The Inn Read Online Free

eyeglasses she wore, she might have been mistaken for a blond bombshell. She figured if she put her mind to it, she could get a much hotter guy than Neville. But she didn’t have time to put her mind to such things. She’d much rather concentrate on ghost hunting or gravestone rubbing.
    â€œWhere is this next place we’re heading for?” Neville asked, steering the car past the glittering skyline of Hartford. “It’s in Massachusetts?”
    â€œYes,” Priscilla replied. “Just keep north on this road. When you get to the Massachusetts Turnpike, you’ll go west.”
    â€œHow many miles?”
    â€œI don’t know. I can’t read American maps all that well. But I’ll keep navigating.”
    Neville grunted. “We’d better see a real ghost this time, covered in chains. If not, we’re heading out early to Florida.”
    â€œIt’s not my fault that you wouldn’t wake up last night to listen to the wailing of that poor dead spirit.” Priscilla shuddered. “It was absolutely spine-tingling.”
    â€œYou’re crazy. I heard the wind. That’s all it was.”
    Priscilla just snorted. Neville was such a skeptic. Really, what was she doing with him?
    â€œSo what kind of ghosts are at this place we’re headed to?” he asked her.
    She riffled through the brochures on her lap. She found the one that described their destination.
    â€œThe Blue Boy Inn,” she read out loud. “Dates back to the American Civil War.” She read a little further along. “Oh, wow, there could be a lot of ghosts here.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by a lot?”
    â€œIt says here that there have been several murders at the inn. And some mysterious disappearances.”
    Neville snorted. “Oh, that’s probably just hype.”
    â€œNo, it’s real,” Priscilla said, reading the history of the place. “The first murder was a girl named Sally Brown. Nearly a hundred years ago. They never found her body, just her blood splattered all over the walls.”
    â€œOh, goody, let’s stay in that room,” Neville quipped. He was being facetious. But Priscilla really hoped they got booked into Sally Brown’s old quarters.
    â€œThen there was this guy Andrew McGurk, whose body was found, but not his head.” She shivered. “And then—oh, this is terrible—a little baby, who disappeared. The only thing they ever found of her was her arm.”
    â€œI don’t like baby ghosts,” Neville grumbled. “I imagine they cry all the time.”
    â€œAnd there’s more,” Priscilla said, glancing down at the description of the Blue Boy. “Quite a bit more.” She looked over at Neville. “I think we’ve hit the jackpot with this place. I mean, if we’re looking for ghosts, this is the place that will have them.”
    â€œI can hardly wait,” Neville said, as he drove the car north on 91.

5
    T he arthritis in Zeke’s knees and hips burned like a thousand wasps stinging him all at once. Each step up the narrow stairs to the attic was agony. He couldn’t do this much longer.
    It was time to turn this job over to someone else.
    And who better than young Mr. Jack?
    Zeke lifted the old rusted iron key from the ring he carried on his belt, the one that had been jangling against his side all the way up the stairs. He slipped it into the keyhole on the door.
    How many times had he done this particular job? Impossible to count. It seemed all his life. But it wasn’t all his life. There had been a time before Zeke had come to this house, though he could hardly remember that life now, when his life had seemed full of promise. But that was a long, long time ago. Half a century Zeke had been tending to this place. And for almost half of that time, he’d been making this trip up to the attic, twice a day.
    He turned the key in the lock.
    Downstairs, Mr. Jack and