Free Tragic Magic by Laura Childs Page B

left two more bedrooms.
    “What about a Werewolf’s Lair?” suggested Ava. “We could add a bunch of fake trees, lay green Astroturf on the floor, and arrange some marble tombstones. Have a werewolf hopping around, snarling and jumping at people.”
    “Excellent,” said Carmela. “And for the last bedroom?”
    Ava pursed her lips and thought for a minute. “You say there’s lots of junk in the basement?”
    Carmela nodded. “Tons of stuff.”
    “Then let’s hold off on theming this last room until we see what we have to work with.”
    “Sure,” said Carmela. “Plus we have to figure out the third floor, too.” She consulted her notes. “The working title so far is Ballroom of the Red Death.”
    “It’s the ballroom of death, all right,” said Ava. She shifted from one foot to the other.

    “I take it you’d rather not venture up there?”
    Ava shrugged. “It’s where Melody was killed. It’s where we saw that blinding flash of light.”
    “If we’re going to decorate Medusa Manor, we have to go up there sooner or later,” said Carmela, though she, too, was a little hesitant.
    “Okay,” said Ava, making a sweeping gesture toward the staircase. “But you have the honor of proceeding first.”
    The ballroom was enormous, pretty much covering the entire third floor. Luckily, it was lit, though very dimly, like the rest of the mansion.
    “Cold up here,” said Ava, buttoning her denim jacket. “A cold spot.”
    Carmela rolled her eyes at her friend. “This place isn’t really haunted, you know. There’s no real cold spot.” Then her eyes slid over toward the small tower room at the front of the house. “It’s cold because . . . because the window’s broken out.” Her voice sounded small and hollow in the cavernous space.
    Ava nodded. “Have to get that fixed.” She glanced around. “I can still smell . . . what?”
    “Sulfur?” said Carmela. “Weird.”
    They both glanced toward the tower room again, but made no motion to go that way. Seconds ticked by, then Ava said, “Let’s go downstairs and paw through that junk in the basement.”
    Carmela couldn’t leave fast enough.
     
    “ Cher , this is a treasure trove,” chortled Ava. She seemed to have gotten past her nervousness of the ballroom and was digging through the mound of basement furniture. “Look, here are candlesticks to arrange at either end of the vampire coffin.” She pulled out an enormous brass candlestick, then proceeded to unearth a second one from under a rolled-up Oriental rug. “A pair. Must have come from a church or something.”

    “That carpet will work in the Exorcist bedroom,” said Carmela, stooping down and flipping part of it open. “Oh yeah.”
    “And, look, here are some smaller candelabras, an old clock, and a pair of weird metal urns.”
    “Funeral urns?” asked Carmela.
    Ava grabbed one and held it up. Gunmetal gray on its way to a corrosive green, the urn was incised with floral designs. Elaborate handles stuck out from either side. “Heavy,” grunted Ava.
    “Looks enough like a funeral urn for our purposes,” said Carmela.
    Ava tipped it upside down, and a stream of dust trickled out. “Oops,” she giggled. “There goes somebody.”
    “Ah,” said Carmela, “they were probably used as flowerpots.”
    “Look at all this crap,” marveled Ava, pointing at the mound they’d barely begun to explore. “There’s a library table over there, a spinning wheel, and three or four bookcases.”
    “We could drape some of those fake cobwebs around the spinning wheel,” suggested Carmela. “Make it look like someone spun them.”
    “Then we’re gonna need big furry spiders.”
    “And the library table?” Carmela stood with her hands on her hips, thinking. “Probably put it in the Haunted Library.”
    “I haven’t even been in there yet,” said Ava, edging her way farther into the stacks of junk. “You think that’s where these bookshelves were slated to go?”
    “I’d imagine