Spirits and Spells by Bruce Coville Read Free Book Online

he has.”
    â€œBe careful!”
    Derek snorted in disgust. “Come on—Travis did a good job on the thing, but it’s not going to hurt me.”
    â€œI know, but—”
    Jenny was cut short as Derek slipped on the slime and crashed to the floor.
    â€œDerek! Are you all right?”
    He shook his head. “Yeah, I guess so. But this stuff is really—”
    â€œDEREK!”
    Derek looked up and let out a bloodcurdling yell.
    The creature’s tentacles were slithering toward him.
    â€œGet out of there!” screamed Jenny.
    Derek pulled his legs underneath him and tried to stand. But his feet slipped in the slime, and he went down again.
    The tentacle was coming closer.
    â€œJenny, help me up!”
    But Jenny was screaming, because she had seen what Derek still could not. At the sound of his voice, the creature’s great eyes had begun to blink. Suddenly they seemed to focus on Derek.
    With a horrible sucking sound the thing pulled itself off the floor and lurched in Derek’s direction.

8
    TENTACLES
    Charity Jones was in her rocking chair again, rocking slowly back and forth. Tansy was sitting on the rug near where she supposed the ghost’s feet must be. She found herself wishing she could actually see the dead girl.
    â€œIt was a terrible thing, miss,” said Charity sadly. “It’s not easy to talk about, even now.”
    â€œWell, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” said Tansy. “I mean—”
    â€œNo. It’s good to be able to talk about it, if you don’t mind listening.”
    â€œI’d like to know what happened,” said Tansy truthfully.
    Charity sighed and Tansy could almost see her settling back into the chair to begin her story.
    â€œIt all started when the Gulbrandsens hired me as a serving girl. That was back in, oh, 1888.
    â€œIt didn’t take me long to figure out I had gotten myself into a strange house. Old Mr. Gulbrandsen was all wrapped up in magic and secret things. I never should have stayed, miss, and that’s a fact. It was the first wicked thing I did. If my mother had had any idea what was going on here—witches’ sabbaths, strange experiments, all sorts of things—she’d have wanted me to get out. But I hadn’t been in this country long, and I was happy to have any work at all.”
    â€œSo what happened?” asked Tansy.
    â€œWell, Mr. Gulbrandsen had a young friend, a Mr. Morley, who used to come and visit him. One of my jobs was to bring them brandy and cigars in the library.” Charity’s voice dropped to a confidential whisper. “They usually stopped talking when I came in. It made me wonder what they were discussing. So I started to listen outside the door. They were always talking about ‘dark forces’ and ‘forbidden secrets.’ Sometimes I would see pictures they had drawn on the floor—big shapes like stars, with things written at the corners. And they burned candles and incense.
    â€œI knew it was wrong, miss. But what could I do?
    â€œNow Mr. Morley, he had a lady friend. And if you think Mr. Gulbrandsen and Mr. Morley were strange, you should have seen her. She could have been the wife of the devil himself. Except she wouldn’t have agreed to that, because she was madly in love with Mr. Morley.
    â€œAnd now I have to make my worst confession. I fell in love with Mr. Morley, too.”
    â€œWhat was so bad about that?” asked Tansy, who always liked a touch of romance in her stories.
    â€œWhy, he was a magician—a heathen who worshipped dark powers. Not only that, he was promised to another. And we were of different worlds. He was a wealthy man. I was only a poor serving girl. I had no business being in love with him.
    â€œBut it wasn’t all my fault. He was the one who started it. Oh, he used to say the dearest things. I tried to put him off and keep him out of my mind. But after a