The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder Page 4
He turned—and stood as though frozen.
Below him, something was floating up the stairway. It was round and white, and it was a face. The face of a boy about his age or a little younger. But the mouth writhed in agony, and the eyes held a tormented look. The figure came closer, and Fergie could see that it was a ghost. It floated a few feet above the stairway, its feet not even moving. It stretched out its hands toward Fergie in an imploring way.
"Set me free!" said the apparition. "He locked me in a coffin!"
Fergie backed away. He stood in an arch in the belfry, with thin air at his back. "Leave me alone!" he shouted.
"Don't make the wish!" moaned the ghost. "Don't let him trap you!"
The bell did not move an inch, and yet it tolled, and the sound struck Fergie like a physical blow. He toppled backward, his hands scrabbling for a hold. Fergie felt himself falling to the ground, fifty feet below. He tumbled through the air, seeing the belfry rush away above him, the ground rush up to meet him—
"No!"
Trembling, Fergie sat up in bed. He gasped for breath. Then he realized that he had awakened from the dream.
Just then an announcer's voice came from the radio: "And now we sign off until 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. Good night, and sleep tight, out there in radio land."
Then Fergie jumped out of bed as if he had been scalded. For from the radio came three evenly spaced tolls of a great bell.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next Saturday morning was bright and sunny. Johnny woke up early and climbed onto his bike. The town was still mostly asleep when he pedaled through—an old milk truck was making deliveries, and he saw a paperboy tossing copies of the morning paper up onto people's steps and porch roofs. But no businesses were open.
Johnny crossed the bridge over the Merrimack River and rode into the part of town called Cranbrook. He turned in at the little two-story house owned by the Ferguson family. Fergie's dad was home from his sales trip, because his rusty old blue Ford was parked in the driveway. Swinging off his bike, Johnny kicked down the stand and stood the Schwinn under the shade of an oak.
He went up onto Fergie's front steps and settled down to wait. One way or another, Johnny was going to see Fergie this morning.
He waited more than half an hour. Then he heard noises coming from inside the house, the rattle of dishes and the scraping of chairs around the breakfast table. Taking a deep breath, Johnny got up and knocked on the front door. He heard footsteps, and then the door swung open. Mrs. Ferguson stood there, looking a little startled. "Oh—Johnny," she said. "I couldn't imagine who was knocking on our door this early. Come in and have some breakfast."
"Thanks, Mrs. Ferguson," mumbled Johnny. She led him back to the kitchen, where Fergie and his dad were sitting at the breakfast table. They looked up in some surprise. "Hi," said Johnny to Fergie as he slipped into a chair.
"Hi," muttered Fergie, his face getting red. He looked sleepy and grouchy, as he usually did in the morning.
Mrs. Ferguson put a plate in front of Johnny. "Here," she said. "Have some eggs, Johnny? Some sausage? I'll put in two more pieces of toast for you."
"Thanks," said Johnny. She poured him a glass of orange juice, and Johnny tucked in. The scrambled eggs were delicious, fluffy and light, with Cheddar cheese whipped into them.
Mr. Ferguson smiled at him. "Well, I'm glad you're here, Johnny," he said. "Fergie and you are about as close as brothers, so I want you to hear my announcement too. Everybody, you will be glad to know that Mr. George Ferguson is moving up in the world. Beginning two weeks from Monday, I'm going to be a full-time salesman for Baxter Motors, right here in Duston Heights."
Mrs. Ferguson smiled at her husband. Johnny grinned and congratulated him. But Fergie just stared for a long time. "What?" he asked at last.
"It's true," said Mr. Ferguson proudly. "I'll have a salary, and I'll work on commission too, so I'll earn even more than my basic pay whenever I sell a used car. Funny thing—I was coming back home yesterday afternoon, and my car conked out just north of Ellisboro. Just died on me. So I pulled off onto the shoulder, and then this guy in a station wagon stopped to help. Turned out to be Mr. Bill Baxter, and while we tinkered with the car, we talked. We got her running again, Mr. Baxter wiped his hands on an old towel he had in the car, shook my hand, and offered me a job! What do you think of that, hey?"
