The face—if it was a face—sank immediately in a swirl of water. Lewis and Rose Rita leaped to their feet and stumbled up the bank of the creek. At the top they turned fearfully, but nothing showed that the hideous, quivering thing had even been there. The smooth green water flowed on without a ripple or a bubble.
Still—the creature had to be down there. It might return.
“Let’s go,” said Lewis, climbing onto his bike. Just as he did, the thunder that had been building all morning resounded with an earthshaking rumble. The wind gusted. As Lewis pedaled across the bridge, he saw that everyone had deserted the park in the few minutes he and Rose Rita had been near the stream. The tops of the spruce and fir trees whipped back and forth, and above them, the ragged clouds swirled past like dark smoke. A white bolt of lightning split the sky overhead.
Lewis looked over his shoulder and saw that Rose Rita was close behind him. She was leaning over the handlebars, her face pale. Her eyes opened wide. “Look out!” she yelled.
Lewis jerked his head around. He was almost at the street. The battered old black Buick rolled to the curb, right in front of him. Lewis put on the coaster brake of his bike, but on the grass the rear tire just skidded. The car loomed closer! Desperately, Lewis swerved, lost his balance, and tumbled from his bike. At first, everything seemed to happen in nightmarish slow motion. He saw the grass coming toward his face, each green blade seeming distinct and sharp.
With a sickening thud, his head hit the ground, and the world exploded in yellow light. Lewis had a vague sensation of turning a somersault, then he slammed flat on his back against the concrete sidewalk so hard that he lost his breath. His lungs pumped, but no air came in. Everything faded out. For a second he wondered if he were dying.
At last his breath came back with a great shuddering wheeze. He heard a clatter off to one side, and Rose Rita was kneeling over him, pleading, “Are you okay?”
That’s a silly question, he thought, but he didn’t have wind enough to talk. And the pain had started, the sharp hot sting of cuts on his knees and the palm of one hand, the throb of a lump high on his forehead.
Two other people leaned over him. To Lewis, they seemed to waver in and out of focus. His uncle and Mrs. Zimmermann? No, an old man and an old woman. But not until he heard the woman’s low-pitched, husky voice did Lewis realize that they were the Mootes. “My goodness, young man, you took quite a spill!”
Lewis’s skin crawled at the sound. If he could have gathered the strength, he would have sprung up and run for his life. But all he could do was lie there, fighting for air.
The old man stood leaning on a cane, while the woman knelt next to Rose Rita. Mr. Moote said, “Perhaps we should take you to our home. We could call—”
“No!” said Lewis. He still had hardly any breath, but he would have to have been dead not to object. He said, “Uh, no, thanks. I—I’m fine. Just had the wind knocked out of me.” His voice sounded weak, uncertain, and on the verge of tears.
“Are you sure, dear?” asked the woman, smoothing his hair away from his forehead.
Lewis was terrified. He half expected her touch to be as cold as a snake’s. He did not know how badly he was hurt—he was scraped up and bruised, at the very least—but he fought hard not to cry. “I’m fine!” He tried to force his voice to be calm. “I’ve had lots worse falls than this, really. My sister Nancy will tell you.”
“Uh, sure,” said Rose Rita. She blinked behind her round spectacles. Of the two, Rose Rita was always the quickest to dream up some improbable story. Now she said, “Uh, see, Billy went to the circus with Mom and Dad when he was four, and they had this big grizzly bear that rode a bike. The bear could do wheelies, and he could ride no hands, and he rode across a tightrope. Well, ever since we saw all that, Billy’s been trying to do the stunts that bear did—”
“C’mon,” Lewis said, getting up and going to his bike. His steps felt wobbly, as if the earth were quivering like Jell-O under his feet. “Mom and Dad will be mad if we get wet, and it’s gonna pour in a minute.” Painfully, he lifted his bike, which did not seem to be seriously damaged. He climbed aboard, said, “Thanks!” and pushed off. Now he could tell that both his knees and the palm of his left hand were badly skinned. His fall had ripped two big holes in his jeans legs, and he could feel a warm trickle of blood down his shins. But he wouldn’t have stayed near Mephistopheles and Ermine Moote for a thousand dollars.
Rose Rita came pedaling up next to him. “Hey, are you all right? That was a bad fall.”
“I think I’m okay,” said Lewis, panting. The pain was making tears well out of both his eyes. He felt them cool on his cheeks as the wind blew in his face. “We have to tell Uncle Jonathan about this.”
“How about writing another note?” asked Rose Rita. “You go tell your uncle that you fell off your bike. Don’t let him know how it happened. Just say it was an accident. I’ll bet you anything he takes you to the doctor. While he does, I’ll go home and get the pad and write the letter. I’ll tell him not to use any magic, and I’ll tell him that the Mootes are somehow behind all this.”
“Okay,” replied Lewis, whose head was pounding. He had a goose-egg lump on the front of his skull, in the hair above his left eyebrow. At least he wasn’t seeing double. But he did feel nauseated, and he was glad when at last they reached 100 High Street.
Rose Rita ran inside and emerged a moment later with Uncle Jonathan in tow. Lewis had just stood his bike up when Jonathan hurried over and took one look at him. “Into the car, Lewis. I think we’d better go visit Dr. Humphries. Thanks, Rose Rita. You’d better get home. This storm’s going to cut loose any second.”
