CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

 

"Sh-should we answer that?" stammered Sarah.

Johnny realized that if the caller were one of the professor's friends, then his presence in the house would be no surprise. He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear without saying anything.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" asked a cranky voice.

Johnny almost burst with relief. "Professor Childermass! We were worried sick about you. Where on earth did you go?"

"Ah, my young friend. Where did I go? Well, here and there, let us say. Did you enjoy your birthday, John?"

Frowning, Johnny realized that something was wrong. The voice sounded like the professor's—but it had a kind of false note too. "Uh, yeah," Johnny said. "Thanks for the card, but I—I lost it, an' I don't remember the puzzle. Where did you hide my present, anyway?"

The voice at the other end sighed. "Well, we'll soon deal with that, my boy. In fact, I'm on my way home now. I have decided to sell that carved hand to Mr. Mergal. He seems to be a harmless collector of antiques. So you just wait right there, and we'll find your present together, hmm?"

"O-okay," said Johnny. His face felt numb. He hung up the phone and stared wildly at Sarah. "That was Mergal," he said. "He pretended to be the professor, an' he sounded a lot like him, but it must have been Mergal. He has a little habit of saying, 'hmm' every so often, an' the professor never does that. He's on his way here!"

"Come on!" Johnny followed Sarah downstairs. They went out through the kitchen door and then through the backyard and into the alley. "You see what this means, don't you?"

"What?" Johnny asked.

"Well, if Mergal's gonna be coming here, then he won't be at home. And while he's out, we have to take a look inside that creepy old house of his—because he just may be holding the professor prisoner!"

"Couldn't we call the police or something?" groaned Johnny.

Sarah gave him an exasperated look. "An' tell them what? That we think this new guy in town might have busted into the museum and may have kidnapped the prof, all because he possibly wants to be a super-duper necromancer? They'd haul us off to the funny farm!" She punched his arm. "C'mon, Dixon. There's two of us, so one can keep watch while the other explores."

Johnny felt his heart sink, but he had to admit Sarah was right. They made the trek over to Saltonstall Street and cut through a couple of empty lots. These were overgrown with weeds and brushy saplings, so Johnny and Sarah could hide and keep the house in sight. At first they thought Mr. Mergal might already have left, because everything looked so empty and quiet. Then Sarah grabbed Johnny's wrist. A pink blur had appeared at the window in the octagonal tower room. It was Mergal's bald head, peering out suspiciously. It vanished into the gloom, and a few minutes later they heard a car engine cough to life. From somewhere behind the house a shiny black Hudson Hornet came bumping over a rutted drive. It stopped at the wrought-iron fence, and Mergal got out. He glanced all around, opened the gate, climbed back into his automobile, and drove off.

"I'll go," said Sarah. She pulled something from her jeans pocket. It was a shiny silver whistle. "If the car comes back, give a couple of toots. And you listen for me, because if a skeleton comes walking toward me, I'm gonna scream my lungs out!"

"No," said Johnny slowly. "You keep watch. The professor's my friend. I should be the one who goes to look for him."

Sarah turned her surprised, freckled face toward him.

After a moment she grinned. "You're all right, Dixon. Okay, go ahead. Keep an ear peeled for this whistle. If Murderous Mergie shows his nasty face, I'll give you three loud blasts. I mean loud!"

Johnny trotted across the street. The mist had burned off, but the day was gloomy and overcast. He had the same oppressive feeling as before that the weathered old gray house was watching him, like some evil predator. He hurried to the gate that Mergal had left open and rushed up to a side door. Locked. He went around back, tried what must have been the kitchen door, and had better luck. It opened, yawning into darkness.

Johnny stepped across the threshold, his heart in his mouth. He was in a sparsely furnished kitchen. A scarred wooden table dominated the center of the room, cluttered with newspapers and dirty cups. A junky old gas range and a refrigerator stood against the wall opposite the door, and to Johnny's left was a rust-streaked sink piled high with dirty dishes. The, faucet dripped, making a dismal "thunk... thunk" sound like a slow heartbeat. The air smelled stale and sour, with a sweetish, disgusting undertone of old garbage.

"Professor?" Johnny called. No one answered.

The adjoining room was a bedroom, with Mergal's clothes in the closet and the bed unmade. The other rooms on the first floor were empty except for dust and slowly swaying cobwebs. He looked out the front window and spotted Sarah only because he knew just where to look. He rapped on the window and she waved at him in a hurry-up-why-don't-you way. With his footsteps sounding hollow in the empty rooms, Johnny explored further.

