The Legend of the Irish Castle Read Online Free PDF Page B

said as she
smiled for the picture. “Make sure to keep us
posted!” She wrote down her email address
on a slip of paper and gave it to Jessie, who
stuck it inside the pages of her notebook.
    Erin was behind the desk checking out the
Davisons. She gave them a receipt. “Thank
you very much for staying at Duncarraig
Castle. Please be careful driving in this
terrible fog!”
    The Davisons went out to the circle drive in
front, where a yellow convertible was parked.
It was so bright they had no trouble seeing it
in the fog.
    “The car matches Mrs. Davison’s hat,”
Benny said.
    Jessie laughed. “It sure does!” Grandfather
and the children waved to the newlyweds as
they drove away.
    Henry glanced in Erin’s direction and
noticed that the bright smile she’d had while
saying good-bye had fallen away, and her
forehead was once again creased with worry.
    “Is everything all right, Erin?” Henry
asked.
    She looked out the window again and
muttered to herself. “I just hope the road
between here and Dublin is clear.”
    “Me too,” Henry said. But after he thought
for a moment about what she had said, he
paused. “Why the road between here and
Dublin? Aren’t the Davisons heading west to
Galway, not toward Dublin?”
    “Or maybe you are expecting more
new guests today, arriving from Dublin?”
Grandfather asked.
    “Yes,” Erin said, absentmindedly. Then
she looked up from the front desk computer.
“I mean…no! There are no guests arriving
today. Please excuse me.” She rushed
around from behind the desk, accidentally
knocking over a stack of papers. The
children rushed over to help pick them up,
but she waved them away. “Don’t worry,”
she said. “I’ll get them.” Erin gathered all
the papers in her arms and rushed off down
the hallway.
    “What was that all about?” Jessie whispered
to Violet and the boys.
    They shook their heads, bewildered.
Something was definitely bothering Erin,
but they had no idea what it could be.
    Grandfather decided to take a nap after
breakfast, so the children set out to explore
the castle grounds and see if they could learn
any more about the figure Jessie had seen
through the binoculars. Now that they were
sure it wasn’t Erin, they didn’t have any other
guesses for who it could be.
    As the day grew warmer, the fog was
starting to lift, but it was still too hard to see
very far in the distance. The Aldens walked
across the broad meadow and entered the
woods on the path that cut between the trees.
Inside the forest, it was much darker than out
in the field. They walked for a few minutes
and came to a fork where the path split in two
directions.
    “Maybe we should split up,” Jessie said.
    “I don’t know,” Benny said. “What if the
banshee is down one of these paths?”
    “He won’t be,” Henry said confidently,
“but I still don’t think we should split up. We
don’t know these woods at all, and we don’t
want anyone to get lost.”
    “I agree,” Violet said, taking Benny’s hand.
“Let’s stick together.”
    The children chose the path that curved to
the left because it was wider and looked like
it had been used more often than the other
path. They walked for a few minutes in the
quiet, surrounded by green on all sides. The
forest floor was covered with ivy and ferns,
and the boughs above them were thick with
leaves. Moss grew on the tree trunks, so even
they were green.
    Just then, they heard a rustling sound off
to the side of the path. The Aldens froze, and
Benny squeezed Violet’s hand. A creature
walked out of the bushes and onto the path
in front of them. It was gray, with shaggy fur
and a long pink tongue.
    “Is that a…wolf?” Benny asked in a small
voice.
    “It’s a dog!” Jessie whispered. “A big dog.”
From farther down the path came a call.
    “Arooo,” the voice said. Violet pulled out her
camera and scrambled to turn it on.
    The dog responded with its own call.
“Awooooo,” the dog wailed. It stepped off the
path and