The Mansion in the Mist Page 7

  "But how come you were so sure?" asked Anthony, who was amazed at Emerson's calmness in the face of danger.

  Anthony raised the beam of his flashlight, and he saw that Emerson's face looked drawn and haggard. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Once again Anthony asked his question. "How did you know? Weren't you afraid?"

  "I... I wasn't sure at all," said Emerson faintly, "Not... not until I tried." And with that he collapsed in a heap on the splintery boards.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A few minutes later Emerson awoke. Anthony had placed a folded jacket under his head for a pillow, and Miss Eells was waving a bottle of smelling salts under his nose. Emerson coughed and sputtered and glanced blearily around. He was not the fainting type—or so he thought—so his present situation really embarrassed him.

  "I... I seem to have collapsed," said Emerson vaguely. He struggled to his feet. "So our nasty enemy is gone," he muttered, as he brushed lint off his sleeves. "Let us hope that..."

  Suddenly there was a sound of glass breaking. In a flash Emerson guessed. So did Anthony and Miss Eells.

  "Good God!" exclaimed Emerson, clapping his hand to his mouth. "You don't suppose..."

  Without another word Emerson, Miss Eells, and Anthony dashed up the front stairs and down the narrow hall. They stopped in front of the door of the room where the chest sometimes appeared. From a small table in the hall Emerson snatched a candle, and after a little scrabbling in a drawer he found some matches and lit it. Into the room he stepped, followed by the other two. Emerson walked straight toward the window and raised his candle high. What everyone expected turned out to be true—the purple pane was shattered. Pieces of violet colored glass lay on the floor of the room. And there was the small rock that had done the damage. The magic chest would never return to this room, no matter how brightly Arcturus shone. This pathway to another world was blocked forever.

  Emerson was trembling with rage. He stood there silently staring at the broken windowpane. The candle shook in his clenched fist, and his shoulders hunched up as his whole body grew tense. Then Emerson let all his anger out in one long, shuddering sigh. He stooped and picked up one of the broken glass fragments.

  "Well, I guess that's about it," he said. Letting the glass shard fall back to the floor, Emerson turned back to his friends. "I suppose we could glue the pieces together," he said glumly. "But I have always heard that the magic flows out of an enchanted object once it has been broken. We may as well pack up and head for Hoosac. I was getting tired of this vacation anyway."

  Miss Eells stepped forward and touched her brother sympathetically on the arm. "Maybe it's all for the best, Em," she said softly. "You've cheated the odds twice by going to that place. Anthony has cheated them three times. But eventually the law of averages would have caught up to us. We would probably all have been killed before we found that Whatchamajigger Cube."

  "Logos Cube," said Emerson, who hated to hear people use the wrong names to identify things.

  "I think Miss Eells is right," Anthony put in. "And anyway, I don't really think those creeps can take over our world. They'll have to stay where they are."

  Emerson glanced at Anthony, and he looked as if he was about to say something, but then he changed his mind and led the way out of the room. In silence the three of them clumped down the stairs and then walked around, fastening the first floor windows and bolting the doors. When this was done, each took a candle and climbed the steps to bed. As he wearily took off his clothes, Anthony thought that he would be glad to be back home in good old Hoosac. But this was only partly true. Anthony didn't like the danger they had been put into, but there was still a large question floating around in his mind: Had they seen the last of the evil mansion and its sinister inhabitants? If they had found the Logos Cube and smashed it, then they would be sure they were safe. As it was now, they would never know... until it was too late.

  The next day the three vacationers packed up their things and straightened up the old cottage for the final time. They locked the doors and threw their luggage into Emerson's boat, and soon they were putting across the quiet waters of the lake. It was late August, but a chill was in the air, and leaves had already started to turn. Autumn was coming to this lonely northern outpost. Emerson steered toward the little settlement on the north side of the lake. It wasn't much—just a few houses, a trading post, a church, and the local headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. When they got there Emerson went straight to the Mounties' headquarters and explained that he and his friends needed to get home as quickly as they could. The officer on duty told him that a pontoon plane would be arriving around one in the afternoon, and for a fee the pilot would take them to the town of Withers, where they could catch a train to Montreal. From there they could fly to Minneapolis, which was only a hundred miles from Hoosac. So Emerson sold his rowboat and the outboard motor, and they settled down at the trading post to wait for the plane.

