The Mansion in the Mist Read online

  THE MANSION IN THE MIST

  by John Bellairs

  cover and illustrations by Edward Gorey

  digital preservation by Guy Montag

  CHAPTER ONE

  "But, Miss Eells! It's gonna be really crummy with you gone for the summer! I don't get along with Miss Pratt, and... well, you know."

  Anthony Monday and his friend Miss Eells were sitting on a wooden bench, which was perched atop a high embankment in Levee Park in the city of Hoosac, Minnesota. It was a mild day in May, in the mid-1950's, and the waters of the Mississippi River were rippled by a stiff flowery-smelling breeze. Anthony was a tall gawky-looking young man of thirteen. He was wearing a red leather cap with a scrunched peak, a red plaid shirt with a buttoned pocket, gray corduroy pants, and white suede shoes. Miss Eells was an odd little woman close to seventy years old, with bright, darting birdlike eyes, gold-rimmed glasses, and a wild mess of white hair. She was the head librarian of the public library in Hoosac, and Anthony worked for her as a page. They had known each other for several years, and they had a strange but wonderful friendship: Anthony told Miss Eells things about himself that he would never have told anyone else, because he trusted and believed in her. Miss Eells was kind to Anthony, but—most important of all—she was a good listener. In spite of their friendship, however, a problem had arisen lately: Miss Eells had decided to go on vacation for two months in the summer. It was her first vacation in fifteen years, and she was planning to spend it with her brother Emerson at his rambling old cottage on an island in northern Canada. But Miss Eells's plans had left Anthony feeling like a fish out of water. He didn't have any close friends his own age, and so he depended on Miss Eells to get him through the long boring months of summer, when there was nothing much to do except go to the movies, play teth-erball, and sit in front of the TV set like a zombie. On the other hand, Anthony couldn't very well tell his old friend to stay home—he knew that she deserved a vacation. He just wished that he was going away with her.

  Miss Eells stared into the muddy waters of the river that lay below them. She puckered up her mouth and looked discontented. "Anthony," she began slowly, "there is a solution to our problem, but I'm not sure it's one that would work out. I could ask Emerson to invite you to come along, but I don't know if you'd be happy in his rickety old house on that godforsaken chilly lake. There's no electricity, no TV, and the nearest settlement is ten miles across the lake by motorboat. I'm just afraid that you'd be terribly bored. Do you see what I mean?"

  Anthony shook his head stubbornly. "No, Miss Eells, I really wouldn't be bored. My mom says I mope around in the summertime like a lost Charlie Ross, whatever that means. I think it would be fun to go away with you and Emerson."

  Miss Eells shifted her feet restlessly, stirring the pile of dead leaves that lay in front of the bench. "You can be very persuasive, Anthony," she began, "but still—"

  "And besides," said Anthony, cutting in, "Miss Pratt doesn't like to have me working for her. She's always crabbing at me and telling me to do some work for a change. You know what I mean, don't you?"

  Miss Eells sighed and smiled ruefully. "I will admit that Miss Pratt's personality could be improved upon," she said. "Look, I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'll call Emerson and ask him if you can go along. But in the meantime you've got to do two things. First, you have to get your parents' permission, and then you've got to round up somebody to sub for you at the library. Do you think you can do that?"

  Anthony said yes and nodded enthusiastically. That evening, Miss Eells called up her brother, who was only too happy to have Anthony come along on the trip. Anthony got his parents to let him go, and after a few phone calls Anthony got hold of Ted Hoopenbecker, a red-haired kid who sometimes played Ping-Pong and pool with him down at the YMCA, and he agreed to fill in at the library. So everything got arranged, after all. A week before their trip was going to start, Emerson Eells came down to Hoosac to visit his sister. Emerson was a rabbitty looking little man with a fluff of white hair on his head. He was a rich lawyer who lived in St. Cloud, and he always dressed very well. He drove a black 1938 LaSalle, which was a bit eccentric, but that was Emerson. And though Emerson was a little pompous and a know-it-all, he liked Anthony and respected him for his courage and forthrightness. Most of the time, the two of them got along fine.

