Grandpa Edgar’s footsteps on the white linoleum floor echoed down the wide, brightly lit hallway as he led Audrey and Garrett to his apartment. The same bland, pale paint used on the exterior of the building encrusted the walls and ceiling inside.

  The fluorescent lights flickered and hummed in a steady, hypnotic tone above their heads.

  Audrey and Garrett pinched their noses and limited their breathing to quick, short breaths due to an overpowering stench that choked the air around them.

  Audrey leaned towards Garrett. “What is that?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Garrett answered. “It smells like a wet dog shook itself dry in the lobby of a dentist’s office.”

  “Here we are, bungalow 305,” Grandpa Edgar said, pushing the door open with his foot. “Make yourself at home, or as they say south of the border: Mi casa es su casa.”

  Audrey and Garrett stepped into the apartment and stopped dead in their tracks as a wondrous realm of color and pattern surrounded them. The room contained more fascinating and extraordinary artifacts than every museum they had ever visited in their entire lives. Strange and mysterious items hung on every wall, stood in all four corners, and dangled from the ceiling.

  Framed photographs of Grandpa Edgar at exotic and wonderful locations almost completely concealed the bright red wallpaper. Sites that most people only read about in magazines or see on travel posters.

  In the largest photo, a much younger Grandpa Edgar stood with their Great-Grandpa Leo beside a towering stone head on Easter Island. In the two besides that, Grandpa Edgar climbed to the top of a Mayan temple in Peru. Three smaller frames, each on top of the next, held pictures of Stonehenge, the pyramids in Egypt, and the Great Wall of China. Beside those hung an underwater photograph of Grandpa Edgar in full scuba gear exploring a sunken battleship. Other items filled the spaces between the frames—numerous old drawings, maps, tribal masks made of bone and wood, swords, spears, and a few weapons that used shark teeth instead of a metal blade.

  Every single piece of furniture in the room looked as if it were built in some forgotten time, in some dark and distant corner of the globe, far, far away from The Sterling Oaks Retirement Village.

  The headboard of Grandpa Edgar’s bed demanded the most attention. A dragon and phoenix carved from a solid piece of polished redwood battled with fiery breath. Animal fur blankets covered the thick mattress and pillows.

  Grandpa Edgar stood in the open doorway of his apartment with a smile on his lips, watching as Audrey and Garrett set their unopened gifts down on the bed and silently explored the room.

  “Are all of these things yours?” Garrett asked.

  “It is a collection procured by myself and my father before me,” Grandpa Edgar replied.

  Nurse Rays snapped to attention right behind him in the hallway.

  “Mr. Font!” she barked.

  Audrey and Garrett jumped, but Grandpa Edgar didn’t flinch.

  “Ah, Nurse Rays,” he said cheerfully as he turned to the woman standing right behind him.

  “Mr. Font!” Nurse Rays said with authority. “If you wish to continue your stay here at The Sterling Oaks Retirement Village, you’ll have to obey the rules.”

  “Yes, of course, Nurse Rays. The rules. My only wish is that you remain as happy and full of cheer as you are at this very moment. And I will pound mountains into desert and raise valleys into plains to grant you that,” Grandpa Edgar said in a calm and polite tone. “But could we discuss those restrictions and regulations some other time? As you can see, I have two very important guests, and to cut into their time with this, a minor squabble, would be very impolite.”

  Nurse Rays frowned and glared across the room, focusing her squinted eyes on Audrey and Garrett. “Fine. But the next time you leave the building,” she turned her scowl on Grandpa Edgar, “use the front door.”

  She spun around on her heels and marched down the hall, muttering to herself.

  Grandpa Edgar waited for the echo of her footsteps to fade away before closing the door. “Retirement Village?” he said, “They need to rename this place Snooze-ylvania.”

  Garrett laughed and fell back into a chair carved from the trunk of a large tree. Branches grew out of the top of the backrest and reached to the ceiling. One crooked branch still held an old, long-abandoned bird’s nest. A chessboard table with black and gray game pieces stood beside the chair. The table’s polished metal legs twisted down like a thorn bush from the edges of the board to the thick, green carpet.

  Grandpa Edgar stepped over to the board and picked up the black knight. “These chess pieces are carved out of genuine lava rock,” he said. “I collected the gray stones around the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, and the black ones at Pompeii in Italy. Do you know how to play chess, Garrett?”

