The Ghost of Graylock (12 page)

T
HE LIBRARY WAS COOL AND DARK
, the exact opposite of the day they’d left behind outside. A circular wooden desk sat in front of the main entrance; a sign directed patrons to approach at the right for returns, and to check out on the opposite side. A young man sitting at the front looked up from a book he’d been reading. “Hi, Wesley,” he said, smiling. He wore a rumpled, collared shirt and a too-short tie, looking as if he’d raided his grandfather’s wardrobe.

“Hi, Jay. These are my friends Neil and Bree. They’re visiting from New Jersey.”

“Welcome to Hedston,” said Jay the librarian, in a way that hinted there was no way to feel welcome in this town. “Try to make yourselves comfortable.”

“We’re heading down to the computers,” said Wesley, grabbing Neil’s elbow. “Maybe you can tell Bree where to find the romance novels.”

Bree’s eyes went wide with embarrassment. “Or
anything
really,” she said quickly.

“Fiction’s over there,” said Jay, nodding toward the shelves near the back windows.

Bree whispered to the boys, “Come get me when you guys are done. Aunt Claire gave me her library card, Neil, so if there’s a book you need, we can check out together.”

On the lower level, two computers sat on a table behind the staircase. The room was damp and the lights were dim. There were no windows, just the building’s stone foundation. Every few seconds, a squeak rose from a corner of the room. Someone was pushing a cart, reshelving books. Otherwise, the boys seemed to have the entire floor to themselves.

Thump!

The cart must have crashed into one of the bookshelves. A soft voice said, “Excuse me.” Neil didn’t know if the person speaking was talking to them or to the books.

“Let’s look her up, then,” said Wesley.

“Who?”

“Who else? Nurse Janet!”

But a quick Internet search didn’t give them much of a return: several options for Janet Reillys, but none were nurses and none were in Hedston.

“Weird,” said Neil. “You’d think someone would have posted something about the legend somewhere.”

Wesley modified the search — he tried adding the words
Graylock Hall
,
murders
,
suicide
. Still, the search engine refused to cooperate.

“This is so strange,” said Wesley. “According to the Interwebs, the Nurse Janet lady never existed.”

“Oh, she existed, all right,” said a voice from behind them.

The boys spun their chairs to find a tall, thin woman standing over them. She was dressed in a black jersey dress that was coated with strands of long white cat fuzz. Her gray hair was tied loosely into a lopsided bun on top of her head. Neil thought she looked familiar but didn’t know why.

“In fact, she exists still,” the woman went on, folding her arms, revealing sharp, red fingernails. “Despite the tall tales folks in this town tell, Nurse Janet Reilly is very much alive.”

“W
E WON’T TELL
,”
SAID
W
ESLEY QUICKLY
. “Promise.”

The woman stared at the boys in shock.

Neil closed his eyes, mortified.

The woman spoke. “You think that I …?” Then she began to laugh. She laughed so hard, she doubled over, hitching silent gasps before snorting loudly, which sent her into another round of high-pitched giggles. When she found the breath to speak again, she said, “I’m not Janet. Never have been and never will be. I’m Gladys. We met at the party?” Neil nodded. “When I’m not taking classes from your Aunt Anna, I volunteer here at the library. Keeps me cool.” Gladys smiled. “Being mistaken for Mrs. Reilly isn’t the worst thing people have thought of me. Living in a small town like this, you can make enemies fairly quickly. Folks
love
to talk. I assume that’s how the rumors of poor Janet started.”

“She’s still alive?” Neil said in disbelief.

This changed everything. The nightly visitor. The dream of drowning. The woman in white at the playground. If it wasn’t the ghost of Nurse Janet, then who or what was it?

Finding his voice again, Wesley asked, “Can you tell us anything about her?”

“I never met the woman myself. She was a friend of my older sister.” Gladys shoved the long, black sleeves of her dress up her bony forearms, looking serious, as if she had been waiting to set the record straight for quite some time. “I know the stories the kids tell in the school hallways. My nieces and nephews used to insist that Janet Reilly was the boogeywoman of Hedston, a vengeful spirit who would haunt trespassers at the asylum in the woods. I think they just liked to scare one another at slumber parties. They refused to listen to the truth.”

“Those stories are still around,” said Neil, glancing harshly at Wesley, who shrugged apologetically.

“It’s all very dramatic.” Gladys nodded. “And everyone loves a good spook. No? The truth of the matter is quite simple. There were several drownings out at Graylock. The state investigated. They shut the place down. Many people lost their jobs. Yes, there was some suspicion placed on the staff who worked in the youth ward. But nothing was ever proven. Janet Reilly left this town in a smoke screen of accusation. Folks were so angry that she was able to simply walk away, it’s no wonder they demonized her. Poor old thing.”