  It was a chilly evening, and rain was falling. Emerson sat on Miss Eells's living room sofa and puffed at one of his fancy meerschaum pipes. Miss Eells sat across from him in an armchair, sipping tea and trying not to spill any of it. And perched on a kitchen chair nearby sat Anthony. He had a bottle of Coke in his hand and he looked uncomfortable, as he often did in the presence of some older people. Emerson was rambling on about the trip they were going to take in a few days, and he had just dropped a hint that there might be a mysterious jack-in-the-box waiting for them at the old cottage in Canada.

  Miss Eells set down her teacup, slopping some into the saucer. "A jack-in-the-box?" she said nervously. "I hope you don't mean something unpleasant—I was hoping to have a nice, restful time up there."

  Anthony, however, was excited by the possibility of a mystery. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Eells?" he asked, leaning forward.

  Emerson smoked placidly and smiled. He enjoyed being tantalizing. "Well, there may be nothing to this," he began, as he blew a smoke ring into the air, "but— as Myra well knows—there is a riddle to be solved. You see, a few years ago I rented the cottage to some tourists who wanted a couple of weeks of roughing it out in the wild. Apparently they got more than they bargained for, because all three of them disappeared!"

  Anthony's eyes grew wide. "Disappeared? Really?"

  Emerson nodded. "Yes, really. One day when the farmer who lives across the lake arrived with the weekly supply of butter, eggs, and bacon, he found that the cottage was deserted. The rowboat was still tied up to the dock, so the tourists couldn't have left that way, and besides, they left their clothes and other belongings behind. To this day no one knows what happened to them."

  "And Emerson thinks he'll find the three of them buried in shallow graves somewhere on the island," put in Miss Eells with a malicious grin.

  "Mock all you want to, Myra," Emerson said as he knocked out his pipe into an ashtray. "But I will bet you five dollars that we will find some clue to their disappearance when we go up there. At any rate, I'm going to have a look around."

  Anthony's eyes shone. Secretly he hoped that Emerson would find something—something not too frightening, but exciting all the same.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The pontoon plane glided to a smooth landing on the choppy waters of Shadow Lake. Peering out the small square window, Anthony saw steep ranks of trees rising solemnly on all sides. Straight ahead, a long white dock jutted out from the shore, and behind it rose a large cottage with shingled sides and a steeply pitched roof covered with slates. Two tall brick chimneys rose from the roof, and there was a screened porch. On the second story, a tiny balcony overhung the porch. The place looked totally deserted—as indeed it was for most of the year. To Anthony there seemed to be something forbidding about the place, as if it was warning him not to come any closer.

  "Well, here we are," said Emerson quietly, as the plane stopped next to the dock. He had been very cheerful about this trip at the beginning, but now that he was here he didn't sound all that enthusiastic.

  Emerson thanked the pilot, and they all tramped down the gangplank to the dock with their luggage. Then the plane started its motors again, did a U-turn, and sped off down the long lake for a takeoff. Curiously Anthony was sorry to see the plane go. He felt that they were being abandoned. But he shrugged off his fears, and whistling cheerfully, he threw his duffel bag over his sho
ulder and followed Emerson and Miss Eells down the dock to the silent, waiting house.

  For the next two days, the three vacationers spent their time getting the cottage into shape. They found that the living conditions were pretty old-fashioned: There was no electricity, so they got light from six oil lamps with shiny metal reflectors mounted on them. Water came from a bubbling rock spring not far from the back door of the house, and instead of a refrigerator there was an icehouse, a little gray wooden shed full of blocks of ice. Emerson had ordered the ice a few days before, and a man would be coming around once a week to refill the supply. Also there was a pest problem: The house had been taken over by black beetles and mice, and Emerson spent a lot of time setting mousetraps and spraying the baseboards of the rooms with Flit, a popular bug killer. In spite of these problems, the three campers pitched in and worked: Anthony polished the reflectors and filled the lamps with kerosene. Dishes got washed, tables were scrubbed, windows got Windexed, and floors were mopped. Finally things seemed to be in decent order, and the vacationers decided that they could sit back and enjoy themselves.

