Read The Dark for Free Online Page B

this through the knocks?” Leah asks.
    “Why, yes, and more besides,” David asserts.
    “My word, such a clever ghost,” Leah says, her voice raised.
    “Clever. Ever. Never,” Katie whispers.
    “Quit that prattle,” Maggie whispers back, and shifts to get a better vantage of Mother. She is gripping Leah’s elbow. “Poppet, do you think the peddler wants us to avenge him? We’re not the avenging sort of family, are we?”
    Leah considers this. “No, we are not. And, no, I cannot believe he wants vengeance. As like he merely wants someone to attend his tune, someone to let him know he is of import. And at least he is not the Devil—that would be another matter entirely.”
    “No, no. Our Katie called him Mr. Split-Foot, but she was merely teasing, wasn’t she?”
    “I have no doubt of that,” Leah says.
    Maggie glances sideways at Katie.
    “No, no, our ghost is not the Horned Gentleman in disguise,” Mother continues. “We sorted that straightaways. But does it matter? The rumours are still flying thick as pigeons. The Reverend York has banned us from church, Leah. As if we’re heretics.”
    “Truly? And what did Father say of this banning?”
    “Nothing. Not a word. He just glared at the reverend, didn’t he? And in that way he has, you recall it? Laws, but it did stop the reverend up short, mind.”
    Leah smiles. “Now, that I can believe.” She looks about. “And where has Pa disappeared to this time?”
    “Oh, your pa has not a jot of interest in all this, does he? The raps sound out when he’s praying, but you’d think they were flies the way he ignores them. Anywise, he’s all intent on building a house, isn’t he?”
    “A house?”
    “Yes, poppet, so we can all be together.”
    “Why, just there,” David adds, and gestures north. “Close on.”
    “Together?”
    “Yes, together. You and Lizzie. Maria and her family. The girls. Gracious evers, it’ll be wondrous-fine, won’t it? At least if the ghost is gone?”
    “Wondrous, yes,” Leah agrees. “Just like a fairytale.”
    Katie whispers to Maggie. “Didn’t Leah say she’d rather cut her own throat with a rusty ole fish-knife than live in Hydesville?”
    “A butter-knife,” Maggie corrects. Then adds, “Stay-down, Kat,” as Mother pulls Leah into the hall.
    “Poppet, I don’t want the others to hear this, do I?” Mother says.
    “My Lord, what is it?”
    “How to say? How?”
    “Slowly?” Leah suggests.
    “It is just that the ghost. He
is
here and, yes, we all hear him, don’t we? But, ah, there’s more.”
    “I know there is, and you simply must tell me.”
    Katie shifts Miss Nettie, clanking the doll’s wooden limbs together. The sound seems a gunshot. Maggie holds her breath, but neither Leah nor Mother seem to have heard.
    “It is just that I … I suspect Margaret and Katherine, don’t I? Yes. I suspect your sisters.”
    “Suspect them? In what fashion?”
    “That the ghost has to do with them. And, oh, from the very beginning.”
    “Honestly, I do not understand.”
    Maggie’s world shrinks to a pin-dot. She takes Katie’s hand.
    “Poppet, the ghost, he favours them entirely, doesn’t he? It is …” Mother becomes resolute, as she does on inexplicable occasion. “Leah, it is they, your sisters, who are haunted.”
    “Haunted? Haunted as a house is haunted? My heavens! A moment … there.” Leah drums her fingers on her collar. “And why would this be?”
    “Their purity and innocence. Yes. That is it. It attracts him. Like a, a …”
    “A light?”
    “Yes, laws, but you’re clever, aren’t you?”
    “I shouldn’t say that exactly. By the by, Mother, where are the girls?”
    Mother doesn’t answer. More guests have arrived and she is hurrying off. Not that it matters, for Leah gives a secretive smile and looks straight up at Maggie and Katie, there on the second-floor landing.
    A short time later, Leah herds Maggie and Katie above-stairs and into David and Beth’s sun-bright