Trixie and Honey Get a Little Spooked in The Mystery of the Whispering Witch

When I think of mysteries involving haunted houses, the team of teen sleuths most likely to pop into my head is Scooby Doo and the human quartet accompanying him. However, Trixie Belden and her fellow Bob-Whites of the Glen are the ones on the creepy case in The Mystery of the Whispering Witch, the 32nd book in the series started by Julie Campbell and continued by several ghostwriters using the pen name Kathyrn Kenny.

This isn’t the first time that ghosts have been a part of the Trixie Belden series. Spirits allegedly roamed free in the Ozarks in the 11th Trixie adventure, and based on the titles of some of the Trixies I’ve temporarily skipped over, they seem to have made appearances in a few other books as well. In fact, recollections of some of these adventures surface here when the fear of supernatural entities becomes acute. However, this was the first book in the series that I have read in which the predominant focus is upon the possible existence of ghosts. Specifically, some worry that Sarah Sligo, an 18th-century woman burned alive inside her mansion by townspeople who branded her a witch, is haunting the house now that it is occupied by a single mother, Mrs. Franklin, and her daughter Fay.

The last several Trixie mysteries I’ve read have taken place in the summer, so it was a bit startling to crack this one open and find myself in late November. The setting is the week before Thanksgiving, which turns out to be a significant date in Sarah’s life. It also means that all but one of the Bob-White boys are involved in a school Thanksgiving play, though, to my disappointment, this doesn’t really come into the story. As is often the case with Thanksgiving tales, Christmas comes up, since Trixie’s younger brother Bobby goes to visit Santa Claus, prompting a discussion demonstrating that the Christmas Creep isn’t exactly new. Mostly, though, the book feels like a Halloween story, with all its talk of hauntings and possessions.

It’s the latter that makes the mystery especially ghoulish, as Fay, who is about the same age as Trixie and her best friend, Honey Wheeler, truly fears that Sarah is taking over her. There are moments when the story almost seems to veer into the territory of Poltergeist and The Exorcist. Even though I was pretty confident that it would all turn out to be smoke and mirrors and end with an unveiling of the “And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those darn kids” variety, I found some of the scenes quite unsetting. In The Mystery at Bob-White Cave, I often got the feeling that locals attributed strange weather and other natural phenomena to ghosts, but in this case, it’s clear that some real malevolence is afoot, and it could have lasting psychological consequences. What’s not entirely plain is who is behind it.

The author does a good job of introducing several characters who could potentially be responsible for the enigmatic events at the house. I changed my mind a couple of times as I tried to figure out what was going on. I found Fay a mostly likable chum for the Bob-Whites, though she’s incredibly jumpy, and it almost seems to rub off on Honey. While she remains consistently kind throughout the book, her nerves often get the better of her and she isn’t much help in calming Fay down. It’s a little odd to see Trixie trying her best to be tactful for Fay’s sake while Honey keeps blurting out any dismaying thought that pops into her head.

While all of the Bob-Whites – including Trixie’s brothers Brian and Mart, Honey’s adopted brother Jim and their neighbors Dan and Di – appear in this book, Whispering Witch feels mostly like Trixie and Honey’s story, one that they must share with Fay as they try to relieve their new friend of her jitters – or determine whether her fears are even genuine. I enjoyed the camaraderie among the three girls, and I found it oddly appropriate that a week after my mom’s hip surgery, I happened to pick up a book in which one of the major characters winds up in the hospital with a broken hip. While a few scenes didn’t sit that well with me, this is still a mostly fun installment. You just might want to save it for Halloween.