On Wednesday night, the Capharnaum County Magicians Society again met at the Barnavelt house. This time, though, Lewis and Rose Rita had no opportunity to eavesdrop. Before they had a chance to hide in the secret passage, Mrs. Zimmermann took one group of magicians into the kitchen to tell them about the eerie creature that her magic had been unable to stop. The others were in the study, giving their reports to Uncle Jonathan.
With both ends of the secret passage closed to them, Lewis and Rose Rita held their own council of war in the backyard. “Did you read the paper today?” asked Rose Rita.
“Not yet,” said Lewis. “Why?”
“There’s a story on page two about something that seems very familiar,” replied Rose Rita in a grim tone. “At some time during Monday night, a strip of grass along one side of Wilder Creek Road died and turned gray.”
Lewis looked at her. They were sitting in lawn chairs, and though the evening was getting dark, a spill of warm yellow light from the kitchen windows illuminated Rose Rita’s face. “Like the Clabbernong farm,” whispered Lewis.
“Just like that,” agreed Rose Rita. “The county agent says it’s probably a fungus, but we know better. And there’s something even worse. The track is leading toward town.”
Lewis clamped his teeth tight to keep them from chattering. It was a warm, clear evening. Night insects trilled all around them. Everything seemed normal and safe. Lewis tried to force himself to relax. “I wonder what caused that.”
“Whatever it was that—oh, my gosh!” Rose Rita was leaning back in her lawn chair, staring straight up.
Lewis followed her gaze. His skin felt as if ants were crawling on it. Staring up into the sky, he could see the Red Star comet. It was much dimmer than in the telescope, with just a whisk of tail, but Lewis could see it clearly. “Time’s running out,” he said.
“It sure is,” replied Rose Rita. “Look, do you remember what your uncle said about the writer H. P. Lovecraft? Well, I checked a couple of his books out of the library. I don’t know where he got his stuff, but he talks about Great Old Ones and unseen horrors and all sorts of strange things. And guess what? When I was signing my name on the library card, I noticed who had checked those books out just before me.”
“Who?” Lewis asked, not sure he even wanted to know.
“A certain Mrs. E. Moote,” said Rose Rita. “And I found out where she lives. On Field Street. That’s just outside of town to the south, a street that forks off from Wilder Creek Road.”
“She must be tied into all this somehow,” said Lewis. “But what can we do?”
Rose Rita sighed. “I just don’t know. Look, let’s go in. That red comet can’t be healthy for us. Maybe it’s got atomic rays coming out of it.”
“I don’t think comets have any kind of rays coming out of them,” said Lewis. “They don’t shine by themselves. They reflect sunlight.”
Rose Rita sniffed. “I don’t care. This one’s bad for my health. I don’t feel well at all.”
Lewis started to get up, and as he did, he had the strangest sensation. It was as if a light popped on in his brain, then went out again, like a flashbulb. “What did that paragraph in Elihu’s will say?” he asked slowly.
“I’ve memorized it,” Rose Rita told him. “It says, and I quote, ‘Meanings may have other meanings. One thing I have learned is that the heart is the seat of the soul. The soul is the life. And the key to finding the life is, at the very bottom, a healthy heart.’ If you ask me, old Elihu had a couple of screws loose.”
Desperately, Lewis closed his eyes. He felt so close—he almost had it—but then . . . the vague notion had fled.
“I thought I could make sense of it,” he said. “Meanings and other meanings. Double meanings?”
“What is it?” asked Rose Rita.
Lewis shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure now.”
“Maybe it’ll come back to you,” said Rose Rita. “Tomorrow I want to go spy out the Moote house. Maybe the key is there.”
“Let’s not take chances,” pleaded Lewis.
“No fear of that,” promised Rose Rita. “We’re going to be very careful.”
* * *
Thursday morning was cloudy, with a threat of thunder hanging in the air, but the storm did not break loose. At nine Lewis and Rose Rita rode their bikes out of town again. This trip was not a very long one—only a mile from the center of town. A narrow street led off to the right. It didn’t have a street sign, but Rose Rita said that on the map it was called Field Street.
The houses were all small and widely spaced—wood-frame buildings, cottages, and bungalows. Lewis thought they seemed like the sort of homes that retired people lived in. Most of them had vegetable gardens in the backyards. But one yard was choked with lush green weeds except for a dozen scattered gray patches, which looked just like the plants on the Clabbernong farm. Rose Rita didn’t even have to tell Lewis that this was the Moote house. An old black Buick was parked near a big cedar tree in the front yard. Rose Rita rode past the house, then turned down a grassy lane that led toward a narrow brook. The weeds on either side had grown taller than Lewis.
When they reached the stream, they stopped. “Now what?” asked Lewis.
“Now we watch,” said Rose Rita, carefully parting the weeds. From here they could see the house. “In fact, I’ll bet we can sneak up on them.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” objected Lewis, but Rose Rita was already creeping forward, bent double. She moved carefully, disturbing the weeds as little as possible. Lewis followed, hoping no snakes were crawling through this tangle. Closer and closer they edged, until they were within a few feet of an open window. Lewis could hear two quarreling voices: a crabby old man and a woman who spoke in a hoarse, husky tone.
The woman was saying, “Of course he doesn’t remember being Jebediah Clabbernong, you fool. There’s too much of the Other in that body. And his cursed nephew kept him prisoner with that terrible iron bridge for all those years.”
“I don’t want to change if I can’t remember anything,” complained the old man. “What good is that? It would be like dying, and I don’t want to die!”
