The Figure in the Shadows Page 6

  He looked toward the fireplace, and he smiled. Every room in this enormous old mansion had a fireplace in it. Lewis's own personal fireplace was made of black marble, and there was a fire laid in it, though it was not lit. Little dry twigs underneath and bigger sticks above, on the andirons. There was a box of matches on the mantel. Lewis took them and knelt down to light the fire.

  In a few minutes, he had a good blaze going. Lewis put up the screen and sat there on the rug, staring at the fire. Should he tell Uncle Jonathan about the amulet? Jonathan was a wizard. He would know what to do. Or Mrs. Zimmermann? She was a witch, and even more powerful than Jonathan. But Lewis was afraid of what they would think when they found out that he had been messing around with magic again. He should have turned Mrs. Zimmermann's book over to her the minute he found it. When she found out what he had done, she would probably be furious. And what would Jonathan do? Would he decide that one year was a long enough time to be Lewis's legal guardian? Would he send him off to live with Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Helen? Aunt Helen had a personality like a leaky inner tube. She sat in an easy chair and whined about her asthma all day. Lewis thought about what life with Aunt Helen would be like. No, he did not want to tell Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann about the amulet.

  Then who could he tell? Rose Rita. Lewis grinned. Sure. He would call her up in the morning and they could get together to decide what to do. If he couldn't take the amulet off himself, then Rose Rita could do it for him.

  The fire crackled cheerfully. Lewis felt better. He also felt very sleepy. After making sure that the fire screen was in place, Lewis stumbled off to the bed and threw himself down. If he had any dreams that night, he didn't remember them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When he woke up the next morning, Lewis found his room filled with bright winter sunlight. The dark figure that had waited for him under the street lamp seemed like something he had read about or dreamed about. As he dressed, the pirate-movie feeling flowed back into him. He felt like a million dollars. Should he tell Rose Rita, after all? Lewis hesitated. Yes, maybe he ought to, just to get it off his chest. He could call her up before breakfast to catch her before she left the house. But when he got to the phone, Lewis's resolve melted. He stood there with the receiver in his hand while the operator said, "Number please? Number please?" and then he hung up. Oh well. He could talk to her at school.

  Lewis saw Rose Rita several times that day at school. But each time, as he was working himself up to say something about the amulet, something tightened up inside him, and he wound up talking about the Notre Dame football team, or the galley they were building, or Miss Haggerty, or anything but the amulet. When he went home from school that day, Lewis still had not managed to tell Rose Rita what he wanted to tell her. But as he walked home in the winter dusk, Lewis saw that the street lights were on. He stopped. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead. The horror of the figure under the lamp swept over him like an icy wave. Lewis pulled himself together. He clenched his teeth and doubled his fists. He was going to have to tell Rose Rita about the amulet, and he was going to tell her tonight.

  That evening in the middle of dinner, Lewis laid down his fork, swallowed several times, and said in a dry husky voice, "Uncle Jonathan, can I invite Rose Rita over to stay tonight?"

  Jonathan did a double take. "Hmph! Well, Lewis, this is rather short notice, but I'll see what I can do. I'll have to ask her mother's permission first."

  After dinner, Jonathan phoned up Mrs. Pottinger, and got her permission for Rose Rita to spend the night over at the Barnavelts' house. Quite by accident, Jonathan discovered that Lewis had not yet asked Rose Rita if she wanted to come over. So he dragged Lewis to the phone and got him to make a formal invitation. Then everything was settled. Lewis and Jonathan went upstairs to one of the many spare bedrooms and made the bed, and laid out the guest towels. Lewis was excited. He was looking forward to a long evening of card games and stories and conversation. Maybe he could even get in a word about his amulet.

  When Rose Rita got to Lewis's house, the dining room table was all laid out for poker. There were the blue and gold cards with CAPHARNAUM COUNTY MAGICIANS SOCIETY stamped on them; there were the foreign coins that Jonathan used as poker chips. On a plate with a bright purple border was a big pile of chocolate-chip cookies, and there was a pitcher of milk. Mrs. Zimmermann was there, and she promised not to pull any funny business with the cards. Everything was ready.

