the dead, are very proud of us today.”

“I know.”

“One more thing: Tomorrow be sure to bring your pistol. And at least three bullets.”

64

“McNulty! Come!”

The ghost of Horace Pettimore roused his zombie from his after-dinner nap. The creature was sprawled out on the padded lining torn from a cracked-open coffin. All that remained of the corpse he had been feasting on were a chauffeur’s cap and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

“Prepare to move beyond the maze to your killing pit!”

“Yes, master.”

“When the sun rises, my soul shall slip into its new body. I shall venture deep into the tunnels to reclaim my gold. Though you do not recognize me, you will obey me, the one who holds your soul, the one who carries the mark!”

“Yes, master.”

“Move to your sentry post. Should any uninvited mortals follow the new me into the tunnels, destroy them!”

“Yes, master.”

“Destroy and devour them!”

65

Now DaphneDuBois unlocked a second filing cabinet drawer.

She pulled out the bundle of musty old letters she had found in her grandmother’s attic when she was a child.

The letters that had sent her and her brother on their lifelong quest to reclaim their family’s honor.

And the Confederacy’s stolen gold.

There was the original handwritten letter from John Lee Cooper, who had first tracked the villainous Captain Pettimore to North Chester, Connecticut, in 1873. Letters from other Coopers who had journeyed north from Georgia and Tennessee, seeking the gold.

And then there was the letter.

The one written on an old-fashioned typewriter by the hero teacher who, one hundred years earlier, had taught mathematics in that very room.

66

THE PETTIMORE SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN

Old Pike Road · North Chester · Connecticut

January 10, 1910

Dearest Grandmother Amanda:

I write you from the festering human cesspool of Connecticut, whose murdering sons killed so many of our brave soldiers during Mr. Lincoln’s War of Northern Aggression.

As peculiar as this may sound, I bring you greetings from your beloved husband, my esteemed grandfather, the late John Lee Cooper, CSA.

Now, before you think me mad, consider how noble and strong your husband’s spirit was in life. Know, then, that his soul lives on past death and that his spirit lingers in this realm, longing to finish the unresolved business of a life so villainously cut short by thieving Yankee devils.

Grandfather has found a way to communicate with me through the medium of a young boy named Seth Donnelly, one of my students. Having developed a certain confidence with the lad–a shy, sensitive type with one bully of a big brother, no other family, and no friends—I was not in the least bit surprised when he came to me claiming to be a “ghost seer” with a message from beyond the veil.