CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

If Johnny, Sarah, and the professor had seen Fergie late that night, they would have been shocked at his appearance. Over the preceding month, Fergie had become very thin and pale, and his eyes had a shifty, haunted look. At half past eleven that night, he slipped out of his house—something he had been doing several times a week for the last three or four weeks. He glanced at his father's pride and joy, a brand-new battleship-gray Studebaker that had taken the place of the old Ford. Fergie swallowed hard. His dad did not really like his new job. Mr. Baxter was a fast talker and a wheeler-dealer who didn't care if he cheated his customers now and again. But Mr. Ferguson was a great salesman, and he was earning good money for the first time in his life.

Miserably, Fergie hunched down into his black leather jacket and trotted along the street. Only a few blocks away was a small park, between the river and the Baptist church that he and his parents sometimes attended. At night the park was always deserted. It was just a grassy rectangle, with a circle of thirteen ancient oak trees running around a central stone walk that in turn surrounded a fountain. Fergie went and stood beside the fountain, hearing the trickle of water. Stars winked in the dark sky overhead, and a waxing moon gave a ghostly light. Fergie felt himself cringing inside as he waited.

The tolling of the bells began. Church bells and clock bells throughout Duston Heights pealed midnight. But above them all, drowning out all the rest, Fergie heard the terrible deep booming of the bell only he could hear, the same bell that he heard anytime he used or even thought about the book.

In the darkness ahead, something glimmered. Fergie was breathing hard now, trying to control his panic. He knew what the white shape was—only too well.

"Good evening, my boy," said the voice with its faint British accent. It was the one Fergie had first heard in the library, back when he had sought out the book. The short, slight old man stepped forward. He was wearing a black overcoat, but his long fringe of white hair gleamed even in the dead of midnight. "Have you been practicing your lessons?" asked the man.

"Y-yeah," stammered Fergie. "Only it—it's not workin' out. Not the way you said it would."

"Oh?" In the darkness, the man smiled. Fergie could barely make out his white teeth. "What trouble are you having, pray?"

Fergie squirmed. "Well—Dad has a new job an' he's doin' great at it, but he can't stand his boss. And Mom is worried 'cause Dad bought a new car an' a stove and refrigerator for the house, an' he's in debt. And they've been fighting about money." Fergie drew a long, miserable breath. "At least they never useta do that."

"Perhaps," said the man, "you merely haven't been specific enough in your wishes. Wishes are tricky, you know; you must manage them and show them who is boss. Now, if I were you, I could solve many of those problems rather neatly. I do not believe that your father's employer is married. If something were to happen to him, what would keep your father from taking over the business? And if he were in charge, then he would have no reason to dislike the boss, would he?"

Fergie closed his eyes. He could feel the pulse beating in his temples. "I couldn't wish for anything bad to happen to Mr. Baxter," he said.

"Oh? I could. But then, I hardly know the man. I never even heard of him before he hired your father, and I suppose you and Mr. Baxter are old friends."

"N-no," admitted Fergie.

"Well, there you are, then. You see, my boy, if I were in your position, I could very easily wish that Mr. Baxter would have some quick, painless, fatal accident. I daresay the world would not be much the worse for his passing."

"No," said Fergie. "I won't do it. That would be like murder."

"Very well," said the man. "But in time you may come to see my point of view. Now, time is fleeting. Let me teach you some special words. If you say them before you make a wish, you will find that you feel better and stronger. And they will help you to make some necessary wishes. Wishes that will put some former friends of yours in their place."

Fergie backed away. "I won't hurt my friends," he said.

"Oh, come," said the man in a soft, insinuating voice. "Can't you see that the snoopy old man is an enemy? Don't you know that the boy and girl you think are friends have already plotted against you? I think you should realize, my boy, that if you wish to become great, truly great, you will have to squash the insignificant insects that stand in your way."

"I don't want to squash anything," said Fergie helplessly.

The man laughed in a nasty way. "Don't you? Even if your so-called friends have been talking about you? Even if they have gone prying and spying into matters that are none of their business? Well, maybe you are not quite ready yet, but you are getting there—you are getting there. And you will have to move faster now than ever before. Since your conscience is so tender, I will not insist that you use your abilities—yet. Still, I think you should learn these words of power. Just tuck them away in your memory. You will know when it is time to use them." Then, patiently, the man began to repeat a string of Latin words to Fergie.

Fergie had studied some Latin in school, but he couldn't follow the meaning of the sentences the man made him memorize. For one thing, the words were not in the classical Latin of Cicero and Caesar, but in the vulgate Latin of medieval alchemists and sorcerers. But there was something else, something bizarre and disturbing, about the words. They seemed to have a weight and form of their own; dark, heavy shapes that lurched and slurched in Fergie's mind as he memorized them. He found his fists balling themselves in fury, he felt his face burning in hot anger, as one by one he committed the words to memory.

At last the man finished his recital. "I hope you have all that by heart. It won't be so good for you if you stumble over the words. Any questions?"

Dazed, as if he were waking from a trance, Fergie muttered, "Yeah—who are you, anyway?"

The old man took a step back, as if surprised. Then he chuckled. "Oh, you have seen my name in letters red as blood. And before too many changes of the moon, you will know who I am, all right. Yes, you will know with all your heart!"

The man waited, but Fergie stood biting his lip and not saying a word. "Good night, then," said the old man. "Tomorrow night, I think. Another lesson. There are too many enemies prying into my business, and I do not have the luxury of time. Go back home now, my boy, and sleep. Sleep and forget. But remember the name of Adam Nemo. He will become very important in your life. He will become the only thing in your life. Go home and sleep." The man's voice was soft, hypnotic. Fergie swayed a little.

