The Ghost Wore Gray Read online

  Dad’s dream project was a rambling old three-story building, surrounded by a wide porch cluttered with big wooden chairs. The top of the inn was a strange jumble of towers, turrets, dormers, and cupolas.

  It was fascinating. But it was also a mess. The porch was sagging, the roof was mossy, and the walls were marked by dark spots where shingles had fallen away.

  I shivered. I had never seen a place that looked more likely to be haunted.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Baltimore Cleveland

  The lobby was empty.

  “Hello?” called my father, juggling two suitcases, a tennis racket, and golf clubs.

  “Be right with you!” yelled someone in another room.

  “That’s Baltimore,” my father said. “I recognize his voice.”

  We put down our suitcases and looked around.

  The fading purple wallpaper was covered with huge red flowers. The threadbare oriental carpet had seen better days—and probably better years. The antique furniture was heavy and dark, and looked as if it had been selected to prove one of my father’s favorite sayings: “Just because something is old, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s beautiful.”

  I looked at Chris. She looked at me. We rolled our eyes. But before either of us could say anything, a round little man came bustling into the room. “Good morning, good morning!” he cried, ignoring the fact that it was well past noon. “You must be the Tanlevens. I’m Baltimore Cleveland.” He thrust out his arm and began pumping my father’s hand.

  Chris and I tried to keep from giggling. Baltimore Cleveland looked a little like a creature from a fairy tale. He was about five feet tall (I know because I’m four foot ten, and he was only an inch or so taller than me). His cheeks were as round and as red as a pair of apples. He had twinkling blue eyes with those little crinkles at the sides you always see on people who spend most of their time smiling. His eyebrows were bushy and white, matching the thick fringe of white hair that circled his otherwise bald head. He wore an apron that had once been white, but was now decorated with bits of food of almost every imaginable color. A smudge of flour whitened the tip of his nose.

  Dad got his hand free from Mr. Cleveland’s grasp and turned toward Chris and me.

  “This is my daughter, Nine, and her friend, Chris Gurley.”

  “Nine?” asked the innkeeper, giving me a funny look.

  “Well, it’s really Nina. But everyone calls me Nine, because of my last name.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “You know, Nine Tan-leven?” I asked, hoping he would get it without any more explanation.

  He narrowed his eyes, and then his bushy white eyebrows popped up in surprise. “Oh, I see!” he cried in delight. “Very good. Very good, indeed! Well, I’ll call you Nine, and you can call me Baltimore. Or Balty, although I don’t particularly like that, since it sounds too much like Baldy.”

  “I’ll call you Baltimore,” I said, shaking his pudgy hand.

  When he had pumped Chris’s hand to his satisfaction, Baltimore led us out of the lobby into a wide hall that ended at the foot of a long staircase. I glanced at my father and saw him cringe as he took in the wallpaper. The only thing in the hall that looked good was a huge batch of fresh-cut flowers, sitting in a glass vase on a table set against one wall.

  Following Baltimore, we walked up the creaking stairway and then down another long hall decorated with a dozen or so framed pictures. To my surprise, about half of them were fairly good. A group of old photographs caught my attention. I made a mental note to take a closer look at them when I had a chance.

  “And here are your rooms,” Baltimore announced, stopping at a pair of doors that stood side by side. “This is for Poppa,” he said, swinging open one door. “And this is for the young ladies.”

  “See you later, kids,” said Dad. He stepped into his room. I stepped into ours, hoping it wasn’t covered with the kind of wallpaper that would make me want to skip breakfast. Chris was right behind me. “Hey,” she said. “Not bad.”

  She was right. To my surprise, the room was almost pretty. It had two brass beds with white coverlets, a desk, a dresser, two battered but comfortable-looking armchairs, and lacy curtains that moved slowly in the breeze. The wallpaper was a simple design of pink and blue stripes.

