Across the darkened grass, Tomfoolery spied movement near the rickety old shed. The twisted shadows almost made Tomfoolery gasp. Something most definitely was in the cemetery! With bated breath he pressed himself closer to the cold shadows and placed his flat hand over the large headstone before him. His heart pounded in his chest and he felt his stomach knot and twist while he tried to make out the shadow's consistency.
***
"Bulimia Foster, beloved Mother and grandmother to eighteen children and grandchildren. Wow," Boo said.
"She was very much loved," Anna said. "Look how big her tombstone is."
"Do you feel remembered?" Boo asked.
"I do every time we haunt a house," Anna giggled.
"Yeah, I guess," Boo said. "But really, do you feel you were missed?"
"Gosh, who knows? It's been so long. Maybe."
Anna and Boo looked up from the weathered headstone, surprised to see their first cemetery ghost. They stood in the dark and watched quietly.
Boo nudged Anna. "Go ahead and try out Casper's idea to be friends with all the ghosts. Say hello!"
The lady spirit lazily flowed in the breeze, but acknowledged the two of them with a nod so they came closer.
"Hi, I'm Anna and this is Boo. We want to be friends."
Anna crumpled up the comic book in her right hand, trying to hide the human handbook to the dead.
The lady ghost seemed to fly up to Anna and Boo, but then Anna noticed she was just hanging from a wire and made out of old cloth and clothing and a plastic mask to make it look like a ghost was floating around the cemetery.
Boo said, "What's up with that?"
"Probably just some leftover decorations."
They continued onward. Anna and Boo slowly read through the rows of headstones. Tomfoolery still hadn't caught up. The many rows looked deserted, and he was nowhere to be seen.
"Maybe it has to be a full moon or All Hallows Eve," Anna said. This Casper guy came out for special events, perhaps. No one else was coming out from their graves. "It may have to do with the timing." Anna told Boo, "Jackie’s dad has loads more reading material. Who knows, there may be more info on this. We might be doing it wrong. He has one called Archie Comics. I bet that has loads of ghost info for the living. What do you say we head back?"
"That's all right with me," Boo said. "Where's Tomfoolery?"
A couple of lingering souls in the old section peeked out from their graves, intrigued to see someone headed their way. The ghosts of the past were few and far between, most having moved on to the next life long ago, their last desires fulfilled or given up; their graves had likewise been abandoned by the living as none remained to remember their occupants. The afterlife in this corner of the cemetery was quiet most days, so it was no large surprise that a visitor in the old section caused an uproar for its inhabitants.
CHAPTER 17
There had been a surge of interest in ghost hunting and other paranormal research in recent years, and that's why Elizabeth's Uncle Washouts T. Felton put her up to the idea of visiting the manor next door. He was fascinated with the afterlife and wanted to build his fame so his name would be remembered and his fortune made.
Midnight had descended, and it was pitch black except for a small streetlamp at the end of the driveway. It cast a pale, eerie glow which illuminated the graveyard.
Anna and Boo could be seen on the pathway. As they passed the gate to the older part to the cemetery, Tomfoolery froze from fear.
Two figures stepped out of the darkness. They were big, burly men, and they didn't look friendly. They moved toward Tomfoolery.
Oh my gosh, Tomfoolery thought to himself, I think they can see me.
Only then did he open his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
"Easy, ghost boy, no one can hear you," one of the men sneered. It was Washouts T. Felton III and he held special ghost hunting equipment.
"Hey, we got one," was all Tomfoolery heard. Before he could move, the other man lunged toward Tomfoolery and grabbed him.
"Let me go!" Tomfoolery pleaded.
But it was all in vain. Boo and Anna were still too far away. Nobody could hear him.
"I see you are a real ghost," a voice growled from behind Tomfoolery. "Let's take a look at you, shall we?"
Tomfoolery yelled for Anna and Boo as he turned around to face the large men. Poor Tomfoolery knew he was doomed.