  A few days later the three of them were back home, going about the normal routine of their lives. Anthony wandered about the town during the day and shelved books at the library at night. When his parents asked how his trip had been, he shrugged carelessly and said that it had been "all right." That was the most that they could get out of him. Mrs. Monday was disappointed that he had not brought back any postcards or souvenirs—but then Anthony had never cared much for things like that.

  August turned to September, and the usual breathless muggy heat of late summer stayed on and on. After Labor Day Anthony went back to school. But the dark mansion and its evil inhabitants stayed in his mind. What were they doing in their moonlit world? What sort of nastiness were they plotting? Emerson was pretty sure that the Grand Autarch had smashed the purple windowpane, and he was also convinced that the chest was not the only pathway between our world and the other one. If it had been, the Autarch would hardly have done something that would leave him stranded in northern Canada. There had to be another way, one that only the Autarchs knew of. But Emerson had searched the island before they left, and he had found nothing but trees and rocks and weeds. Maybe now the Autarchs would stay in their little kingdom and not bother the inhabitants of Earth. Maybe—but Anthony had his doubts.

  A week went by. The heat wave broke and autumn winds began to blow in the valley of the Upper Mississippi. The leaves on the tall wooded bluffs turned and began to fall. One sleepy Saturday afternoon Anthony was sitting in a window seat in the Hoosac Public Library. He had a feather duster in his hand, but he had gotten tired of dusting, so he just sat and watched the wind strip the yellow leaves from the elm trees across the street. The library was nearly empty. Old Mr. Beemis was in the East Reading Room playing chess with one of his friends, and a grim old woman in a black dress was up at the front desk arguing with Miss Eells about some adventure novels that she felt were not fit for young people to read. Because they were in a library, the argument had to be carried on in whispers, and this amused Anthony. From where he was sitting he could see the two of them wagging their jaws at each other, though he couldn't make out what they were saying. Finally the woman turned and stalked away. Anthony heard the inner doors of the library hiss shut behind her. With the duster still in his hand, he ambled toward the main desk. Miss Eells was shaking her head and laughing quietly. When she saw Anthony approaching she smiled, but then another laughing fit came over her. When it was over she sighed and wiped her face with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.

  "Oh, my Lord!" she said, shaking her head. "That woman belongs in an institution! If we did what she wanted, there'd be a huge bonfire of books out behind the library. Fortunately everybody on the Library Board thinks she's a nut, so I suppose she's harmless. But I can't help arguing with her, all the same."

  Anthony frowned. He had a favor to ask. "Miss Eells?"

  "Yes, Anthony? What is it?"

  "Do... well, do you think maybe we could get out of here early today? It's nice out, and I think it would be fun to take a drive down the river."


  Miss Eells laughed again. This was one of those days when everything seemed to strike her as funny. Then she pulled herself together and tried to act businesslike. "Anthony," she said quietly, "if I closed up shop and got out of this place every time I felt like it, I'd be out of a job pretty soon. I'm afraid I'm stuck here till four, when Miss Pratt comes in to relieve me. But if you'd like a late afternoon jaunt down the river, I'd be delighted. Why don't you call up your folks and tell them that you'll be having dinner with me? We can go south a little way and then angle off into the hinterlands and maybe take some roads we've never been on before. Then we'll come back and stuff ourselves at Reifschneider's, that wonderful German restaurant where you, Emerson, and I ate once. Sauerbraten and red cabbage and the works! Sound good?"

  Anthony nodded enthusiastically. "Sounds great!" He glanced over his shoulder at the big electric clock that hung over the main doorway of the library. It said five after two. "I'll go find something to do," he said cheerfully. "The Winterborn Room does need dusting, and somebody spilled a Coke on the floor in the smoking room, so there's sticky stuff next to one of the armchairs. See you."

