63. Ghost

They found King Walt alone in the room where they had left him. As they came in, he took a bunch of cotton from one ear, to check if there was no howling.

"You are back. Did you catch whatever it was?"

"Nope, not yet. But we did find out what it is. It's a ghost. A rather unhappy one, I think, he sounds quite lonely. Have you ever had problems with ghosts before?", Hilda came straight to the point.

"Ghosts? We have no ghosts here! This is a castle!", the king exclaimed. At that point the howling started again, so he quickly put his cotton in place again.

When it was over, Hilda waved at him and nodded.

"As I said, we have no ghosts here." King Walt sat down and offered the magical couple a chair.

"Well, looks like you got one now, King," said William. "We saw it up close. It's there alright."

"What we don't know is how it got here," Hilda added. "Did anything change here, recently? Did new people come to the palace? Have you opened doors or such that have always been closed?"

King Walt was very quick in slapping the cotton in his ear again as the howling started.

"This is not going to get us anywhere fast, Hilda," William commented. "I think we should go outside and try talking to him there. This howling is affecting him too much."

Hilda nodded. "I'll tell him we have to go outside once our ghost pipes down again."

As the ghost stopped its wailing, their suggestion was accepted by the royal man and they moved to a small spot in one of the gardens, where a tent-like construction stood.

"Right. This is better. So, did you open anything?", Hilda repeated her question.

"Not that I know of. But I don't know what all the people here in the castle are doing," King Walt confessed. "Somehow there seem to be more and more people here, they're all busy with something, and who knows where they come from."

"Does not sound like anyone's in control of this place, does it?" William shook his head.

"Velma is in charge of most things personnel," Walt said. "Ever since she's had the shoes, she's become more helpful around the house. I have to say that for her."

"I see. I think we should have a word with the queen then. Perhaps she knows something..." Hilda frowned.

More and more people came into the yard and the gardens, as word had spread that outside was the place to be for the moment. People were actually building some tents, even though these would hardly offer enough space for all the servants and other people who had their duties in and around the court.

The queen was located quite quickly. She was outside in a garden also, staying away from the large building with the horrible howling still going off at short intervals.

"Queen Velma?" Hilda walked up to her. "We have to talk with you."

The queen was not used to direct approaches like this, but from magical people she had to accept it. They were different. Dangerous.

They asked her about the staff in the palace. About new people, strange people, unpredictable people.

"Oh my," said the queen. "I am afraid I can't help you with all those things. I tell Walt that I am taking care of this, but I generally move all that complicated stuff to Marigold, who then shares the work with Brea, Gordon, Nelson, Theobald and Lisette."

"God help us all," said William. He dreaded an even wider web of people who were all doing the same thing as the queen. They might end up searching a haystack in which no needle of significance was buried.

Hilda blinked a few times. "No deal there, William. We do things ourselves. We're going back and see if we can talk some sense into this one."

"If we can find it."

Hilda grinned. "That's not a problem. It will find us. Thanks, Queen Velma. Enjoy your stay here." She got up, took William by the sleeve and dragged him along. "Let's go and do it. Another performance of the magical and powerful."

They entered the now nearly empty castle. Their footsteps bounced off every wall as they found their way to the cellar. There, torch in hand, they opened the door and walked down the stairs again. The occasional howl of the ghost had not bothered them very much as they had gone through the long corridors, but here, in the lower level, there was an almost solid, tangible feeling of threat. There was also a howl again.

The ghost raced past them, jumping from one wall to the other, as it made its terrible sound.

Hilda looked at it go as the ghost went slaloming through the corridor, jumping from wall to wall as it went further away from them. She shrugged, and to William's surprise she took her wand and made a table and two chairs appear. "Can you make us the coffee? I really could do with some," she said as she smiled and sat down.

William sat down, got his wand out and made a big pot of coffee, and with it 2 cups, sugar and cream. "Here we go. I doubt that we will make the ghost happy with a cup."

Hilda laughed as he poured them a good cup of the dark stuff.

There was silence in the corridor for a remarkably long time.

