Firestar by Anne Forbes

at the sight of the mountain. He pressed his lips together in sheer frustration as his eyes scanned its steep slopes. There was nothing for it, he reckoned. He was just going to have to wait until Powerprobe locked onto Morven again before he made his next move — aliens or no aliens! For the truth was, he thought disappointedly, that neither he nor any of the geologists and climbers, had discovered anything . He just couldn’t believe it. They had been over the mountain again and again with the proverbial fine toothcomb and in all the time they’dbeen there they hadn’t found a thing that was suspicious . The Geiger counter readings were normal, the rocks were normal, the mountain itself was normal; in short, there was absolutely nothing to account for Powerprobe’s massive reaction.
    The only thing that wasn’t normal, as far as he was concerned, was the castle itself for although things had initially gone quite smoothly there had been several strange incidents of late that had made him wonder if the building
was
, actually, haunted. He hadn’t believed Lord Robertson when he’d hinted at it but, he reflected, the castle was certainly old enough to house a few ghosts.
    He entered the Great Hall and relaxed imperceptibly as his eyes swept over a relatively homely scene. By common consent, they’d made the hall both their living and working area. A long, mahogany table and a dozen chairs had been moved in from the cold vastness of the dining room and a collection of sofas and armchairs, drawn from various parts of the castle, now clustered round the huge fireplace that dominated the hall. A fire had been lit and the logs burned and crackled, sending a welcoming wave of heat through the huge room whose high, panelled walls were hung with a variety of shields, spears, ferocious looking claymores and the odd blunderbuss. As castles went, he thought, it was proving to be remarkably cosy.
    Seated round the huge table in the middle of the hall were the group of young men that Mrs Ferguson had objected to so vehemently. Although they looked a pretty motley crew they were, he knew, professional to the core and it was here,he thought as he shrugged off his heavy, padded jacket and slung it over an antique coat stand, that the trouble lay. They didn’t believe in ghosts and the unexpected advent of the supernatural had given them the jitters.
    “Hi, Chuck,” a murmur of greeting ran round a table that was piled high with a variety of dishes. Chuck took his place beside Shane and as they all started eating, the conversation inevitably turned to the strange events of the past few days.
    Sam started it. Young and impressionable, he added a lavish amount of ketchup to an enormous hamburger, replaced the sauce bottle and, fitting the top half of the bun in place, looked across the table at Jake. “I don’t care what you say, Jake,” he said, preparing to take a mouthful, “but
I
reckon the place is haunted.”
    Jake frowned. “You’re not serious, are you?”
    “How else do you account for it, then?”
    “You slipped on the stairs.”
    “I didn’t slip,” Sam protested vigorously. “I tell you, I was pushed!”
    “Nobody pushed you, Sammy. I saw you on the stairs and there was nobody anywhere near you!”
    “That’s what I mean,” Sam said irritably. “It must have been a ghost.
And
I felt cold all over. That’s what happens in haunted houses. I saw it on a TV programme. There’s always a cold feeling around.”
    “What do you expect?” scoffed Jake. “Castles are draughty places … all the rooms are huge for a start.”
    Chuck frowned slightly but made no comment for he, too, on occasion had felt sudden waves offreezing cold air sweep over him for no apparent reason.
    Shane’s tone of voice was indulgent. “Re-lax,” he grinned. “Y’all are going to be plenty warm enough tonight.”
    Chuck, who had asked for fires to be lit in all the bedrooms, made a mental note of the mockery in his voice and