The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder Read online

  "Oh, no, it isn't!" thundered Professor Childermass. "By heaven, that murderous miscreant has gone too far this time. John, I swear to you that I'll do everything in my power to save Byron. Even if it means going back to that lair of evil."

  "B-but you c-can't—"

  "Oh, yes I can!" roared the professor. "Let him send his winged mummies after me—I'll deal with them somehow! And I'll deal with our precious Dr. Thanatos too!"

  "Th-then I'm going with you," said Johnny.

  Professor Childermass frowned. "Now, wait a minute—"

  "Johnny's right, Rod," said Father Higgins. He patted Johnny's shoulder. "Friendship wouldn't amount to very much if it didn't demand sacrifices and risks now and again. Count him in—and me too. I'll call old Father Manion to take my place at Mass. He's retired, but he likes to keep his hand in. Give me half an hour to arrange things and pack, and I'm with you."

  So it was agreed. Johnny hurried home and told Gramma and Grampa that Fergie had run away from home and that he and the professor were going to see if they could track him down. Gramma looked worried. "Well," she said slowly, folding her hands over her flowered apron, "I guess y' can go, Johnny. But you be careful."

  "It'll be all right, Kate," said Johnny's grampa, a tall, stooped old man with just a few strands of hair on his freckled, bald head. "Professor Childermass won't let anything bad happen to him. An' I don't think it'd be right to say no to Johnny, not when his best friend in th' whole world is missing."

  Johnny telephoned Sarah, who wanted to travel to Vermont too, but he convinced her that her job was to stay in Duston Heights and keep track of events there. He arranged to call her that evening, and then he hurriedly threw some clothes into his old satchel. When Father Higgins arrived, Johnny climbed into the priest's big black Oldsmobile. Professor Childermass was already sitting in the front passenger seat, muttering complaints about their not taking his old reliable Pontiac. However, Father Higgins knew the professor's driving all too well, and he insisted on taking his own car.

  "Well," he said when Johnny had settled in the backseat, "we're off." He put the car in gear, and as it began to roll forward the priest added in a worried undertone, "And may God and Saint Joseph help us!"

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Even on a bright Saturday afternoon, the old house in the clearing looked threatening and sinister. "They came from up there," said Professor Childermass, pointing to the arched openings of the belfry. "Clouds and clouds of them—disgusting creatures! I don't think they can bite or sting, because none of them actually harmed us, but they're so numerous that they can crush us by sheer weight, or suffocate us by burying us with their own bodies."

  "I see," said Father Higgins. He gave a sickly grin. "Well, I've been under fire before, but never from an army of insects! Let's see what we can do. I'm going to try to bless this place. And in my prayer, I'm going to put in a special word or two against Beelzebub. In the Bible, he's the Lord of Flies, you know. Maybe he's the Lord of Dead Insects as well, and if so, I'm going to try to stuff every one of them down his evil throat. Wish me luck!"

  Father Higgins opened a small satchel and took from it a purple stole, which he kissed and put around his neck. He grasped his breviary, the book containing the hymns, offices, and prayers for all the canonical hours, and in the other hand he held a rosary with a silver crucifix, which he looped around his neck and wore with the silver crucifix dangling like a pendant. He crossed himself, and so did Professor Childermass and Johnny. "You two stay here," said the priest. "If I get in trouble, come a-running!"

  Praying in Latin, Father Higgins marched straight out across the dead, dry circle of earth. He stopped before the house and made the sign of blessing. The professor and Johnny heard his voice rise and fall, but they were watching the belfry for any sign of the marauding insect guardians. Both of them jumped when the black bell slowly moved and then sent its melancholy bo-o-o-n-ng! rolling through the clearing. "Oh, no!" groaned Johnny. "They're coming!"

  "Thomas!" yelled Professor Childermass.

  A humming, droning mass of flying brown creatures poured out of the belfry. The priest's voice rose in a stern rebuke, and Johnny caught the word "Beelzebub" repeated twice. The insects did not attack. Instead they rose to just above the height of the belfry and circled, more and more of them, until above the house buzzed a whirling disk of them. The cloud was so thick that it blotted out the sun, throwing the house into deep shadow. The incredible hordes of insects rushing from the belfry thinned to a stream, then to a trickle, and at last stopped. But millions of the creatures were in the air now, their wings setting up such a roar that it was almost painful.