"Do you think the smell of the coffee chased it off?", William asked.

"No way. Ghosts can stand smells that even you and I can't. I think that what we're doing is working."

"Oh, hey, that's great. What are we doing?" The wizard would really like to know, since he was part of it.

"We're making it curious."

"Oh, of course." William was puzzled. How would making a ghost curious help them catch it?

"Who said anything about catching it?" Hilda had become very proficient at reading their link. "We'll first make it curious. That is enough to begin with."

"Okay. And if it is not getting curious?", William asked.

"Then we have to switch to the second plan," Hilda smiled.

"Which is?"

"Yours."

"Uhm. I'd drink to that, but then I need something stronger. A lot stronger." William emptied his cup and poured fresh rounds. "Still no peep." He was served right then and there.

The ghost popped into existence next to him and howled in his ear.

"Holy Bejeebus," said William, whose protection had jumped in this time and protected his ears. "What kind of behaviour is that to welcome visitors." He stared at the fuzzy shape that disappeared into the wall behind him a few heartbeats later.

"I think we got him," Hilda whispered and winked. "And I would like a cookie too."

"She would like a cookie." He waved his wand. A box of cookies appeared. "Here we go. Cookies."

Hilda opened the box. "Oh!!! Chocolate!!! Good thing that ghosts don't eat chocolate cookies."

A howl echoed through the corridor, but this one was less convincing than the previous ones.

"Did you hear something?", Hilda asked her wizard.

"Hear? What? No, must have missed it," William played along. "More coffee?"

"Oh, yes. Please." Hilda held up her cup, and the ghost appeared again. It did not howl. It just seemed to observe what these silly people were doing in its corridor.

The ghost floated at about two yards distance from the table, close to the wall. It almost looked as if it wanted to make sure it had a getaway spot.

Hilda and William knew it was there, they just did not pay any attention to it. They drank more coffee and almost cleaned out the box of cookies, and all that time the ghost hovered near them. Then Hilda looked at it. "Oh. Look. A ghost."

William looked at it too. "Really. A ghost. Amazing. Want me to make more coffee, or should we go? Or do you have another suggestion?"

"Well, he's not adding much to the conversation, so we could just as well pack up," Hilda shrugged.

The ghost howled. Somewhat.

"As I said, he's not adding much to the conversation." Hilda got up. "Can you take care of the furniture?"

"Of course." A swing with a wand later, the chair, tables and coffee stuff were gone. William held out his hand, and together they walked up the stairs. A thundering howl followed them, and the ghost shot up and down the corridor like crazy.

"So, what was all that acting?", William asked after they had returned to the ground floor of the castle again. The howls of the ghosts were almost continuous now.

"I wanted to anger it." Hilda patted the door. "And it looks like we succeeded." A big, satisfied smile was on her face.

"Great, so now we have an angered ghost in the cellar. And the next logical step in this is?"

"We leave it there for a while, and then we go back. It won't have a clue how long we were gone. Ghosts have no sense of time. And then we'll see if it wants to talk."

"Talk. The ghost."

"Yes," nodded Hilda, "you catch on very quickly, William." Tiptoeing, she kissed his cheek. "Come, let's go for a walk and look at the bad paintings here."

The couple returned from their walk quite quickly. The amount of bad paintings was more than they could take. There was the occasional howl from the ghost, but that was hardly impressive anymore.

"Gods, I wonder who has such a taste," said William, "most of that is an attack on the eyes."

Hilda nodded. "I know. It's interesting to see how much garbage is produced. So, ready for another ghost meet?"

"Sure. I ain't afraid of no ghost," William giggled.

It earnt him a frown from Hilda who then opened the door. They went down the stairs again, this time not needing a torch. They'd been here before.

The ghost was nowhere to be seen. It howled once in a while, but kept itself hidden.

"Hey, ghost! Come out where we can see you. We need to talk." Hilda magicked up two chairs, on which they sat down. "We're not leaving until we've talked to you. And you'd better make it snappy or we're going to make things really hard on you."

William wondered if she was referring to his non-existing second plan.