Jackie stood in the hallway near the attic secret door, and she heard Tomfoolery's cries.
"Tomfoolery, where are you?" Jackie called.
Jackie knew she had to help her friend, and fast. But where was he? She stepped out of the shadows to the light in the hallway, ready to tap three times so Boo would let her into the attic, but before she could even open her mouth to scream she felt someone grab her from behind. Jackie struggled as a hand covered her mouth, but she was dragged out the back door of her home before her parents even knew it.
Elizabeth's face only appeared to Jackie for a brief moment. She saw Tomfoolery locked in a large steam trunk that the two men and Elizabeth put her into. Tomfoolery lay helpless and blindfolded. Into the darkness at full speed the van sped away.
Meanwhile, Anna and Boo returned to the attic, not knowing what had just happened. Boo worried about his friend and where he might be.
Anna said, "Tomfoolery is a big boy now, and he can take care of himself. He will be up before you know it. And besides, the night air will do him some good. I need to wait for Jackie's special knock."
Boo stayed by the open attic window and worried as he looked into the vast darkness of the backyard.
Boo whimpered, "Tomfoolery, where are you?"
* * *
Back in the van, Jackie rolled over. She could hear Elizabeth's voice speaking nonstop to the two men sitting beside her.
Elizabeth said, "I'll show everyone there are real ghosts and even a demon girl in that old haunted manor."
Tomfoolery whispered to Jackie, "They could see me clearly!"
Jackie answered, "They look like they're ghost hunters."
"Is that bad?"
"Yes," Jackie said. "They do all sorts of terrible things to you."
Tomfoolery shivered from the thought.
Jackie waddled herself forward to an air hole for a better look around.
"It's okay," Jackie said. "I have a plan."
She told Tomfoolery to be quiet until she could execute the plan and they could get away. Jackie wanted to cry, but she knew she had to be brave for Tomfoolery.
It amazed Jackie how one moment, one decision, one mistake, could change her life forever. If she had been a fraction of a second earlier or later, if she had not turned down that one hallway with the lamp, she may have not been captured. What scared her most was that there were bad people in her home. She wished Anna would wave her magical wand and turn them into toads. She had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and it destroyed her.
Once Jackie's bare foot slipped through the bottom of the trunk she knew she had a way to get them out. When everyone left them alone she would try out her plan. The van took many turns and went over bumps that Jackie could feel in her kidneys. But soon it came to a halt and pulled up in front of a cottage. Jackie lifted her foot up so it would not show through the trunk while they were carried inside.
Jackie heard Elizabeth, "Uncle, by morning you will call the news media and the paranormal groups to showcase our brilliant catch?"
"Yes, after I reveal that ghost. I want to be the first."
"Thanks for doing this for me," Elizabeth said happily. "Mom and Dad think I'm spending the weekend with you and Aunt Rose in the country. I already wrote what the newspapers will say in the headlines: Young girl's body found this morning on the highway. The news reports will say it looked like a runaway got hit by a truck while she walked down the road in the dark. We will have to lay her out on highway eighty-seven after we kill her."
Jackie’s eyes grew large. What? Kill me? She tried to listen, but
their voices got farther away.
Jackie turned to Tomfoolery and said, "Now is our chance. Do you have any weight to your body? We need to rock the trunk back and forth to flip it over."
They tried once and then again and it flipped to its side. Jackie waited to see if anyone would come back and placed her eye and ear to the hole. With a great big thrust of her foot, she kicked at the soft bottom of the trunk. It broke and she crawled out and looked at her surroundings. Tomfoolery floated out freely.
"We're on the other side of the county," Tomfoolery noted as he looked out the window to check the scenery. "So, what's next, Jackie?"
She chewed at the knotted rope that bound her hands and then they ran to the front door. Tomfoolery whisked out like a breeze with Jackie right behind him, running down the gravel road toward the woods.
Jackie warned, "Fly, Tomfoolery," as she heard Elizabeth scream bloody murder and run out the front door to stop them.
