A Properly Unhaunted Place by William Alexander

Author:William Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

15

THE CHEVALIER FARMHOUSE WAS LARGE and painted grayish green. Rosa climbed onto the front porch. She whispered a courteous hello to whatever may or may not lurk underneath it. First impressions were always important to household spirits.

Nothing rustled under her feet. Rosa wondered if this household had any spirits. Maybe they kept low and silent, because this was Ingot. Maybe they had been driven out. Maybe they had never been here at all. Maybe this house, and this farm, and this whole town had always stood empty of all but the living.

She knocked. A blonde woman opened the door and stood in the doorway. The woman held a coffee mug shaped like a knight’s helmet.

“Good morning. My name’s Rosa. Is Jasper home?”

“Hello there,” the woman said. “I’m Mrs. Chevalier. Jasper’s mom.”

“Oh,” said Rosa. “But you’re white.”

“True,” said Mrs. Chevalier.

“Well noticed!” Jasper’s dad called out from somewhere inside the house. “She’s observant, that one.”

“Good morrow to you, Sir Morien,” Rosa called after him.

“And to you, Lady Librarian,” he answered back.

“Jasper does look a little more like his father,” Mrs. Chevalier said smoothly. “And I think he might be back in the stables. You can look for him there. But try not to shout, or do anything sudden and loud.”

“Thanks!” Rosa said, and hurried off the porch. She didn’t think she had made the best impression on the Chevalier household.

The stable doors were open. The inside was dimly lit and full of thick, musty smells. Horses shuffled and stamped in their stalls. Rosa didn’t know much about horses, or how to listen to horse behaviors. She moved cautiously. These beasts were very much bigger than she was, and she didn’t speak their language or understand their rules. A chalk circle would be poor defense against a charging, kicking horse.

Jasper stood in the entrance to one stall. The beige horse beside him suddenly stuck its head in the air and bared its teeth. Jasper looked around. He spotted Rosa, and waved. Then he offered the horse an apple. It reached out carefully with its face, took the apple, and left behind a whole handful of drool in Jasper’s open palm. He wiped the drool on the leg of his pants.

“This is Agrippa,” Jasper said. “He’s been grazing on clover lately. Makes him spit more.”

“Hi Agrippa,” Rosa said.

The horse looked her over with one large, pale eyeball. Its—his—iris ran sideways, like a tipped-over cat’s eye. Rosa found that deeply unsettling. Then Agrippa exhaled a burst of warm air at her face. She flinched.

“That means hi,” Jasper explained. “You don’t need to worry about Agrippa. He’s old, wise, cold-blooded, and doesn’t lash out or spook easily.”

“Okay,” Rosa said. “I thought horses were mammals, though.”

“Cold-blooded temperament, not biology. He isn’t reptilian.”

“Okay,” Rosa said again. She still regarded the horse as though he might be some sort of dinosaur. “Do your parents spook easily? They’re both pretty relaxed after yesterday. Not braced for a whole stampede of haunted trees.”

“Yeah,” Jasper said. “I noticed that, too. So I dropped some pennies in their shoes and talked my mom into wearing copper jewelry.

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