  “Yes, but I’m not very good.”

  “I always win,” Audrey commented from across the room.

  “Well,” Grandpa Edgar said, handing Garrett the black knight, “we should play sometime. And Audrey, I have something over here I think you might enjoy.”

  Grandpa Edgar placed his hand on Audrey’s shoulder and led her to the corner of the room. He pulled back a colorful blanket of wool to reveal a beautiful, antique piano. “I was told that in the year 1780, Mozart played this very piano during a masquerade ball in Vienna. Did you know he composed his first piece of music when he was only five years old? By the time he was your…”

  Audrey lowered her head and turned away from the piano.

  “What’s wrong, my dear?”

  “I don’t like to play anymore.”

  “Really? I was told you played quite beautifully.”

  “I don’t play without Mom.”

  “Oh, I understand.” Grandpa Edgar lifted one of

  the photos off the wall and held them out for Audrey and Garrett to see. In it, a beautiful woman with tan skin stood on a black sand beach, surrounded by large green sea turtles. “When your Grandma Ella died, I stopped doing a lot of things we used to do together. But I discovered that over time, by doing those very things we loved, my memories of her became stronger.”

  “I know, Grandpa,” Audrey said. “I just can’t

  right now.”

  “You’ll know when the time is right,” Grandpa Edgar said, throwing the blanket back over the piano. “And when that time comes, we’ll dust off these keys and kick up such a shindig that it makes Nurse Rays crazier than a handcuffed gorilla in a banana factory.”

  Garrett laughed.

  Audrey smiled.

  “Now,” Grandpa Edgar said. “How about you open up your presents?” He retrieved the gifts from the bed and handed one to Audrey and the other to Garrett.

  Audrey gave hers a firm squeeze. It was soft—probably clothes. Past experiences with Aunt Dolores, who never knew what to give her or Garrett on their birthdays or for Christmas, made Audrey an expert at identifying socks and underwear through wrapping paper.

  Garrett gave his a light shake, but he already knew it was some sort of book.

  “Don’t be timid,” Grandpa Edgar said. “Dive in.”

  Garrett tore through the paper and let it fall to the floor. He held his gift up for Audrey to see. It was a book, a journal to be exact, bound in beautiful, brown leather. And with it, a fancy-looking pen and mechanical pencil set. They looked very old and expensive—like museum pieces—black with decorative silver swirls.

  “Thanks, Grandpa,” Garrett said, replacing the old yellow pencil behind his ear with the new, fancier one. “They’re great.”

  Audrey finished unwrapping her gift, but still had no idea what it was. It looked like a folded-up piece of brown leather, but not nearly as nice as the leather covering the journal. This was old and worn out, like something Grandpa Edgar might have picked up off the ground in some back-country barn.

  She unfolded the leather whatever-it-was and held it up.

  “Thank you, Grandpa,” Audrey said politely, trying to sound sincere.

  “Do you know what that is?” Grandpa Edgar asked.

  “An old purse?”

  By the look on his sister’s face, Garrett could tell that she hated it. The leather was stained, the inside smelled funny, and there was a small hole, about the size of a button, through the front flap.

  “That’s an authentic Pony Express satchel from the year 1860. It belonged to Bronco Charlie Miller, the youngest rider to deliver mail across the United States before there was such a thing as the post office. He was your age at the time—eleven years old.”

  “The Pony Express?” Audrey said, poking her finger through the hole in the leather. “I read about them once.”

  “That hole was made by an arrow, shot by a Native American as Bronco Charlie made his delivery,” Grandpa Edgar explained. “I believe the mail in the bag prevented the arrow from passing all the way through and hitting him.”

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Audrey’s face lit up as her opinion of the old bag suddenly changed. Knowing who and where it came from didn’t quite make up for the weird smell or stains, but at least it had a great history.

  “Does that book have a story?” she asked, pointing at Garrett’s gift.

  “It will,” Grandpa Edgar winked.

  Garrett flipped through the pages of the journal. They were all blank, except for the very first one, which had a map of North America drawn on it. A circle marked a location off the coast of New England—in the northeast part of the United States, just below the border of Canada.

  “What’s this, Grandpa?” Garrett asked, holding the map up for Grandpa Edgar and Audrey to see.

