The Haunting of Maddy Clare Read Online Free

but we managedto entertain ourselves. Skating on the pond, climbing the roof of the old folly, eating everything in sight—those kinds of things, you know. Well, one night something woke me—I was never sure what, but I had been dreaming about footsteps, stealthy shuffling ones, and I thought, as I was lying there, maybe I had really heard them. I thought perhaps Freddy was awake. So I got up and went down the hall, to Freddy’s room.”
    He glanced at me again, perhaps to see if I was still listening. As if I could do anything but hang on every word of this story.
    “Freddy’s door was ajar,” he continued, turning back to the road again. “I peeked in, thinking maybe he was asleep after all. And he was. He was asleep in his bed, and there was something standing at his bedside, staring down at him.”
    A small gasp escaped me. “No.”
    “Oh, yes. It was a figure—a person, I thought, but indistinct. It was standing there, motionless, and the head was tilted down. It was certainly facing him, and staring down at him.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I stood there for a long time, frozen in my tracks. I couldn’t breathe, I tell you—I was so startled. The thing wasn’t moving; it didn’t seem like it had seen me, or perhaps it didn’t care. All it cared about was Freddy. It just stared at him, its hands at its sides. I could see its legs, so I thought it was male, unless it was a female wearing trousers.
    “I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run more than anything, but what if the thing meant Freddy harm? Should I wake Freddy, tell him to run? Chase it away myself somehow? I was paralyzed with sheer cowardice. As I stood there—it must have been only seconds, though it didn’t feel like it—the thing turned away and disappeared. It never looked at me, and I never saw itsface. It just turned and was gone. I made my legs move and nearly stumbled back to my room.
    “I lay awake the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling, sweating, jumping at every sound. It was years and years until dawn. By then I was half-convinced that the figure would come back, that I’d left Freddy to a horrible fate and we’d find him dead in his bed. But he came down to breakfast, well rested and right as rain.”
    “Did you tell him of your experience?”
    “I couldn’t. I was too ashamed. I was sure they’d think me delusional. No one seemed in the least perturbed. It started snowing that day, an awful wet-rain snow, and we had to stay inside. We banged around the house, and in one of the corridors I’d never seen before, I found a painting. It was a portrait of a young man, with floppy blond hair like Freddy’s and a serious look on his face. Freddy said it was his older brother, who had died when he fell from the loft in the barn at the age of seventeen, three years before.
    “Something about it reminded me of the figure, though I couldn’t say what. And suddenly, I realized two things. First, I had seen Freddy’s dead brother, watching over Freddy while he slept. And second, I wanted to know more. Where the ghost had come from, where it had gone, why it was here. What it could tell me. I was still terrified, but I was fascinated, too.
    “That was the start of it. Not right away, of course. I finished school, though I snuck all the books I could find about ghosts. Then I went to France.” He shrugged one eloquent shoulder as the corner of his mouth turned down. “I guess anyone would think I’d had enough of death over there. But what I do is different. It’s difficult to explain. Besides, I didn’t know what to do with myself after I came home. This is the only thing I want to do.” He glanced at me again. “Well, now you know all about me, I suppose.”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “And what do you think?”
    I bit my lip.
    He turned back to the road, but he was smiling now. “Come, now, you can say it.”
    “It’s just—” I shifted in my seat. “I can’t help but wonder—you said you’d never seen