“Just to see whether it jumps or not,” Astrid assented. She hunted around and found some loose half bricks in the chimney place.
“Where’s Tip? He hasn’t barked once,” remarked Abby.
“Dogs are always frightened when they see ghosts. Let me fire away at it first.” Astrid took aim and the half brick flew down at the dark thing with a deadly thud, but there was no stampede. She leaned far out the window, staring at it anxiously. “It seems to me I can see it move and it has horns and a sort of woolly tail, kids.”
“Sounds like a yak,” Kit chuckled. “I’m willing to do this much. I’ll go to the door and open it, and you girls stay here with bricks to throw, and when I flash the light on it, if it jumps you can save me.”
But before she could carry out the plan the sound came again, longer and more thrillingly penetrating than before. It was a wail and a challenge and a moan all in one, not just one cry, but a prolonged succession of them. As soon as it stopped Sally exclaimed, “Now I know. That’s an owl and it comes from the little attic over the ell where we couldn’t climb because there weren’t any stairs. Remember?”
“Sure, Sally?” Etoile’s tone was almost trembling. “Never have I heard such a cry.”
“Oh, I have. It’s an owl, I know it is, one of those big ones. Riding through the woods at night coming home from town I’ve been half scared to death by one of them. Sounds like seventeen ghosts all rolled into one. Come along, Kit, you and I’ll go hunt it up.”
The rest followed gingerly, a strange procession bearing candles, Kit leading with the flashlight. Tip stumbled up drowsily from the kitchen and barked at them.
“Oh, yes, it’s all very well for you to bark now,” laughed Jean. “Why didn’t you go after that noise?”
They reached the ell room and found a trapdoor in the ceiling. Abby remembered seeing a ladder out in the back entry behind the door, and this was brought in.