Jackie did a half turn around and saw the two large men running after her and Tomfoolery. They reached the edge of the woods and Jackie said, "I don't know where to go now."
"This is my expertise," Tomfoolery said. "Follow me."
CHAPTER 18
Ducking behind a copse of trees, Tomfoolery pulled back a lower branch and held it, waiting. When the first pursuer started to pass, Tomfoolery let go of the branch. It sprung free and hit the man squarely in the chest and face, sending him crashing to the ground. His partner tripped over him and twisted his ankle.
After the attack, Tomfoolery became a scarier ghost, one who could take care of himself. He seemed to consider this and the terrified expression over his pale face changed to one now full of life and vim and vigor.
Unable to speak, the large man laid on the ground as his partner did. The tree branch still waffled from the energy of the slap.
Tomfoolery sighed with relief, drawing his cloak closer around his body. "There! That will show you humans who’s got the upper hand now, huh? How dare you pick on a little helpless girl such as Jackie?" He twisted around but, when he couldn't find her, he hurried down the trail.
Tomfoolery caught up to Jackie and found her crying, lying down by fallen log.
“No, you can’t make noises like that!” Tomfoolery hissed. “Somebody will hear you!”
Truly he didn't know what to say to the young girl to ease her pain. This was more of a job for her mother or at least Anna.
Tomfoolery gave a nervous look, staring at the back of the trail, seeing if the two men were on foot again. To his dismay, they were madder than before, running toward them.
"Now, now what’s with the sad face?" Tomfoolery patted Jackie on the shoulder. "And all those wet tears streaming down your pretty little face? What's that all about? Seriously, kiddo, we need to get a move on! Jackie, please do not shut me out. Not now. Listen...hey, kiddo. Earth to Jackie. Listen to me, please. You've been very brave all this time. Even got us out of our capture alive. Now we have our chance at freedom if we keep our heads about us."
"Really?" Jackie said, wiping her tears away. "I've been brave?"
"Why, yes. You got us free. Remember the trunk and showing me the front door to our escape?"
"Yes." Jackie sounded a bit better. "I thought those two men caught you and I was left alone in the dark coldness of the forest...Lost!!"
"Aw, I wouldn't let that happen, but we need to get a move on and now."
Jackie hesitated, her hands in the icy air, unsure of what to do.
"Please. Hurry!" Tomfoolery pulled on her sleeve and got her to stand. With a nod, he led her away from the men.
Some part of her, some dark recess of her mind, told her it was all crazy and that any moment she would wake up and scold herself for dreaming such strange dreams. Anna would agree once she told her.
Jackie would have to be home by morning, to save Anna and Boo. The men would now have to go back to the house and capture Boo or Anna. What a nightmare! Among Jackie’s tears, she wished Anna could come and pick them up by broomstick and whisk her back home to her warm bed waiting for her. If Jackie went for help to people of her own kind, then Boo, Anna and Tomfoolery would be found out and taken away.
Jackie could not let that happen. She needed to find their way back to home and tell Anna. Jackie had to keep being brave.
Not knowing which way was home, besides feeling helpless and lost, she had to think. Tomfoolery watched the trail. But it was all so real, there had to be a way out. Tomfoolery said he knew the woods.
“We’ll have to get you out of the cold,” Tomfoolery muttered through chattering teeth. Jackie saw him shivering, seeing he was colder than her. Tomfoolery's sallow skin was like ice.
“Hello.” A voice called into her subconscious, bringing her back to the surface of her mind.
Jackie turned towards the voice only to see a shape disguised within the shadows cast from the nearby tree. Jackie could feel her heart start to race within her chest as his voice pierced her very soul.
“I have been waiting for you for a long time,” the voice said as little Jackie was thrown into darkness standing next to Tomfoolery.
Tomfoolery said, "Be calm, Jackie. It's ok."
Lost within a black oblivion, Jackie swore she could hear hidden voices and told Tomfoolery standing next to her.
"I hear many voices," Jackie said. "I’m scared. Is it the two bad men?"
