Lewis woke up in his own room. Everything was quiet and dark. He jerked to a sitting position and clicked on the bedside lamp. Everything seemed normal. The Westclox ticked away showing the time as 1:15. Then Lewis caught sight of himself in the tall mirror near the fireplace. His blond hair was disheveled like a crazy mop, and his round face stared back pale and frightened. He had been lying on the covers with a blanket thrown over him. Someone—was it the horrible Mr. Vanderhelm?—had carried Lewis into the room and had placed him on the bed, fully clothed except for his shoes. Lewis got up and locked his bedroom door. He went to the window and looked out. He could see the Hanchett house, shadowy and asleep across the street, and the dim form of the water tower at the top of the hill. Only the street lights made little splashes of weak yellow light here and there.
Lewis undressed and crept back into bed. He lay cowering beneath the covers for a long time, shivering and whispering prayers he had learned as an altar boy. He had the disturbing feeling that he would never sleep again, but somehow he finally fell into an exhausted slumber. In baleful dreams he ran again and again from those eerie, clinging, clammy ghosts, but he did not wake until daylight streamed in through his window. As he climbed wearily out of bed, he heard something rustle beneath his pillow. Frowning, he fumbled for it and pulled out a folded sheet of thick, heavy paper. He opened it and read a message written in a slashing handwriting in black letters that looked as if they had been cut into the page:
Boy,
Cease your foolish struggle against me. My servants are everywhere. If you go out again before the great night, you will pay the most horrible penalty. You have been warned.
Lewis began to shake. He was marked for a grisly fate, and he knew no way of avoiding it. To someone with Lewis’s imagination, a vague phrase like “the most horrible penalty” conjured up all sorts of anguish and suffering. He dressed and slipped downstairs on trembling legs. Every shadow and every sound made him jump, even though he was in his own house. A sense of shame almost crushed him. Lewis was sure he was the worst coward alive. Oh, sure, he had summoned up false bravado at times, like when he pretended he was Sherlock Holmes or when he was with someone really brave like Rose Rita or his English pen pal, Bertie Goodring. When the chips were down, though, and when he had to face the unknown alone, he was a quivering wreck.
Mrs. Holtz had already left, so Lewis got his own breakfast of Cheerios and toast. The cereal stuck in a thick lump in his throat, and he had to struggle to swallow. What was he to do? The sun was shining brightly outside, but Lewis was too terrified to go into the front yard. He was afraid even to pick up the phone. If he called Rose Rita, would Vanderhelm’s servants discover the call and come for him?
Lewis thought back to the bad time when the house was under the spell of Isaac Izard. Uncle Jonathan, Mrs. Zimmermann, and Lewis had finally discovered the hiding place of the Doomsday Clock in a wacky way when Lewis made up a crazy magic spell. He wondered if he could do it again. True, Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann were not here, so he could not call on their magic. Still, Mrs. Zimmermann had said that New Zebedee had lots of magic flowing through it. Lewis gritted his teeth and decided he had to try. He went into the study, pulled out a pad and pencil, and spent some time working up the craziest ritual he could devise. Whatever happened, it might give them a clue to defeating Vanderhelm.
When the ratchety old mechanical doorbell growled at twenty minutes to twelve, Lewis was still seated at his uncle’s desk. The sound nearly made him jump out of his skin. He grabbed a couple of books and covered the notes he had been making, then pushed the chair back from the desk and hurried to the front hall. The bell rang again. As Lewis was getting up the nerve to ask, “Who’s there?” a familiar voice called out, “Hey, Lewis! Are you at home?”
It was Rose Rita. With a relieved sigh, Lewis opened the door. Rose Rita stood there, dressed in her P.F. Flyers tennis shoes, long black socks, a red-and-green plaid wool skirt, and her father’s old University of Michigan letter jacket. She wore a knitted green cap on her head, which she clapped down with one hand. Behind Rose Rita was Mrs. Jaeger, bundled into a heavy long gray coat and a furry hat. The day was bright, with a blustery wind. “About time,” grumped Rose Rita. “We almost blew away out here.” She pushed past Lewis, and he stood aside to let Mrs. Jaeger in. Then he closed the door and locked it.
“Hey,” he said. “With wind blowing like that, maybe the fog—”
“No such luck,” said Rose Rita, shucking off her jacket. “I checked. It’s hanging there as calm as curtains, even with all that wind.”
“It’s magical, I expect,” said Mrs. Jaeger as Lewis helped her out of her coat. “This wind just blows right through it without disturbing it in the least.”
Rose Rita started to hang her jacket and hat on the coat rack. “Yeah,” she said. “I don’t know if—hey! Why didn’t you tell me about this?” She pointed at the mirror.
Lewis gasped. The mirror showed Uncle Jonathan’s face. He was brushing his teeth. “Hey!” Lewis shouted, waving his arms wildly. “Uncle Jonathan!”
Too late. Uncle Jonathan spat into an unseen sink and turned away. The vision shimmered and faded and the mirror was just a mirror again.
“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Jaeger. “I believe my magic spell worked, after all. That was a vision of your uncle, sure enough.”
“I don’t know,” said Lewis. “I saw an image of Uncle Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann there once before.”
Mrs. Jaeger looked thoughtful. “Hmm. Since this mirror apparently knows how to show us Jonathan, it might be useful, with a little help.”