  They played for a long time. Then, just as Jonathan was about to announce that it was bedtime, Lewis asked if he could have a few words with Rose Rita, alone in the library. As he asked this, Lewis felt that tightness in his chest again. And he felt a sharp pain right where the amulet was.

  Jonathan chuckled and knocked his pipe out into the potted plant behind his chair. "Sure," he said. "Sure, go right ahead. State secrets, eh?"

  "Yeah, kinda," said Lewis, blushing.

  Lewis and Rose Rita went into the library and slid the heavy paneled doors shut. Now Lewis felt like somebody who is trying to breathe under water. But he dragged the words out, one by one. "Rose Rita?"

  "Yeah? What's wrong with you, Lewis? You look all pale."

  "Rose Rita, remember when we said the... the magic words over the coin?" Lewis stopped and winced. He felt a sharp pain in his chest.

  Rose Rita looked puzzled. "Yeah, I remember. What about it?"

  Lewis felt as if someone was sticking red-hot needles into his chest. "Well, I... I kind of lied about it." Sweat was pouring down his face now, but he felt triumphant, because he was winning over whatever was trying to keep him from telling the truth.

  Rose Rita's eyes opened wide. "You lied? You mean the coin was really..."

  "Yeah." Lewis reached inside his shirt and brought the thing out for her to see. He expected it to be red-hot. But it felt cool to his touch, and it looked just the way it had always looked.

  Now that he had gotten out the important part, Lewis found that he could talk more freely. He told Rose Rita about how he had punched Woody without meaning to; he told her about the postcard and the paper on the street, and the figure under the street lamp. Now it was like running downhill. He talked faster and faster until he had nothing more to say.

  Rose Rita sat there, nodding and listening, through his whole speech. When he was through, she said, "Gee, Lewis, don't you think we ought to tell your uncle and Mrs. Zimmermann? They know all about stuff like this."

  Lewis looked terrified. "Please don't, Rose Rita! Please, please, don't! My uncle would get mad and bawl me out and... and I don't know what he and Mrs. Zimmermann would think! They told me never to mess around with magic again! Please don't say anything to them!"

  Rose Rita had not known Lewis long, but she did know that he spent a great deal of time worrying about being bawled out. He worried about it even when he wasn't doing anything bad. And she didn't really know how Jonathan would react. Maybe he would lose his temper. So she shrugged and said, "Oh, okay! We won't tell them then. But I think you ought to give the darned thing to me so I can throw it down the sewer for you."

  Lewis looked hesitant. He bit his lip. "Could we just maybe... kind of put it away for a while? You never know. When I grow up, it might be that I could do something with it."

  Rose Rita looked at him over the tops of her glasses. "Like fly to the moon? Come on, Lewis! Stop kidding around. You just want to hang onto it. Give it here." She held out her hand.

  Lewis's face suddenly grew hard. He stuffed the coin back in under his shirt. "No."

  Rose Rita looked at him for a moment. Then she took off her glasses, folded them up, and put them in the holder in her shirt pocket. She jumped at him, and at the first lunge, got her hands around the chain that the coin was attached to.

  Lewis got his hands on the chain too, and he struggled to keep it down around his neck. He fought hard, and Rose Rita was amazed at his strength. She had Indian-wrestled with him once, and she had won easily. But now it was different. They staggered back and
forth across the floor of the library. Rose Rita's face got red; so did Lewis's. Neither of them said a word.

  Finally Rose Rita gave one sharp yank and tore the chain through Lewis's sore fingers. And at that Lewis gave a wild yell and leaped at her. His hand raked down the side of her face. Blood flowed.

  Rose Rita stood in the middle of the room, panting. In one hand she held the chain with the coin on it. With the other she gently touched the wetness on her cheek. Now that the coin was gone, Lewis felt as if he had just been shaken rudely out of a dream. He blinked and stared at Rose Rita and he felt ashamed. Tears came to his eyes.

  "Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to," was all he could say.

  The study doors rolled back, and there was Jonathan. "Good lord, what's going on here? I heard this scream, and I thought someone was being killed!"