Johnny stared at Fergie. His friend's face had turned white, as if with shock, and he shivered the way some people do when they say a goose has walked over their grave. But Fergie took a long drink of juice and finally said, "That's great, Dad."
Mr. Ferguson beamed at his son. "From now on I can be home a lot more," he said. "And we'll finally have enough money to replace the old stove and start a savings account for you so you can build up some money for college, Son."
Frowning, Johnny asked, "Did you say that your car broke down near Ellisboro, Mr. Ferguson?"
"Hm? Yes, and it was a good thing for me that Mr. Baxter came along, because Ellisboro is just a wide place in the road. I doubt if it even has a regular garage!"
Johnny cleared his throat. "Uh, that's up in Vermont, isn't it?"
"That's right," said Mr. Ferguson.
Johnny didn't say anything else. After breakfast, he asked Fergie, "Hey, you want to ride out to the park and play flies and grounders or something?"
Fergie shrugged. "I dunno, John baby. I don't really feel like runnin' after a dumb baseball."
"Well, let's just ride for a while."
Fergie went outside and climbed onto his beat-up old bike. The two friends rode back across the river and cruised along beside it, past the huge old brick mills, most of them long abandoned. "Hey, that was great news your dad told us," Johnny said after a while.
"Yeah," grunted Fergie.
Johnny looked over to his right. Fergie was pumping along, head down, as if he had to be somewhere and was late. "Uh, Fergie, is something wrong?" asked Johnny.
Fergie glared at him. "What's your problem, Dixon?"
His tone surprised Johnny. "Nothing. Only you've hardly talked to me at all this week. That's not like you."
"Well, nothin's wrong, so lay off," growled Fergie. "I'm just fine. Everything's fine."
"You know," said Johnny, trying to change the subject, "I read something funny about that little town where your dad's car broke down. Ellisboro, wasn't it? You know that name you asked Professor Childermass about, that Jarmyn Thanatos—"
"Leave me alone!" shouted Fergie. He wheeled his bike and headed back, whizzing along the cracked street.
Surprised, Johnny slowed and turned and tried to follow him. No use. Fergie was too far ahead and was much stronger than Johnny, so he easily outdistanced his friend. Johnny turned onto Fergie's street just in time to see Fergie hop off his bike, letting it crash to the ground. Fergie leaped up the steps and disappeared inside the house. The door slammed.
With his heart sinking, Johnny rode back to Fillmore Street. It seemed to him as though he had lost one of his oldest friends.
* * *
Fergie pounded up the stairs to his room. He closed the door behind him and threw himself onto his bed, clenching his fists. What was Dixon trying to do, asking him about Jarmyn Thanatos and shooting his mouth off about Mr. Ferguson's new job? It wasn't fair! Johnny's dad was special—a fighter pilot who had been shot down behind enemy lines in the Korean War. After his daring escape to an American base, he had even been featured in an issue of LIFE magazine. Why should Dixon care if Fergie's dad had a decent job at last? It wasn't any of his concern!
And for that matter, what right did Professor Childermass have, to stick his big, fat red nose in Fergie's business? They were hypocrites, all of them, that was it. Oh, they pretended to like you and be your friend, but behind your back they were always making fun of you, or thinking up ways of cutting you down. Well, he was through with all that! If the book could make one wish come true, it could make another, and another, and by the time he was finished—
"I gotta find out about the payment," muttered Fergie. And when he turned the next page, suddenly he could read again.
Congratulations on your father's new job, Mr. Ferguson. You are the hero of the family! And they don't even suspect.
Now you are wondering about what payment will be demanded for your wish. It will not be anything you will not be glad to give. It is very simple. You must promise yourself that you will be a good student—and this is the book you must study.