  Days passed, and Anthony began to feel the pleasure of being in the great Canadian north woods. He loved the weird cries of the loons at night, and the occasional sound of a tree crashing down in the wilderness. Emerson taught Anthony to fish with a bamboo rod and a line. It wasn't as exciting as fly casting, but it was restful, and you almost always caught something. Miss Eells didn't fish, but she would sit in the boat and knit or read long novels by Charles Dickens. At night, the three of them gathered in the living room of the cottage, lit the six lamps, and played pinochle. Or Emerson might bang away at the old upright piano. Some nights they listened to music on Emerson's big battery-powered radio. The pleasures of this kind of life were quiet, but everybody seemed contented.

  Toward the end of the first week of their stay, Anthony began to feel that there was something wrong about the house. Nothing that you could get a grip on, but still something, well, wrong. One night he woke during a wild thunderstorm, and the boards in the corridor outside his bedroom were creaking loudly. Lightning leapt in through the tiny window, and loud cracking peals of thunder burst overhead. But it was the creaking that bothered Anthony—it sounded like people walking up and down. When he finally got up his courage, he opened the door and peered out. Nobody there. The doors to Miss Eells's and Emerson's bedrooms were shut, and they were probably asleep. Timidly, Anthony crept down the front staircase and peered into the shadowy living room. As his eyes got used to the dark, he saw something that froze his blood: Someone was sitting in one of the rockers. Anthony clenched his teeth and closed his eyes. He could hear his heart hammering. Then he opened his eyes again, and a blue flash of lightning lit the room. The dark shape was gone.

  For a long time Anthony stood in the doorway, staring into darkness. Then he groped his way to a table and found a box of matches to light a lamp. The smoky yellowish glow showed that the room was empty. Anyone who tried to leave the room would have had to brush past Anthony. Also, there would have been footsteps, and Anthony did not hear any. A chill spread from his feet to his tingling scalp. What had he seen? Finally, after his fear had died down, Anthony trudged back up the stairs and threw himself into bed.

  A couple of days later something else happened that was odd and unexplainable. Miss Eells and Emerson had taken the rowboat over to the settlement across the lake, so they could pick up some supplies. Anthony was alone in the house. For a while he sat on the end of the dock and waggled his feet in the water, while Emerson's portable radio played nearby. Then he rolled up his pants and waded for a while in the chilly water, but after a few minutes his feet began to sting, so he climbed back onto the splintery slats. The sun sank low, and with a towel tied around his waist, Anthony padded back up to the house and warmed himself in front of the fireplace. When he was all dry and warm again he sat on the porch and played his harmonica. This was something he was just learning to do, and most of the time he got awful squawky sounds, but he struggled on nevertheless. At last, as the sun was setting, he got tired of playing and went back into the house to explore.

  He was beginning to feel uneasy about Emerson and Miss Eells, but he remembered that Miss Eells could be a fussy shopper. And both of his friends could get so wrapped up in bickering with each other that they lost track of time. It wouldn't hurt, Anthony decided, to keep himself busy by having a good look around. He took a kerosene lamp with him and headed upstairs.

  The bedrooms there were all alike: small and rather homely. The walls were knotty pine, and the floors were covered with reed rugs. The beds were iron Army cots, and next to each one was a chair to hang your clothes on. The only decoration the rooms had were framed pictures made out of colored yarn. Anthony walked aimlessly from room to room. He wasn't really looking for anything in particular—he was just killing time till his friends came back. He looked out the window of one bedroom and saw that the stars were beginning to twinkle in the sky, but he saw no sign of the rowboat.

  Finally he reached a room at the end of the corridor, a room that was different from the rest. There was no bed in it, and the floor was very dusty. A sleepy fly buzzed and bumped stupidly against the dirty window-panes. In the center of the floor stood a large wooden chest. It was made of rough unvarnished wood, and a yellowed label had once been stuck to the lid, but someone had ripped it off so that only a fragment remained. Curious, Anthony knelt next to the chest and raised the lid. The hinges groaned, and a smell of raw wood rose to Anthony's nostrils. He looked in.