  “Dibs on this one,” said Chris, throwing her suitcase on the bed nearest the window. I thought about fighting her for it, then decided I should let her have it since she was my guest. I watched as she suddenly turned, realizing that maybe she should have waited for me to choose. “Unless you want it,” she said.

  I shook my head. “You’ll probably catch cold there, anyway,” I said.

  “Your closet is here,” said Baltimore, pointing to the only other door in the room. “Your bathroom is the third door on the right as you’re heading back to the stairs.”

  “We don’t have one of our own?” I asked in shock.

  Baltimore shook his head. “This is a very old inn,” he said with a smile. “It was a big deal when they brought the plumbing indoors. That was back in—”

  He was interrupted by a screeching voice from the top of the stairs. “Baltimore! Baltimore Cleveland! I want to see you this moment!”

  “My wife,” said Baltimore with a sigh. “I’d better find out what she wants. You girls have a pleasant afternoon. I’ll see you at dinner.”

  “Baltimore!” screeched the voice again.

  “Coming, Gloria,” called the innkeeper. He bustled off down the hall, wiping his hands on his apron.

  Chris looked at me and we both burst out laughing. “Baltimore!” she cried, doing a perfect imitation of the screeching Gloria. “Baltimore Cleveland, you come here right now!”

  “Shhh!” I hissed, closing the door and sagging against the wall. “She might hear you.”

  We giggled our way through unpacking, first dividing the dresser and the closet equally. I put my stack of books next to my bed, then went to stand at the window.

  “Nice view,” said Chris, coming to stand beside me.

  She was right. Our window looked out onto the inn’s backyard, which was small and neatly trimmed, with a scattering of wooden chairs. The yard was bordered by a stream, about six feet wide, that bounced and bubbled over glistening rocks. The midday sunshine made the water sparkle as though it were filled with diamonds. A little footbridge crossed the stream about fifty feet from our window. The bridge led to a path that disappeared into the forest.

  We were just deciding to go and explore when my father stuck his head into the room.

  “How are you two doing?” he asked.

  “Great,” I said. “Do you mind if we go out for a walk?”

  He glanced at his watch. “No problem. But if you can make it back in ninety minutes, Baltimore is going to be giving me a tour of the inn. I thought you might like to come along. It’s a fascinating old place.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, glancing at Chris. She nodded.

  “Fine,” said Dad. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  “Are you sure your heart can stand it?” I asked.

  He laughed. “It really is horrible, isn’t it? I’ll just be sure to take a lot of before-and-after photos. Even if I only do a halfway decent job, people will think I’m a genius when they see what the place used to look like. See you guys in an hour and a half.”

  He popped back into his room. Chris and I headed out into the hallway, where I remembered the old photographs I had spotted on the way in.

  “Stop a minute,” I said. “I want to look at these.”

  The five pictures were arranged in a kind of X-shape: two above, two below, and one in the center. Each was in a fancy, gold-painted wooden frame.

  They were all interesting, but it was the one in the center that held my attention. It was a picture of a man in a Confederate Army uniform. I’ve seen other photos from the Civil War period, and while the men are OK, they’re not what I’d call gorgeous. That wasn’t the case here. This was a pi
cture of one of the most handsome men I had ever seen. He was staring intently at the camera, as people usually did in those old photos. But the serious look in his large, dark eyes was offset by a smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth—as if he couldn’t really imagine being that serious for long. The gray uniform accented his broad shoulders and trim waist, and there was something exciting about the way his hand rested on the saber at his side.

  Chris sighed. “What a hunk. Too bad he’s dead.”

  That was when it happened.

  I shivered and looked at Chris. She was already looking at me.

  “Did you feel that?” she whispered.

  I nodded. Frozen in place, I turned my head ever so slightly and rolled my eyes to the side so I could look over my shoulder.

  There was no one there—no one who could have laid an ice-cold hand on the back of my neck.

  But I had felt it. And so had Chris.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here!”