"No, dear. Help has come to take us away."
"Help? What help?" She still couldn't see anyone.
"The forest guardians," Tomfoolery explained.
The voice said, "What has been done is done. Now it's time to help the girl. She is with one of our own kind."
"She must be ok and not one of them," a second voice responded.
"Right. Show her the door."
"All right," another hidden voice said. Many whispers followed throughout the woods.
The one voice asked, "Whom might you be, young lady?"
Jackie stepped up a few feet in the darkness surrounding her. "I am Jackie."
The wood's magic had it own way of thinking and took pity on the two who needed help. It decided to open a hidden doorway with a huge grinding sound of iron and wood cracking as the ground lifted up near them.
A huge twenty foot or more door stood before them, made of shiny wrought iron and huge cut logs. A golden cast doorknob was small enough for child's hand. And now, a child was needed to open the huge door.
Many eerie thoughts drummed through Jackie’s and Tomfoolery's minds when they heard the two men crashing down the trail. Along the darkened path, little fairies appeared, followed by the three ghost guardians of the magic door, all trying their best to hold back the two men with their magic.
Jackie leaned over, somehow knowing what to do, and placed her hand on the golden doorknob. Never opened before, it creaked, moaned and groaned, allowing her and Tomfoolery through the huge doorway.
The door shut behind Tomfoolery, who heard the two men cry in pain as the guardians stopped them just in time from following.
There had been so much happening, Jackie desperately tried to get one more word to Tomfoolery among all the excitement. She had no idea where she was stepping after the magical doorway shut. For a brief moment it was pitch dark and Jackie was trying to get her eyes readjusted.
The fate of the two ghost hunters didn't matter. Jackie figured those two mean, old men deserved whatever happened to them. Tomfoolery had every right!
Tomfoolery ranted heavily about the cold, his gleaming eyes being the only source of light for Jackie.
Not a lick or tick even a loosened stitch would stop Jackie now. It didn't matter that Jackie despised going any farther in the pitch dark than any other single human being her age would—in a very Magical Forest. The owls hooted, the singer bugs chimed their buzzers and a lone coyote bayed to the sky.
“Here.” Tomfoolery pointed out the dangling charm on one of the trees. “Cross over and you're on my old stomping grounds. I know t
he spirits in here. We'll be sitting pretty. We'll be safe. A five minute walk up this trail and you'll be in my graveyard.”
Jackie nodded. "Your graveyard? You have your own graveyard? How creepy." Jackie had to laugh.
"No, not as in saying it's mine. It's where I was buried."
"Can I see your grave?"
"Sure, maybe later. On the way through we have to cross the graveyard to get to the other side of the forest. Ok, girly?"
Jackie just smiled and held on to Tomfoolery's cloak.
“Do you know why our charms keep the living out?”
“I can speculate why,” Jackie told her friend.
Tomfoolery looked puzzled, not knowing the meaning of the word speculate.
“It means that I can guess, but I'm not sure.”
"Wow. All the extra reading with your mom and Anna really helped, huh?"
"Yep," Jackie said.
“So what's your guess?” Tomfoolery asked, filing away the new word. She shrugged, too busy concentrating on not tripping over the rough path. “The power behind the magic,” Tomfoolery explained. “This part of the woods uses its special magic to protect, heal the dead, that sort of thing. Light, or good, magic is how it would be termed. Some ghosts and spirits are beings of dark, or evil, magic, though.”
Jackie snorted.
“Narrow-mindedness, that sort of thinking. Magic itself isn't good or evil.”
Jackie cocked her head, curious. “So what makes it good or bad?”
“The person's history from when they were living makes this list up. It's read when you die. All the things you have not done or wish to have done, all the bad things you have done, and all the special things you have achieved are weighed and measured in this safe place.”
Jackie frowned in thought. "You are a judge, then?"
"Of course," Tomfoolery answered.
“So, what a person wants to do is what causes the magic to be good or bad after death?”