“No way!” I screamed. “You can’t force me to do anything against my friends. You can’t—”
He reached under his jacket and pulled out a silvery object. The amulet! He pushed it toward me, his gray eyes locked coldly on mine.
“Jamie, you have no say. You have no power to fight me. I have the amulet.” He raised it higher. The blue jewels glowed under the yellow light from above.
“I became the blackbird,” he said. “Sometimes your friend Lewis’s dull body was too confining. Some nights, I transformed into this poor, one-eyed bird and rode the night sky.”
The glow of the amulet burned my eyes. I turned my head away.
“You murdered Angelica,” Simon said, his face reddening once again, revealing his anger. “But I flew into your garage and grabbed the amulet.”
He sighed. “When Angelica and I returned to life last year, we planned to live together forever. But you destroyed that plan by murdering my beloved wife. Ever since, I’ve been planning what I should do with you, Jamie. For yours will be a special fate.”
I backed away. “You—you’re going to kill me?”
He shook his head. “No. Death is not for you. Death would be too simple. I’m going to keep you with me, Jamie. At my side. You will live forever—as Angelica. You and I will live together forever, and you will do my bidding.”
I gasped. “Your bidding?”
He nodded. He pulled the amulet from around his neck and stepped toward me. “You will put this on now. The amulet will guide you. The amulet will show you how to end your friends’ lives. So we may begin our eternal quest.”
My friends stared in horror as he raised the chain and started to slip the amulet over my head. At the windowsill, I heard the bird squawk. I heard Shark yell, “Jamie—run!”
But I didn’t run. I’d waited too long for this confrontation.
I shoved Simon back and raised my arm. My sleeve dropped, and he saw the silver, jeweled bracelet.
“Simon, I’ve learned my own spells!” I cried in a voice quivering with emotion. “I’m the one who returned the Fear Mansion to its hill tonight. I did that. And now I’m going to use this bracelet for another spell I learned. I’m going to return you to your grave!”
Simon narrowed his eerie, gunmetal eyes at me. The amulet trembled in his hands.
Holding the bracelet up to him, I began to chant the words of the chant I’d memorized.
“Return . . . return . . .”
I waved the bracelet in a circle.
“Return . . . return . . .”
Would the spell work?
Still chanting, I raised my eyes.
Why was Simon Fear laughing at me?