The Haunted Serpent Read online

  The office she’d delivered him to was nearly empty. Two chairs faced each other across a gray metal desk. A painting of frolicking puppies hung on the wall. The blinds were closed, and the light was so dim it took him a moment to register that the chair behind the desk was empty. Good. Maybe he could slip out before the counselor got back, and—

  “Sit,” commanded a voice. And with a loud clacking of high heels on linoleum, Dr. Darke appeared from behind him.

  He sat. As she circled the desk to sit in the doctor’s chair, he tried to keep his shock from showing on his face. He shot a surreptitious glance over his shoulder at where she’d been lurking, wondering what she’d been doing.

  There was nothing back there. No bookcase or water cooler or anything. She’d just been standing there, doing nothing at all, in order to take him by surprise. What a weirdo.

  “All right, boy. Speak.” She folded her arms, regarding him as if he were some sort of unpleasant lab specimen rather than a patient.

  “You’re the school psychologist?” He glanced at the diploma on the wall.

  “‘Necrological Science’?” he read incredulously. “That’s not even a thing! How does that qualify you to be a psychologist?”

  Dr. Darke opened her briefcase and took out a notepad and pen. “Subject—I mean student—displays belligerence,” she commented to herself as she wrote.

  “I’m not belligerent! I just—”

  “Hostility. Dishonesty,” she murmured as she continued jotting notes.

  “Stop writing that!”

  “Now, Mr. Meriwether. Why don’t you tell me why you’re so fascinated with death?”

  “I’m not the one with a degree in ‘necrological science.’”

  Dr. Darke leaned back in her chair and watched him, stone-faced. “Answer the question.”

  He chewed the inside of his cheek. What was she up to? She wasn’t the real school psychologist, he was sure of that. Had she snuck in somehow without the school authorities catching on? Or were the school authorities in on the plot, too?

  But what was the plot? Maybe Mrs. Welliphaunt wanted the doctor to find out why he’d been researching the living dead. If that was it, there was only one excuse he could think of that might throw her off.

  He cleared his throat. “The truth is, my parents are paranormal investigators. I just wanted to know more about what they do.”

  The doctor reached into her briefcase again and took out a manila folder labeled Meriwether, S.

  Spaulding licked his lips. There was something very unsettling about her having a whole file about him. He wondered what else was in that briefcase of hers.

  She flicked through a few pages and nodded. “Ah, yes. I see here your guardian is your great-aunt. Your parents gave you up, then?” She stared at him as she asked this, a faint smirk hovering on her lips.

  Spaulding clenched his hands so she wouldn’t see them shaking. He shrugged. “If you want to put it that way.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “And so you attempt to feel closer to them by reading about this nonsensical work of theirs. Yes. I see how that could be comforting to an abandoned child.”

  She continued to grill him, her questions growing more and more goading. It was as if she was trying to be so mean he’d give in and admit to something—he didn’t know what—just to make her stop. He tried to answer in the least suspicious, most boring ways possible. Maybe if he acted dull enough, she’d give up faster.

  Eventually, Dr. Darke cut him off in the middle of a long, detailed, and horribly uninteresting story about how he’d always wanted a puppy and his parents wouldn’t get him one.

  “Time’s up,” she announced with obvious relief. “Next week—same time, same place.”

  Spaulding shot to his feet. Whew. That wasn’t so bad. He could bluff his way through this once a week.

  “One more thing,” the doctor added.

  Uh-oh.

  “I have concluded that you are a danger to other students. I shall recommend to your teachers that you be moved to a desk across the room from the other students in all of your classes.” She swiveled her chair away and continued scribbling in her notepad, as if he had already left the room as far as she was concerned. But he was sure he saw a little smile on her face as she turned away.

  He gritted his teeth. Great. That would really help him fit in.

  Spaulding marched out of the room without another word and then continued right out of the building. He walked all the way home in a cold, drizzling rain.

