The Haunting of Heck House by Lesley Livingston Page A

This room’s mostly empty.”
    It was indeed. Furnishings in the room weresparse—a large oak desk stood at the far end of the room facing a marble fireplace, paired with a wingback leather swivel chair. Nearby stood a small round table, draped in a cloth and surrounded by simple wooden chairs. An elaborate crystal chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling, right above a wide open space that looked as though it should have been furnished, but wasn’t. One wall was occupied by tall French doors draped in long white curtains that stirred slightly in a breeze coming from … somewhere. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the other walls, but the bookshelves were empty. Not so much as a dime-store paperback rested on them.
    The girls stepped over the threshold into the room, eyes sweeping the corners as if there was definitely something—or someone—hiding there, in plain sight.
    â€œMaybe this was the room the piano came from,” Tweed suggested, waving at the empty expanse.
    Cheryl shrugged and took a step farther into the room. When nothing leaped out to attack her, she took another one. Her footsteps were muffled by the thickly woven area rug that resembled a giant chessboard, and only the creak of the floorboards beneath indicated her movement.
    â€œCool rug,” she murmured, balancing on one foot on a black space, her eyes crossing as she stared at the alternating black and white squares.
    â€œRug? What rug?” Simon the speaker’s voice camefrom the depths of Cheryl’s knapsack, loud and crackling and frantic. “Wait! Stop! Both of you. I know you told me to be quiet but you have to trust me on this one— don’t take another step!”
    The twins froze—not really because Simon had instructed them to do so, but more because he’d startled them half out of their wits. Still balancing precariously on one foot (she was afraid to put the other one back on the floor after such a dire warning), Cheryl shrugged out of one knapsack strap and reached around into the bag. She pulled the speaker out and frowned at it. The red Spirit Stone was pulsing like a warning alarm.
    â€œTurn me around so I can see the rug.”
    â€œUm, okay … Er, turn you which way now?” Cheryl fumbled a bit with the speaker.
    â€œPoint me at the floor,” Simon said in an exasperated tone. “My turban stone. Point the jewel in the direction I need to look.”
    Cheryl did as she was told, with a silent Tweed looking on in fascination. The red gleam of the Spirit Stone swept the rug beneath Cheryl’s feet like the beam from a crimson-bulbed searchlight. After a few moments, it stopped and seemed to narrow its focus on a spot on the far side of the room. “Aha!”
    â€œAha?” Tweed asked.
    â€œI knew it. It’s an old stage magician’s trick.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œThe pattern of the rug is designed to confusethe eye,” Simon said. “And camouflage the trap door beneath.”
    â€œHoly moly! Trap door?” Cheryl handed the speaker over to Tweed, who kept it trained on the corner of the room, and pulled out her trusty mini-golf putter—she’d had the thing for so long the rubber grip had shredded to pieces and fallen off, but she couldn’t bear to part with the hole-in-one guarantee—and tapped the rug in front of her.
    â€œCareful …” Tweed cautioned as Cheryl paced slowly forward. “Careful …”
    Beneath the rug, the floor seemed solid enough … until she got to the spot where Simon Omar’s crimson light shone brightest. Then there was a hollow-sounding THUNK . Cheryl dropped down onto her hands and knees and crawled slowly forward, sweeping the palms of her hands over the surface of the carpet as she went.
    And … there it was! A seam in the carpet, hidden by the pattern, just as Simon said it would be. She worked the ends of her fingernails under the