Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost Read online

  After a couple of days at home Johnny went back to school, and the uproar over his recovery began to die down. Everything seemed to be returning to normal, everything seemed fine—or did it? One person was not at all satisfied, and that was Professor Childermass. He just could not believe that the ghost of Warren Windrow had left Johnny's body for good. Why had the ghost left? It didn't make any sense. Exorcism hadn't worked; they hadn't even been able to get near Johnny with the silver crucifix. The ghost had been cold, merciless, and cruel—not the sort of creature from whom you would expect compassion. So the professor was still nervous and watchful. He started reading books about ghosts. The more he read, the more he thought, and one night he called up Professor Coote to ask him to research everything he could find out about the Windrow family.

  "After all," he said, "they were a family of wizards and witches. And maybe one of them left behind some talisman or amulet that could help us if that evil creature decides to return."

  "Well, Roderick," said Professor Coote wearily, "I'll poke about in libraries and graveyards and family records and see what I can discover. But do you really think that all this worrying is necessary? What makes you think the ghost is planning another attack?"

  The professor was silent a moment. "I really don't know why I'm so worried, Charley," he said at last. "It's just instinct, I guess. Have you ever seen a cat playing with a mouse before he kills it? He lets it think it might escape, and then, just as the poor thing imagines that it's in the clear, whammo! The cat pounces and tears the mouse to bits. And that, my dear friend, is the sort of thing I'm worried about. The ghost might think it was great sport to let Johnny go—for a while."

  "Heaven help us!" said Professor Coote in a worried voice. "I hope you're wrong!"

  "So do I," said his friend. "So do I!"

  November was a rainy, windy month. Johnny was back in his usual everyday routine, and nothing bad seemed to be happening to him. But he felt strange, because he could not figure out why he had landed in the hospital. No one would tell him anything. The professor would only say that he had "been through a bad time," and Gramma and Grampa were strangely silent too. Johnny could remember some of the frightening dreams that he had, but there were big gaps in his memory: For instance, he could not remember anything that had happened to him on the night he went to the card party at the professor's house. And there was another odd thing: The day after he got home from the hospital, Father Higgins showed up at his house and gave him the silver cross to wear. He told Johnny to put the chain around his neck and wear it all the time, even in bed at night and in the bathtub. When Johnny asked why, Father Higgins clammed up. So Johnny wore the cross, but one day he found that the clasp on the chain was irritating his neck. He tried to take the chain off, and the clasp broke. Johnny stuffed the cross and chain into a vase on his bureau and he promised himself that he would get the clasp fixed right away. In the meantime he'd just have to take his chances with whatever bad luck happened to come his way.

  One gusty cold night Johnny was walking home from Fergie's house. At the start of the walk he was in a pretty good mood, because he had beaten Fergie in three straight games of chess. But as he walked on, he found that he was getting jittery. It was so windy that a few dead branches came clattering down near Johnny, and sometimes a very strong gust would knock over a garbage can in an alley. The endless moaning in the trees was not very pleasant either. By the time he got to the end of Fillmore Street, Johnny was jumping at every sound that he heard. He glanced ahead and saw the windows glowing in his grandparents' house, and—as always —this sight made him feel good. He started walking faster, but he came to a sudden halt when he heard a scraping noise off to his right.

  Something was moving toward him. Johnny jumped, and then he looked and heaved a sigh of relief. It was just a paper plate, sliding across the street. Or was it? As Johnny stood watching, the plate scuttled closer, and he saw that it was not a plate at all. It was a mask. Was it a Halloween mask that some kid had thrown away? No, it did not seem to be that kind of mask: It was completely white, and there were no eyeholes or mouth hole. The mask looked like a plaster cast that had been made of somebody's face—somebody's dead face. It was the face of a young man with a scar across his nose and a sneering, brutal mouth. A cold breath blew over Johnny's body. Where had he seen the face before? Dim memories of an old photograph flashed through his mind, and horror began to creep over him. He edged away from the ghastly thing and started to run, and he didn't stop till he was in his front hall with the door closed behind him.

