“IT WAS WHEN I GOT THIS RASH, on top of everything else, that I began to suspect her,” Poco told the investigators. “Now I know for sure. I can feel Miss Bone working on me. She’s taking revenge because of what I saw in her apartment. Don’t tell my mother. It would just upset her, and what could she do?”
“Didn’t they use to drown witches?” Georgina asked. “Or did they burn them? If you’re sure Miss Bone is doing this, we should tell someone. We should go to the police.”
“Maybe,” Poco said weakly. “I can’t think straight anymore.”
Walter was staring at her, his pale eyes open wide. “Telling the police is not a good idea,” he said. “I know from experience, you can’t fight these kinds of powers. It only makes them madder and they get you in the end. It happened to me.
“What do you mean?” Georgina said. “What did the powers do?”
“Oh, everything.” Walter shrugged. “I don’t know why, but they picked me out from the very beginning. First they got my parents before I could even talk. Then my aunts and uncles died in different ways. You probably won’t believe me, but it’s true. Then they got my grandfather, and my cat and my turtle and—”
“Your cat!” cried Poco, coming alive for a moment. “Oh, Walter, that’s terrible. I didn’t know you had a cat!”
Walter nodded mournfully. “I’m the only one left in my family now. Except for my grandmother. And they could get her with one little push if they wanted. She’s so old. I worry about her all the time, but I pretend not to. Whenever I worry or try to stop them, the spirits close in and hit me again. It’s gotten so I’m afraid to walk down the street because something might happen. Remember, I was the one who was watching when—”
“Juliette was run over!” cried Poco. “Oh, Walter, how horrible. I never understood before. I thought you were just strange, or shy, or …”
“Crazy,” Georgina finished in an irritated voice. She frowned at Walter. “This is ridiculous! Juliette was not run over because you were watching. It was an accident.”
Walter shook his head gloomily. “That’s how the spirits make it look so I can’t pin it on them. But they’re doing it, all right. Who else that you know has had so much bad stuff happen to him?”
Poco nodded. “I never knew why you crept around the way you do.”
“I try to be invisible,” Walter said. “I keep hoping the bad spirits will forget about me and go off someplace else. Thank goodness for the good spirits to help balance the bad ones out. The Ouija board is on my side. It was what told me I was on the hit list in the beginning. Up to then, I couldn’t figure out what was going on.”
“I think the Ouija board is on nobody’s side,” Georgina said. “It sees and tells. It doesn’t care.”
“But it warned us about our deadly enemy,” Walter reminded her.
“Until it fell under the deadly enemy’s power itself,” Poco went on. “Slowly but surely, Miss Bone is closing in.”
All three were silent at this, and a hopeless feeling of entrapment circled among them. Or rather, it circled between Poco and Walter, who gazed limply at each other across the bedroom. Georgina had another sort of look in her eye.
“I can’t stand this!” she exclaimed at last, jumping to her feet. “I can’t sit around being invisible while some witch or evil spirit closes in for the kill. I have to go on with the investigation.”
“But you can’t,” Poco said. “The investigation is over. We know everything. It’s just a matter of what to do.”
“I’m not so sure,” Georgina said. “I’d like to pay a visit to Miss Bone first. I want to hear what she has to say. There must be a reason why she’s doing all this.”
“Miss Bone!” Poco turned white. “But you can’t!” she shrieked. “People like her don’t have reasons. She’ll come after you. Or she’ll put some even worse sickness into me. Oh, please, Georgina. Don’t do it, please. I’m so weak already, I couldn’t bear any more.”
Walter, also, was appalled by the idea. He ran over to Poco’s bedside to try to calm her. But Georgina stood firm and would not change her mind. She could be absolutely impossible when she wanted to be.
When they saw how determined Georgina was to throw herself into the clutches of the unknown, Poco and Walter drew themselves up. They knew they could not let her go alone. Alone, she would be helpless. Like Juliette, she might never come back.
“All right!” Walter said. “We’ll go together to visit Miss Bone. She will have a hard time getting rid of all of us at once.”
“She wouldn’t do it that way,” Poco warned. “She’d take her time and make it look natural. You know, Walter, I wonder if Miss Bone is at the bottom of everything—even your parents. Whatever way we turn, there she is staring at us like the horrible Ouija eye.”
This was a fascinating idea, but the investigators did not have time to think about it more deeply. Georgina, having decided what to do, now wanted to do it, immediately! So Poco crawled out of bed and staggered into her clothes while Walter went downstairs to make sure the coast was clear. Mrs. Lambert had been forced to go back to work for a few hours that afternoon, which was why the friends had been allowed to come over to begin with. They would have just enough time to whisk Poco out of the house.
And whisk her they did because she was still too dizzy to walk. Walter carried her piggyback as far as the bus stop. Then Georgina took over for the rest of the way. Poco was so thin and small that she hardly weighed anything, except for her winter coat. The afternoon was cold. In Poco’s pale cheeks, a faint rosiness appeared, giving her a look of health she hadn’t had for many days.
“Oh, it’s so nice to be out!” she exclaimed once, but afterward became solemn again.
“There’s Angela’s house,” Georgina said when the big, elegant structure loomed up ahead. “And there’s the garage.”
“Is Miss Bone home?” Walter asked, in a voice that showed how much he wished she were not.
“It’s hard to tell. She usually parks in the garage.”
They walked straight down the driveway, a means of approach strange to them all. Though they knew they were at risk, each felt a flash of relief when passing by their chilly hideout in the bushes. It was so much better to be out taking action.
Georgina let Poco down gently on Miss Bone’s famous stone stoop. There was nothing on it now, though the bodies of the little animals had made such an impression on Poco that for a moment she imagined she saw them again. She huddled against Walter while Georgina pushed the button that rang the doorbell. Far away, in some eerie recess of Miss Bone’s apartment, a chime went off. A door opened above. Footsteps came slowly down toward them.
“Hello? Yes, what is it?” Miss Bone’s frightful old face peered out. Her eyes dug deep into Poco at once. “My goodness, child! You look thoroughly ill. Come in, all of you, and get out of the cold. Whatever it is, I’ll take care of you upstairs.”