Horror at the Haunted House Read Online Free

House would work. Ellen tried to listen carefully but it was hard to concentrate when there were so many well-known people in the room. She recognized two sportscasters, several TV news people, the weatherman from Channel Five, and a woman who did a cooking show that Ellen’s mother sometimes watched.
    A part of her mind kept thinking about the Fairylustre bowl and the cold wind.
    Partway through the meeting, Ellen sensed that someone was watching her. When she glanced around, everyone in the room appeared to be looking straight at Mrs. Whittacker. Still, Ellen couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was staring at her.
    You’re getting jumpy, she told herself, and the haunted house hasn’t even started yet.
    When the general instructions were finished, each person was told which room his or her scene would be in. Corey’s scene was in the conservatory and Ellen’s was in the parlor. Maps of the mansion were distributed. Ellen couldn’t imagine living in a house so big that people needed maps to find their way around.
    “Someone from the Historical Society will be in each room, to assist you,” Mrs. Whittacker said. “Please find your assigned room and go there now.”
    “If you can find your own way,” Grandma told Ellen, “I’ll go with Corey to the conservatory.”
    Ellen studied the map. The parlor and the conservatory were both upstairs, across the hall from the main dining room where all the Wedgwood was displayed.
    “We’ll be in adjoining rooms,” she told Corey.
    “Good,” he said. “You can meet Mighty Mike, too. I wonder what he looks like.” Corey seemed to have forgotten all about the ghost of Lydia Clayton.
    As Ellen walked toward the parlor, she wondered who else would be in her scene. One of the newscasters? The weatherman? The cooking school woman? Ellen entered the parlor and stopped in dismay as she saw which Historical Society member had been assigned to the Joan of Arc scene. Agnes Munset.
    “Yours is the only scene with just one person,” said Agnes.“We all felt that extra actors would dilute the impact of watching young Joan burn at the stake.”
    Ellen tried to hide her disappointment. She wasn’t going to work with a celebrity, after all.
    “I’ll tie you to the stake each night,” said Agnes, “and I’ll start the machine that makes the fake fire. Then I’ll need to take care of other duties. I assume you know what you’re supposed to do.”
    Ellen said, “I’m supposed to stand still and look saintly.”
    Agnes nodded. “That’s exactly right,” she said. “Let’s try it once, to be sure everything works properly.”
    Scenery flats, painted to look like shop fronts and crowds of people, loomed across the back and both sides of the room, making it look like the village square of Rouen, France, in the year 1430. In the center of the scene, a pile of sticks and branches waited. If it had not been for the small platform in the middle of the pile—and the rough hewn 2 × 4 going straight up from the middle of the platform—the scene would have seemed like preparations for a homecoming bonfire or some other town celebration.
    On the back of the platform, not seen from the public viewing area, three steps led upward. Ellen climbed them and stood on the platform with her back to the stake. It rose several feet above her head.
    “Cross your arms and put your hands on your shoulders,” Agnes said.
    Ellen did.
    Agnes tied Ellen to the 2 × 4 with rope. She wound the rope around Ellen, just below her shoulders, and again at the waist. Using another length of rope, she bound Ellen’s ankles to the stake.
    “It should be loose enough that you can wiggle out if you need to,” Agnes said. “Of course, you shouldn’t do that when there’s an audience.”
    Even with the rope fairly loose, it made her feel helpless to be lashed to the stake.
    Agnes flipped a switch and Ellen heard a crowd shouting. The angry voices filled the