Goblins and Ghosties by Maggie Pearson Page B

thick, dark night, till they came to her father’s house.
    She slipped down from the horse and knocked at the door and her father opened it. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘And how did you get here?’
    â€˜Why,’ she said, ‘didn’t you send…?’ Then she stopped. The horse and her lover were both gone.
    Of course, he’d be in the stable, rubbing down the horse after that ride they’d had.
    She ran to the stable and there was the horse, sweating and shivering, the saddle still on his back.
    She turned to her father, who had followed her. ‘Where is he?’ she said.
    Her father knew at once who she meant. Sadly, he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘He took sick right after you left. We did everything we could and the doctor said there was every chance he’d pull through. But then, this evening…’

    â€˜Where is he?’ she said again.
    â€˜It’s this way.’
    He led her through the house to the room where the young man lay, in the bed he’d never left for three weeks past. She saw him lying there, stone dead, and round his head was that handkerchief of hers she’d tied with her own two hands not an hour before.

The Ghost in the Library
    China
    Why the maidservant’s ghost chose to haunt the library was something that would never be known. She hadn’t left a note. How could she? She couldn’t write. She couldn’t read either.
    Maybe that was it. Maybe haunting the library was the best revenge she could think of for having to dust all those stupid books, day after dreary day.
    Now she haunted the library, night after night, with terrible moans and howls and in a shape so fearsome, so it was said, that old man Chu gave orders that nobody was to use the library after dark.
    â€˜But I’m a student, uncle,’ said Chang. ‘I do all my best thinking at night. How am I supposed to know at sundown what books I’m going need at two o’clock in the morning?’
    â€˜You can take as many books as you like up to your room,’ the old man said. ‘The library will be locked at sunset.’
    â€˜That’s stupid! Even if I believed in ghosts, what harm can a ghost do me anyway?’
    â€˜Rules are rules. It’s for your own good.’
    As to what happened later that evening, we must take Chang’s word for it that it happened by accident. He was in the library, choosing a pile of books to take up to his room, when a particular book caught his eye and he settled down to read it in a corner that just happened to be out of sight of anyone standing at the door. Then, maybe the book turned out not to be not quite so interesting as he’d first thought. Or maybe it was the fact that he’d just had dinner and Uncle Chu’s cook was a very good cook. ‘I must have dozed off for a minute,’ said Chang. ‘Next thing I knew was the sound of the key turning in the lock and footsteps moving away before I could cry out.’
    So he settled down to sleep again, his studies forgotten (it had been a very good dinner) until he was woken by a blood-curdling howl.
    He opened his eyes and there was the ghost, moaning and groaning, with a wolf-like howl thrown in from time to time, fit to wake the dead.
    Chang lay watching her until she ran out of breath (or whatever ghosts need to keep them going, since ghosts don’t actually breathe).
    â€˜Is that it?’ he said. ‘Is that all you can do? I was told you were really scary.’
    The ghost frowned. ‘I can be really scary if I want,’ she said.
    â€˜Go on, then.’
    She stretched herself out, till her head was just below the roof beams and her toes were still touching the floor. Her eyes bulged and her tongue lolled out halfway down her chest.
    â€˜ Not bad,’ said Chang. ‘But not scary enough. What else can you do?’
    The ghost glared. She shrank back to normal