“You will remember,” said the woman. “Because your body will not be cremated before you change! It won’t be pinned to the bottom of a stream for more than sixty years, while the alien flesh absorbs every particle of your brain! You’ll still be Mephistopheles Moote—you’ll just have a new body, a new flesh, like our friend!”
Lewis leaned close to Rose Rita and whispered, “What are they talking about?”
Rose Rita shook her head. She didn’t know.
“Aahh!” snarled the man. “I’ve half a mind not to go through with this!”
“What!” shrieked the woman. “Back out now, when the Red Star is in the night sky?”
Lewis and Rose Rita exchanged a glance. We’ve got to tell, Lewis mouthed silently.
Rose Rita frowned and shrugged. Maybe, the gesture said.
The woman was yelling now. “Are you mad? All we have to do is trick those foolish friends of the Barnavelt man into attacking our little pet with magic—the stronger, the better! The idiots won’t know that any magical attack will make him more and more powerful, until he can open the gateway for the other Great Old Ones!”
“And they will come from the star,” said the old man. “Yes, yes, Ermine, I know all that! Well, when should we attack them?”
“Soon!” replied the woman. “As soon as possible! There’s a weakness, you know. Jebediah Clabbernong thought he was being so clever, holding back a part of himself! Elihu hid that part so well, we can’t find it. I’m sure Jebediah’s precious nephew didn’t destroy it—he would know enough to realize that it could only be dealt with when the Red Star shone. But that’s the weak point! That’s human enough so that magic might work against it.”
Lewis felt Rose Rita squeeze his arm. He was leaning forward, conscious of everything—the tickle of weeds on his cheek, the oppressive weight of the sultry, cloudy day, the harsh voice of the woman. His head was spinning. What weakness was she talking about?
“What do you want to do?” asked the man. “Go back out to that blasted farm and comb every inch of ground again? The animals that died there in 1885 are stirring again, you know. That’s the work of the star. Ugh! The stench of them!”
“No, no, no!” shouted the woman. “I’ve given up on finding that little prize package. Curse Jebediah and his spell for separating the soul from the body! No, what we have to do is make sure that what we’ve hidden stays hidden. It must emerge only in the light of the star. I think we should check.”
“I’m not driving to the waterworks every five minutes!” barked the man. “If you want to go and look, go! I have to rest!”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” said the woman. “I’m going to keep my eye on you. We’re not parting from each other until we both change. I know you! You’re selfish enough to change without me!”
The old man must have left the room, because his voice faded to a whining, angry mutter. A moment later a door slammed, and all was silent. Rose Rita squirmed around, and Lewis followed her to their bikes.
“Where?” asked Lewis. “Shouldn’t we go back and tell—”
“Not yet,” interrupted Rose Rita. “Those two have hidden something. We’ve got to check that out.”
“You mean the waterworks,” said Lewis.
“Come on,” said Rose Rita again, and she climbed onto her bike. Lewis got on his too, and they pedaled back to town and over to Spruce Street. At the bottom of a hill were four or five vacant lots, and the city waterworks, a big brick building that hummed with machinery. Behind the waterworks was the reservoir, a round, clear pond protected by a high chain-link fence. Across the street was a green park, through which Spruce Creek meandered. A few families were there, tossing baseballs and having picnics.
“I don’t see anything,” said Lewis. “I think we’d better go and—”
Rose Rita hopped off her bike and stared downward. “Look at this.”
She was pointing to the ground. Feeling his stomach heave, Lewis saw streaks in the grass. Streaks of gray, brittle decay. “The grass is dying,” he said.
“The trail leads toward the bridge,” said Rose Rita. “Come on.”
The brick footbridge crossed a deep part of the stream and was built over three big barrel arches. As Lewis and Rose Rita rolled their bikes across, a sickening odor made Lewis gag. “What’s that?”
Rose Rita leaned over the bridge. “I think it’s coming from underneath. Ugh! It smells as if something’s crawled in there and died!”
The two friends looked at each other. Lewis could tell they both had the same thought. “Do we have to?” he asked.
Rose Rita grimaced. “I think we do.”
They left their bikes, crossed the bridge, and clambered down the bank. The brick arches were so tall that they could both stand under the first one. Here the creek was about a dozen feet across. Lewis and Rose Rita stood on the bank beside the first arch and looked at the water under the middle arch. It had the dark, greenish color of deeper water, and now and then a few scummy yellow bubbles came up from the depths. It looked as if a rock or something was a foot under the surface.
“Wait a minute,” said Rose Rita. She scrambled around the stream bank until she found a fallen tree branch, thin but long and springy. She brought it back. “Let’s see if we can reach it.”
Standing at the very edge of the water, Rose Rita leaned forward and prodded with the stick. It was just a little too short. “Let’s go,” said Lewis.
“Not yet,” muttered Rose Rita. “Hold my hand. Lean back. And don’t let go!”
Lewis gripped her left wrist. Rose Rita bent far out over the water and tried again. This time the stick touched something. “It feels spongy,” reported Rose Rita. “It feels like—”
She pitched forward so hard that Lewis thought they were both going into the water. He tugged back, just as she let go of the stick. They toppled onto the bank. Lewis saw the tree branch thrash wildly. A writhing tentacle had wrapped around it. It tossed the stick aside and slipped under the surface. Then something round and nasty looking broke the surface of the water. It was lumpy, gray, and veined with red and blue.
And it opened a ghastly dead-looking eye to stare at them!