Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke

Author:Cornelia Funke [FUNKE, CORNELIA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Horror & Ghost Stories, Juvenile Fiction / Legends, Myths, Fables - General, Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic
ISBN: 9780316125673
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2012-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

ELLA’S UNCLE

I ran all the way to Zelda’s house. I didn’t care whether I was expelled from school for playing truant a second time. I didn’t care about anything. Where was Ella?

As I stumbled into the living room, Zelda was sitting on her sofa, surrounded by toads, a letter in her hand. She had taken off her glasses, and her eyes were red from crying.

“What is it?” My mind pictured Ella run over by a truck or drowned in the millpond.

Zelda held the letter toward me. The handwriting looked strange and clumsy, as if someone who usually writes with the right hand had used the left.

At first I didn’t understand a word of what I was reading, but when the meaning slowly dawned on me, I had to sit down right where I was, on Zelda’s carpet. My knees just gave in (and I nearly squashed two toads).

Zelda Littlejohn: Bring the Hartgill boy to the Kilmington cemetery at nightfall or your granddaughter will be in hell by sunrise.

Underneath the words was a sketch of a coat of arms. It was smudged, as if a clumsy finger had touched the wet ink, but I still recognized it. I had last seen it on a dead horse’s blanket.

“But that’s… impossible!” I stammered. “He’s dead. I mean, for real this time. We saw it. Longspee killed him.”

Zelda noisily blew her nose.

“Sir William Longspee? Jon, why didn’t the two of you tell me about this? That’s Lord Stourton’s crest, but ghosts can’t write letters.”

Zelda looked at me accusingly, and she had every right.

So I told her everything. How Ella had gone into the cathedral with me on Friday night, how we’d called Longspee, and how he’d rescued us from Stourton and his servants. I left out only the parts about the dead chorister and the stolen heart. I just couldn’t get myself to call Longspee a murderer.

Zelda listened. She was dumbfounded. When I got to the end of my story, she looked as if she’d like to kill me just as much as Stourton did.

“How could you not tell me about this, Jon?” she hollered. “And what was Stonehenge about, then? We didn’t go there for Viking treasure, did we?”

I dropped my head. I couldn’t look her in the eye.

“That’s a different story,” I mumbled. “Really. It’s got nothing to do with Stourton.” I got back to my feet. “How could he kidnap Ella and write a letter, Zelda? He’s a ghost. He can’t even hold a pen.”

“Holy stinkwort, how would I know?” Zelda said. “The ghosts I know don’t hunt children or have demon hounds. They utter a few hollow groans and are gone as soon as you shout at them. What kind of mess did you get Ella into, Jon?”

She started sobbing into her soggy handkerchief again. I just stood there and stared at the letter still clutched in my hand.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. I spun around as if Stourton had just poked his bony finger into my back.

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