Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull Page 9

  Father Higgins smiled kindly. "Sure. You two go on out and walk around for a while. I'm gonna stay at this till dinnertime."

  "Have... have you found anything?" asked Johnny falteringly.

  Father Higgins's grim level gaze met Johnny's. "No," he said quietly. "But that doesn't mean I'm gonna give up. So run along, you two. I'll meet you at the inn for dinner."

  Johnny and Fergie left the library and went out into the chilly evening air. The sun had just set, and the western sky was fringed with pale light. Down below, darkness was gathering.

  "You know what?" said Fergie bitterly. "I feel like I've been pushin' a peanut up the road with my nose."

  "So do I," muttered Johnny. "I just don't see what Father thinks he's gonna find. If old Finnick is a wizard... well, it wouldn't be in any guidebook, would it?"

  Fergie put a stick of gum in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "Higgy's a smart cookie, though," he said after a brief pause. "We wouldn't be doing all this work if he didn't have some kind of bright idea in the back of his head." Fergie scratched his nose. "John baby, I hate to mention this, but I need a bathroom. Wouldja mind waitin' here while I go back inside an' ask Mrs. Whatserface where the little boys' room is?"

  Johnny shook his head. It was a lovely evening. Venus was a glistening star hanging high in the west, and the damp, salt-tinged night air tasted good in Johnny's mouth. Whistling softly, he walked a few paces to the left on the dirt road that ran past the library steps. Behind the library, the road sank down into a shadowy hollow full of bushes and trees. Johnny decided that he would walk to the bottom of the hill and back again while he was waiting for Fergie. Down the hill he loped, still whistling. In the growing gloom Johnny could hardly see a thing, and he stumbled a few times over half-buried rocks. He was at the bottom now, and it was really pitch black. The trees and bushes seemed to crowd in around him. Twisting his head, he looked up at the library, a dark outline against the twilit sky. Not much to see down here, was there? Nothing but dark and weeds. Time to be getting back up to... Johnny paused. Now that his eyes had gotten used to the dark, he saw something that he hadn't noticed before: a little house, an abandoned shanty, by the side of the road. The poor place had certainly seen better days: Its windows were broken, and the roof was half caved in. A crooked tree leaned against the side of the house, trailing its snaky branches over the bent chimney. Gee, thought Johnny, vaguely, I wonder who lived in—

  And then two things happened with lightning suddenness. First Johnny felt a stinging cold spot against his thigh—it was as if a lump of ice had suddenly materialized in his pants pocket. Then a light appeared, a flickering orange glow that hovered over the dead leaves and matted grass outside the deserted house. In one window, behind the broken pane, a grinning jack-o'-lantern was burning.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Numb nightmare descended on Johnny. His scalp tingled, and he found it hard to breathe. In a flash he knew what the freezing lump in his pocket was—it was the skull, come back from a watery grave. Ahead of him the evil orange mask seemed to burn a hole in the night. It pulsated, sending out waves of power. Against his will, Johnny shuffled closer. Moving woodenly, like a robot, he clumped up the sagging steps and walked in through the dark doorway. A cobweb brushed his face, and he found that he could not raise his hand to brush it aside. He was in a shadowy room with a rotting plank floor. And he had barely time to wonder why there was no pumpkin in the room when a violent blow brought him to his knees. A ghastly, impossibly huge jack-o'-lantern face appeared spread across one wall of the room. It was throbbing, and the air around Johnny heaved to an insane, feverish rhythm. His chest felt tight, and his eyesight was clouded by an icy mist that wrapped itself around him. Johnny struggled for breath—the life was being pumped out of him. He was going to die. Suddenly a voice burst in on his brain, a harsh, grating, stony voice that told him he would never again meddle in things beyond his understanding. Death is an eternal sleep, said the voice, and it said this over and over like a cracked record. Desperately Johnny fought to stay alive, but he knew that he was losing—he was starting to black out. Just before he lost consciousness, he heard something—a commotion in the room. A door slammed, and somebody shouted strange words, words that sounded like Lumps and crust! The voice rang out two or three times. And then Johnny was gone.

