Found: Kid’s book about a haunted castle

This is an illustrated fiction book that I must have read in the early 90s. It was a softcover in English (America, may have been from a Scholastic book order). The color scheme I vaguely remember as being black and white and red. It was a dark story about a very lonely castle and the only two people in it who may have been alive were the lord and maybe his jester? I recall a ball with maybe an owl on it? being a prop for the ghosts of the children that the lord had killed, or something. I think that the ghosts finally got their vengeance on the castle lord in the end.

Shot in the dark: maybe The Thirteen Clocks? There's a picture of a ball stamped with stars towards the end.

This was absolutely the book! Thank you so much! I can’t wait to read this to my daughter!