Free Jackaby by William Ritter Page A

were nestled in complicated brass fixtures. Sunlight shone through them to paint the walls in calico spots. The carpet comprised more stains than original patterns, and was singed in quite a few places. The room smelled oddly sweet and acrid—like bananas and burnt hair.
    I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling that I was not alone, though the sole inhabitant of the laboratory appeared to be a battered, armless mannequin, propped up on one side of the room. I craned my head to see around the door and found myself suddenly attacked, two massive rows of gleaming white teeth gaping over my face. I pulled back sharply, my shriek cut short as I bounced the back of my head off the door frame and then rapped my forehead on the door before retreating successfully into the hallway.
    I breathed heavily, staring at the gap, waiting for the creature to appear. Nothing happened. Still rubbing the back of my head, I peeked in again to find the seven-foot skeleton of an alligator, suspended on cables from the ceiling. I had let Mr. Jackaby’s talk of the supernatural infiltrate my imagination. The bony beast above me was no more dangerous than the ones in the natural history museum back home.
    I pulled the laboratory’s door shut with a squeak and turned to the spiral staircase. Willing myself to calm down and breathe evenly, I climbed the steps up to a poorly lit hallway on the second floor.
    Feeling even more like a prowler in the semidarkness, I tried the first door on my right, hoping for a little light from the windows. I found, instead, precarious towers of treasures, trash, and bric-a-brac. A mounted stag’s head had been propped up against an expensive, newfangled phonograph, an assortment of silk neckties draped over the bell. Chess sets toppled into tea sets, and tea sets into toolboxes. A bed was nearly hidden beneath the bulk of the collection. Some light, at least, petered past the towering clutter, so I left the door open as I crossed to the room opposite.
    This door opened to a bedroom that must have been the same size, but it felt easily twice as large because it was immaculately tidy. The bed had fresh linens and was topped with a plush comforter. Curtains with lace edging hung closed at the window, and as I crossed the floor to open them, I was startled by a sharp gasp. I turned to look for its source, my eyes straining to make out anything in the darkness. I threw back the curtains and whipped around. I was alone in the room, but the tingling in my spine was back, and rapidly creeping up my neck. My heart pounded.
    “Hello?” I squeaked. “Is someone there?”
    Across the hallway, one of the piles shifted. A silver saucer slid away from its service and to the floorboards with a clang. It rolled past the doorway and just out of view down the hall, where it revolved to a ringing stop.
    There had been no gasp, just the sound of shifting clutter. I stepped into the hallway to retrieve the dish. The bedroom door slammed shut at my heels, and I spun. The light beneath the door vanished, exactly as though the curtains beyond had been pulled quickly shut, and I was caught by an icy chill.
    In my rush to return to the well-lit office on ground level, I discovered that it is exceedingly difficult to bound both rapidly and gracefully down a spiral staircase while wearing a dress. As a result, my return to the first floor was executed in a thoroughly undignified somersault. My shoulder aching and my hair a tangled mess, I found my feet at last, and retreated to the safety of the office.
    I took the seat behind the desk and waited for the tingles to leave my spine and my pulse to return to normal. A dusty chalkboard stood against the wall. I tried to make out any words, but they had been smeared to obscurity, if they had ever been legible at all. Several notes had been circled and connected in a sort of web, but all that remained now were the ghosts of the lines.
    Ghosts.
    I glanced up at the ceiling. Directly above me sat the