Chapter 8
Lia
MY BODY BECAME MY OWN again. I stumbled at first as feeling returned to my legs. I spun around and dashed out the door. The hallway sat empty. I couldn’t even hear Mellie’s scream anymore.
Holding back a desire to cry, I fumbled to get the phone from my pocket. I texted Coop.
Hugh has Mellie!
He responded immediately.
Coming
I flew to the family wing. In front of my open bedroom door, I paused, gasping for breath. What if it had been a sleepwalking dream? Inside, the bed stood empty, Mellie’s little princess doll lying on the floor. It took all my strength not to blubber as I ran across the hall to the boys’ room and threw open the door.
“Wake up, you guys,” I said. “The ghost has Mellie.”
“What?” Joel asked, sitting up in his bed.
“No way.” Eli leapt out of his.
“We have to find her,” they said together.
“What’s all the racket?” Ezra stood in the hallway, blinking as he fumbled to put on his glasses.
“The ghost took Mellie,” Joel said, his shoes on.
“Not that again.” Ezra turned to go back into his room.
“She’s gone, Ez.” I grabbed at his arm but only caught the edge of the fabric. “She was with me in the library, and—” My voice cracked.
“What were you doing in the library in the middle of the night?” he asked with a frown.
I pointed down the hallway, littered with pieces of armor. Ezra turned an accusatory glare at the boys.
“Are you kidding me?” Eli had turned all righteous indignation. “Wedidn’t take her.”
Dad’s bedroom door burst open. “There’d better be a good reason why all my children are waking me in the middle of the night.”
“I can’t find Mellie.” I said a silent prayer that Ezra wouldn’t say anything about Sir Hugh.
While Dad stood momentarily speechless, Mom hustled around him, already giving orders to everyone about where to look. By the time we’d checked the rooms in the family wing, the three Montgomerys had arrived.
We all hurried off to search the west wing. Only when my sister couldn’t be found inside the castle did my parents freak. Mom started crying about Mellie wandering into the woods and getting eaten by a wild animal or dying of exposure. Mrs. Montgomery put a soothing arm around her, saying encouraging things.
Dad called Mr. Lee, the head of the volunteer fire department, for help while the rest of the family and I went to get our jackets. Something kept tickling my mind, like a memory just on the edge of my vision. I needed to do ... something. But what?
I made it back to the kitchen and found Coop waiting there.
“Pop’s gone to get flashlights and batteries,” he said. “What happened?”
I told him what Hugh had done. “Where would he have taken her though?” I asked.
“Whywould he have taken her?” Coop asked.
My dad pounded down the stairs then, and Mr. Montgomery burst into the kitchen, his arms loaded with flashlights. Coop helped spread them on the table while I opened the package of batteries.
The images of what had happened in the library replayed in my mind. The feeling kept pressing on me that I needed to do something else. But what else would I do?