  Anthony did a lot of cleaning up tasks, and Miss Eells read one of the rip-roaring adventure novels that the old lady had condemned. Time passed, and at last four o'clock arrived. Mr. Beemis left, and Anthony and Miss Eells followed as soon as Miss Pratt walked in. Soon they were driving down a two-lane road that ran on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi river. Above them loomed tall limestone bluffs where trees waved in the wind. Now and then a shower of red and yellow leaves would come drifting down onto the car, which was still wet from the morning's rain. They drove on, singing football songs, like "Buckle Down Winsocki," "On Wisconsin!" and "The Notre Dame Victory March." After half an hour they came to a side road that angled off through a cleft in the bluffs. A wooden sign said:

  NEW STOCKHOLM 13 mi.

  DANZIG 6 mi.

  ARETHA 28 mi.

  Miss Eells slowed down and turned left onto the narrow side road. "I've never been to any of these towns," she said in answer to Anthony's questioning look. "And considering how long I've lived in these parts, it's high time that I investigated one or two of them. Okay by you?"

  Anthony said yes, it was fine. He liked to explore, and he knew that Miss Eells didn't mind getting lost. So he just settled back and enjoyed the scenery. First they passed through rugged country where steep hills rose on either side of them. Here and there they would see a collapsing barn, or a deserted farmhouse with boarded windows, or a lonely gas station with cars rusting to pieces in a field nearby. They passed through Danzig, which had a gas station, a general store, a Grange Hall, and a few houses huddled together. That was it— not even a post office. On they drove, as the sun sank lower in the west. Finally they came to New Stockholm, which was a bit bigger than Danzig—about 500 people, Miss Eells guessed. It was clear that the town had once seen better days: The Masonic Temple was quite a production, with stone lions in front, a red granite staircase, and a greenish copper cornice on the roof. And on the side streets were some old mansions that had probably belonged to rich people years ago. Anthony loved old houses and always tried to imagine who had lived in them and what their lives had been like. Suddenly Anthony gasped.

  Miss Eells pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the car, and turned off the motor. She turned to Anthony, who looked pale and frightened. "Good heavens, Anthony!" said Miss Eells in a worried voice. "Whatever is the matter?"

  Anthony sat rigidly still, staring at the windshield. "Turn around and go back a little ways and you'll find out what's the matter," he muttered. "Across the way and to the right down a side street. That's where it is."

  Miss Eells wanted to ask, "Where what is?" but she didn't. Instead she revved up the car and looked up and down the road. Nobody was coming, so she did a U-turn and cruised slowly back down the main street of the town.

  "This street," said Anthony faintly. "Off to your right."

  Miss Eells swerved onto a rutty side street and then suddenly, like Anthony, she gasped. "Oh, my good Lord in heaven!" she said. "I see what you mean. This is incredible!"

  Miss Eells stopped the car next to a fire hydrant, and the two of them got out. Then they just stared for a long while. They were looking at a three-story black stone mansion with narrow windows and a slate roof. The tall chimneys were capped by iron chimney covers that looked like Chinese pagoda roofs. They could see the south side of the building, which was thick with tangled vines, and level with the ground was a false stone doorway with a Greek cornice. Next to it stood a headless statue of a woman in a toga. Her marble arm pointed up. And a little way off to the left were the tangled, weedy remains of a garden.

  "It's... it's..." quavered Miss Eells, but she couldn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to—Anthony knew, as she did, that they were staring at a house that was like the mansion they had seen in that misty moonlit otherworld.

  After opening and closing his mouth a few times, Anthony finally found that he could speak. "I wonder what it means," he said in a choked voice.

  "I don't know," replied Miss Eells quietly. "This is all very, very strange. We'll have to tell Emerson about it. Before we go, though, I'd like a slightly closer look."

  Anthony was terrified. He grabbed Miss Eells's arm. "You're not going in there, are you?" he gasped. "Please don't! Please, please don't!"