"Okay," said Fergie. "Sure. Why not?" And he turned the page.
* * *
"And then he just tore off for home," said Johnny. "I tried to catch up, but he had a big lead."
"It's most odd," murmured Professor Childermass, frowning. He and Johnny were sitting in the professor's study, and Johnny had just blurted out the story of what had happened. "And you actually found a mention of that rapscallion Jarmyn Thanatos in the old newspapers?"
"Three of them," said Johnny. "And they all tied him in to that little town in Vermont where Mr. Ferguson's car broke down. The last one said that Mr. Thanatos's nephew was raised in the Hannah Duston Orphanage, right here in Duston Heights."
Professor Childermass pushed his spectacles up and rubbed his eyes. "That old place burned down about the time I was born," he muttered. "It used to be north of town, on Plaistow Road, I think." He pulled his spectacles down and glared. "And of course when it burned, all of its records were conveniently destroyed."
"Sarah said the same thing."
Nodding, Professor Childermass said, "Sarah is a very sharp young lady, John. Well, I hardly know what to do next. However, one course of action suggests itself. I believe I will telephone my old friend Charley Coote and ask him about the history of that miserable mountebank, Thanatos. There is a chance that he was something more than just a snake-oil peddler. He might have been up to something truly evil. And if he was, I want to know about it—forewarned is forearmed, you know." The old man rose from his chair and went to the hall, where the telephone was. For some minutes Johnny heard the rumble of the professor's voice, although he could not tell what the old man was saying to Dr. Coote. Then Professor Childermass returned with a puzzled expression. "Well, John, something is rotten in Denmark. Charley says he doesn't know very much about the story, but he does want to show me something—and he sounded pretty upset about whatever it is. I told Charley I'd drive up this afternoon."
"Can I go with you, Professor?" asked Johnny.
With a grim smile, the professor said, "Of course, John. You and I have been through too much together for us to have any secrets between us. I'll go ask your grandparents, and then we'll set off. We'll stop on the way for lunch."
Henry and Kate Dixon were happy to give their permission for the trip. Neither of them had been able to go to college, but they hoped that Johnny would attend some great university and become a world-renowned archaeologist. Both Professor Childermass and Dr. Charles Coote were scholars and university teachers who were a good influence on him.
Johnny sat in the front passenger seat as the professor drove his old maroon Pontiac north on Highway 125, into New Hampshire. Professor Childermass was not the best driver in the world, and occasionally Johnny grabbed the armrest and held on hard as they went careening around a slow truck or car. They stopped in a tiny little crossroads south of Durham because the professor had spotted a diner with a big green-and-white sign on the roof: Sam's Steak House. "These places usually serve a good burger," pronounced the professor as he parked the car.
The burgers were medium-well done, juicy, and delicious, piled high with tomatoes, lettuce, crisp dill pickles, and cheese, and they were served with thick French-fried potatoes. The professor drank a couple of cups of coffee with his lunch, and Johnny had a Coke. When they finished, the professor dropped a nickel into the slot of the pay phone and dialed his friend's number. Dr. Coote was already anxious because they were a little late, and Johnny and the professor drove from the diner straight to his old gray two-storied Victorian home on Pierce Street, a peaceful, quiet residential street in Durham.
A tall, reedy man with fluffy white hair and a long, bent nose that supported heavy horn-rimmed spectacles stood in the door waiting for them. He was Dr. Charles Coote, a specialist in the folklore of magic who taught at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Even on his day off, he wore a tweedy gray jacket, a pale blue shirt, and a dark blue tie with tiny white luna moths on it. He ushered his guests inside, and they sat in his living room as Professor Childermass explained their interest in a man named Jarmyn Thanatos. When he finished, Dr. Coote leaned back in his armchair and made a steeple of his fingertips. "Now, that is an odd name," he murmured.