  When he woke up, he was lying on the damp grass outside the old shack. Fergie was kneeling beside him, and Father Higgins was standing over him, looking very huge and forbidding in spite of the friendly smile on his face. In his large hairy hand the priest was holding a small silver crucifix on a chain.

  "Wha... wha... " muttered Johnny thickly. He felt limp and woozy, as if he had just recovered from the flu. With an effort he raised his head and glanced toward the old shack. It was dark, lost in the evening shadows. Then a sudden stab of terror hit him, and he fumbled at his thigh. It was gone—the skull, the thing that had suddenly appeared in his pocket—it had vanished.

  Johnny turned his head and looked at Fergie. "Did... did you take it?" he asked in a quavering voice.

  Fergie looked puzzled. "Take what, John baby? I dunno what you're talkin' about."

  With an effort Johnny forced himself to sit up. As he did this, Father Higgins sank to his knees beside him. He still clutched the crucifix, and he held it up as if he were using it to ward off an attacker. With his other hand he tried to gently force Johnny to lie back down on the ground.

  "Easy, John, easy!" said the priest softly. "You've been through something awful, and you're probably still weak. The powers of darkness were here, and they were after you. You need some rest."

  But Johnny shook off the priest's hand. He was feeling better by the minute. "Father," he said, pointing toward the dark house, "did... did you see it?"

  Father Higgins looked grim. "If you mean that Halloween face, yes, I saw it. I saw it from way up at the top o' the hill, where I was talkin' with young Byron here. He was tryin' to figure out where you had gone to, and then all of a sudden I saw that face, and I remembered what you had told me. So I charged on down the hill and busted into that house over there, and all of a sudden I was face to face with that horrible thing on the wall, and I felt the presence of evil all over my body. I don't mind tellin' you, I nearly turned and ran. But I pulled myself together, and then I gave the rotten, miserable thing a good dose of this!" He held up the crucifix and shook it menacingly. "This's a blessed crucifix, and there's this glass bubble on it, and underneath are two splinters from the True Cross, the cross Jesus was crucified on. And I said lumen Christi, which means light of Christ. It's a powerful charm and part of the Holy Saturday service. Y'see... "

  Johnny laid his hand on the priest's arm. "Father," he said nervously, "I... I have to tell you something."

  Father Higgins grinned. "I'll just bet you do. Well, go ahead. I'm listening."

  Johnny began slowly, with lots of little stops and starts. As clearly as he could, he explained about the skull. He told how he had found it, how he had felt when he owned it, and why he had finally decided to get rid of it. He also described the strange vision that he had had in the workroom of the Fitzwilliam Inn at midnight. This was the first time that Johnny had been able to tell anyone about these things, and it felt wonderful to just get everything off his chest.

  "How... how come I couldn't talk about this before?" he asked, staring hard at the priest. "I couldn't tell the professor. Every time I tried I got this awful pain in my chest, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Why couldn't I tell him?"

  "John," said Father Higgins slowly and gravely, "it is becoming more and more clear to me that we are dealing with some kind of incredibly evil intelligence, a disembodied spirit that has decided to attack you and the professor for some reason. The skull and the jack-o'-lantern face and the scarecrow you saw on the ferryboat—they are all manifestations of that evil mind. Well, the mind did not want you to tip off the prof that something bad was going to happen to him. It also did not want you to do any
thing that might clear up the mystery of the prof's disappearance. And do you want to know why you can tell us now? The evil influence was driven off by the power of the True Cross. You feel better now, don't you—getting the thing out in the open, I mean."

  Johnny nodded. "Yeah, I do. Do you think that vision I saw at the Fitzwilliam Inn has anything to do with the second clue, the one about the great reckoning in the little room? I should've thought of this before, but it just wasn't clear to me. What I'm tryin' to say is, the room in the vision is the little room, the dollhouse room—only full size."

  Father Higgins patted Johnny on the shoulder. "Very good, my friend! Very good! And a reckoning is the settling of an account—that is one meaning of the word, anyway—and it certainly looks like you saw a reenactment of the way the professor's granduncle got his account settled! Hmmm. Things are getting clearer. Not a whole lot clearer, but somewhat clearer. I wish we knew more about the skull that you took from the doll-house room. If we knew why the prof's father chose to put it in the—"

  "Will it come back?" Johnny blurted suddenly. He sounded very anxious. "That is, it... it came back once, so it must be able to come back whenever it wants to. How... how'm I gonna get rid of it?"