  We got.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Secret Cemetery

  “Hunk alert,” whispered Chris.

  “I don’t think I can take it,” I said. “I’m still recovering from the hunk in the hallway.”

  “Well, this one is alive and well and standing about thirty feet to your left.”

  We were in the backyard of the Quackadoodle, still trying to figure out if what had happened in the hallway was just a trick of our imaginations. I decided to put the question on hold and check out the action on the left.

  Chris was right. The tall blond slapping green paint on one of the wooden chairs was definitely alive and well. He looked up and smiled at us. “Hi, girls,” he said, waving his paintbrush.

  I felt myself begin to blush.

  He put down the paintbrush and ambled in our direction. “Are you staying here?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Good. I think you’ll like it. Baltimore’s a good host. But watch out for Gloria. She’s—”

  Before he could finish the sentence, a shrill voice came arrowing out of an upstairs window. “Peter! Peter Gorham! You get back to work!”

  Peter winked at us. “Speak of the devil,” he whispered. “I’d better go paint. Stop and chat with me later if you feel like it.”

  It took all my willpower to keep from reaching out to push back the curl of blond hair that had fallen down over his forehead.

  “We’ll probably do that,” said Chris.

  “Peter!” cried the voice from the window.

  “Yes, ma’am!” he yelled. “Right away.” He dropped his voice. “See you later,” he whispered as he headed back to his job.

  “I don’t get it,” I said when we stopped on the footbridge to watch the water chuckle along. “Why would a guy who looks like that, and who has to be at least nineteen, bother with the two of us?”

  “Speak for yourself!” said Chris. “I may be only eleven, but I’m irresistible to men.”

  “So are potato chips,” I said. “And dips, which you happen to be if you think you’re ready to knock any man over fourteen off his feet.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe we’re the only girls here. Maybe he just likes to gossip. Or maybe it was my hazel eyes.”

  “You can’t see hazel eyes from where we were standing,” I pointed out. “I vote for boredom.”

  “Well, I vote we keep walking if we’re going to see anything before we have to meet your father,” she answered.

  We crossed the bridge and entered the forest. Between the shadows and the silence, the place seemed almost magical. It was warm and lazy. Shafts of brightness struck down through the trees, making puddles of gold on the scatterings of last year’s leaves. The air smelled of pine trees, damp soil, and something else that I couldn’t quite place, but which seemed rich and alive. It reminded me of the places I used to see in my head when my mother read me fairy tales.

  “I love it,” whispered Chris.

  I nodded. But I didn’t speak. I felt it was somehow improper to say too much in this place.

  We wandered on, following the path through the trees. Sometimes it bordered the stream, sometimes it veered away so we couldn’t see the sparkle of the water. But we could always hear it rushing along off to our right.

  The path made a wide loop and began to struggle its way up a hill. The sound of the moving water became faint for a while. Then, as we circled back, it grew louder again. Before long it was no longer a burble but a roar. I thought I knew what that meant. So I was delighted, but not too surprised, when the path took us around a tall rock and we found ourselves standing at the top of a beautiful waterfall.

  “What a spot for a moonlight stroll,” said Chris. She was standing on one of the large rocks that edged the falls, gazing down to where the stream tumbled into a foaming pool some thirty or forty feet below.

  “Yeah, and I know who you’d like to go strolling with,” I said.

  We dawdled by the waterfall for a while, until I noticed a very faint path leading off to the right. It didn’t look as though anyone had used it for some time.

  “Let’s see where this goes,” I said.

  To our surprise, it led to a tiny cemetery.

  The graveyard was in a clearing, or what had once been a clearing; now it was starting to fill in with small trees and shrubs again. Fifteen or twenty old tombstones dotted the area. Flowering vines crawled over many of the taller stones, and the grass was so high that some of the shorter markers could hardly be seen. I wondered if other, even smaller stones had been completely covered by the grass. The idea seemed sad to me.