  The next day, on his way to school, Johnny searched in the gutter and in the front yards near his house. But he did not find the mask. Forget about it! he said to himself as he marched off to school—but that was easier said than done. It was a long time before he could get the ugly, pale mask out of his mind.

  Months passed and Johnny went on feeling fine. He passed his first-semester exams easily, and did a term paper on Julius Caesar that got him an A + in his Latin class. In the middle of January he learned how to skate. Johnny had always been scared of ice-skating. He told himself that he had weak ankles and a poor sense of balance, but the truth was he was just plain afraid. Fergie told Johnny he was crazy to just stand around all winter with his hands in his pockets, watching other people have fun. So as soon as Round Pond was solidly frozen over, Fergie dragged Johnny down there and taught him to skate. It wasn't easy. Johnny fell down a lot at first, and sometimes when he came limping home after a skating session, his body felt like one big bruise. Gradually, though, he learned to keep his balance, and after two weeks he was flying along the ice, to the delight and amazement of Fergie and the professor. The professor was an old skating buff, and he started kidding Johnny and challenging him to races. After going skating, the three of them would always wind up by the fireplace in the professor's house, and they would drink mulled cider and sing old football songs and tell jokes and roast marshmallows over the fire.

  The winter rolled past, and spring came. One Saturday afternoon early in April, Johnny and Fergie took a hike around the chain of ponds at the eastern end of Duston Heights. The two of them tramped for hours, laughing and singing and trading wisecracks. Around six in the evening, when the sun was setting, Johnny and Fergie stopped at the top of a hill to stare at the view. The reddish sunlight stained the ripply water of Spy Pond below them. On the far bank stood the old brick pumping station, with its green copper turrets. Its windows had turned to blobs of golden fire.

  "Wow!" said Fergie as he looked all around with his hands on his hips. "It looks great from up here, doesn't it?"

  Johnny said nothing. They had been hiking for a long time, and he was a little out of breath. His face was red and he felt faint. "Yeah, it's nice," he said at last, in a weak, throaty voice. "But I'm starved, an' I feel kind of dizzy. What's the shortest way home?"

  Fergie laughed. "Aw, c'mon, Dixon!" he said in a jeering voice. "What're you gonna do when they getcha in the army? You'll hafta hike twenty-five miles every morning before breakfast, an' then after that . . ."

  Fergie's voice trailed away. He had been talking with his back to Johnny, but he turned when he heard a thud. It was the sound of a body falling. Horrified, Fergie looked down and he saw his friend lying in a heap on the trail.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In an instant Fergie was on his knees. He rolled Johnny over and began fumbling madly with the zipper on Johnny's Windbreaker. His mind ran through all the Boy Scout first-aid things you were supposed to do for in unconscious person: loosen the clothing around his leek, make sure he hasn't swallowed his tongue . . . Fergie did all the things he could remember, but he still felt panicky. Johnny was breathing, but his breath was coming in little gasps, and his eyes were closed. What was wrong with him?

  "Help! Hey, help, somebody!" Fergie yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth.

  There was no response. Scrambling to his feet again, Fergie ran down the trail, bellowing at the top of his voice. In th
e gathering darkness he tripped over rocks and almost fell, but he kept careening on until he had almost reached the bottom of the wooded hill. As he rounded a turn, he suddenly ran slam-bang into a hiker. He was a bald, middle-aged man who had been strolling through the woods. He had heard Fergie's yells, and he had started up the hill when Fergie came cannoning into him. As soon as they had both recovered a bit, Fergie began babbling about his friend and he tugged violently at the man's arm.

  "Easy, easy, young fella!" said the man as he fought to free his arm from Fergie's grip. "I'm coming, I'm coming, don't worry!"