  "Of course I'm not going in!" said Miss Eells. "I may be weird and impractical, but I'd like to live a few more years. I just want to walk to the main gate and see if I can see any signs of life. Are you with me?"

  Anthony nodded, and he followed Miss Eells along the spike-topped iron fence that surrounded the mansion's grounds. The empty windows stared out silently at them, and once they were startled by a crow that suddenly took off from one of the chimneys. It flew past, cawing loudly. Soon Anthony and Miss Eells came to a padlocked gate and two tall black stone gateposts with lanterns on top. The frosted panes of the lanterns were broken; there was a wooden sign wired to the gate. It said:

  FOR SALE

  Hjalmarson Realtors

  Phone: 6854

  Anthony noticed two more weathered FOR SALE signs. They were lying in the tall grass just inside the gateway, and they had the names of other real estate companies on them. Apparently it had been hard to sell this depressing old place.

  Miss Eells peered through the bars at the tall porch of the mansion. It was narrow, just a flattopped canopy over the front door, held up by square-edged wooden posts. "I've never seen the main entrance of that other mansion," she said. "Have you, Anthony?"

  Anthony shook his head. "No, I haven't," he said. Then he added in an odd voice, "I'll bet they're both the same."

  "No bet," said Miss Eells grimly. She folded her arms and went on gazing at this strange abandoned building. After another long look she turned away. "Come on, Anthony," she said softly, as she touched him on the arm. "We'd better be getting back home. It's after five, and we'll be lucky to make it to Reifschneider's before the dinnertime crowd."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  That evening after dinner Miss Eells phoned her brother Emerson and told him about the discovery that she and Anthony had made. Needless to say, Emerson was surprised. He was also a little bit frightened.

  "Look, Myra," he said, talking rapidly as he always did when he was excited, "find out whatever you can about the former owner of that mansion. I'll bet that it was the Grand Autarch himself, though I doubt that was the name he used when he lived in New Stockholm. The really interesting thing about your discovery is that it gives us hope."

  Miss Eells was mystified. "Hope? What kind of hope?"

  "If the mansion in the Autarchs' world is a copy of the one you saw," said Emerson, "then maybe inside it is something we could use the way we used the magic chest. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  "Brother dear," Miss Eells said, "your logic escapes me. Why should there be anything magical inside that old run-down heap of a hou
se? I'd expect cobwebs and mice, perhaps, but not magic chests that travel between dimensions."

  "I'm not being logical, I'm playing a hunch," said Emerson. "And anyway, it's the only hope we have of getting back to the Autarchs' world."

  Miss Eells shuddered. "Why ever would we want to do that? I thought that whole episode was over and done with. Are you still thinking about the Logic Cube, or whatever it's called?"

  "Yes, Myra, I am," said Emerson. "Do you really think those black-robed creeps are going to sit back and forget about the cube? It's changing their world without their permission. Also, they have a plan for taking over our world—remember, I heard it with my own ears—and they can't do it without the cube. Do you think I can sleep nights while there's a chance they might find the cursed thing and work unimaginable magic with it?"

  Miss Eells heaved a despairing sigh. She knew Emerson, and when he was convinced that he was right, you couldn't argue with him. Also, Miss Eells had to admit that what he was saying made a weird sort of sense. Maybe the world was in danger, and maybe they had better find a way to get the cube before the Autarchs found it. "Very well, Em," she said at last. "I'll go back up to New Stockholm and try to find out about the former owner of that ugly old dump. Maybe I can pretend to be someone who wants to buy the place."

  "Sounds like a good idea," said Emerson. "You find out what you can, and call me immediately if you discover something. I have a few wills to draw up, but there's nothing that can't be shoved aside for a few days if I absolutely have to come down there. Good luck." And with that he hung up.

  "Good luck indeed!" muttered Miss Eells to herself, as she put the receiver back in its cradle. "I wonder what I have gotten myself into?" Then she decided to call up Anthony and tell him about Emerson's latest idea.