“But what if she was guilty?” asked Wesley.

“That’s not really for us to decide, is it?” said Gladys. “She was never charged with a crime.”

Wesley said, “But that doesn’t mean —”

“Do you know where we can find her?” Neil interrupted. “Talk to her maybe?”

Gladys flinched, surprised. “Now why would you want to go and do a thing like that?” Neil and Wesley looked at each other, silently trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy her. But Gladys only rolled her eyes. “Oh, I know you boys went out to Graylock Hall this week. No need to lie to old Gladys. I was young once too. You’re curious about the ghost story. You want to ask Janet yourself?”

Neil’s cheeks flushed, but he nodded anyway. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

Gladys shrugged, teasing, pushing her book cart back into the shadows. The wheels whined in dismay. “There’s a retirement home several miles north,” she said. “Whispering Knoll, I think it’s called. Mrs. Reilly lives there. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

A
FTER LOOKING UP THE RETIREMENT HOME’S PHONE NUMBER
, the boys closed out of the Internet and made their way back upstairs.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Jay asked, still sitting behind the circular desk, his book in hand.

“And more,” said Wesley. Turning toward Neil, he whispered, “We should get to a phone. Maybe your aunt will let us use the one back at the shop.”

Neil nodded, even though he was almost terrified to find out what a living, breathing Nurse Janet would have to say to them. Would she be angry? Would she hang up? He still couldn’t believe she was really alive. Was Gladys telling the truth?

Wesley went off to find the bathroom.

“Ugh! Come on!” came a voice from behind a bookshelf near the fiction section.

Jay glanced at Neil. He raised an eyebrow. “She’s been doing that for a while.”

Neil peeked around the corner and found Bree standing at a computer kiosk. She was looking through the electronic catalogue. “What’s the matter?”

Bree stiffened, then turned. She shook her head and waved dramatically at the screen. “This stupid thing isn’t working. I keep typing in book titles, and all that pops up are these weird screen savers. Three pictures. When I move the mouse, they go away, but the computer won’t let me look for my books.”

Neil’s throat tightened. “What kind of pictures?”

“I’ll show you.” Bree searched for a random title, and when she hit enter, a full-screen slide show began. When Neil saw the first photograph, he covered his mouth in shock. It was the same picture he’d seen in his camera’s view screen the day before. The taxidermic deer head. When the next photo popped up on the screen, Neil felt dizzy. The piano bench with the stack of sheet music. The third photo — birch logs in a fireplace — was no surprise. Bree stared at him, worried.

Neil felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped and spun around, lashing out, nearly slapping Jay in the face. The librarian leapt backward. “Whoa!” he said. “I came to see if the catalogue was giving you problems.”

“Sorry!” said Neil. “I just thought —”

“As a matter of fact,” Bree said, turning back to the screen, “the catalogue
is
giving us problems. A screen saver keeps popping up. The computer won’t let me search.”

“This machine doesn’t have a screen saver,” said Jay, confused.

“Well, look,” said Bree. She went through the search process again, but this time, after she hit
ENTER
, the catalogue showed her a list of titles similar to the one she’d entered. No photos. No slide show. “What the heck? It’s not doing it now.”

Jay sighed and shrugged. “I’m not sure what to tell you, except that the V. C. Andrews books are all right behind you. That’s what you were looking for. Right?”

Bree looked sheepish. “Yeah. Thanks.”

On the walk back to the pie shop, Neil filled in Wesley about the three photos they’d encountered at the computer kiosk.

“At first, I didn’t realize that I was looking at the same pictures Neil saw yesterday,” said Bree, “but when I saw Neil’s reaction …”

“It’s like someone was able to tap into the devices,” said Neil, “to show us something they wanted us to see. The antlers, the piano bench, and the fireplace.”

“But how is that possible?” asked Wesley. “Can you remotely manipulate a camera’s memory card? Or a whole library catalogue?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard,” said Bree.

“You know what this means, right?” said Neil. “Bree and I have both dreamed of the lake. We’ve both seen the weeds. And now, we’ve both experienced the three photos. Eric’s wrong — this is definitely not only in my imagination.”

Bree squinted, seeming to concentrate on the sidewalk ahead of her. “Someone wanted us to see these images.
Us
. And somehow they managed to make it happen.”

Neil remembered what Alexi and Mark had said about the dead being able to use physical energy in order to show themselves to the living. Maybe the images were simply another way that this spirit, or
whatever
, was trying to communicate with them. But what was it trying to say?

“The antlers, the piano bench, and the fireplace,” Bree continued dreamily, seeing the images in her mind. “They’ve got to mean something. Maybe the pictures have to do with that Nurse Janet legend.”

“
Yeah
,” said Neil slowly, cautiously, thinking about the news Gladys had revealed to them a few minutes ago. “About that …”