"Of course it is," growled Professor Childermass. "And an obvious alias! Why, the charlatan might as well have called himself 'Doctor Death' or 'Professor Doomsday' and made it plain to the dimmest dimwit in the crowd."
Johnny groaned. "I should have caught that," he said. "We studied William Cullen Bryant's poem 'Thanatopsis' in English last term, and the teacher told us the title meant contemplation of death. 'Thanatos' means death, doesn't it?"
"Bingo," said the professor, lighting one of his smelly black-and-gold Balkan Sobranie cigarettes. "And under that nom de guerre, the rascal cheated my father, along with about a hundred other people throughout New England, or so the story went. He must have made himself a rich man."
"Well, nothing specific comes to mind," said Dr. Coote nervously. "That is, I don't recall reading anything about any Jarmyn Thanatos, although I know something rather disturbing about a Thanatos, but I can certainly check out the name. You say he was active in Vermont, Roderick?"
"Ellisboro, according to what John discovered. And he seems to have been most prominent in the middle 1880s," returned the professor, blowing a blue cloud of smoke.
Dr. Coote looked faintly distressed as he waved the smoke away. "Um, yes, I know the place. One of those scenic little villages that hasn't changed much in a hundred years or so, tucked into a valley in the Green Mountains."
"Where the mountain brooks sing lullabies to the nodding jonquils as they dream beside the limpid streams," snarled Professor Childermass in a sarcastic tone. "Charley, we don't need a travelogue. We just want to see what you can dig up on this Thanatos—especially if it has anything to do with magic."
"Oh, dear," murmured Dr. Coote. He stared at his visitors owlishly. "I suppose I should have expected that, with you two involved." He sighed. "Very well. I will do my best. But now let me show you the very unpleasant relic that came my way twenty-five years ago. I had forgotten all about it until you called with your questions. It's what I think you ought to see before proceeding any further with this business." He rose from his chair, swaying a little like a praying mantis, all elbows and knees, and went upstairs. Soon he brought back a wooden box about four inches square and three inches deep. "Well, here it is," Dr. Coote said.
"What's that?" asked Professor Childermass.
Dr. Coote carefully placed the box on the coffee table. "Look at the label," he said.
Johnny craned forward. A dry, yellowed label had been pasted to the box lid. Written on it in ink that had faded to a dull brown was the strange inscription THANATOS MOUSE. Johnny heard Professor Childermass gasp.
With a shaking hand, Dr. Coote prepared to open the box. "This was dropped off at the university some twenty-five years ago as a curiosity," he said. "No one knew what to do with it, and eventually it came to me. I've had this box on a shelf in a closet for years and
years, and it hasn't been opened since before the war." He lifted the lid and turned the box over. Something grayish-white rolled out.
Johnny blinked. The round object was a dead white mouse. Its ears were shriveled, its fur plastered down to its shrunken body, its tail a brittle-looking curl. The ribs showed through the skin, the lips had pulled far back from nasty yellowed teeth, and the ruby-red eyes had become sunken pits the color of scabs. "It's—it's a mouse mummy," he said thoughtfully.
Dr. Coote produced a pair of sugar tongs and gingerly rolled the creature over onto its belly. "I—I don't know if it will—do anything, but—just watch."
In an unsteady voice, Professor Childermass began, "Now, look here, Charley—"
"Professor!" yelled Johnny. "It's moving!"
Johnny felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck prickle. The horrible little mummy was creeping forward slowly, its head creaking from side to side. From its mouth came a terrible jittery clicking sound, like a finger slowly run down the teeth of a comb. The dry claws scraped the table, the wizened nose twitched.
"You see?" asked Dr. Coote in a sick voice. He reached forward to pick up the creature with the sugar tongs.
It leaped! It jumped off the table—and right into Johnny's lap! With a screech, Johnny lunged up from his chair, frantically swatting at the awful creature. It fell to the floor—and broke, just like a fragile cup. It shattered into three pieces, the head, the chest and front legs, and the hindquarters.