  Back up the hill the two of them went. As soon as the man saw Johnny, he ordered Fergie to go get an ambulance as fast as he could. Fergie tore down the hill again and out toward Emerson Street, which ran past the park where the ponds were. When he got there, Fergie flagged down a car, and he was taken to a phone booth so he could call the hospital. Soon the eerie wail of the ambulance's siren could be heard, and Fergie saw the flashing red light moving down the street. Help was on the way—but was it going to be in time?

  Later that same night, Johnny lay in a bed in Hannah Duston Hospital. He was pale and still, his eyes were closed, and his hands lay limply on the green blanket. Once more the livid red marks were on his nose and his neck. Once more his mouth was twisted into a hateful sneer. But this time Johnny was much sicker, much closer to death. He was having a lot of trouble breathing, and his pulse was extremely faint. Johnny had been in an oxygen tent for a while, but now the plastic sheeting lay folded back and Doc Schermerhorn stood over him. Nearby, tensely watching the doctor, stood Professor Childermass. He was biting his lip and toying nervously with the Phi Beta Kappa key on his watch chain. In an armchair in the corner sat Gramma Dixon. She was busily knitting, with lowered eyes. She looked up at Johnny often, frowned, and then went back to her knitting.

  "How is he, doctor?" asked the professor in a low, tense voice.

  "He's not good," Doc Schermerhorn muttered as he lifted Johnny's right eyelid and shone the light of his little black-hooded lamp into the eye. "He's in a coma, an' for the life o' me I can't figure out why. There's no reason. . . ."

  No reason, indeed! growled the professor to himself. As he stood there watching the doctor, the professor had to fight down the urge to give him a piece of his mind. Was the old fool so dense that he couldn't see what had happened? The ghost of Warren Windrow had come back again, to take possession of Johnny's body. All the signs were there—couldn't he see that? Then the professor reminded himself that doctors did not believe in black magic or demonic possession. There was no point in trying to convince Doc Schermerhorn—or any other doctor—that the powers of darkness were at work. They would all just have to stand by, helplessly, as the ghost slowly choked the life out of Johnny. The more he thought, the angrier and more frustrated the professor got, and finally he realized that he couldn't stay there any longer. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and walked out. He marched down the hall to a small smoking lounge and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. After fumbling a bit, he managed to light one, and then he began to pace furiously up and down.

  "It won't happen, it can't happen, I won't LET it happen!" growled the professor as he paced back and forth, spewing smelly smoke into the air. But he knew, deep down in his heart, that there was a good chance the horrible ghost would win this time. A very good chance. Gloom descended on the professor and he could feel a spell of weepiness coming on. Angrily, he stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray and headed for the elevator.

  When the professor unlocked the front door of his house and stepped inside, it occurred to him that he had never seen the old place looking quite so dismal and empty. He remembered all the chess games and happy conversations he had had with Johnny. He thought about the chocolate cakes that Johnny had helped him bake—and eat.

  "Blast it all anyway!" roared the professor, and he threw his key ring against the wall and watched it bounce back onto the middle of the hall rug.

  The phone began to ring.

  It's probably some blubberbrain asking for contributions to something, thought the professor as he picked up the key ring and put it on the shelf in front of the mirror. He had half a mind not to answer the phone, but he could never resist a ringing phone, so he stalked into the dining room and picked up the receiver.

  "Hello!" he said grumpily. "Whoever it is, keep it short, because I'm very tired and want to go to bed!"

  "Good heavens!" exclaimed the voice at the other end. "Do you always answer your phone that way? It's no wonder you're a bachelor!" It was his old friend, Professor Coote.

  "Oh, it's you, Charley!" exclaimed the professor, feeling suddenly very ashamed of himself. "Look, I'm sorry to sound so snappish, but it's been a thoroughly rotten evening, and I'm bushed. Something awful has happened."

  As calmly as he could, the professor explained what had happened to Johnny. He tried to sound optimistic, but he didn't pull any punches: Johnny's life was hanging by a thread, and it was only his powerful will to live that was keeping the worst from happening.

