Mimic (A Spear Bearer Short) Page 2

talking.”

  Mr. Long nodded and seemed satisfied. “Goodnight Lizzie,” he said, and he kissed her forehead before walking out the door.

  Curiosity had been Lizzie’s weak point in her position as Second to the Spear Bearer. In the Garner Mansion she had had the chance to make a quick job of it, but her curiosity had made her wait. And a ghost named Amy, who liked pushing people down stairs, had almost made her pay.

  But...what did it mean, what Masi had said, when Lizzie had asked who Kracken was?

  “No one. He never was.”

  Lizzie shook her head so vigorously that her hair lifted and bounced. It didn’t matter what it meant. This time she would do it by the book. Point the Spear. Say the words.

  Shh shh shh shh.

  Lizzie opened her eyes. “I fell asleep,” she thought. She’d tried to stay awake so that she could catch the spirit.

  Shh shh shh shh. The sandpaper sound came from the hallway and it seemed to be moving past her door.

  Lizzie reached for the Spear and when she touched it she could see in the dark room as well as if the light were on. Much better in fact. She noticed where clear box tape had curled away from one of the boxes stacked against the wall; the tape had a yellow tinge to it and little dust particles stuck to it. Her eyes followed the pattern of ridges in the corrugated cardboard down to the floor, and then her eyes tracked the fluid pattern of the wood grain in the floor. Next to her lay Lori, breathing deeply in her sleep, a halo of white light surrounding her.

  Shh shh shh shh the sound moved down the hall. Lizzie looked through the wall and saw it, an amorphous human shape walking. It glowed white. Not green. Good. It was human—or once was human, rather.

  Quietly, Lizzie turned the knob and eased the door open, thankful that the hinges didn’t creak. She peered around and into the hallway and was surprised to see Uncle Mitali walking away from her, his slippered feet making the shh shh shh shh sound with each step on the wooden floor.

  Not a ghost after all, Lizzie thought. And yet...it felt eerie. Maybe it was just because she had been expecting a ghost. Or maybe it was because it was late at night and the house was so quiet.

  Without thinking, Lizzie crept into the hall and followed her uncle. He had entered the bedroom at the end. Jay’s room.

  She tiptoed until she stood at the door. Yellow light came in through the window from a streetlamp and made a trapezoid pattern on the ceiling. A bunk bed stood against the wall, and Uncle Mitali was up on the ladder looking into the top bed.

  Lizzie knew she should leave. If her uncle turned and saw her now then she’d have to explain; she’d have to try to hide the Spear behind her back. But she couldn’t pull herself away. Something felt distinctly unnatural.

  Then Uncle Mitali turned his head and looked at Lizzie. Ordinarily in the dim light she would not have been able to make out his dark features, but with the Spear she could see him clearly. Instead of surprise he smiled a childish, wide-open smile. It looked like a painted-on clown smile.

  Lizzie stepped back and the Spear banged against the doorjamb.

  Jay stirred in the bed. He looked up. “Dad?”

  Uncle Mitali turned toward Jay and Jay screamed.

  Lizzie’s uncle jumped down off the ladder. When his face turned toward Lizzie she saw that it wasn’t her uncle anymore. The face wasn’t a face any more—it was just a blur, like someone had put an eraser to the face and rubbed it out.

  Lizzie gasped and stepped away.

  The figure collapsed into a ball of light and shot away toward the window.

  Lizzie thought, “Point the Spear. Say the words.” But then she saw Jay sitting up in the bed looking down on her. And now she heard the clump clump of feet on the floor, followed by distorted adult voices coming from behind the door at the opposite end of the hall. That would be Aunt Verna and the real Uncle Mitali. They would be coming to see why Jay had screamed. If she wasn’t back in her room she would have to explain what she was doing in the hallway. With a broken spear in her hand.

  She took a quick look back into Jay’s room. The ball of light had disappeared.

  On tip toes she ran back to her room, seeing her aunt and uncle’s door open just as she slipped through her door. Carefully she pushed the door so that it only remained open a crack, and she tried to calm her breathing, hoping that they wouldn’t hear her.

  The hallway light came on and Aunt Verna and Uncle Mitali hurried down the hall; as they came past, Lizzie noticed the shh shh shh shh sound her uncle’s slippers made on the hardwood floor—the sandpaper sound the ghost had made matched perfectly.

  “Is something wrong Jay?” Uncle Mitali asked.

  “Did you scream?” Aunt Verna asked.