Then he blinked his eyes. He was alone in the park. Suddenly he was so weary, he could barely stumble off toward home. When he got there, he went to his room and dropped straight into bed without even taking off his clothes.

He lay in a strange state halfway between being awake and dreaming. When he closed his eyes, he saw blackness, but swirling in the blackness were fine red lines. These flowed together and became larger, until they were like writhing scarlet serpents. And then they became letters. Letters that formed two words, as red as blood on a velvet-black background:

 

Jarmyn Thanatos

 

Fergie sat up with a gasp. The old man who had met him at midnight to teach him strange spells was the same one who had written the ghastly The Book of True Wishes. But how could that be? Professor Childermass had claimed that the man had cheated his father seventy years ago. Thanatos would have to be well over a hundred if—

Settling back into bed, staring blindly into the darkness, Fergie wondered if it could be true. Was that why the weird old man seemed to hate and despise Professor Childermass? Did he hold some ancient grudge against the whole family?

But what about Johnny and Sarah? Ever since the two boys had met, Johnny had always been Fergie's friend. Sarah was still pretty new in town—she had moved to Duston Heights from Iowa or someplace last summer, when her dad got a position on the Haggstrum College faculty. Still, Johnny, Sarah, and Fergie had enjoyed going places and doing things together, just as friends are supposed to. Feeling sorry for himself, Fergie had to admit that he didn't have too many friends—although he was athletic and self-assured, Fergie was just a little too smart-alecky and sarcastic to be a really popular kid. Fergie's mind wandered back to the good times and the bad that he had gone through with Johnny. He remembered times when they had been in tight places—even times when he had saved Johnny's life, or vice versa. But the old man had sneered at Johnny, and at the professor too. Fergie frowned. Could Thanatos have been right?

The more he thought about people talking behind his back, making fun of him and his family, the more angry Fergie got. Maybe it really was time to teach Johnny Dixon a lesson. Johnny thought he was so great, the son of the super military hero, Major Harrison Dixon. And Johnny was better at Latin and English than Fergie was too. Had Dixon been secretly laughing at him every time the two boys studied together? Did he privately think that Fergie was some kind of dimwit? Well, now Fergie knew a few things that Dixon didn't. Maybe it would be fun to put the wonderful Johnny Dixon in his place. Oh, nothing like the kinds of things that Thanatos had hinted. Nothing fatal. But maybe a little humiliation would teach Dixon—

The breath caught in Fergie's throat. He heard a soft sound, a dull, slow scraping sound, like a fingernail slowly rasping against wood. It might have been a mouse, or the wind brushing a branch against the house, but it wasn't. It came from the window. Fergie hesitated a moment. Then he tossed off his blankets and crept silently out of bed. He went to the window and raised it as silently as he could. The night was dark, but in the pale glow of the moon, he could see the quiet street. Nothing moved, not even a cat.

Fergie was about to close the window again, when something pale came trembling up over the sill and curled to grasp it. It was a hand. With a stifled yelp, Fergie jumped a yard backward. A second hand gripped the sill, and then a bloodless face rose, as if someone had climbed up the wall like a human fly and now was hauling himself in.

But the figure paused and stared at Fergie. Fergie's skin crawled. The face was the same one he had seen in his hideous dream about the bell tower—the face of the boy's ghost. The eyes were milky, even the irises, and the lips were so purple, they looked black in the dim light. "Don't listen!" moaned the apparition. "Don't believe him! He will steal your youth! He locked me away in the smothering dark! Lost, oh lost!"

Fergie felt goose bumps rising on his arms and on the back of his neck. His teeth chattered. For a second he thought he was going to faint dead away, but then the figure simply faded, dissolving like a patch of mist in a breeze. It was gone.

Fergie switched on his light, moved a chair to the closet, and got the book down. He opened it and frantically tried to tear out the pages. Although the paper felt thin and fragile, it was tougher than any real paper could ever be. Fergie could not make even the smallest rip. He bit his lip, and then made a decision. He opened his bedroom door and listened. The house was silent.

Barefoot, Fergie tiptoed downstairs, into the kitchen, and then down into the cellar. The furnace was down here. Most places in Duston Heights had replaced the old coal-burning furnaces with oil-burning ones, but the Ferguson house still had an old coal burner. No fire burned there now, but a pile of dry kindling waited in a box on the floor. Fergie opened the iron door—it screeched on its hinges, making him flinch—and then tossed sticks of kindling into the furnace. He got a box of matches from a shelf and lit some small splinters in the pile. Soon the sticks caught fire, snapping and crackling as they began to blaze. As soon as the yellow flames were leaping up, Fergie carefully tossed the book right on the fire. He shut the fire door and hurried back upstairs.

Fergie closed his bedroom door behind him, locked it, and leaned on it. He felt like crying. He had given up great power. There were so many wishes left to make.

And yet he felt good too—he knew that somehow the book had been gaining control over him, making him its slave. Well, that was over at last.

With a sigh, Fergie clicked off the light and climbed into bed. But when he lay back, his head touched something flat and hard. He leaped out of bed, turned on the light again, and stared at his pillow. The book lay there, unscorched, safe and sound. And it was different. The black cloth looked darker, shinier, newer. The red letters of the title almost glowed with a baleful light of their own. Shuddering, Fergie stepped closer.

The book flopped open. Fergie blinked, and this time tears did come to his eyes. On the open pages was a stern warning. Fergie felt as if he were falling into a yawning, dark, bottomless pit. It was too late to save his friends now—too late to save himself.

The warning in the book was stark and plain:

 

If you try that again, you will die most horribly.