After he groaned, Weasel asked, “And you did this how?”
“I guess I jiggled it open with some… you know… words.”
“What happens to the world when you do that?”
“I don’t know exactly.” Pete rubbed his eyes. “Harriet tried to close it, and she did, but it’s not shut tight or like it should be. That’s what she said when she dragged me home and told Aunt Lizzie to keep me in the house until she could fix things.”
“So has she? Fixed things?” Weasel asked.
“I don’t know that either. I haven’t seen her for a week. Aunt Lizzie walks around the outside of the house every morning and every night, making what she says is her Encircling Spell. It’s supposed to keep me safe from something, but I don’t know what. I had to do a little Un-encircling to get out tonight. But,” he poked his finger at the note, “I’ve got to find out what that message means. It popped into my room, so I’m hoping it’s from Harriet, and she’s fixed the problem. If I can tell Aunt Lizzie that, I can get out from under house arrest.”
Weasel stared at the paper in front of him, his mouth turned down, saying nothing.
“What’s with that gloomy look?”
“Nothing, but I just started a new book.”
“So that’s good. You’re onto another amazingly exciting story.” Pete tried to hide the sarcasm, but Weasel wasn’t paying attention anyway. “You finished the one about Queen Victoria, right?” Pete nudged Weasel.
Weasel nodded and with a dreamy look stared out the kitchen window. “Finally,” he sighed. “Thanks to your special warlock classes with Harriet.”
“She says warlock’s old-fashioned. She calls it wizard training.”
“Whatever. Those classes freed up a lot time for me. I didn’t have to save you from yourself every day.” Weasel studied the note, then hopped down from the stool, grabbed the paper from the counter, and walked out of the kitchen.
“Where you going?” Pete hurried after him.
“To my room. Come on.” Weasel was on the bottom step when he turned and held his finger to his lips. “Did you hear something?”
Pete darted his gaze around the room, but otherwise stayed very still, listening. The refrigerator hummed. The digital clock chunked off seconds as if chopping time into tiny, even bits. His own breath sounded wheezy. He shook his head. “I don’t hear anything I shouldn’t.”
“It’s nothing I guess.” Weasel signaled him to go upstairs. “But be quiet,” he whispered. “I don’t want to have to explain why you’re here to my mom and dad. Their science brains won’t get any of this.”
They tiptoed to Weasel’s room and eased the door closed. Then Weasel went to his dresser and held the paper up to the mirror. “There’s your message. It was backwards, that’s all.”
While it wasn’t exactly clear, Pete could make out the words now. Out loud, he read:
“For Harriet Hadley’s eyes only.” Pete shot Weasel a quick look. “What?”
“What’s the rest say?” Weasel asked.
“Urgent! Read Immediately!
“Master Peter Riley is in grave danger along with just about everyone else in the world. Timelock vac-il-la-ting … ?” Pete looked up at Weasel.
“It means changing back and forth.”
“Right.” Pete went back to the note. “… from fragile to broken. Keep him under surveillance until next lunar phase.
“Dr. Dread Wraith.”
“Spooky name.” Weasel shivered. “Real spooky. Who is that?”
Pete looked up at Weasel. He didn’t care about the guy who’d written the note, but it worried him it hadn’t been Harriet. That meant he’d stay grounded. “How long does a lunar phase last?”
“29.5 days. That’s new moon to new moon.”
“Holy beans! That’s like forever! I can’t stay under house arrest that long. That’s most of my summer vacation.”
“You’re worried about the wrong problem, Pete. This note was for Harriet, not you. But you got it, and it was written backwards. How come? Oh, and what’s all this about ‘Master Peter Riley’?”
The message hadn’t cleared anything up. It had only brought up more questions and more problems, like, he was going to be grounded for one heck of a long time.
“Thanks anyway,” Pete said. “Guess I’d better get back home.” He dragged his feet across the floor, disappointed that he didn’t have anything to help him out of the mess he was in. He gripped the doorknob. “You said 29.5 days?”
Weasel followed him downstairs. “It’s not that long.”
“Not for you.” Pete opened the door and went as silently as his tennis shoes allowed down the steps to pick up his bike. “Maybe you could call or come over while I’m in lockup.”
“Sure. I’ll … call or come over. It’s safe there, right? I mean with that Encircling Spell and all?”
“Yeah. It’s safe.” Pete threw his leg over his bike and rolled toward the sidewalk.
“Hey, wait.” Weasel ran after him with the message fluttering in his hand. “You better take—”
In that moment, the moon flared a brilliant white. The air went electric, so the hair on Pete’s head and arms stood out. He stepped on the brakes and covered his eyes with his arms to block the blinding light that poured over him. He dropped his bike and groped his way to Weasel who crouched on the sidewalk.
“What did you do?” Weasel said, his voice shaky.
“Me? Why always me?”
Weasel made a low growling sound. “And you need to ask?”
Even if it was always him who stirred up problems, that wasn’t important right now. They had to get back inside Weasel’s house. If they could, they might be able to hide out there until the moon went back to being normal. He hoped that would happen. He had a bad, creepy feeling about this.
Grabbing Weasel’s arm, Pete pulled.
“Let go,” Weasel said, but Pete held firm and Weasel stumbled after him.
They kept going and going. Then with their next step, it was as if the ground had fallen away and they were hovering over it.
“Pete, where’re you headed?”
“Your place.” But how could Weasel’s house be so far away? Why couldn’t he get any traction? He wished he could see, but the darned light kept getting brighter and tiny electrical charges stung his head and arms. He let go of Weasel to shield his eyes with one hand. His feet hit the ground and that’s when he ran into something hard.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” He fell onto this back, holding onto his shin.
When he got to his hands and knees, he was on freshly turned, damp ground. He crawled, feeling around him until he touched grass. Its long blades tickled his face. How had Weasel’s lawn shot up so high?
Pete got to his feet, keeping his eyes closed against the brightness. When the tingling on his scalp and along his arms stopped, he risked peeking. The light was only a normal moonlight now and not blinding anymore, but a thick fog swirled around him like a great white ghost. Where had that fog come from? It was June. Hadleyville didn’t have fog in June.
He turned in a circle, shivering and trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It wasn’t Weasel’s front yard. He was sure of that, unless Weasel’s mom and dad had turned their lawn into a graveyard.
Headstones, some tall, some short, some sinking into the earth and tilting every which way spread out around him.
“Weasel,” Pete called, his voice high and panicked. “Where are you?”
Weasel’s arm shot up from the tall grass between two graves. “Right. Here.”
Pete scrambled to him and pulled Weasel to his feet. “Are you okay?”
“No. I am not okay.” Weasel straightened his glasses and gave Pete his I’m mad and plan to stay that way stare. He blinked, and then, in his very owl-like way, surveyed the graveyard.
A chilled wind gusted through the cemetery, swirling damp ribbons of fog around the tombstones. “We’re both seeing the same thing, right?” Pete said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“So what’s … what’s your best brainy guess about where we are?” Pete couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.
Sighing, Weasel shook his head. “Somewhere we don’t belong.”