  After the professor had finished, there was a shocked silence at the other end of the line. Finally Professor Coote found his voice.

  "Lord above!" he said mournfully. "We were afraid that something like this would happen, but . . . The poor kid! Roderick, I may have a ray of hope for us."

  "It's about time a ray of hope arrived," said the professor. "I'll take a nice shiny one, with gilt edges, if you don't mind. Have you found out something about the sinister Windrow family?"

  "I have indeed!" said Professor Coote excitedly. "I have turned up some very peculiar clues that may lead us to a pair of magic amulets that have been lost for many centuries. And these talismans could help us in our battle against the spirit of Warren Windrow."

  "Well, come on, Charley!" snapped Professor Childermass impatiently. "Tell me what you've found out!"

  With a lot of hemming and hawing, Professor Coote began to tell his tale. He had done a lot of reading and he had found out about an old man named Zebulon Windrow. Zebulon had gotten rich in the lumber business back in the 1880s, and he had built a mansion and an enormous church on a hilltop estate overlooking the Hudson River, not far from Haverstraw, New York. The church at the estate was an exact replica of Salisbury Cathedral in England, and it had a four-hundred-foot-high steeple. In the crypt under the church a lot of the Windrows were buried, and in one tomb was the body of a man who had married Zebulon Windrow's only daughter, in 1898. The man's name was Edmund French, and he had been an ensign in the United States Navy. On his tomb a very strange inscription had been carved: Ensign French Is the Boss. The inscription had been put there by Zebulon, who outlived his son-in-law.

  "Now, isn't that a peculiar thing to put on somebody's tomb?" asked Professor Coote. "And I'll tell you something else that's even more bizarre: Ensign French had his name changed before he died. Instead of being Edmund French, he became Ulysses Theodore French. Now—"

  "Charley, I don't mean to spoil your fun," said Professor Childermass acidly, "but will you please tell me where all this is leading to?"

  "I'm getting to it, Roderick—please try to be patient. It's the initials U.T. that are important, and I'll tell you why in a minute. I read a history of the Windrow family and in it I noticed a lot of people with the initials U.T.: Ulrica Tadcaster Windrow, Uther Tench Windrow, and so on. Well, do you know what I think? I think that somehow the Windrows managed to get hold of the Urim and the Thummim."

  Professor Childermass was astounded. He knew a lot of history, and he knew that these two things were two enchanted objects that had belonged to the ancient Israelites. According to the Bible, the Urim and the Thummim hung on the breastplate that the High Priest of the Levites wore. No one knew what the Urim and the Thummim looked like, but they were supposed to be like crystal balls that had let the Israelites know what God wanted them to do.

  "The Urim and the Thummim!" exclaimed Professor Childermass. "But they must have va
nished centuries ago, along with the Ark of the Covenant. How could—"

  "I don't know how the Windrows got hold of them," said his friend calmly. "But the Urim and the Thummim would explain how there got to be so many wizards and witches in the Windrow family. I could be wrong, of course, but . . . well, would you care to hear the rest of my story?"

  "Go on!" sighed Professor Childermass. "You're the one who's paying the long-distance bill!"

  "All righty!" said Professor Coote enthusiastically. "I think that the Urim and the Thummim may be out at that estate on the Hudson River. After all, it's old Zebulon's estate, and he was the richest and most powerful member of the whole creepy family. And it seems to me that the logical place to look would be in Ensign French's tomb. In the first place there's that odd phrase, Ensign French Is the Boss. According to the guidebook that I read, that phrase is carved in various places on walls all over the estate. And there's another weird phrase that shows up: Ensign French Is the Unfortunate Traveler. That phrase is in a stained-glass window in the library of Zebulon's mansion. Unfortunate Traveler, U.T.—get it? So, as I said, I think those two magic trinkets may just be in the tomb of this French character. I mean, doesn't it seem reasonable to you?"