The second floor was empty, like the front rooms downstairs. What Johnny thought at first to be a closet proved to be a doorway to a spiral staircase leading up into gloom. Biting his lip, Johnny tiptoed up. They had seen Mergal in the tower, and that could be where he had stashed the professor. The air was suffocating, and Johnny was sweating heavily.

He reached the top of the stairs and cautiously opened the door he found there. He stepped out into an octagonal room, with a round window in each wall, all but one covered by green shades. The roof slanted up, the exposed beams rising to the center. Unlike the deserted chambers below, this room was crammed with tables, shelves, and boxes.

Johnny closed the door and felt his heart thumping, painfully. A rectangular table stood in the middle of the room, and on the floor around it was a double circle painted in white. The inner circle contained a five-pointed star, so big that the table stood in the center without touching any line. The space between the inner and outer circles contained lettering like hen scratches. Johnny had seen the figure in books on sorcery. It was a pentacle, a magic circle drawn to protect a wizard or a witch from the wrath of any demons that he or she might summon up. According to legend, evil forces could not pass beyond the unbroken perimeter of such a shield.

And the table in the center was a witch's altar. On it two brass candlesticks held partly burned black candles. A long stick lay across the table, and Johnny wondered if that was the staff Mergal had used to conjure up the Independence Day storm. A brass incense burner, a dagger, and an ominous black-bound book also rested on the table. For some reason Johnny did not care to step inside the magic circle. He edged around it, toward a bricked-up fireplace, because on the mantel he had noticed some familiar objects.

He caught his breath. Sure enough, the mantel held a wooden-framed hand mirror, its silver backing long tarnished away and its glass an oval of darkness. Next to it was an ornate little wooden snuffbox with the head of a goat carved into its lid. Just beyond that was a short stack of ancient books. On top of the books was a greenish snow dome with a flattened top. Johnny had discovered the missing items from the museum, the lost possessions of old Esdrias Blackleach, wizard.

Johnny realized that at last he had something solid. Maybe he hadn't found Professor Childermass, but this was almost as good. If the police arrested Mergal for stealing all this stuff from the museum, then they could surely persuade him to tell them what he had done with the professor. Still, he had to have some real proof—

A shrill sound startled him. Was it the whistle? He ran to the front window, but dust clouded it so he could not see clearly. He found a catch and pushed, and the window swiveled out. Johnny stretched his neck to peer out of the window, and far below he could see Sarah's red T-shirt. She crouched in the brush with her elbows on her knees, resting her chin in both hands. Obviously she had not blown the whistle. Johnny thought he was probably just jumpy, and that he had imagined the sound. Still, now that he had found something, he needed to get out of there fast—but not without proof.

The snow globe would do. He went back to the mantel and picked it up. It was the museum's, all right, because Johnny could see the little crack he had made when he had bumped it to the floor. Evidently the flaw went all the way through, because a small air bubble now bobbed at the top of the globe. The water was slowly evaporating. He turned it over and saw scratched into the ash-wood base the name Esdrias Blackleach and the date Feb 1690.

As Johnny moved, he turned the globe over and the snow inside it swirled into a miniature blizzard. Johnny's ears began to buzz strangely, and he felt dizzy, as if he had turned in rapid circles and had suddenly come to a stop. He blinked and focused his eyes on the figure in the snow globe, forever striding toward the safety of the cabin and forever failing to reach it. The flakes flew around the lonely traveler, swooping and spiraling. It was getting hard to breathe, and the air felt wrong, thick and heavy. Outside the window a noisy crow was screeching graaa! graaa! graaa! over and over.

No. It was a higher-pitched sound, not a bird at all, but—a whistle!

Johnny gasped. He realized that he had been standing there hypnotized by the globe for a long time, ten or fifteen minutes maybe. The whistle shrilled again. He ran across the outer edge of the pentacle, not bothering to duck around it, and flung open the door.

Something pale and round was coming up the stairway, and in it two deep-set eyes burned. It was Mergal's bald head and face, almost glowing in the gloom. Johnny retreated, the snow globe clutched against his chest.

"Ah, my good friend from the museum," Mergal said as he stepped into the room. He wore a completely black outfit—black shoes, trousers, coat, and shirt. His pale face and hands floated, almost disconnected from his body in the dim light of the octagonal room. The hoarse voice droned on: "But we've met since then, have we not? In your dreams, hmm? Or in your nightmares?"

