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Organization has arranged with the Museum down the
block for you to attend a special children’s Hallowe’en
program.”
    Within a few minutes, the
fifth graders, all 26 of them, were marching two by two to the
Alderney Museum. The entrance had a large banner: “Hallowe’en
exhibit: Ghosts, Goblins, and Haunts.” A museum instructor led them
to a darkened maze set up in the galleries, with phosphorescent
stepping stones for the children to follow. There were black
“spider web” curtains they had to lift to go between the
galleries.
    The first gallery had
enlarged models of insects displayed on the walls: praying
mantises, cicadas, wasps, and dragonflies. There was also a
remote-controlled spider. The instructor let the children take
turns using the control stick to make it crawl across the
floor.
    The next gallery had a mock jail set up in a
corner, and life-size “stocks” to punish early settlers who had a
run-in with the authorities. “You could be put in the stocks for
not attending church on Sunday,” said the instructor. “And when
ships came in, the jail would fill up, because sailors would often
be jailed for public drunkenness.”
    While several classmates vied for the chance
to be put in the “stocks”, or locked in the “jail”, Ned and Marjory
peered around the door to the next gallery. Paper skeletons hung on
the walls beside charts naming all their bones. A large glass case
was in the centre of the room. Marjory hung over the glass. “Ned!
Look!” Ned hurried over. Staring back at them from under the glass
were the black empty eye-sockets of a human skull!
    “ We don’t know whose skull
is in this case.” The Museum instructor moved to the display case.
“It was dug up recently by a construction crew. The experts who
looked at it say it is a man’s skull and that it must be very old,
because it was under layers and layers of soil.”
    The fifth graders crowded
around. “Was he murdered? Who killed him?” someone
asked.
    Miss Primrose said, “How do you know he was
murdered? Maybe he died of disease.”
    “ No, Ma’am,” said the
instructor. He pulled on a pair of white gloves, unlocked the case,
and carefully turned the skull so the class could see the back of
the head. The back of the skull had been split and there was a
hatchet head still embedded in the bone. “We think he was one of
the early settlers. During the Seven Years War, there were many
skirmishes between the English, and the French and their Indian
allies. Many Englishmen and many natives were killed, right here in
Dartmouth.
    “ The skull was found right
near here, at the bottom of the hill, near the shore. So he was
probably an early settler or a soldier in the Halifax area. But the
strange thing is we didn’t find any of his other bones or anything
else, like a belt or uniform buttons that we could have identified
him with.”
    Ned and Marjory stood back from the crowd.
They exchanged slightly startled and meaningful looks, but didn’t
say a word.
    Later, on the way back to
school, Ned was excited. “It must be Henry’s skull!”
    Marjory agreed. “No bones were found with
him because they weren’t there!”
    As school let out, many of the kids were
calling back and forth about Hallowe’en:
    “ What are you going to be,
tonight?”
    “ I’m going to be a
witch!”
    “ A zombie!”
    A bunch of boys were calling out to each
other. “I’ll meet you for trick or treating!”
    “ You’re scared! Bet you
won’t show up!”
    “ I’ll be at the Old
Cemetery, but I won’t see you! You’ll be home hiding under your
bed!”
    “ Dare you to walk through
the whole grounds!”
    “ Double-dare!”
    Marjory asked Ned, “Are you going to the
graveyard to scare those guys?”
    “ I’m going to wear an
all-black outfit,” Ned said, “and glue a paper skeleton on it, but
I’ll take off the skull! I’ll be the skeleton without a head! That
ought to shock them.”
    “ I’ll come with you. I’ll
be a ghost