  We stood at the edge of the cemetery for a moment. Then Chris picked up a stick and walked over to the nearest tombstone. Pushing aside the prickly canes of an old-fashioned rose, she revealed the words underneath: “Martha Ives—1871 to 1882.”

  “Eleven years old,” she said. “The same as us.”

  I took a deep breath. We wandered around and read the other stones. Most of them seemed to have come from the 1870s and 1880s. The only exception was a tall stone at the far side of the cemetery. When we pushed aside the vines to read the inscription this is what we found.

  Jonathan Gray

  Captain in the Confederate Army

  Born 1837

  Died 1863

  Erected in Loving Memory by His Many Friends

  1875

  I looked at Chris. “Confederate Army. Do you suppose that could be the guy whose picture is hanging in the inn?” I asked.

  Before she could answer, something happened that pretty much answered my question.

  I felt an icy hand brush against my neck.

  “Come on!” I said. Grabbing Chris by the hand, I headed for the path. From the look in her eyes I didn’t have to explain. She had felt the same thing.

  We raced back past the waterfall and into the woods. It was only when we were about halfway back to the inn and had stopped to catch our breath that I remembered we were supposed to meet my father and Baltimore for a tour. I had a feeling we were pretty late, so we started to run again.

  Dad was standing on the porch studying his watch when Chris and I came rushing around the corner of the inn. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry,” I gasped. “We went for a walk in the woods and lost track of the time.”

  He nodded and walked back into the building.

  “Is he mad?” asked Chris nervously.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Not unless we’re later than I think. He just wants me to know I goofed up.”

  I could see her relax a little. “You’re lucky,” she said. “My father doesn’t believe in silent messages.”

  When we went into the lobby we found Baltimore and my father talking. Actually, Baltimore was doing the talking. My father was listening to the little man, who at one point actually flapped his arms as though he were about to take off. He turned when he heard us enter.

  “Hello, hello!” he cried as though he hadn’t seen us for days
. “Are you all set for the grand tour?”

  “Can’t wait,” I said. “I love old buildings.”

  “I see you’ve trained her well,” said Baltimore, winking at my father. I started to object—calling me “trained” made me feel like a dog. But Baltimore had already jumped into his presentation.

  “The first Quackadoodle was built in 1805,” he said, his white eyebrows waggling. “Unfortunately, it burned to the ground in 1806. The second was built in 1807. It lasted twenty years before fire got it, too. The third inn was put up in 1833. That’s the building we’re standing in now—or at least part of it. There have been a lot of additions over the years.”

  Baltimore led us out of the lobby, through the hall with the stairway, and into a large room filled with tables. A stone fireplace took up most of the wall to our left. “The Quackadoodle dining room,” said Baltimore proudly. Two women were hurrying around the room, preparing it for dinner. One of them was setting out silverware and straightening the white linen tablecloths. The other was putting pink flowers into small white vases.

  Baltimore raised his voice. “Martha,” he called. “Isabella! I want you to meet some special guests.”

  The women looked up. The woman with the flowers was named Isabella. She was very pretty, with dark skin and dark eyes that seemed to have something hidden inside them. Martha, the woman with the silverware, looked as cold and sharp as the knives she was holding. She was much older than Isabella—somewhere in her midfifties was my father’s guess, when I asked him later.

  Baltimore introduced us and told the women not to be concerned if they saw my father poking around in odd places. He would have to do that as part of his planning for the renovation. I noticed Isabella’s eyes widen when Baltimore mentioned why my father was there. That’s odd, I thought to myself. I wonder why she’s so interested. I made a note to talk to Chris about it later.

  “Let me show you the kitchen,” said Baltimore. He led us through the dining room, which had beautiful windows looking out onto the forest. But the wallpaper should have been arrested for attacking people’s eyes.

  A pair of swinging doors led into the kitchen. Just as Baltimore was about to push on one of them, the other flew open and Peter Gorham came barreling out as if there were a demon on his tail.