The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost

immediately,” she said.
    The
girls looked at the woman, then at the gathering gloom. If there was one thing
they didn’t want to do, it was to go back to that cabin in the dark.
    “Come,
come,” said Wilhelmina “If the ghost were truly a destructive one, we’d have
had some sign of it by now. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’d stake my
reputation as an investigator on that fact.”
    Trixie
took some courage from Wilhelmina’s statement. She never says anything she isn’t sure of, she thought. “All
right,” Trixie said. “We’ll take you to the cabin.”
    “But
we can’t stay long,” said Honey. “We have to be back at the house before anyone
misses us.”
    Wilhelmina
checked to make sure she had paper and a pencil in the pocket of her shirt, then signaled the girls to take
the lead.
    The
girls had changed into sneakers and applied a lot of insect repellent before
setting off to find Wilhelmina. Those two things made the repeat journey
easier.
    Before
long, Trixie was touching Wilhelmina’s arm and saying, “There it is.” Having
paused, she felt reluctant to start forward again. But Wilhelmina plunged
ahead, leaving the girls no choice.
    Wilhelmina
pulled a flashlight out of her pocket. She held it ready but didn’t turn it on.
Then she pulled open the door and stepped inside. The girls waited outside,
listening to the drone of mosquitoes.
    After
a few seconds the flashlight went on and Wilhelmina said, “Would you girls come
in here, please?”
    Trixie
stepped into the cabin and looked around. As she did, she felt a shiver run
down her spine.
    What
she saw was a dusty, dirty room with absolutely no sign of life!



8 * Wilhelmina
Investigates
     
    Trixie looked around frantically
for some of the clues she’d seen before. There were none. The food, cup, and
plate were gone. The bare table was covered with a thick layer of grime. There
was no hat hanging on the wall. The cupboard door hung by one
hinge. The bed was just bare and rusty springs.
    During
the day, the cabin had merely looked dusty and neglected. Now, by the light of
Wilhelmina’s flashlight, Trixie could see spiderwebs in every corner and a film of dust covering everything. Two sets of footprints
on the floor seemed to be the only disturbances.
    Trixie
cast a desperate look at Honey. The girls had already irritated Wilhelmina
because they’d played along with the comb-and-brush trick. Now, the woman was
bound to think this was another prank. She’ll never listen to another word we say, Trixie thought. She certainly won’t bother to teach us
anything more about psychic phenomena. She turned to Wilhelmina and
opened her mouth to apologize, but the woman interrupted her before she could
get the words out.
    “Fascinating!” Wilhelmina James exclaimed. Her eyes were shining
behind her huge glasses. “You girls may have stumbled onto a most remarkable
psychic experience.”
    “W-we
may have what?” Trixie said, puzzled. She couldn’t believe it; Wilhelmina
seemed genuinely excited.
    “This
has all the earmarks of retrocogni-tion ,” Wilhelmina
said. Seeing the girls’ blank looks, she added, “It is a highly technical term
that means ‘ traveling backward in time.’ ” The girls
let the statement sink in. “You mean, when we were here this afternoon the
place really was inhabited, only it wasn’t really this afternoon?” Trixie asked .
    Wilhelmina
peered at her. “If you find that a useful way of clarifying
it, yes. As with all psychic phenomena, retrocognition isn’t well understood. All we know is that, occasionally, a person may suddenly
experience a place or event that once existed but no longer does. The incidents
are difficult to verify because it’s impossible to prove that the sights or
sounds are exactly as they would have been at that earlier moment in history.
But we can verify that the sights and sounds simply could not have occurred in
the present.”
    “I’m
afraid I’m not following you,” Honey said.
    “Hmm.” Wilhelmina James cast about for an easier
explanation. “Okay, here’s an example. Recent tourists in the north of France have
reported hearing the entire Battle of Dieppe, which occurred there in 1942.
They describe the same kinds of sounds—cannon fire and people
shouting—beginning and ending at around the same times, though on different
nights. Now, nobody tape-recorded the Battle of Dieppe, so we can’t say exactly
what it sounded like. What we can say is that the battle