  "I don't know, John," said Father Higgins. He bit his lip and glared into the night. "I wish I knew more about what's goin' on, but I don't. However, I do know this. My crucifix saved you, and so you better keep it for the time being. Here."

  Father Higgins pressed the crucifix into Johnny's hand. "There's a chain on it," he went on. "Put it around your neck, and don't take it off for any reason! You understand?"

  Johnny nodded and smiled gratefully. He looped the chain around his neck and slid the crucifix in under his shirt, but just as he had finished doing this, he turned his head and noticed something. Fergie was gone!

  "Hey, Father!" he exclaimed, looking about wildly. "What happened to Fergie?"

  With a loud exclamation Father Higgins sprang to his feet. He turned just in time to see Fergie appear out of the darkness. He was coming from the direction of the shack, and he was holding something in his hands.

  Father Higgins's jaw sagged. Then he got angry. "Byron!" he roared. "What the devil do you think you're doing?"

  Fergie smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I... uh, I just thought I'd like to go an' see what the old place was like. Just to see, y'know."

  Father Higgins was stunned. "Good grief, man! Do you realize what that house is? It's a den of Satan! Don't you have any sense at all? And what, in the name of heaven, is that thing you've got in your hands?"

  Fergie held the thing out, and now Johnny saw that he had in his hands an old leather-bound book with dogeared covers. It looked very dirty, and a long piece of cobweb trailed from one end of it. With a look of awe and fear on his face, Father Higgins reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a Pen-Lite. He snapped it on and played the narrow beam over the cover of the book. In a gingerly way he took hold of the cover and folded it back. Curious, Johnny scrambled to his feet and joined the other two, who were huddled over the book, peering at the flyleaf. Now Johnny saw that there was old-fashioned writing with lots of odd loops and flowing swirls on the moldy, liver-spotted sheet. But it was not hard to read. It said:

  Warren Windrow

  A great reckoning in a little room—

  this I dreamt, April 30, 1842.

  "Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed Father Higgins. With an odd expression on his face, he reached out and carefully peeled back the flyleaf. Now they were looking at the title page. At the top, large black letters said La Clavicule de Salomon. Under this title was a crude engraving of a leering demon's face inside a circle, and around the outside of the circle the word Azoth was repeated over and over. Father Higgins wrinkled up his nose, as if he were smelling something unpleasant. As Fergie held the book steady for him, the priest riffled quickly through several pages.

  "This is a book of black magic," he said, looking up at last. "It's printed in French, and my French isn't terribly good, but I can make out enough to tell what's being said. Now... "

  Then something happened. Johnny reached out and—for the first time—actually touched the book, which began to steam and smoke. With a loud yell, Fergie dropped it, and the other two leaped back. The pages of the book began to writhe and twist, and more whitish smoke curled upward. It was burning—being consumed by a fire that could not be seen. In a few minutes there was nothing left on the ground but a heap of gray ashes.

  "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" breathed Father Higgins as he crossed himself.

  "What... I mean, how come... " stammered Johnny in confusion.

  "You were wearing the silver cross," said Father Higgins solemnly. "And you touched the cursed thing, and so it was destroyed." He heaved a deep sigh and turned to Fergie. "Byron, I don't know what crazy—or blessed—force it was that drove you to go into that house and bring that book out, but you have given us our first good lead. Warren Windrow... hmm. I wonder who he was, and why he dreamed the same phrase that was given to us by the mysterious writing that we found under the statue. Well, come on, gentlemen. We're going back up to the library. John? Are you able to navigate okay?"

  Johnny nodded. Most of the queasiness and dizziness had worn off, and he felt more like himself again. With Fergie on one side of him and Father Higgins on the other, he climbed the hill once more. Above them the windows of the library glowed yellow, and all around the trees rustled in the night breeze that had suddenly sprung up. When they reached the front steps of the library, Father Higgins told the boys to wait outside. He said that he had a pretty good idea of the kind of book he wanted to look for, and he wouldn't be long. So Fergie and Johnny sat down on the granite steps and waited. They watched the stars and listened to the shrill piping of May frogs in some nearby pool. Finally Father Higgins returned. And from the way he was grinning and rubbing his hands together, they knew he had found something.