  Still Father Higgins continued his prayers. His voice swelled over the threatening hum of the insects. At last, the priest held his crucifix high and thundered a conclusion. And then, all at once, everything was still.

  But only for a moment. Hundreds, thousands, millions of dead insect shells began to drift down. They pattered on the roof and on the bare earth like some infernal snowstorm. Father Higgins bowed his head and covered his face. The crackly, crunchy forms bounced off his hair and shoulders and fell to the ground. Within a few seconds, the clearing was more than ankle deep in them. And then they began to dissolve into powder. A gentle wind sprang up, and billows of dust smoked off the brown carpet, rising waist high. The wind scattered it into the woods on the far side of the house. By the time Father Higgins looked up again, almost no sign remained of the insect hordes.

  The bell in the tower made a discordant noise, not a clear peal, but a flat clunk! Looking up at the belfry, Johnny yelped in surprise as an enormous triangular chunk of iron broke apart from the bell. It hit the edge of the arch and went spinning off to the right, where it struck the ground with a metallic clatter. The ruined bell looked as if some giant had taken a great bite out of it. Clearly it would never ring again.

  "Come on," said Professor Childermass. Johnny followed him right up to the front door of the house. The professor clapped Father Higgins on the shoulder. "Way to pitch, Higgy!" he shouted, sounding as if he were cheering on the Red Sox. "You put the high, hard one right across the plate, and Beelzy went down swinging!"

  "Thank God," said Father Higgins. "And now, since I suppose we must, let's check out this den of wickedness." He tried the doorknob. It screeched as he turned it, and the door groaned open on rusty hinges. Father Higgins replaced his priestly implements in his satchel, and Professor Childermass produced three chrome flashlights. Each of the three grasped one as they stepped inside the Spellbinder house.

  For an hour they searched without finding anything more sinister than layers of dust, ancient swagging cobwebs, and empty, echoing rooms. The plaster ceilings had moldered, cracked, and fallen away from the laths in crunchy chunks. Mildew and water stains dimmed the tattered wallpaper and warped the wainscoting. The floors had buckled, and at every step grit crunched under their feet.

  They put off the cellar until the end. Johnny really did not want to go down those rickety, half-rotten steps, but he took a deep breath and followed Father Higgins, with Professor Childermass coming behind as a rear guard. They found themselves in an earthy-smelling cavern of a cellar, completely empty except for a few rotten wooden boxes and barrels. Two barred windows, high in one wall, let a little murky daylight seep in. The walls were made of brick, and here and there green, slimy algae grew in streaks where water had leaked in. Father Higgins shone his flashlight all around. "Nothing to be discovered," he said. "Roderick, I'd say that your villain hasn't lived here in half a century or more. And he took everything with him when he went."

  Professor Childermass had searched behind the furnace and had flashed his light over the coal bin, which held only a thin layer of black rubble. "It looks that way," he said. "But in that case, why did he leave those blasted magical bugs? You don't set a watchdog to guard a vacant lot."

  Johnny was shining his light over the scummy walls, cringing because he had a horror of spiders. This cellar look
ed as if it would be a resort hotel for black widows and all their venomous kin. He noticed something unusual. "Is the wall caving in?" he asked.

  Father Higgins went over to check it out. "A tree root has pushed through," he said. A whole vertical row of bricks had been shoved aside and now bulged out. The priest took hold of one and pulled at it. Then he leaped back as a brick avalanche began, a cascade of toppling bricks that sent up a dusty red cloud. He coughed and flashed his light at the rubble. "Maybe we'd better get out before this whole place comes down," he said. "I think—uh, oh. Better take a look at this."

  With his heart pounding, Johnny came up beside the priest, as Professor Childermass joined them. The collapsing bricks had revealed a cavity in the wall. It was a space perhaps four feet deep, three feet high, and eight feet long. And inside the opening lay a lead-colored metallic box.

