The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

auntie’s theories on the haunting racket. Did you hear me? Slow down—
    “Okay, okay.”
    For the last two miles, we’d been on a long, slowly descending grade, and I’d picked up a lot of speed. Ahead was the onramp to the highway, a steep, hilly decline, so it made sense to slow down anyway. I pulled my sandal off the gas, shifted my foot to the brake, and pushed down on the pedal—
    “Why is it so spongy?” I muttered.
    “Spongy?” Aunt Sadie echoed. “What do you mean?”
    I pushed the brake pedal again, but there was too much give to feel right, and the bus was failing to slow.
    “Penelope, we’re going awfully fast.” I could hear the tension in my aunt’s voice. “I think you better slow us down.”
    “I’m trying!” I slammed the pedal as hard as I could, but it was no use.
    Pump the pedal, baby!
    I did, but that didn’t work, either. “The brakes are out!”
    “Out?!”
    “Gone, Aunt Sadie! They’re not working!”
    My fingers tightened on the VW’s wide steering wheel. We were well beyond the town’s buildings now and there were no street lamps out here. I flipped on my high beams. The brilliant light illuminated the black tar. In the twin moving spotlights I saw the angle of our descent was quickly getting steeper. Ahead of us the road was beginning to bend.
    I had two choices: turn with the road or plow straight into the back end of Prescott Woods. There were no airbags in this vintage bus, and a head-on collision with a three-hundred-year-old tree trunk probably wasn’t survivable. If we wanted to live, there was only one way to go—
    Turn, doll! Turn now!
    The trees came up faster than I anticipated. I cut the wheel, felt the VW shudder. Tires squealed and Sadie and I screamed as the bus tipped slightly. Sadie’s palms flew up to the roof for balance. I gripped the wheel, certain we were going to roll over, but then the heavy vehicle righted itself. With a loud thud, we dropped back to four wheels again.
    “Oh, my goodness!” cried my aunt.
    I tried the brakes again—and again and again and again.
    “I can’t slow us down!”
    “Oh, my goodness!”
    “You said that already!”
    Don’t panic, honey.
    “I’m not panicking!”
    “I didn’t say you were panicking!” my aunt shouted.
    You can handle this, Penelope. Calm down, use your head.
    I felt my aunt’s hand on my shoulder. “Keep the wheel steady, Pen.” Her voice was much calmer all of a sudden. “Keep your eyes on the road.”
    “Okay.”
    My fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel, my knuckles looked white in the VW’s dim interior. My face was probably just as blanched. But this trip wasn’t over. We were speeding along at close to fifty, and that last turn put us down the steep hill that served as the highway’s onramp.
    I could see the heavy traffic just ahead. “There’s no shoulder! I’m going to have to get on!”
    “Activate your emergency flashers,” said Sadie, her voice still amazingly steady.
    I glanced down for a moment, pushed the hazard button. “Okay! They’re on!”
    “Good,” Sadie said. “Just do your best to merge into the highway traffic. The van will slow down on its own as soon as we hit level ground.”
    That sounded all well and good, but there was no place to merge. We blew right by the YIELD sign and were now speeding toward the highway’s crowded right lane.
    Honk the horn, baby! Warn these people away from you!
    Good idea! I pumped the horn, sent out a succession of nasal VW beeps.
    For a second, the lane showed me an opening, and I thought we were in the clear. Then I saw it: a giant Mac tractor, pulling a dozen cars on its ten-ton trailer. There was no way this massive truck could slow down fast enough. A fog-horn bellow blasted my eardrums.
    “Oh, my goodness!” Sadie shouted again. “Look out!”
    The onramp ended and the truck’s stack of new cars filled the windshield of the VW. We’re dead, I thought, bracing for the crash—
    But it didn’t come.
    The wheel in my hand cut sharply to the right. Beneath my fingers, it kept on turning. The stacked cars disappeared as the van’s high beams illuminated high weeds and brush. We bounced so violently, my head bumped the van roof. The turn had slowed us, but we were still moving fast. My hands were still on the wheel but some other force was handling it now, steering the van up a bumpy hillock. The wheel turned again to prevent us from plummeting over the other side.
    For a few yards