Johnny blinked at him. "N-nightmares?" he heard himself squeak.

The brown-toothed smile twisted itself across the man's cruel face. "Yes, I sent you a few gentle reproofs. After all, you were not very helpful at our first meeting, hmm? Nor was your friend, the stuffy old professor. I threw a few bolts of, ah, divine fire at the old man to punish him for his attitude. You were quite nearby, as I recall, too close for comfort, in fact. You have my property there. I will trouble you to hand it over."

Johnny's knees were shaking. The whistle had fallen silent. Had Sarah gone for help? Or had something happened to her? Stalling for time, Johnny said, "It isn't yours. It belongs to the professor."

"Alas, you are mistaken. All these implements, and more besides, are heirlooms passed down to me from my illustrious ancestor, Esdrias Blackleach. What would our mutual friend the professor call him?" Mergal paused, his head tilted as if he were listening. When he spoke again, his voice was so exactly like Professor Childermass' that it sent chills down Johnny's spine: "Why, the man was nothing more than a posturing charlatan, a brass-bound, copper-bottomed fake. And I can spot a phony a mile away."

"It was you on the phone," said Johnny. "And you wrote that note to Father Higgins too, an' made the professor sign it, didn't you?"

"Let us say that I persuaded the old man to sign it. And the fool tried to trick me by sneaking in a message to you. Much good it did him! Your friend is now my guest, as indeed are you. However, it would be most awkward to have the two of you together at present. After all, the old windbag has yet to surrender the most important part of my property. And speaking of my property, give me my globe, boy!"

The man's eyes had been staring into Johnny's, and the whipcrack of the last three words came so suddenly that Johnny handed the globe over without thinking. Mergal took it in his long, crooked fingers. "Very good, child. You are learning obedience. I could destroy you and reduce your brain to ashes. Or I could transform you into something that people would kill on sight. It might be amusing to send you blundering and mewling into your dear grandparents' home late at night. Does your grandfather keep a loaded gun in the house, boy, hmm? Or I could simply drive you insane. But no, I think not yet. I may have a use for you."

Johnny swayed. The hoarse, quiet words struck terror deep into the marrow of his bones, but he could not break the spell. He could not bring himself to look away from those burning eyes.

With his twisted smile, Mergal softly continued: "That foolish professor will change his tune when he knows you are at my mercy. However, I can't be seen with you in public, and I can't run the risk of your fleeing. I need some, ah, container, some handy place of imprisonment. Fortunately this globe has a sweet little spell attached to it. I may as well try it on you."

He held the globe up so that his eyes peered into Johnny's over the top of the glass, and slowly he began to swirl the snow inside. It spun in a miniature whirlwind, faster and faster. "Just keep looking," Mergal crooned, "and I will show you a great wonder." He began to chant in a flat, high-pitched tone, and the words he spoke were foreign, uncanny.

Johnny's head swam. Everything grew dark, until there were only the two burning eyes and the swirling white cone of snow. Then even they faded out. The air was heavy, and Johnny's chest labored to pump it into his lungs. The darkness slowly became milky-white, like a fog with the sun shining through it. The door was just in front of him. Johnny stretched out his hand for the knob and closed his fist on empty air.

He took a shuffling step forward, then tried again. The doorknob was not real, but only a painting of a doorknob. He turned and tried to see the windows, but that milky light concealed everything. Johnny staggered a few steps, his feet like lumps of lead. He limped in half a circle, then turned back. Far away was a log cabin, small and dark among the faded green fir trees. Something pale and shining was rising behind it, a monster moon that filled the whole sky.

No. It was not the moon, for within it were two fierce eyes. It was the face of Mattheus Mergal, swollen to incredible vastness. The twisted brown grin leered at him. "One swirl brings pain," the man's awful voice rasped. "Two bring agony. And I'm afraid the third storm is death, my intruding young friend. Let's try the first, shall we? Hmm?"

The whole world revolved, and huge white flakes filled the air. They touched Johnny's face and hands, and he yelped, for they were so terribly cold they burned like red-hot knives stripping away his skin. He ran blindly, smashing against an invisible wall that was hard and unyielding.

He screamed, and his voice was thin and stretched, like the whine of a mosquito. Somehow Mergal had trapped him, had worked an awful spell.

Johnny had become the figure inside the snow globe.