  Spaulding was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling late that afternoon when the door to his room flew open. Without looking to see who it was, he pulled his pillow over his head and snapped, “That had better be the living dead, because I am not in the mood to talk to any human beings.”

  The mattress sank down beside him. “Dude, you’re making a molehill out of a, um . . . I don’t remember. Gopher hole or whatever.”

  “What?”

  There was a loud sigh, and the mattress sagged on the opposite side. “What Kenny’s trying to say is that it really isn’t that big of a deal.” Marietta didn’t sound particularly convinced.

  The mattress bounced like a trampoline as Lucy hopped aboard. “You never used to care what anybody thought of you,” she said, still bouncing. “Who cares what people think? Everybody at my school thinks I’m weird!”

  “Yeah, come on, dude!” Kenny shook his shoulder. Spaulding didn’t move the pillow off his face. “Lucy’s right. What happened to saying whatever you felt like, even if it sounded nuts? At least now we know you’re not crazy. Why’re you so upset?”

  “This is nothing like just saying something a little unusual when I felt like it,” Spaulding said from beneath the pillow. “Mrs. Welliphaunt sent me to talk to Dr. Darke, and Dr. Darke said she’s going to make the whole school think there’s something wrong with me.”

  Kenny’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, we know. Mrs. Welliphaunt went around to all your classes and made everyone rearrange the desks so yours is up front where the teachers can keep an eye on you.”

  Spaulding gave a muffled sigh.

  “But I don’t think it’s gonna make anybody think you’re weird or anything!” Kenny added hastily. “They’ll probably think it’s cool that you’re so dangerous.”

  Spaulding peeked out from beneath the pillow. “Really?”

  Kenny coughed and suddenly became very interested in his shoelaces. “Um . . . yeah!”

  Spaulding clamped the pillow down again.

  “Hang on,” Marietta interrupted. “Dr. Darke is the school psychologist? Since when? I saw the shrink last year, after our parents split up, and it was some old guy. How’d she get the job?”

  “I wondered that too.” Spaulding sat up, glad to think about something less mortifying. “She didn’t seem very good at it. She has a degree in something to do with studying the dead, nothing like psychology or counseling. And it all started because Mrs. Welliphaunt happens to work at the library and caught me with books on the undead.”

  Marietta made a face. “She’s worked at the library for a while. I used to read these old history books they keep in the basement, but once she got there I wasn’t allowed to see them anymore.”

  Spaulding’s eyes narrowed. He reached for his notebook. “What kind of history books, exactly?”

  She coughed and looked away. “Just stuff about Thedgeroot. Geological junk, mining . . . things like that.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “She’s leaving out all the good stuff! See, this was before she started hanging with Katrina and got boring. She used to have this theory there was something weird about Thedgeroot. What was it, Marietta? Landlines?”

  “Ley lines,” Marietta said through gritted teeth. “They are called ley lines, and it was stupid, and shut up.”

  Spaulding was making notes at top speed. “There are ley lines around here?”

  Lucy piped up again. “The books said so. People have thought weird stuff happ
ened here since before there was even a town—”

  Marietta cut her off. “I don’t believe in that stuff anymore.”

  “What’s a ley line?” Kenny asked. “And why would Mrs. Welliphaunt care about Marietta looking at old books?”

  “Ley lines are places where there’s supposed to be energy kind of flowing around,” Spaulding said. “Some people believe they cause unexplained phenomena, like at the Bermuda Triangle. Or that you can harness the energy for your own use. So maybe Mrs. Welliphaunt didn’t want her reading about Thedgeroot’s ley lines because she’s using them for something secret?”

  “But I still don’t get why she’d send you to counseling,” Kenny said. “Why would she care about helping you?”

  “She’s not trying to help—that’s why she didn’t send him to a real counselor,” Marietta said. “I think when she saw he was reading about necromancy, she got worried about how much he might know. She figures if she acts like something’s wrong with him, no one will listen if he tries to tell anyone. And Dr. Darke will back her up.”

