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Informationen zum Autor Zilpha Keatley Snyder is the author of The Egypt Game , The Headless Cupid , and The Witches of Worm , all Newbery Honor Books. Her most recent books include The Treasures of Weatherby , The Bronze Pen , William S. and the Great Escape , and William’s Midsummer Dreams . She lives in Mill Valley, California. Visit her at ZKSnyder.com. Klappentext When the four Stanley children meet Amanda, their new stepsister, they're amazed to learn she studies witchcraft. When she shares her secrets, strange things start happening in their old house. They suspect Amanda until they learn the house was long ago haunted by a ghost that cut off the head of a wooden cupid on the stairway. A Newbery Honor Book. The Headless Cupid Chapter One DAVID OFTEN WONDERED ABOUT HOW HE HAPPENED TO BE SITTING THERE on the stair landing, within arm’s reach of the headless cupid, at the very moment when his stepmother left Westerly House to bring Amanda home. When Molly appeared at the foot of the stairs, David knew she was leaving because she had her shoes on and there was no paint on her hands and clothes. Molly, who at that time had been David’s stepmother for about three weeks, was an artist, and around the house she dressed like an artist, very informally. “Oh, there you are,” she said to David. “I’m going now to pick up Amanda. Would you keep an eye on the kids while I’m gone? They were down by the swing a minute ago.” David said he would and Molly left, smiling back at him from the doorway. He sat a minute longer enjoying the deep silence of the big old house, empty now except for him. Even then, before anything happened, he felt there was something unusual about that spot on the landing. There was a central feeling about it, as if it were the heart of the old house. It was also a good vantage point, with a view of lots of doors and hallway, both upstairs and down. David got up after a while and went outside and found his little brother and sisters. He pushed them in the swing until he got tired and then he took them all upstairs to the room that he shared with his brother, Blair. The kids got out some toys, and after they’d settled down, David took a book and stretched out on the window seat where he could see the driveway. He read some, but mostly he watched for Molly’s car and wondered about the future—and Amanda. Amanda, who was Molly’s twelve-year-old daughter, had been staying with her own father since before Dad and Molly’s wedding; but now she was coming to live with her mother and the Stanley family. Suddenly to get an older sister—David was still eleven—after so many years of being the oldest, would make anybody wonder about the future. And David had a strong feeling that Amanda might give a person more to wonder about than the average stepsister. That feeling about Amanda came partly from a few specific clues, but mostly from a premonition. Premonitions ran in David’s family—on his mother’s side—and the one David had about Amanda was one of the strongest he’d ever had. What it felt like was a warning, a warning to expect some drastic differences when Amanda joined the Stanley family. Some of the specific clues came from little things Molly or David’s dad had let slip, but the strongest one came from one particular facial expression. The expression had been on Amanda’s face the only time David had ever met her. David had only met Amanda once because, in all the time Dad and Molly had been going together, Amanda had managed not to be around very much. Of course Dad had seen her; but whenever something was planned for both families, Amanda usually had something terribly important come up—like a test to study for, or a sudden attack of...
