eased her forward, up the marble steps.
Thunder cracked. Rain started suddenly, coming down in torrents. As Rosemary reached up to knock, the door creaked opened by itself.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” said Peter.
“Nope,” said Rosemary. Without thinking, she took his hand. Together, they stepped inside.
They entered a panelled lobby, hung with huge portraits and rusting swords. Dim gas lamps filled the space with flickering shadow. Heavy velvet drapes stirred in cold drafts. They edged forward, footsteps echoing. The door creaked closed behind them and shut with a click. Peter shivered. “What do we do now?”
Rosemary shrugged. “Get through the house, I guess. We look for a back door. I just hope nobody notices us.” They stepped forward.
Rosemary felt something tug at her hem and she whirled around. A suit of armour staggered forward and she ducked back with a scream. The armour toppled to the floor, smashing to pieces with a gigantic crash. The metal clatter echoed and re-echoed through the house for several minutes before finally dying down.
Peter bit his lip. Puck avoided her eyes. Rosemary stood surrounded by pieces of armour, the hem of her dress still snagged on the axe handle. She yanked it free. “I hate this dress,” she muttered.
“Think somebody noticed us?” said Peter.
“Shut up!”
The wind rose. It snuffled into small holes and openings and moaned down the hallways.
Peter and Rosemary drew closer together. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said.
“Yeah. Come on.”
They started forward. Then a trap door opened beneath their feet and they fell with a single scream.
Peter and Rosemary found themselves sliding down a chute. They smashed through a swinging door and then they were rolling across a carpeted hallway, landing in a tangled heap against a wall. Puck somersaulted out of the hatch and landed nimbly on his feet beside them.
Rosemary’s skirts had flown up and tangled around her head. She felt as if she were tied in a sack. She flailed her way free. “Right!” she said. “That’s it! I might have to do a haunted house, but I won’t do this stupid dress!” She tore at it, sending tiny black buttons flying. She yanked the skirt back up over her head.
“Rosemary, w-what are you doing?” Peter stuttered. White undergarments were emerging from the tangle of blue and green. “Calm down!”
“I’ll be ... calm,” she grunted, struggling inside the taffeta. “I’ll be ... calm ... as soon ... as I get ... this thing ... off!” Rosemary’s head burst out of the dress, and she flung it aside in triumph. Her Victorian updo was a frizzled wreck. “There,” she said. “Now I’m calm!”
She stood up and saw Peter staring at her bloomers and camisole, agog. “What?” she said. “I’m wearing lots!”
“Well, yeah, but all of that’s underw—” He faltered. “I mean, you’re —” Silence stretched. “You look fine.” He turned away. “What do we do now?”
“We look for stairs,” said Rosemary.
They were in a narrow, dim corridor. Around them, the jet buttons glittered like eyes.
“But this place could be full of ...” Peter waved his hands. “Anything! What do we do?”
“Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”
He frowned at her. “How do you know?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
“But —” Peter began, but Puck cut him off.
“What did I tell you about her instinct?” said Puck. “Sage Rosemary, where do you think we should go next?”
She looked up and down the corridor and pointed. They set off. The green carpeting was soft as moss; the only sound they could hear was the hiss of the gas lamps. The corridor stretched to a bend, offering no doors to rooms where danger could hide, but no place for them to hide, either, should danger strike. Turning the corner, they saw the corridor continue, with no doors, to another bend.
After ten minutes of creeping in silence, they had turned several corners, and the corridor still continued on.
“Maybe we’ve gone in circles,” said Peter.
“No,” said Rosemary. “I’ve been counting. Right turn, then left, then right, then left. If the hallway is straight, it can’t have turned back on itself.”
They crept forward. The gaslights hissed. The floorboards creaked.
Rosemary stopped as she passed another turn. “This could go on forever.”
“Maybe we should go back,” said Peter.
“Hello!” Puck bellowed. Peter jumped out of his skin.
“Puck!” Rosemary clutched her chest. “What are you doing?!”
But Puck was undaunted. “Hello!” he shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Whoever is here to challenge us, we await you!”
Peter pulled at his arm. “Are you sure about this?”
“Which would you rather face? The challenge, or this wretched wandering?”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t know anymore!”
Then the lights dimmed. A breeze plucked at their clothes and whistled in the hollow spaces.
“Wandering!” said Peter. “Definitely going to go for the wandering!”
Rosemary grabbed his hand. “Come on!” They marched along the corridor. Turning the next corner, they stopped dead.
A spectre floated before them.
It was a translucent skeleton, clothed in wretched rags and dangling chains. It let out a moan that echoed through the corridor. It turned and floated towards them.
“Let’s get out of here!” Peter gasped.
Rosemary tightened her grip on his hand. “No!”
He tried to pull free. “Rosemary, please, for the love of —”
She grabbed his arm with her other hand. “No, Peter. Think about it! Where would we run to?”
Puck placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Courage, Peter.”
The spectre moaned as it gathered speed along the long hallway. Peter closed his eyes. Rosemary pulled him closer. The moan rose to a wail as the creature approached. Cold washed over them.
Then it was gone. The lights brightened. The corridor was silent. They were alone in the hallway.
“How did you know?” Peter croaked.
Rosemary still held tight to his arm and her voice shook, but she said, “I read these two books with haunted houses in them. I finished one, and I think this is it. Thank God it wasn’t the other one.” She shivered. “I’m pretty sure I know this story.”
“Pretty sure?” Peter echoed.
“It was, like, four years ago!” She let go and stepped along the corridor to the next bend. “Hey!” she said, brightening. “Stairs!”
Peter and Puck stepped forward and looked. This corridor ended in a flight of stairs, leading up.
Rosemary narrowed her eyes. “Let’s get to the bottom of this!”
“Or the top, as it were,” Puck muttered. They strode up the stairs.
They came out into a ballroom. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling and mirrors lined the walls. The gaslight bounced and bounced again, and Peter and Rosemary had to stand still and blink. Puck seemed to have the eyes