  Rose Rita hastily stuffed the coin and chain into the pocket of her jeans. "Oh, it wasn't anything, Mr. Barnavelt. Lewis borrowed my Captan Midnight Secret Decoder Ring, and I said that he had kept it long enough, and we had a fight about it."

  When she turned to face him, Jonathan saw Rose Rita's bloody cheek. "Wasn't anything? Wasn't anything? Did Lewis do that to you?" Jonathan turned to Lewis, and was on the point of giving him an angry lecture, when Rose Rita interrupted.

  "It wasn't what you think, Mr. Barnavelt. I... I was scratching my face with the hook end of my glasses. You know, the part that fits down over your ear? Well, it must've gotten sharp somehow because it really gave me a scratch!" Rose Rita was very good at explanations on short notice. Lewis was grateful.

  Jonathan looked from Lewis to Rose Rita. There was something fishy about all this, but he couldn't quite tell what. He thought about all the fights he had had with his best friend in grade school, and he smiled. "Oh well. As long as everything's all right."

  Late that night, after everyone else was asleep, Rose Rita tiptoed downstairs and opened the front door. She was wearing only her slippers, pajamas, and bathrobe, but she went out anyway, down the shoveled walk and out the front gate. She walked to the corner and stopped by the iron grate of the storm sewer. Water from the melting snow was running down into it with a hollow chuckling sound. Rose Rita took the amulet out of her bathrobe pocket. She dangled it over the grate, swinging it on its chain. All she had to do was let go, and it would be good-bye amulet.

  But she didn't let go. A suggestion that seemed to come from outside told her that she shouldn't throw the thing away. Rose Rita stood there a minute, staring at the strange little object that had given Lewis so much trouble. She scooped the coin back into her hand and put it into her bathrobe pocket. As she turned back toward the house, she thought, "Maybe Lewis is right after all. We'll put it away for a while and see what happens. I'll tell him that I've thrown it away, so he won't be pestering me all the time about it. Maybe he can use it when he's older. He might be a great magician or something then. I'll guard it for him." She reached into her pocket to see if the coin was still there. Yes, it was still there. Halfway back to the house she stopped to check again. Then she laughed at herself for being such a fussbudget. She tromped up the creaky steps and went in to bed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was December now, and everyone in New Zebedee was getting ready for Christmas. Big tinsel-covered bells were strung across Main Street in several places, and the fountain at the traffic circle was turned into a Nativity scene. Jonathan lugged the Seagram's and Oxydol boxes down from the attic and began unsnarling the Christmas tree lights. They had been put away in neat little bundles, but they had somehow gotten all knotted up while lying quiet in their boxes. It happened that way every year. Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann began their usual argument about which was better, a tall skinny tree or a short squat one. Lewis unpacked the dirty cotton batting and arranged it around the circular mirror that was supposed to be the ice pond. He set up the little cardboard village with the cellophane windows and put the celluloid deer out on the ice. Then, when the tree was all decorated and the lights were turned on, Lewis would sit on the couch and squint. He did this to make the tree lights into stars. Red and blue and green and white and orange stars, each with four long rays. Lewis liked the effect, and he would sit there squinting for long periods of time.

  Every night as he undressed for bed, Lewis would look at the green streak on his neck. It had been left there by the tarnished chain that held the magic three-cent piece. The magic amulet that was gone forever. He knew it was gone; Rose Rita had told him so. She had told him that she had dropped it down the sewer, and he had believed her. Now he was trying hard to feel good about not having the amulet. He was trying hard, but it was no use.

  Lewis felt the way people feel when they give up something they like. Something that is bad for them, like Mounds bars or eating between meals. He felt a big empty space in his life, a hollow place cut out of his insides. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night scrabbling frantically for the amulet. And when he found it wasn't there, he burst into tears. But Lewis went about his everyday life as well as he could. He was distracted from his troubles by the Christmas preparations, and the fun he had playing with Rose Rita. He was happy a good deal of the time, and he might have eventually forgotten all about the amulet if something bad hadn't happened to him.

  It was a dark December afternoon. Lewis and the other sixth-grade students were trying very hard to finish their math assignments, so they could be let out early. Miss Haggerty walked up and down the aisles, looking at papers and offering comments. When she was on the other side of the room, Woody Mingo started pinching Lewis.