  “So that’s it.” Lucy grabbed Spaulding’s pillow and hugged it to her chest tightly. “Mrs. Welliphaunt wouldn’t be freaking out if she wasn’t behind it all. Her and Dr. Darke.”

  Marietta and Kenny agreed excitedly. Spaulding knew he should be excited, too. They were finally getting somewhere—they knew who the bad guys were; they had an inkling of what the master plan might be.

  But while the others talked it all over, he fell silent. He pulled his quilt up, wrapped it tightly around his shoulders, and tried to block out the nagging fear that they were in way, way over their heads.

  If he’d thought he was unpopular in school before, that was nothing compared to how things were now. Katrina was merciless every time he ran into her.

  Marietta looked so uncomfortable, Spaulding almost felt sorry for her. She kept trying to pretend she didn’t hear any of it, and he had the feeling she wanted to disappear almost as much as he did. Kenny would have stood up for him, but he was home sick the rest of the week. That left Spaulding entirely on his own.

  After a couple of days of this, he was feeling edgy. So when a voice suddenly hissed close behind him in the hall between classes, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Psst! Spaulding!”

  Marietta peered at him around the door of a classroom. She checked again to be sure no one else was in the hallway and then waved him over.

  He raised his eyebrows. Talk about weird—Marietta wouldn’t talk to him in public even before all this. Why would she be trying to get his attention now?

  “Would you hurry up?” she hissed. “We don’t have much time.”

  He followed her into the empty classroom. “Yeah?”

  She shut the door behind them and leaned against it. “I’ve been thinking about how this all started when you saw the revenant at Blackhope Pond. That pond isn’t natural—they made it back in the mining days.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “So? The undead don’t seem interested in local history.”

  “Ugh! You’re being stupid on purpose because you hate it when someone else figures something out before you. You get what I’m saying—the pond is connected somehow. Maybe it’s the chemicals in the water or something.”

  He smirked. “You’re saying something in the water is waking the dead?”

  She gave him a punch to the arm. “Shut up, you don’t know. I’m merely examining all the possibilities, or whatever dumb thing you’d say. Anyway, I remembered this map I found in one of the books . . .”

  She dug a paper out of her pocket and held it out.

  He unfolded it. It was a faded photocopy of a poor reproduction of an old map, so it wasn’t very clear. Still, he could make out the main landmarks. Overlaying it all was a spiderweb of faint, dotted lines.

  “What are these other lines all over the place?”

  “Theoretically, those are the ley lines. See where they all intersect?”

  He nodded slowly. “Blackhope Pond.”

  “Yep. So I’m thinking—”

  “Marietta?” A high-pitched voice spoke suddenly from the other side of the door.

  “Oh, crap.” Marietta looked around frantically for somewhere to hide, but it was too late.

  The door swung open.

  “There you are,” Katrina said, bustling in. “I thought I heard you in here, and I—oh my God.” Her eyes widened as she looked from Marietta to Spaulding and back again. A wicked smile spread slowly across her glossy lips. “What’s going on in here, M? Why are you alone with Psycho Spaulding?”

  Spaulding folded his arms and tried to look casual, as if he couldn’t be bothered to say anything. He glanced at Marietta from the corner of his eye.

  The aloof mask she always wore when she was with Katrina slammed into place. She sidled a half-step away. “I wasn’t talking to him, he was talking at me. And wait till you hear what he told me.”

  He stared at her. Where was she going with this? Even she didn’t seem sure—her eyes were darting around the room as if she were looking for inspiration.

  Katrina didn’t seem to buy it either. “Oh, please. What could this freak show have to say that would be worth being alooone with him for? I think there’s something you’re not telling me. You live near him—have you been hanging out with him?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

  “Ew!” Marietta gagged—a bit too believably, Spaulding thought with annoyance. “Get real, Katrina. I don’t hang around with him. My little sister does.”

  “Oh, sure,” Katrina said, still smirking. “That’s why you’re alone with him now.”