  The chest was empty except for some dead insects. At first Anthony was disappointed, and he was about to close the lid when something stopped him. From inside the chest a whispering sound came. It was like many voices talking together, saying words that he couldn't understand. Anthony felt like someone who is hypnotized—he couldn't tear himself away. Now, as he stared into the old wooden box, the bottom filled with writhing curls of smoke. Then the smoke cleared, and blackness opened before him. It seemed to Anthony that he was looking down into a bottomless pit. Gripping the sides of the box, he went on staring, but then he began to feel the growing urge to clamber over the sides of the chest and throw himself in. At the last minute he pulled back with a shudder of fear. Down came the lid with a loud slam, and Anthony hauled himself to his feet with a mighty effort. Staggering like a drunken person, he reeled out through the doorway and collapsed in a dead faint on the hall floor.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Night was deepening on the lake as Emerson and Miss Eells came drifting up to the dock in their rowboat. Anthony was sitting on the end of the dock with his back toward his two friends. From the darkness Emerson called out, "Sorry to be so late, my boy, but Graceful Gertie here tried her hand at piloting us. First she ran us onto a rock and bent the propeller of my outboard motor, and then she managed to break both our oars. We had to paddle back to town with our hands to buy a new set. Did you miss us?"

  Sitting next to his lighted lantern, Anthony did not turn around or respond to Emerson's call. After a quick worried glance at Anthony, Emerson tied the boat up to a post and held it close to the dock so Miss Eells could jump out. Then he lunged out himself, did a barrel roll across the dock, and sprang nimbly to his feet. He and Miss Eells walked slowly toward Anthony. They stopped just behind him, and Emerson coughed and tried to look cheerful.

  "Hem!" he said, as he reached down and gave Anthony a little pat on the back. "Are you getting interested in Buddhist meditation, my boy? If so, you should be sitting cross-legged and not waggling your feet in the—"

  Emerson's voice died away when Anthony turned to face him. The yellow lantern light revealed Anthony's tear-streaked face. He looked utterly, totally miserable.

  "What in the name of..." began Emerson, but he cut himself off. Then, more gently he added, "What's wrong, son?"

  "I... I saw something awful," Anthony began haltingly. "It... it..." But he couldn't go on.

  Miss Eells stepped forward. Stoopin
g, she gave Anthony her arm and helped him to his feet. "Come on, Tony," she said softly. "Emerson, you bring the groceries. Let's go up to the cottage and have a talk."

  A few minutes later, the three of them were sitting in the living room. The six oil lamps burned brightly, and the potbellied stove in the corner took away the evening chill. Anthony was sitting in a rocking chair with a glass of ginger ale in his hand. He still looked confused and half asleep, but the color was returning to his cheeks. Emerson and Miss Eells sat nearby. They frowned anxiously and kept glancing at the floor, as if they couldn't quite think of what they ought to say. Finally Emerson broke the silence.

  "Anthony, my boy," he said quietly, "it's terrible to see you in this state. But it'll be better for you if you can tell us what happened. Was there a burglar here? Or are you homesick?"

  Anthony shook his head. "No, Mr. Eells, it's... It's not like that at all. Like I said, I saw something awful." Then, haltingly Anthony began to tell about the mysterious whispering chest. But he was only just halfway through his story when Emerson cut him off.

  "Anthony!" he exclaimed. "This is incredible! I know this house as well as I know the back of my hand, and there isn't any chest in that room—or anywhere else in the house for that matter."

  Anthony stared in amazement. Could Emerson be telling the truth? Carefully, Anthony set his empty glass down on a table. "Could... could we go up and look right now?" he asked in a faltering voice.

  Emerson stared for a second and then he smiled confidently. "Of course we can!" he said as he sprang to his feet. Grabbing an oil lamp, Emerson motioned for the others to follow him. They went up the dark stairs single file and down the long corridor. The lamp cast weird shadows on the wall as they moved along, and through the open windows you could hear the wind hissing in the pines. At the far end of the hall, they paused outside the room that Anthony had mentioned.