  Lizzie could faintly hear Jay began to cry. Then she heard Masi as she ran down the hall in her onesie. The plastic soles covering her feet went pat pat pat pat on the floor.

  “What’s going on?” Lori asked from the bed.

  It seemed everyone was up.

  Lizzie put down the Spear. “I’m going,” Lizzie said in answer to Lori. If Lori wanted to know what was going on, she needed to get out of bed.

  “And then I looked again,” Jay said through sobs, talking to his father, “and nothing was there. I thought it was you, standing on the ladder. But nothing was there...but it seemed something was there. Like...I could feel it...watching me. And then something went bump,” he pointed to the door where Lizzie had been standing, “and I knew someone was there but I couldn’t see them. And it scared me.”

  “Jay,” Uncle Mitali said, “I think you just had a waking dream.”

  “It was real.”

  “Maybe it was Kracken,” Masi said.

  Everyone turned and looked at Masi.

  “He’s a silly joke joker. He plays dress up. Sometimes he’s daddy and sometimes mommy. Usually he is Masi.”

  No one spoke until finally Aunt Verna took Masi’s hand and said, “It was just a bad dream. Let’s get you back to bed.” And she led Masi past Lizzie back to her bedroom. They passed Lori in the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” Lori asked again.

  “Nothing,” Uncle Mitali answered. “Jay had a bad dream. We’re all going back to bed now.”

  “Don’t go dad,” Jay said, his lower lip trembling.

  Uncle Mitali considered. “Would you like for me to sleep on the bottom bunk?”

  “Uh huh,” Jay said, nodding.

  “I’ll go get my pillow and I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Jay nodded.

  After Uncle Mitali had left, Jay looked at Lizzie. “I thought it was you,” he said. “Not here on the ladder, but over there, where you are now.”

  Lizzie didn’t say anything.

  “It was dark. But I thought it was you.”

  Lori looked at Lizzie questioningly.

  “It wasn’t me,” Lizzie lied.

  “I thought you might have seen it,” Jay said.

  Lizzie shook her head.

  Jay took one of his pillows and propped it up so it covered the opening in the rail where the ladder was. He looked with a determined and proud face at the girls. “It was real.”

  Lizzie nodded and smiled an honest smile. “I believe you,” she answered. “Believe me, I really do.” Lizzie felt bad about lying before, and she hoped this would make him feel better.

  Once the girls were back in the room Lori whispered, “Was it real?”

  “Yes,” Lizzie answered. She liked the old days before Lori knew about the Spear, before the Sorcerer kidnapped Lori. But now Lori knew everything about the Spear and what it was for.

  “Did you get it?”

  “No,” Lizzie answered.

  “What happened last night?” Lizzie’s dad asked quietly.

  They stood in the sitting room near the front door. The only piece of furniture was a card table and chairs. Mr. Long had used subtle nods and eye movement to indicate to Lizzie he wanted to talk with her in private.

  “I didn’t get it,”
Lizzie whispered. “It looked just like Uncle Mitali. I really thought it was him.”

  “What was it?”

  “A ghost.”

  Mr. Long shook his head. “No. Ghosts can’t do that.”

  “The aura was white. It was a Lost Soul.”

  Lizzie’s dad thought for a minute. “This is new,” he said. “But I guess it doesn’t make any difference. A job is a job.”

  Lizzie nodded. “Maybe tonight.”

  “It had better be. We’re driving home on Saturday.”

  Lizzie nodded. If she didn’t get it tonight she would only have one more chance.

  Uncle Mitali asked Mr. Long to say a prayer and then everyone sat down to the Thanksgiving feast.

  The adults talked and shared stories from the last year, telling stories about their children and Uncle Mitali talked a lot about his job at Rockwell Collins. Most of the chatter Lizzie ignored, but when the subject turned to the house she listened. She didn’t act like she was listening, but she was.

  “We bought it at auction,” Uncle Mitali said. “An estate sale. We could never have managed such a big old house in ordinary circumstances.”

  “The couple who lived here died in a plane crash,” Aunt Verna said leaning forward on her elbows in a hushed voice. “They had no children. So all the assets were auctioned off and split among the living relatives.”

  “They were both lawyers,” Uncle Mitali said. “Middle aged. He was a private pilot. Had one of those prop planes. The engine stalled after takeoff and they couldn’t make it back to the runway.”

  “I wonder about people like that,” Lizzie’s dad said. “Too busy for children, I guess.”

  “No,” Aunt Verna said, leaning farther forward. “Not at all. We still get their