Jonathan and Lewis drove over to Dr. Humphries’s clinic, and just as they walked in, the rain began to pour. The nurse at the front desk took Lewis straight back to an examining room, with Uncle Jonathan at his heels. A moment later the doctor came in, his expression concerned.
Lewis liked Dr. Humphries, a big, comfortable-looking man with a voice like a bass viol. The doctor had him sit on the green examining table and took a look first at the bump on his head. “Hmm,” he said. “Must’ve been quite a crack. I’ll wager that put a dent in the pavement! I’m going to shine a light in your eyes, Lewis. It’s going to bother you a little but keep your eyes open. Look straight ahead.” The penlight he held stabbed Lewis’s eyes, making them water, but he didn’t complain. Then Dr. Humphries held up two fingers and asked Lewis how many he saw. Finally, Dr. Humphries laughed. “They must grow ’em hardheaded in Wisconsin,” he rumbled. “No concussion, which is the best news you’ve heard since Christmas. Now let’s look at those scrapes and abrasions.”
A few minutes later, patched up and bandaged, Lewis left the clinic with his uncle. The rain had settled in to a steady, dreary downpour, and as they drove through it, Uncle Jonathan said, “How on earth did you fall?”
Lewis said, “We were hurrying home because we heard thunder. I looked over my shoulder to see where Rose Rita was, and I almost hit a car. I swerved in time to miss it, but I fell off.”
“Lewis, you have to be more careful,” said Jonathan, shaking his head.
Though Lewis had been right on the edge of blurting out everything, that made him bite his tongue. What if his uncle became even more disappointed in him? And what would he say if he learned Lewis and Rose Rita had been snooping around, poking their noses into things that they should have left alone?
As soon as they had hurried into the house, Uncle Jonathan saw Rose Rita’s new message. She had folded it and dropped it through the mail slot. It was on the same kind of yellow paper as the first note, written in the same blocky letters. Lewis was close enough to read what it said:
DEAR MR. BARNAVELT,
YOU MUST NOT USE MAGIC AGAINST THE THREAT. MR. AND MRS. MOOTE KNOW MORE THAN THEY LET ON. SOMETHING HORRIBLE CAME FROM THE CLABBERNONG FARM. IT IS NOW IN SPRUCE PARK, UNDER THE ARCHED BRIDGE. TAKE CARE!
SIGNED,
A FRIEND
Uncle Jonathan quickly folded the letter, said, “Hrmpf!” and then turned to Lewis. “How are you feeling?”
“Not so hot,” Lewis confessed. “I’ve got an awful headache.”
Jonathan felt his forehead. “No fever. Take a couple of aspirin for the pain. I think you’d better go to your room for a little while. You’ve been pretty badly banged up, and you’re going to be sore as a boil tomorrow. Want an ice bag for your head?”
“No, I’ll be all right,” said Lewis.
Jonathan raised his eyebrows. “Sure? All right, then, go lie down for a while, until your head feels better. Meanwhile, I need to make some phone calls.”
Lewis did not protest. He went to his bedroom and changed from his torn jeans into pajamas. Then, instead of lying down, he put a pillow on the floor and knelt on it looking out the window. The day was dark, though the time was only a quarter to one. Sheets and sheets of pewter-colored rain whipped down High Street. The trees lost twigs and leaves to the blustery wind. All down the hill, yellow lights shone in the windows of the houses. For some reason, they made Lewis feel lonely. He imagined himself as a homeless orphan, staring at the warm, safe houses of more fortunate kids.
Lewis wondered where Rose Rita was, and what she was up to. She was a good friend, but she could be so exasperating sometimes. Still, Lewis knew, Rose Rita was pretty sensible. She wasn’t the kind of person who would take chances for no reason at all. Then Lewis thought about Mr. and Mrs. Moote, who acted so concerned when he had fallen. Mrs. Moote had wanted him to go to their house. Lewis felt cold just thinking of that. If he had, would he ever have gotten out alive? What was the hideous thing in the water, and what did the Mootes have to do with it? Lewis had the queasy feeling that he had not seen the last of them—or of their “pet,” the horrible creature in the water.
Watching the steady rain, Lewis let his mind drift. His scrapes, bruises, and bumps ached. In a funny way the pressure of the pillow on his skinned knees helped. At least he didn’t feel the ache as much. Lewis idly wondered how long it would take them to heal. “Heal,” he murmured dreamily. He said the word over and over until it seemed to lose its meaning. Then he started on words that meant the same thing. “Health. Healthy. Well.” When he said that, it was as if something suddenly clicked in his brain. It was almost like a jolt of electricity. The same thing had happened once before, but this time the light in his mind did not go off.
Lewis jumped from a kneeling position straight to his bare feet. He forgot all about his throbbing headache and his bandaged knees. His eyes were wide. “Oh, my gosh!” he shouted.
Because this time he knew he was right. Meanings could have other meanings. Words that meant almost the same thing as each other could also mean different things—if you looked at them the right way, that is.
And Lewis had just done that. He felt his heart racing. Yes, he was sure.
Lewis had solved the riddle that Elihu Clabbernong had left in his will.