The scary hour had come! Now I really did want to turn back, but forced myself to run even faster towards Shane and Big Ella’s house, Mister Lewis wafting beside me, urging me to hurry.
‘It’s OK for you,’ I panted, ‘but I have real legs that don’t waft like yours.’ Not yet, anyway!
We’d just got as far as Big Ella’s gate when the clock stopped chiming midnight.
‘Shane!’ I called out as I ran past the house and down towards the stony place. ‘Shane!’
I almost fell down when I saw the shadowy figures standing in a half circle. And there, before them, were Shane and Big Ella. They were totally still, like in a trance. One of the shadowy figures broke away and moved towards them.
‘That’s Amergin,’ whispered Mister Lewis, his voice shaky with fear.
‘The stones!’ I said, pulling the two stone halves from inside my jacket. ‘I have them.’
Mister Lewis shook his head. ‘Too late, lad,’ he said. ‘No good now. Midnight has passed. All is lost.’
I watched, terrified, as Amergin moved. I couldn’t see his face. He wore long clothes and had long hair that wafted about like a dirty cobweb. At a signal from him, the rest of the ghostly shapes also began to move towards Shane and Big Ella.
‘They’re going to turn them into half-ghosts – just like me,’ groaned Mister Lewis. ‘They’re doomed!’
That’s when I got really angry. I was not going to stand by and watch my best mate and his gran made into spooks.
‘Stop!’ I shouted, running into the circle. Shane and Big Ella were kneeling, their heads bent forward, like they were still in a trance.
‘Get away from my friends, you creeps!’ I roared.
Amergin drifted towards me. I could see his face now, all right, and it was not pretty. He had mad eyes that would bore holes in a skyscraper. His voice shook the ground and made my bones tremble. I didn’t understand what he was saying. Terrified and angry, I yelled back at him, any rubbish I could think of to disguise my terror. His deep, earthquaky voice got louder. And then Mister Lewis was beside me. He was trying to pull me away, except that his hands kept going through me.
‘Don’t upset him, lad,’ he whispered.
But I wasn’t listening. I ripped off my jacket and hurled it, and the two stone halves, at Amergin.
‘There’s your crummy stones,’ I shouted. ‘We went to awful trouble to get them − me and Mister Lewis. And you can keep the jacket!’ I added, kicking it towards Amergin. Then I rushed over to Shane and Big Ella.
‘Get them out of their trance,’ Mister Lewis’s voice shouted from behind.
I don’t know what I was thinking, but that was when I pushed Big Ella on top of Shane. She was a big lady and she squashed him like a frog under a tractor. If Amergin didn’t kill him, then Big Ella certainly would.
‘I’ve killed my best friend,’ was my last thought before the circle of foggy shapes began to close in and everything went black.