  "Hey, Father, what is it?" asked Fergie as he scrambled to his feet. "Didja find out who that guy was?"

  "I did indeed!" exclaimed the priest, who was practically bubbling over with self-satisfaction and triumphant glee. "Yes, I most certainly did! Come along, gentlemen, and I'll tell you everything."

  Father Higgins started walking toward a clump of dark shadowy trees that rose on the horizon.

  "Hey, Father!" exclaimed Johnny, running after him. "The inn's back that way!"

  "Yes, I know it is," said Father Higgins as he strode along. "But we aren't going to the inn. We're going down to the beach, to a boathouse run by a guy named Hank Dodge. When I was out here last year, I rented a boat from him, and I think I'm gonna do it again. He also sells camping supplies and canned food to dumb landlubbers like us who come out here without being prepared to go on an expedition."

  Johnny's mouth dropped open. "Expedition? Father, where are we going?"

  "Yeah, come on, Father!" added Fergie, who was walking on the other side of him. "Give us the whole story!"

  For a few minutes Father Higgins walked on in silence. The boys found that they were on a winding blacktop road, and the tarred surface felt hard now after the spongy earth they had been treading on. At last Father Higgins was ready to talk. He took a deep breath and began to explain that he had had to leaf through three books of old New England legends before he found the story he was looking for. It was in a book called Weird Tales of the Maine Seacoast and told the saga of a man named Warren Windrow, whose ghost supposedly had been seen quite a few times on Vinalhaven and on some of the nearby islands. Back in the 1840s he had lived on Cemetery Island, which was just a dot on the map out in Hurricane Sound, not far from Vinalhaven. Windrow had come from a large family that once lived in the Penobscot Bay area, and the family had a sinister reputation, though the book didn't say why. Well, one day Warren Windrow caught the California gold fever that was sweeping the eastern half of the country in those days, and he went out to California to see if he could strike it rich. Wi
ndrow didn't find any gold, but he did get into a saloon fight with another Easterner—a man from Vermont, a man named Lucius J. Childermass. Windrow got beaten up, and apparently he decided to get even, because one night—some time after the fight—he jumped Lucius in a dark alley and tried to kill him with a Bowie knife. Lucius got cut up a bit, but some people who were passing in the street nearby broke up the fight and rescued Lucius. Windrow was taken to San Francisco, where he was tried for attempted murder, convicted, and hanged.

  "... and that's the whole story, as far as I can get it from the book I read," said Father Higgins, finishing up. "So we have the ghostly Warren Windrow, and a book of black magic that he once owned, and a tale that connects him with the professor's granduncle. This is all beginning to make sense, in a weird way. Our next step will be to go and have a little look at Cemetery Island. It's not far, only about half an hour's ride. I know Byron here is rarin' to go, but I thought I'd better ask you if you wanted to stay behind, John. You can wait for us, and no one will think you're cowardly or anything like that. And for all I know, we may not find anything but sand and seashells. We ought to be back pretty quick, in any case. What d'ye say, John?"

  Johnny squared his jaw and looked as determined as he possibly could. He was still feeling a bit shaky because of the ghastly experience he had just had, but he wasn't going to be cheated out of an adventure. Besides, the professor was more his friend than he was anybody else's—or so he felt, anyway.

  "I wanta go, Father," he said defiantly. "You'll hafta tie me up an' chain me to a tree if you want me to stay here."

  The road they took petered out into a sandy track that wound over some grassy hummocks and past a long narrow pond that glimmered in the starlight. Before long they arrived at a little cove with a few houses clustered around its edges. At the end of a row of white clapboard shanties stood the Old Harbor Boathouse, a big sprawling building with cedar shingles and a slate roof. Next to the boathouse was a little poky building with a sagging roof and a metal stove chimney. A sign that leaned against the house gave the name of the establishment and listed the rental rates and the name of the owner in straggling white letters: Hank Dodge, prop.