  "A coffin," said Professor Childermass in a low voice. "Well, now we know why the sinister sorcerer had those locusts on guard. He had a skeleton in his closet—or in his cellar. Let's get a better look."

  The tree root was dry and dead, but in its years of growing, it had shoved the coffin lid partly aside. Professor Childermass climbed over the low mound of rubble and tried to peek through the opening between the lid and the coffin, but the space was too narrow. "Help me, Higgy," said the professor, pulling at more bricks.

  "Don't call me that," grunted Father Higgins. "You know I hate it." He joined his friend, and the two men tugged and pulled until the whole vault was open. The priest looked a little sick. "I suppose we've got to try to haul it out," he said.

  The professor nodded grimly. They seized the handle of the coffin and pulled. The root had grown down inside the foot—or was it the head?—of the coffin, and the box pivoted on this, grinding over the vault floor as it swung slowly outward. It stuck, and after some consultation, Professor Childermass suggested that they try to pull the lid off. "It's heavy, but I don't think it's screwed down. We can't push it back into the vault— there's not enough space for that. But we can pull it out into the cellar." He looked around and saw Johnny.

  "John," he said kindly, "why don't you go upstairs and wait? This is a ghastly business for someone your age."

  Johnny clenched his teeth and shook his head. "I want to stay," he said. He took a deep breath. "I—I'll hold the flashlight for you."

  The professor nodded. For five minutes, he and Father Higgins tugged at the coffin lid, moving it a few inches at a time. Finally they pulled it loose and let it fall. It toppled onto the mound of bricks and lay upside down. Father Higgins shone his light into the coffin. "Poor devil," he said.

  Johnny would never forget the pathetic skeleton. It was a dingy ivory color, with only six or seven worn-down yellow teeth in its fleshless jaws. A few strands of dry white hair clung to the skull. It wore the shredded remains of a black suit, the buttons made of corroded copper. The arms were bent back, with the fingers clutched in the air like claws. The finger bones were gnarled. "It was an old man," said Professor Childermass.

  "People aren't buried in this position," said Father Higgins in a low, furious voice.

  Johnny took a deep, shuddery breath. "He was buried alive."

  "Yes," said Professor Childermass.

  Father Higgins had bowed his head and was reciting the burial Mass. Johnny bowed his head. Then he saw something hideous. He bit his lip. As soon as the priest finished his prayers, Johnny blurted, "Look at the inside of the coffin lid!"

  They all did. It had once been lined with red velvet, but the part of the lid that had covered the head and chest was bare. The poor victim had frantically clawed the fabric. Johnny imagined himself locked up in the airless dark of the coffin, struggling for breath—

  But even more appalling, the dying man had left a message. Somehow, perhaps with a cuff link or even a button, he had scratched shaky letters into the metal of the coffin lid. There were two rows of them, the scrawl becoming worse as the message went on. In the glare of his flashlight, Johnny read the terrible inscription:

  I AM T MCCORKLE

  USEW ATHR TODE STRY BK

  Late that afternoon, Johnny made a long-distance call to Sarah. He told her of the frightful discovery and the mysterious message, which the professor had carefully copied down in his pocket notebook. "Then we came here to Mount Tabor," Johnny finished, "because that's where Dr. Thanatos's return address was. But nobody here has ever heard of him."

  "Well," said Sarah, "I've been doing some investigating too, and I think I can help there. Do you have something to write with?"

  "Just a minute," said Johnny. They had stopped at a diner south of the little town of Mount Tabor, and the professor and Father Higgins were sitting at an outside table near the phone booth, glumly eating sandwiches. Johnny asked the professor to lend him his pocket notebook and a pencil, and then he picked up the receiver again. "Hi, Sarah?"

  "Okay," she said. "Write down this name: Thomas Jannatry." She spelled it for him.

  Johnny copied the name. "Who's he?"

  "Oh, nobody special," said Sarah casually. "Just the mysterious old guy who caught a train to a town called Mesopotamia in Maine last night at 2:00 a.m., that's all."

  "I don't get it," complained Johnny.

