Page 9 of Haunted By the Highwayman
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t… pull another prank after the spider, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you rig something to appear to me in the bathroom mirror?” I ask.
Behind his mask, his eyes get wide with shock. His surprise is real, no doubt about it.
“No way,” he says. “One prank a day maximum is my rule. Why, what did you see?”
I point to the picture. “This man. The highwayman. I saw him in our bathroom mirror.”
Chapter 6
Rick looks doubtful. He puts the back of his hand to my forehead. “How do you feel? Hot, feverish?” he demands.
“I’m fine.”
“Arden, you’re talking about seeing a ghost. You don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I know.” I sound weak, unsure. “But I know what I saw.”
He pulls me into a hug, contrition radiating through his strong arms. “It’s my fault,” he says. “It’s those Halloween pranks. I’ve messed up your nervous system or something. Now you’re seeing things.” He sounds so guilty I want to laugh, but he’s crushing me right into his rock-hard chest, stealing my breath. It’s not an unpleasant sensation.
“You haven’t messed anything up,” I say, voice muffled.
He stands back and looks at me, hand on his heart. “I’ll never prank you again,” he says in a conscience-stricken voice.
“Well, good. But Ididsee the highwayman in the mirror.”
He cups my chin with one hand. I look up at him, and he looks down at me.
“You’re serious?” he says softly.
I nod. His eyes show acceptance. He believes me—trustsme.
Then a shadow flickers at the end of the gallery; I just catch it out of the corner of my eye. A figure stands there, looking at us. A masked figure with a long coat and a tricorne hat. I stop breathing. His eyes are ice blue. He locks eyes with me. A strange feeling fills my chest. A mix of heat and icy cold.
“Rick,” I whisper, clutching his hand until he winces. “He’s the man I saw in the mirror. The man from the painting.”
Rick doesn’t contradict me. He’s fallen under the spell too. In this hushed, dark gallery, it feels closer to the past than the present.Anythingfeels possible. A heavy hush has fallen over us. Wasn’t there more noise from the entrance hall earlier? Now I can’t hear a thing but my own blood rushing in my ears.
“It’s him,” I whisper. “I can just feel it.”
Rick looks down at me, thinking. He doesn’t call me crazy or accuse me of letting my imagination run away with me. He runs a hand over his hair with his usual mannerism, colliding with his horns which he’s forgotten about in his confusion. The highwayman beckons to us and disappears around the corner.
“He wants us to follow him,” I say. My heart is pounding but I’m not scared. The highwayman from the painting, long-dead, is walking this gallery. And he wants us to go with him. This goes against everything I know about science and just plain common sense. Yet I believe it.
“You think he’s a ghost?” Rick says. He looks pale under his tan, not unlike a ghost himself.
“I don’t know.”
I don’t know what to call it, but my body wants to follow him. Like in a dream, I start to walk. Without hesitation Rick comes with me, his hand still in mine. We follow the highwayman along a corridor, keeping his dark, distant shape in sight. It’s dimly lit here, away from the foyer. They’re obviously not expecting party guests to venture here. The highwayman doesn’t speak, justkeeps silently striding onward, his long coat swishing around his ankles. His heavy boots make no sound on the carpeted floor. Then he reaches a staircase. A velvet rope guards it, as though this part of the house isn’t open to the public at all. The highwayman steps right over the rope and starts to climb.
Rick swallows so hard I hear it in the darkness.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to go up there,” he says.
