“You’ll have to pass the old deserted Abbington Monastery to reach your car. It’s a spooky place at night!”
Penny arose and slipped her wrists through the loops of her ski poles. “Now don’t put ideas into our heads!” she chuckled. “It’s just another building.”
“Sure you don’t want me to go along?” urged Jerry.
“Of course not! Louise and I can handle any ghost we’ll meet tonight!”
The girls glided away, pausing at the top of the slope to wave goodbye to their friends. Then they shot down the hill on a trail which skirted a dense grove of pine.
Ahead loomed the gloomy old Abbington Monastery, a structure of moldy stone enclosed by a high brick wall. To the right, inside the enclosure, was an ancient graveyard, many of its white stones at rakish angles.
Penny studied the building with keen interest as she waited for Louise to catch up with her. Built generations earlier, the property first had been used by an order of Black Friars bound to the vows of poverty and obedience.
Later, the monastery had been taken over by an order of nuns, but as the buildings deteriorated, the property had been abandoned. For ten years now, it had stood unoccupied.
“Ugly old place!” puffed Louise, pausing beside her chum to catch her breath. “All the windows broken—why, that’s funny!”
“What is?” demanded Penny.