  "Ow!" Lewis hissed. "Cut it out, Woody!"

  "Cut out what?"

  "You know what I mean. Stop pinchin' me!"

  "I ain't pinchin' you. It must be a sweat bee. Take a bath, and they won't sting you. Sweat Bee Barney-smell, Sweat Bee Barney-smell." Pinch, pinch.

  Lewis felt deep despair. It was as if Woody had begun to realize that the amulet was gone. For a long time after their big fight, Woody had let Lewis alone. But in the last few days he had started in again. It was worse than before.

  Lewis wanted to slug Woody, but he knew he'd get caught if he tried anything. Besides, he wasn't sure he could hurt Woody at all without his amulet. Why did he ever agree to give it away? It was one of the dumbest things he had ever done in his life.

  Miss Haggerty walked to the front of the room and picked up her watch.

  "Class," she said.

  Everyone stopped working and looked up.

  "Since you all seem to be doing quite well, I will keep my promise and let you out early. Some of you are not quite finished, but you may complete your work at home. Now, as soon as you have your desks all cleared off, and the room is quiet, you may go."

  Desk tops slammed all over the room as the students began stuffing their pencils, paper, and books into their desks. Lewis put all his books away, and then he started stuffing his pens and pencils down the hole that the ink bottle sat in.

  The students in Lewis's school didn't get to use ballpoint pens. Not in school, at any rate. Ballpoint pens were supposed to be bad for your handwriting. So everybody had to write either with fountain pens, or with wooden pens, the kind that have metal points on the end. The ink the students used was kept in glass bottles which sat in round holes that had been cut in the upper-right-hand corner of each desk top. The holes went right through to the inside of the desk, so if you took the bottle out, you could put things into your desk through the hole. Of course, it would really have been easier just to lift the hinged wooden lid of the desk, but you couldn't have told Lewis that.

  Lewis had about four pencils and a pen crammed into the hole. They were stuck against some books that were inside his desk, and they wouldn't go in. With his left hand he jiggled them around, trying to force them in. In his right hand he held the ink bottle. It dangled out over the aisle. Suddenly something hit Lewis's arm. Right on the funny bone. His arm went numb, his hand went limp, and the ink bottle shattered
on the floor. Black ink spattered everywhere.

  Lewis turned angrily in his seat. Woody was just pulling himself hastily back behind his raised desk top. And now Miss Haggerty was standing next to Lewis's desk.

  "What seems to be the matter here?"

  "Woody knocked the ink out of my hand," said Lewis, pointing.

  Miss Haggerty did not seem to be interested in Woody. She kept on staring at Lewis. "And what, may I ask, was the ink bottle doing in your hand, Mr. Barnavelt?"

  Lewis blushed. "I was just puttin' my pencils down into the hole," he mumbled.

  The room was quiet. Dead quiet. Everyone, including Rose Rita, was looking at Lewis.

  Miss Haggerty turned to the class and said, in a loud clear voice, "Class, do we ever take our ink bottles out of our desks?"

  The class answered in long drawn-out unison, "NO-O, MISS HAG-GER-TY!"

  Lewis's face burned. He felt angry and helpless. Now he heard Miss Haggerty telling him that he would have to stay after school and sand some of the ink off the floor. She didn't say how long it would take.

  An hour after everyone else had gone, Miss Haggerty let Lewis go. His fingertips were sore from sandpapering, and he was so mad he could hardly see straight. As he stomped along the sidewalk toward home, he felt mad at everybody and everything, but especially at Rose Rita. It didn't matter that she had come over to his desk when the class was let out, just to say that she was sorry he had to stay after and to tell him that she hadn't chanted "No, Miss Haggerty" along with the rest of the class. That didn't matter. He was mad at her, and he felt that he had a very good reason.

  If he had had the amulet with him in school that day, Lewis figured, it would have protected him. Woody would have been afraid to pick on him. The ink bottle would never have gotten broken, and he would never have been forced to stay after school. And who had told him to get rid of the amulet? Rose Rita. As Lewis saw it, everything that had happened to him that day was Rose Rita's fault.