  “That’s where the story begins.” Grandpa Edgar slid a wooden box out from underneath the bed. “Come and sit with me here on the bed. Let me tell you about the adventure I have planned for us this summer.”

  Audrey sat on one side of Grandpa Edgar, and Garrett on the other as he opened the box. It held a photo album.

  “Did I ever tell you the story about the elephant graveyard?” Grandpa Edgar asked.

  “I don’t know,” Garrett replied, pointing at Audrey with a funny little smile on his lips. “But an elephant is sitting right next to you.”

  “Quiet, Garrett,” Audrey sneered. “I want to hear Grandpa’s story.”

  “Ah, I get it,” Grandpa Edgar laughed, “Audrey Ella Font. Ella-Font or Elephant. My sister used to make fun of my big ears too—but the elephants I’m talking about are in Africa. I came across a herd of them during my last safari on the continent. While there, the chief of a local village shared with me the story of the elephant graveyard. It’s said that when elephants get old, they can sense when they’re going to die. And when they do, they leave the herd and travel to a place far away—a place where every generation of elephant before them had gone to die.” Grandpa Edgar removed the photo album from the box and set it on his lap. “I wasn’t able to locate the graveyard, but it’s said that the skeletons of over one thousand elephants can be found in this place. And their spirits travel from the graveyard as a herd into the afterlife.”

  “Why are you telling us this, Grandpa?” Audrey asked.

  “Are you dying?” Garrett added with concern.

  “No. I’m as strong as an ox and have more lives than a fat cat in a room made of marshmallows. But from the first day I moved into this retirement home, I’ve seen things…things that concern me…make me want to plan for the future.”

  “What kind of things?” Audrey asked, studying the decorative design burned into the leather cover of the photo album. It appeared to be an “E” and “F” looped together to look like a clover.

  Grandpa Edgar opened the album. The picture on the first page captured a glowing cloud in the hallway of The Sterling Oaks Retirement Village. The second showed a flash of blue light in a kitchen.

  “There are a lot of spirits in this building,” Grandpa Edgar said as he unzipped one of the many pockets in his pants and removed a small camera. “I’ve taken their pictures with this.”

  “Ghosts?” Audrey and Garrett asked at the same time.

  “Yes. In many ways, this building is a lot like the elephant graveyard of Africa.”

  Grandpa Edgar flipped through the different photos. Each was of a strange light or shadow in different rooms of The Sterling Oaks Retirement Village. “But all the spirits in here are miserable. I hear them walking the halls at night—moaning and wailing. They’re bored.”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Audrey scoffed. “They’re make-believe. Just scary characters in movies

  and books.”

  “Don’t let them hear you say that,” Grandpa Edgar said. “They’re depressed enough as it is—and I don’t blame them. I’m bored in here, and I’m alive.”

  He closed the photo album. “So, I’ve decided to make plans for when my day comes, to make sure I don’t join them.”

  “What, Grandpa?” Garrett asked.

  “I figure that if I’m going to be a ghost, I want to haunt some place exciting. Some place unique and interesting. A house I can have some fun in.”

  “What house do you want to haunt?” Garrett asked.

  “I’m not sure of the exact place yet, but I have a few locations in mind. Our adventure this summer will be to hunt for a house for me to haunt.” He pointed to the journal he gave Garrett. “That circle on the map is our

  first stop.”

  “What house is there?” Garrett asked.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Audrey slung the leather bag over her shoulder, “I’m up for anything that takes us away from here.”

  “Indeed,” Grandpa Edgar smiled.

  “But I still say ghosts are as real as a Frogator.”

  “A what?” Grandpa Edgar questioned.

  “Frogator,” Garrett said. “He’s Audrey and my new swamp monster. We sometimes create weird creatures when we’re bored. We have a bunch of them.”

  Garrett retrieved a sketchbook from his backpack and flipped it open to the image of a creepy creature shaped like an egg with the tail of an alligator, the mouth of a frog, and legs of a duck.

  “This is Frogator.”

  “I can honestly say I’ve never come across such a beast during my travels,” Grandpa Edgar chuckled.

  “They’re just things we like to imagine. Like ghosts,” Audrey concluded. “When are we leaving?”

  The tips of Grandpa Edgar’s mustache curled up, “First thing in the morning.”

