The Legend of Annie Murphy by Frank Peretti Page A

had a back door that opened into a rear hallway. The door was unlocked for the benefit of boarders who came and went, and the kids timed it pretty well: They could hear Eloise working in the kitchen and the Crackerbys talking in some closed room somewhere. But nobody was around to see them enter and sneak up the back stairway.
    Upstairs they found a long, beautifully woodworked hallway with a thick carpet to muffle their footsteps. The trick now was to find the room Annie and Cyrus had rented. The first door they came to opened on a broom closet. The second was locked and so was the third. The fourth was ajar, and they took a peek inside.
    It was a spacious, airy room with a large, four-poster bed and a lacy-curtained window. There was a beautiful, claw-footed dresser in the corner that made Lila breathe a slow gasp of admiration. But it was the object sitting on top of the dresser that drew them farther into the room.
    It was a wood carving of an old miner in a droopy hat smoking a pipe while sitting on a keg of blasting powder. The humor of the piece was easy to see and chuckle about. The artistic skill was so impressive that Jay and Lila just stood there a moment admiring it, hesitant to touch it.
    Finally, with the utmost care and respect, Jay rotated the carving, then lifted it, looking for the signature of the artist. He finally found a name crudely carved on the bottom: A. Murphy, 4 •18•85.
    There were other carvings in the room, just as beautifully done: a cowboy on a bucking horse, a mother and her daughter all dressed up for church, and a bust of . . .
    â€œCyrus!” Lila exclaimed, recognizing the face from the old photograph.
    â€œThis is it,” Jay said. “This was their room. Mrs. Crackerby must have left everything just the way it was.”
    â€œMaybe because she feels guilty,” Lila theorized. “She wants to appease Annie’s ghost.” She carefully studied the carving of Cyrus Murphy, noting the toolwork, the technique. “What do you think, Jay? Recognize the style?”
    He nodded. “Annie did that carving in the cliff. It had to be her.” Then he frowned. “But how ?”
    â€œIt must have something to do with being a ghost,” Lila quipped.
    Jay felt unsteady on his feet. “Whoa, careful . . .”
    â€œOh-oh!”
    They both knew what was happening. Gravity was having another hiccup.
    And they were on the second floor!
    â€œLet’s get out of here!” Jay said, and they bolted for the door.
    Too late. Their feet sank right through the dissolving floor, and they dropped into the room below, settling slowly like leaves falling from a tree.
    Unfortunately, the room below happened to be Judge Crackerby’s office, and the Crackerbys happened to be there. They were standing at the window, their backs to the room, having a hushed conversation as Jay floated down from the ceiling. He could see he was heading for a big splash in the middle of Judge Crackerby’s desk, something that would be hard to do quietly.
    But there was no need to worry. As he put out his arms to break his fall, his hands passed right through the judge’s important papers. He belly flopped into the desk and kept right on falling. When he finally came to rest on solid—which meant, present-day— ground, the terrain had changed a bit. Apparently the rubble of the house’s ruins had filled in what used to be the crawl space under the house. Jay couldn’t hide under the floor; he found himself only two inches deep in it, barely hidden under Judge Crackerby’s desk.
    â€œShe’s come back, Amos!” Mrs. Crackerby was saying. “She’s come back to haunt us because she knows what we did!”
    Where was Lila? Jay poked his head out through the side of the desk to look around.
    Oh no! There was her head on the sofa, her chin resting on the cushion and her eyes on the Crackerbys. Jay could see through the murky sofa just