Read Out of the Mist for Free Online Page B

in a white sheet.”
    The problem of how to stay
out late was solved by each of them telling their parents that they
were going to a Hallowe’en party at the other’s house. Neither took
bags to hold candy with them.
    “ It’s tricks for me
tonight, not treats,” said Ned, when they met up later.
    Marjory nodded. Marjory was carrying a
sheet, and when she put it over her head, she could see out of the
holes she had cut for the eyes. The sheet draped down over her, so
that nothing showed except her shoes.
    Ned’s white paper skeleton contrasted quite
well against his black outfit, and he wore a black ski-mask over
his head so that it would not be seen in the dark.
    In the Old Cemetery, they
hid behind Henry Ainsworth’s stone to wait for the boys from
school. At first, it was scarcely dark enough, but as the night
closed in Ned and Marjory peered around the stone every few minutes
to see if the boys were coming. They could see the other graves,
lit by faint moonlight—the little children with lambs, the carved
angel with outstretched wings. It was too dark to read the
inscription on Henry’s grave, but they could recall it without
having to read it.
    “ Where my head lies, none
can guess!” said Marjory. “But we know, don’t we?”
    “ Right there in the
Museum! They say that dead men who lose their bones constantly seek
to find them,” said Ned. “I wonder if Henry’s
skeleton….”
    “ Hush,” shushed Marjory.
She had heard something.
    “ Are the guys coming?”
whispered Ned.
    But the creaking noise did
not come from the cemetery entrance. It came from the other side of
Henry’s stone. Marjory peered around. Something funny was going on.
The earth of the plot was rippling, the way it does when a mole is
digging under a lawn. Marjory grasped Ned’s arm.
    “ What is it?” hissed
Ned.
    “ Look!”
    Not only was the grass heaving, but a crack
opened between the grass and Henry’s tombstone. Ned and Marjory
froze. Marjory’s heart beat fast as a long bony finger reached up
out of the crack, followed by the whole hand, and then an arm-bone.
As the children held their breaths, a whole skeleton clambered out
of the narrow crevice. There was a rib cage, hip bones, long thigh
bones and lower legs, and feet with big bony toes. But as the
skeleton stood up, they saw above the rib cage and spine—nothing!
No head! The spine ended at the neck vertebrae.
    Ned and Marjory huddled together behind
Henry’s stone, too terrified to run. They hoped the skeleton didn’t
see them. Did you die if a skeleton touched you?
    Henry’s skeleton took a few steps, but his
stance appeared wobbly. Ned and Marjory saw spaces between the
bones. There was no flesh and no tendons to hold the bones
together. Only a pale phosphorescent light, like an electric gleam
or a magnetic pulse, joined the bones.
    “ He’s going to seek his
head!” gasped Ned. “I told you dead men look for their
bones!”
    As they watched, Henry’s
skeleton set off from his grave along a cemetery path. Where the
path turned, however, Henry went straight ahead into a ditch and
fell down in a clatter.
    “ He can’t see!” exclaimed
Marjory. “His eyes are in the skull! He’s blind!” Impulsively, she
stood up and ran around the tombstone to follow the
skeleton.
    “ Wait! Marjory!” Ned
followed her. Marjory ran along the path to where the bones were
piled in a ditch. They had come apart, but under Marjory’s
astonished gaze, they joined together again, like drops of mercury,
pulled by some secret force. Within half a minute, Henry’s skeleton
stood up and tried to find his way out of the ditch.
    “ Oh, the poor thing!”
cried Marjory. She reached out her hand and took the bony fingers
in her grasp. She winced at the coldness of the bone, but she
couldn’t leave Henry’s blind skeleton to stumble into ditches.
“Come on, this way!” She guided him back to the path. “Ned, come
on! We have to help him find his skull!”
    Ned only hesitated