  “Would you please listen to me?” Marietta half-wailed. “I heard him telling her the most hilarious thing. Guess why he doesn’t live with his parents?”

  “Hey!” Spaulding gasped. “Shut up, Marietta!”

  Marietta pretended she hadn’t heard him. “You know that idiotic ghost-hunting show?”

  “Not Peering into the Darkness? I can’t stand that show.”

  “Both of you, just shut up!” Okay, not his wittiest retort ever. But it was all he could think to say. It was useless anyway—they didn’t even glance at him. The whole power-of- invisibility thing was not nearly as great as he’d thought it would be.

  “That’s his mom and dad.” Marietta was carefully not looking at him. Which was a relief, because there was a suspicious stinging behind his eyes, and he was afraid it might show.

  Katrina gasped in delight. “Oh my God! No wonder he’s such a weirdo.”

  “Wait, there’s more—they actually sent him away because they thought it was too dangerous for him to be around when they were ghost hunting!”

  “No way!” Katrina shrieked. “You mean, like, they believe in ghosts? It’s not just to be on TV?” She dissolved in laughter, doubled over and clutching her sides.

  Marietta laughed too, shrill and loud. Spaulding finally shook off his shock enough to move and shoved past them. He caught a glimpse of Marietta’s face just before the door slammed behind him. Her cheeks were fever-red and her eyes were shining, but she didn’t look happy. She looked sick.

  In the boys’ bathroom, he locked himself in a stall. How had he been so stupid? How had he let himself think that, despite how Marietta treated him at school, underneath it she was really his friend?

  He took out his notebook and flipped through it until he found the page he wanted. It took a while with his hands shaking so hard. He stared at the page for a second.

  Then he tore it out and ripped it into shreds.

  Spaulding didn’t get out of bed in time to catch the bus the next day. Aunt Gwen would never know the difference. Anyway, she’d write a note to excuse him if he asked. Whatever Katrina was going to say about his family at school, he didn’t need to be there for it.

  And Marietta—she’d be right there adding details, telling everyone every stupid thing he’d ever said. She’d talk about him investigating Mr. Radzinsky’s house because he thought it was haunted�
��and she’d conveniently forget to mention that he was right. She’d tell everyone he thought the grave robberies were the rise of the living dead, skipping the part about having seen the living dead herself.

  Spaulding scooted farther under his blankets until he was in perfect darkness at the foot of his bed. There was a hiss as he squeezed his toes down into the space between the end of the mattress and the tucked-in sheet.

  He let out a strangled scream. “Darn it, David Boa! Get out of there!”

  The snake’s head popped up. His golden eyes gleamed faintly in the gloom under the blankets. He slid forward, nudged his head under Spaulding’s chin, and curled himself into a snug, contented coil that took up half the bed.

  Great. He’d been asleep with a man-eating snake in his bed.

  But the more Spaulding thought about it, David didn’t act like a snake who would eat anyone. No wonder Mr. R. had let his guard down. In fact . . .

  Spaulding threw back the blankets and sat up, frowning. Something had been bothering him about the conversation he’d had with Mr. Radzinsky the other night—something to do with David Boa and Mr. R.’s death. Spaulding had almost forgotten about it after everything else that had happened, but he knew part of that conversation didn’t add up.

  He snatched his notebook from the nightstand and yanked the cap of his pen off with his teeth. He had to get his thoughts organized.

  He chewed the pen cap, shifting it from one corner of his mouth to the other. No matter how he looked at it, there wasn’t any explanation for how anyone could have known that David ate his owner. Besides, it was awfully hard to believe it of the snake once you got to know him. He adored Mr. Radzinsky.

  On the Facts side, Spaulding added,

  Could it have been a heart attack? That would explain how he’d died so suddenly just sitting at his desk. He pictured it: Mr. R. slumped at his desk, lifeless. Days pass. No one notices he’s missing, since no one ever saw him anyway. A growing smell drifts through the neighborhood until it can’t be ignored anymore. Someone calls the police. The police arrive and find the body.