Chris Grabenstein: The Smoky Corridor

ALSO BY CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

The Crossroads

winner of the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award

The Hanging Hill

For

R. Schuyler Hooke,

editor extraordinaire

CONTENTS

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Chapter 121

Chapter 122

Chapter 123

Chapter 124

Chapter 125

Chapter 126

Chapter 127

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

1

The nightbefore he officially started at his new school, Zack Jennings already had a feeling the place was haunted.

He was standing in the main hall of Horace P. Pettimore Middle School, staring at an oil painting that was staring back at him.

He stepped to his right.

The portrait’s eyes followed him.

Zack moved left.

The hooded eyes followed him.

Zack hopped from foot to foot, from side to side, and the man in the portrait, some sort of Civil War soldier, kept a scornful eye on his every move.

Zack’s dad came up behind him. Put a hand on Zack’s shoulder. Zack stopped bouncing.

“Nervous?”

“Huh?”

“You looked jumpy. I was over there talking to Principal Smith, saw you wiggling. I figured you were either anxious about tomorrow or you were busting out some new dance moves.”

Zack forced a smile.

Tomorrow . The start of a new school year. His first in North Chester, Connecticut—the small town where his father had grown up.

“I was just, you know, looking at the painting,” Zack explained, gesturing at the ornately framed portrait of the Yankee soldier, whose blue uniform had a column of shiny brass buttons running up the front all the way to his bearded chin—not to mention gold ropes on both shoulders. The scowling face had, of course, stopped swinging its eyeballs back and forth the instant Zack’s dad looked up at it.

“Ah! That’s Captain Horace P. Pettimore. This main hall used to be the grand foyer of his mansion.”

“Aha.”

“He was a steamboat captain who moved here after the Civil War. Became a very wealthy, very generous gentleman farmer.”

Zack knew only one farmer. A boy named Davy Wilcox. Davy wore overalls, not a Civil War uniform.

“First,” Zack’s dad, the history buff, went on, “Mr. Pettimore donated the property out back, several acres along the river, for the cemetery. Then, when he died, he bequeathed his mansion and all his lands surrounding it to the town, only asking that it be used for a school and that he be buried in the cemetery so he could keep an eye on the place.”

Zack figured that was why they called it Horace P. Pettimore Middle School.

And why the place was haunted.

Hey, you can’t build a school this close to a creepy old cemetery and not expect ghosts.

Plus, according to what Zack’s dad had told him on the car ride over, the school had been the site of a “terrible tragedy” back in 1910.

“It happened in a windowless corridor in an old part of the school, the narrow hallway leading to the wood shop. A horrible fire killed Joseph and Seth Donnelly, the two boys who started it by playing with matches, and the brave teacher who tried to rescue them.”

A graveyard, a terrible tragedy, two brothers and a heroic teacher killed in a corridor they couldn’t escape?

Oh, yeah.

This school was definitely, one hundred percent haunted.

Zack knew a thing or two about haunted places, because he had a special gift: He could see all sorts of dearly departed souls (even the ones who popped into paintings) whom other people, especially adults like his dad, could not. He always figured it was the kind of gift that should’ve come with a gift receipt so he could take it back for something better, like athletic ability or superpowers.

“You ready to head on back?” Zack’s dad asked. “I need to make a little speech, present the check.”

“Sure.”

“This way. The auditorium’s in one of the modern wings, built in the seventies. The nineteen seventies.”

They followed the flock of parents, teachers, and students eager for the start of Pettimore’s annual Back to School Night. They’d hike about a half mile back to the auditorium, where there’d be a few speeches and a couple of awards, and then everybody would have a chance to visit classrooms, meet teachers, and buy souvenir Pettimore Yankees sweatshirts and stuff. There’d probably be cupcakes, too.

As they moved with the jostling crowd, Zack once again sensed he was being watched.

He glanced over his shoulder, back at the gloomy portrait of Horace P. Pettimore.

Yep. The old guy was staring at him again.

Zack walked faster.

2

The twomen trudged through boot-sucking mud in the dark.

Eddie was following Mr. Timothy Johnson, who, according to Eddie’s boss, was the best dowser in the world. That was why Johnson was holding out a divining rod—a forked branch from a witch hazel tree.

“Find anything, sir?” Eddie asked as they made their way through the forests surrounding Pettimore Middle School.

“Silence,” said Mr. Johnson. “I must remain focused.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Now the only sound came from the chorus of crickets and cicadas chirping in the nearby meadow.

Eddie did not want to throw the little man in the bowler hat off course. Johnson was a pro when it came to finding things with his Y-shaped stick. Hidden things, like freshwater, gold mines, oil geysers, and most importantly, buried treasure.