  “What are we supposed to do before this haunted house hunt?” Audrey asked sarcastically.

  “I propose we get some dinner down in the cafeteria and then call it a night,” Grandpa Edgar said, “I have a feeling tomorrow will be a long day.”

  July 25, 12:00 midnight

  Audrey woke to the sound of the front door opening.

  The bright lights from the hallway cut through the dark room and across her face. She sat up. Garrett wasn’t in bed, and the sleeping bag on the floor, Grandpa Edgar volunteered to sleep in—empty.

  Both hands on the small alarm clock on the nightstand pointed straight up to twelve.

  “Garrett?” Audrey whispered. “Grandpa?”

  Garrett poked his head into the room from the hall. “Audrey,” he whispered back, “Come on.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Grandpa just went downstairs with his camera,” Garrett said, “I think he’s found another ghost.”

  Audrey sighed deeply and fell back onto her pillow. “Oh, please. That stuff about ghosts was just one of Grandpa Edgar’s stories.”

  “Come on,” Garrett said, stepping into the room, “I don’t want to go alone.”

  “Fine,” Audrey huffed, throwing the blanket

  to the side, “but if this turns out to be nothing-—like I know it will be—you owe me your allowance for the

  next two months.”

  “Just hurry up,” Garrett said.

  Audrey led the way down the stairs to the first floor. She yawned and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Garrett followed close behind her, scanning the hall ahead of them for any movement.

  “Where’s Grandpa?” Audrey asked.

  A flash of light came from the cafeteria.

  “There,” Garrett whispered.

  They tiptoed to the entrance of the room. Garrett peeked in. The fluorescent lights were dimmed, but he could see well enough.

  Garrett’s jaw dropped. “Hic!”

  “What?” Audrey stepped around Garrett and into the room.

  At one of the long dining tables in the center of the room, a figure of white mist hovered over a metal folding chair. A cup of steaming hot tea sat on the table in front of it. The figure turned toward Audrey and Garrett. It had the face of an old Asian man with a long beard. His expression lit up as if seeing an old friend.

  “Aaaaaaaaahhh!” Audrey screamed.

  Grandpa Edgar stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the cafeteria and snapped a picture of the ghost. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Ghosts can’t hurt you if you’re not afraid.”

  The ghost turned towards Grandpa Edgar, bowed, and then disappeared.

  “It’s only Mr. Lam,” Grandpa Edgar said as he walked across to where Audrey and Garrett were standing. “He’s an old friend.”

  “It’s a…a…” Audrey stuttered.

  “Ghost!” Garrett shouted.

  “Like I told you yesterday,” Grandpa Edgar said, “This place is full of lonely spirits.”

  “But,” Audrey said, “there’s no such thing as ghosts…right?”

  “That’s for you to decide, my dear,” Grandpa

  Edgar said.

  Audrey stared at the empty chair with wide eyes. Steam rose from the cup of hot liquid on the table up to

  the lights.

  “That was…Wow,” Garrett exclaimed.

  “It always is,” Grandpa Edgar said.

  “That’s your tea, isn’t it, Grandpa?” Audrey asked, attempting to make what she had just seen something other than a ghost. “And that was just…” She had no explanation.

  Garrett ran over to the cup of tea. He picked it up and toasted Audrey. “A ghost!”

  “I think we’d better get back to bed,” Grandpa Edgar said, putting the camera in the front pocket of his pajama pants. “It’s late.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep after that,” Audrey said.

  “I know I won’t,” Garrett added.

  “Let’s try,” Grandpa Edgar said as he guided them out of the cafeteria.

  8:05 am

  Audrey sat on the edge of the bed with the bag Grandpa Edgar gave her slung over one shoulder. “I think I’ve figured it out,” she said. “The cafeteria was cold, and the cup of tea was boiling hot. That created a lot of steam…thick steam.”

  Garrett sat on the floor and tied his shoes,

  beaming with excitement. “It was a ghost,” he said without looking up.

  “The lights above the table,” Audrey continued, “reflected off the steam and gave it a more solid appearance. The same way it does fog.”

  “It had a face,” Garrett reminded her, “Mr. Lam’s face.”

  “I see faces in the clouds all the time,” Audrey debated. “Does that mean the sky is haunted?”