“What kind of help?” asked Rose Rita.
“I believe Jonathan must have been facing a mirror on his end of the image. You usually do look in the mirror when you brush your teeth.” Mrs. Jaeger pursed her lips in thought. “Next time, we could be ready. If we could work the right spell, whenever Jonathan is looking into a mirror, he would see anyone looking into this mirror at the same time. That is, if the person on this end concentrates hard and wills him to see. I’ll try a little enchantment. Lewis, you will have to keep a close watch on this mirror.”
“I will,” replied Lewis in a miserable voice. “I can’t believe we missed him by a second.”
“It happens,” sighed Mrs. Jaeger. “Magic is tricky and unpredictable. Believe me, I know. The goldfish is doing very well, by the way.” She thought for another minute, chanted an incantation, and waved her spoon. “Maybe that will do it.”
“Whether it does or not,” Lewis said, “I’m glad you’re here.” Briefly he explained what he wanted to try. Mrs. Jaeger nodded and looked as if she were carefully thinking over what he told her. “So,” he finished, “if this works, maybe we can get a better idea of what might break Vanderhelm’s spell.”
“Sounds screwy to me,” said Rose Rita. When Lewis looked crestfallen, she grinned. “Hey, that doesn’t matter. The whole business is screwy, anyway, so maybe it will work all the better. Let’s try it.”
Lewis went into the study and brought back his notes. Mrs. Jaeger read them, a smile flickering on her lips. Then she passed them to Rose Rita, who giggled aloud. “Boy,” she said, “are we ever going to look like idiots! But let’s try it. Is it okay if we stay here, so we can keep an eye on the mirror?”
“Sure,” replied Lewis. “In fact, maybe all the spell will do is contact Uncle Jonathan. I won’t know until we try it, anyway.” He ran off to get the materials.
In a few minutes they were ready. Lewis set up the folding card table and brought in three chairs. They could hardly look at each other without laughing. Lewis had used poster paint to color his face half green and half yellow. Over his regular clothes he wore one of his uncle’s nightshirts, a bright orange tent that billowed around him. Rose Rita had tied her hair up in two ponytails that stuck up from her head like antennae. She had turned her father’s jacket inside out and wore her hat on her left foot and her left shoe on her left hand. Mrs. Jaeger had dusted her face with flour and had given herself a bright red clown nose with her lipstick. She had tied her magic spoon to a black string and wore it like a necklace. They all sat at the table holding hands.
“Now what?” asked Mrs. Jaeger. “Do we commune with the spirits, or go trick-or-treating?”
“No,” answered Lewis. “Now we sing the mystical song until we get a sign that will help us.”
“And what’s the song?” asked Rose Rita.
“‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat,’” Lewis told her. “Except we have to sing it as a round, and when you finish it forwards, you have to sing it again backwards!”
It took them a number of tries to get it right, but finally each one was able to sing the words both ways. Rose Rita was a passable soprano, Mrs. Jaeger sang a slightly off-key alto, and Lewis tried to deliver a baritone. The third time they went through the round without a mistake, something happened. Lewis had just finished his backward run with “Stream the down gently boat your row, row, row,” when all the clocks in the house struck thirteen at once.
It made quite a clamor. Uncle Jonathan no longer owned as many clocks as he once had, back when he was trying to drown out the ticking of the Doomsday Clock, but there were still a dozen clocks in the house, from the big old grandfather’s clock down to Lewis’s bedside Westclox. Every clock made noise, even the ones that did not normally chime. When the last one had rung, the mirror on the hat stand flashed to life.
For a moment it flickered and blazed in different colors, pale blue, white, rosy pink. Then it shimmered into a black-and-white image, just like a TV picture. A serious-looking man sat at a desk reading from a sheet of paper. He wore a tall peaked wizard’s hat with flashing moons and stars and planets on it, and he had a long white beard. “Hello out there in magic land,” this man said in a deep voice. “It’s time for the World Magic News. Dateline, New Zebedee, Michigan: Tomorrow evening Henry Vanderhelm will attempt to become King of the Dead by having his magic spell sung by the townspeople who have come under his spell. This disaster can be averted, but only by someone who knows the score. Henry Vanderhelm can be shown up for what he is—but it will be a dangerous chance! Please reflect on that, viewers.” The mirror went dark.
The three friends sat looking at each other. “Well, that helped about as much as a tuna-fish sandwich helps a broken leg,” grumbled Rose Rita.
“No, no,” murmured Mrs. Jaeger. “It did help. Now we know when Mr. Vanderhelm will make his move. Maybe we can stop him, or at least slow him down.”
“Slow him down,” repeated Lewis. “Maybe we can at that. I wonder if we could do something to the theater?”
“Like what?” asked Rose Rita, struggling to take off her inside-out jacket. “Burn it down?”
“Not exactly,” answered Lewis. “But what if the fire sprinklers came on? Or what if all the musical instruments got sabotaged? That might give us some time.”
“It’s worth a try,” said Rose Rita slowly. “But when can we do it?”
“It will have to be tonight,” Mrs. Jaeger said. “After the rehearsal is over.”
Lewis trembled with fear. He had not really thought his plan through before speaking. Now that he thought of going into that spooky theater in the dark, he felt ill and dizzy. It was the last thing he wanted to do.
But he knew he had to try.