Chapter 2: Basement Treasures

We spent the next several days moving stuff into the house, cleaning up the yard, and attempting to train Mick. Those sessions usually ended up as games of fetch or tug o' war. The playful little dog only became serious when Pippi was over.

Pippi couldn't come by all the time because of her chores, but when she did, she was always a welcome company, and even helped us unload boxes sometimes. We were still friends, even though she was convinced I was crazy.

Quite frankly, it wouldn't have surprised me if she was right. I heard the voice every now and again, telling us to leave, but no one else could.

The window in my room still hadn't been repaired, probably because I hadn't complained about it enough. Although it hadn't rained yet, it was still quite humid, considering it was the middle of June. One morning, after another hot night, I was fed up. I grabbed some duct tape, some cardboard from one of the boxes, and started covering up the hole.

"Oh, don't do that, Ken!" Mom exclaimed. She must have just gotten up and happened see me through my open door; I thought I was the only one awake. "That looks ugly!"

"It's hot in here," I countered.

"Then I'll call someone to replace the window! Honestly! I know you don't care, but this isn't just any house. It's belonged to our family since the early nineteen hundreds and..."

I'm still unsure what happened during that lecture. As soon as I heard the part about the 1900s, my dream from a few days before started floating back to me in bits and pieces. I could still hear Mom talking, but the only words I could understand were what corresponded with that dream.

"Ken? Are you listening to me?"

I shook myself from the little trance and replied, "Yeah, got it. Sorry, Mom. I should've reminded you about the window."

Mom didn't look too convinced, but my guess must not have been that far from the money, because all she did was huff at me and walk away.

* * *

After breakfast, Mom went out to finally meet Pippi's parents. She kept promising to do this, but hadn't had the time until now, when we were mostly settled in our new house.

"Let's let Mickey in!" Minnie exclaimed mischievously the second after Mom was gone.

Mimi and I glared at her.

"Or not," she pouted. "Party poopers."

"We'll take Mick on a walk later today, with that collar and leash we found in the basement," Mimi consoled.

I blinked in surprise. "What basement?"

* * *

They grabbed some flashlights before leading me outside to a couple of cellar doors in the backyard. For being hidden only by a few scrubby bushes, it surprised me how I hadn't noticed it before now. My sisters heaved a door open, releasing a cloud of dust. Inside, a gray staircase ominously beckoned into the darkness.

"We were afraid Mom wouldn't let us play here," Mimi explained quietly.

"So we weren't gonna show her 'til we showed you," Minnie finished.

I was impressed despite myself. "When did you find this?" I asked, wondering how long they had kept this a secret.

Minnie shrugged and said, "Just yesterday, and it's not even dangerous. It’s just really, really dusty and full of junky papers and boxes and other stuff.”

Not sure what to think, I decided to comply. We started down with our flashlights ablaze, but they did little to reveal anything beyond the thickening dust. We were really underground now. I started coughing.

There was a scuttling sound to my left, and I quickly turned my flashlight and saw a rat scurrying behind a strange metal box.

“I don’t know if you saw that,” I said out loud, “but there are rats down here.”

Apparently, they hadn’t heard me either, because Mimi suddenly shouted, “Look! Up on that shelf!”

As if it had been waiting for a spotlight, a pretty little china doll was standing there, surprisingly un-dusty.

“She’s gorgeous!” Mimi cooed, starting to reach for it.

The ghost. This time, the voice was so loud, I cringed.

Too late; Mimi was hugging the little doll.

Up until this point, the ghost only seemed to have one emotion: anger. Now, it was pleading, begging me to do something. It could have been my imagination, I could have just put it off as me being crazy, but it was so urgent, I didn’t feel I could risk it not being real.

“Uh, Mimi, maybe you should put that back,” I said evenly, trying to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal.

“Why!?” Mimi cried indignantly.

I sighed. I couldn’t think of anything. My mind was blank, so I said what I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. “Because of the ghost.”

It got their attention at least. “G-Ghost?” Minnie stammered.

“Don’t freak out,” I told her quickly. “It’s…it’s just a ghost of a little girl.”

Mimi looked at me strangely. “A little girl?”

“Yeah. She lived in this house many years ago,” I said, pulling stuff from the top of my head, “and that was her favorite doll. But she was extremely…protective over it, so when she died--”

“THERE YOU ARE!”

Another beam of light poured into the room with Mom’s voice. From the doorway, I could see her silhouette marching toward us.

“Mom! I can…” I started.

“I am VERY ashamed of you, Ken Timothy Daus!” she interrupted fiercely. “Taking the girls to your secret hideout and telling them scary ghost stories, indeed!”

Mimi started crying while Minnie said, “No, Mom, you got it backwa--”

“I thought you were more mature than that!”

Calmly, I sucked in my breath, “Mom…” I didn’t get any further than that, though. I had to cough again, harder this time, and I couldn’t stop for several seconds. Dang, it was dusty down there!

“Ken, are you okay?” Mimi whispered nervously.

“Yeah, ’m fine,” I managed to croak, still trying to catch my breath.

Mom, on the other hand, was either tired of standing in the basement, or she didn’t want to risk being talked out of punishing us. Grabbing our shirt collars, she yanked us toward the stairs.

But as we passed the metal box, one of the spasmodic flashlight beams hit the front of it, and the first thing I noticed were two letter X’s engraved above the lock.

I could almost hear the glass shattering again.