  "I went down to the station," explained Sarah. "I thought maybe Fergie had caught a train, but he hadn't. Mr. Ferguson had already been there, they said. But I found out that Mr. Maggiore was working in the station last night, so I called him. He was kind of cranky, because he sleeps in the daytime, but he told me that the only person who boarded a train after ten o'clock last night was this Jannatry character. He was a short, skinny old guy with long white hair. And get this—he was carrying a great big black trunk."

  "And?"

  Sarah sounded exasperated. "And he wanted to haul the trunk on with him, but Mr. Maggiore said it had to go in the luggage car, so the guy filled out a slip, and he thought a long time before putting his name on it. The name was so odd that Mr. Maggiore remembered it. Look at the name, Dixon. Look at the letters."

  Johnny studied the name. "I still don't see what's so odd about it."

  "Come on, Dixon," said Sarah. "Try making an anagram out of the name."

  Johnny thought for a few seconds, mentally rearranging the letters in Thomas Jannatry. There was a J, an A, an R—"Oh, my gosh," he said. "It's Jarmyn Thanatos rearranged."

  "I'll give you a C, because it took you about five times as long as it did me. But you're right. Now tell the professor that the character you're looking for has hotfooted it to some bizarre place called Mesopotamia, Maine, and get a move on. And, Dixon? When you find the creep, give him a good swift one for me."

  Johnny hung up without even saying good-bye, and he rushed out of the telephone booth waving the notebook and babbling. It took about half a minute for him to explain himself, and then everyone jumped into Father Higgins's Oldsmobile. They roared away from the diner with a screech of tires. They were off in search of Jarmyn Thanatos—and hoping they would not arrive too late to save Fergie.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "Watch it, Rod!" shouted Father Higgins. It was late at night, and Professor Childermass had taken over the driving duties. The big Oldsmobile was barreling through New Hampshire, heading into Maine, but the professor drove this car no better than he drove his Pontiac. The Oldsmobile clattered, jerked, and skidded in tight turns, while Father Higgins held on and muttered prayers under his breath.

  Professor Childermass did not reply. He leaned forward over the steering wheel, as if he could push the car a little harder that way. "We just passed through Berlin," he announced. "We'll be in Maine in a few minutes. Let me see—Gilead, then Bethel. Then north to Newry, and seventeen miles past Newry, Mesopotamia. That scoundrel certainly chose a forsaken countryside to hide in."

  Johnny was trying to keep from being jounced off the backseat. "P-professor," he said, "th-that isn't t-too far from—"

  "From Lake Umbagog and my late brother Perry's old estate," said Pr
ofessor Childermass grimly. "I noticed the irony, John."

  "I don't think I've heard much about your brother," said Father Higgins, with the tone of someone trying to take his mind off his present danger.

  "There isn't a lot to tell," returned the professor. "Peregrine Pickle Childermass was a bit of a scatterbrain, a rich man, and a dabbler in things he should have left alone."

  "Oh," said Father Higgins. "Totally unlike you."

  "That's right," said the professor. "Actually, a few good things have come out of Maine, though I wouldn't number my late lamented brother among them. There was Louis Sockalexis, for instance. He was a Penobscot Indian who played baseball for the Cleveland Spiders before the turn of the century. A real slugger. Later, they gave the Cleveland Indians their name in honor of Sockalexis. He had a brother who was a wonderful runner—" The tires bawled as the professor almost lost control of the car in a curve.

  "Rod!" shouted Father Higgins. "Please watch the road!"

  "Oh, very well," muttered the professor, and he hunched over even farther. They drove into western Maine on Highway 2, and eventually they turned north. Even with a brilliant moon out, Johnny couldn't see much, but he knew that this was a mountainous part of Maine, where the roads twisted and turned, rose and fell, through peaks covered with evergreens, birch, and beech trees. He had dozed a little, but now he was wide awake. His luminous watch said it was past one in the morning.

  The car jounced over a gravel road for what seemed like a long time but probably was half an hour or less. Then they were on pavement again, and at last the professor said, "Here we are, you two. The wonderful Mesopotamia, Maine, as dreary a little burg as you're likely to find. And naturally everything is closed."