  “Accept it, Audrey,” Garrett said as he hopped up off the floor, “That was a ghost, and this isn’t a story from one of the books you’ve read.”

  Grandpa Edgar stepped over to a closet beside the covered piano and opened the door. A tall dresser filled the space. He opened the top drawer and removed a pocket knife, compass, magnifying glass, watch, rope, diving mask, and flashlight. He placed each item and many more into the countless pockets of his pants and leather jacket. The last thing he removed from the drawer was a handful of individually wrapped chocolates.

  “What’s all that?” Audrey asked.

  “A slice of buttered bread when dropped will always land butter-side down.” Grandpa Edgar said, stuffing the chocolates into a pocket.

  “Buttered bread?” Garrett asked.

  “It’s Murphy’s law, my boy. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And when it does, I want to be prepared.”

  “With chocolates?” Garrett asked as he sat down beside Audrey on the bed and opened the journal to the drawing of the map.

  “The most important of all my supplies,” Grandpa Edgar gleamed as he removed two chocolates from his pocket and tossed one to Audrey and the other to Garrett. “Especially in frightening situations, or when I doubt my abilities to accomplish a dangerous stunt.”

  “I read once that eating chocolate causes a chemical reaction in the part of the brain that controls happiness,” Audrey said. “Which, I’m guessing, might take away any feelings of fear for a short period of time.”

  “There is that,” Grandpa Edgar agreed. “But it’s also delicious.”

  Garrett removed the gold foil from the chocolate and popped it into his mouth, “What house is circled here, Grandpa?” he asked, tapping his finger to the map.

  “I want to show you how we’re getting there first.”

  “And where’s that?” Audrey asked.

  “Outside,” Grandpa Edgar answered.

  Garrett closed the journal and picked up his backpack from the floor. He removed all the puzzle books from inside and replaced them with the leather-bound journal and fancy pen. “Do we have to swing down from the balcony?” he asked.

  “No,” Grandpa Edgar said, “We shouldn’t upset Nurse Rays today. Besides, we need to go to the

  garage, and that’s out back.”

  Grandpa Edgar guided Audrey and Garrett down some stairs to an emergency exit door that led out to the back of the building. They followed a walkway, past some smelly dumpsters, a white van with the “Sterling Oaks” logo painted on the side, and down a dirt trail. Tall

  grass and wildflowers grew along the path, and at the bottom—covered in knotted, green ivy and almost completely hidden by the thick woods around it—sat an old, tin-sided garage. Little bits of the rusty and dented garage peeked out through the holes in its forest camouflage.

  They circled and located the padlocked door. Grandpa Edgar removed a key from a tiny pocket below a belt loop, unbolted the lock, and swung it open.

  Inside, a truck, or rather, a beast on wheels, slept. The sunlight filled its den and glinted off the monster’s twelve eyes—round headlights attached to the grill, the rear view mirrors, and the roof. Dents and scratches scarred its green, sun-faded skin. The metal beast stood on six monster truck tires, and a tan canvas top covered its back end—or “bed” as it’s called. A rusty little motor boat with a red bottom and a tiny gas-powered motor rested upside-down on the roof like a turtle shell, secured in place with two thick straps.

  “Wow!” Garrett gasped, finding no other words.

  “What is it?” Audrey asked.

  Grandpa Edgar stroked the front fender of the truck as if petting the head of an animal. “This, my compadres, is the Adventure Wagon—our chariot to every corner of the world.”

  “Wow,” Garrett repeated as he and Audrey entered the garage to get a closer look.

  An ax and a shovel hung on the side of the canvas top. Garrett got up on his tiptoes, rested his chin on top of one of the massive rear tires, and stretched up just enough to touch the dull blade of the ax with his finger.

  Attached to the back bumper of the truck, below four additional lights, Audrey saw four large, metal jugs.

  “What’s in these?” she asked.

  “Enough gasoline to cross the Sahara Desert in the red two and fresh drinking water in the blue.” Grandpa Edgar opened the driver’s side door and climbed inside. “And in the bed are items, which could be useful during our adventures-, but too big to fit inside my pockets.”

  “Is that where we’re going?” Audrey asked. “The Sahara Desert?”

  “No. Today, the Adventure Wagon will be taking us to our first destination: The Castle Tower Lighthouse.”