Horror at the Haunted House by Peg Kehret

changed.”
    “And no one is rearranging the Wedgwood or handling it?”
    “Only Agnes.”
    “Who?”
    “The curator of the museum. She’s a potter, with her own gallery, and she’s been doing some repair work on the Wedgwood.”
    Mr. Clayton frowned. “What kind of repair work?”
    “She took home the little octagonal bowl that I like so much. It had a small chip and she fixed it.”
    Mr. Clayton’s voice rose. “Someone chipped the Fairylustre? How? They aren’t allowing the public to handle it, are they?”
    “No. The area is roped off, to keep people back. I don’t know how it got chipped. I only know that Agnes took it home to repair it.”
    Mr. Clayton thumped his fist on the bed. “When I turned that collection over to the Historical Society,” he said, “it was in mint condition. If they’re being careless with it, I may have to enforce my right to rescind the agreement.”
    Ellen licked her lips. She hadn’t meant to stir up trouble or upset Mr. Clayton. She only wanted to learn about Lydia. “Did you ever see the ghost?” she asked.
    “Twice. Both times when I was just a lad.” He smiled, remembering. “The first time, I had picked some flowers in the garden and needed a vase to put them in. I went to the dining room and reached for the first piece of Wedgwood on the shelf. Instantly, I felt a chill and had the sensation of cold hands on my arm, restraining me. It frightened me so much, I ran out of the room and put my flowers in a glass jar from the kitchen.”
    “What happened the second time?”
    “The second time, I was about ten years old. It had rained for a week and I was bored and irritable because I wanted to play outside. Having a somewhat active imagination, I decided to stir up some excitement by staging a robbery.”
    Ellen smiled. It sounded like the sort of scheme Corey would dream up.
    “My plan was to hide some of the Wedgwood in my bedroom and then wait for someone, probably the downstairs maid, to notice that it was gone. Remembering how my nanny reacted to the broken plate, I thought the maid would scream and carry on hysterically and the whole household would come running. I put four or five pieces under my bed, after carefully wrapping them in bath towels. Nothing happened. The maid didn’t notice they were missing. My parents didn’t mention it.” He shook his head. “Later, I wondered if they knew all along what I had done and had decided not to give me the satisfaction of reacting. Atany rate, I slept that night with the Wedgwood under my bed and in the night, Lydia woke me. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me awake. I was so terrified, I couldn’t scream. When she stood beside my bed and pointed to the floor, I knew what she wanted.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I got up and returned all the Wedgwood to the proper place, right then, in the middle of the night, and I never touched it again. I never told my parents that I’d seen the ghost. They had always ridiculed the old ghost stories and I didn’t want to confess what I’d done. That was the last time I ever saw the ghost. When I was older and found out how valuable the Wedgwood is, I decided the ghost was worried that I would be careless and break another piece. Later yet, when my father died and I learned about the baby’s remains, I wondered if she was nervous that I would find them and dispose of them inappropriately.”
    “Remains?”
    “Josiah’s remains. Lydia could not bear to part with her baby, so she had the infant’s body cremated and then put the cremated remains in a piece of her Wedgwood. Cremation was rare back then and Samuel told no one about this, fearing that Lydia would be considered insane. The secret was kept until his death; his Will divulged that Josiah’s remains were in the oldest piece of Wedgwood, a black urn. He also stated that the Wedgwood collection must not be moved or sold. Those instructions have been honored by all of my family. When I wrote up my