Oliver’s lungs seized in horror. He tried to scream, but nothing came out.
Her black hair whipping in the wind, Oliver’s mother gripped him by the shoulders and bent down as if to kiss him. Oliver tried to turn away, but he could not move, he could not breathe as his mother’s ghastly grin loomed closer. The jaw of her skull swung open, and a large, black acorn appeared between her teeth.
“This is where all of you belong!” she croaked, and then the acorn sprouted dozens of twisting black roots. They swarmed Oliver’s face like tentacles, engulfing him in a teeming tangle of seamless black.
The air rushed into Oliver’s lungs and he screamed. At the same time, the blackness dissolved into a different kind of blackness, one broken up with the shadows of a moonlit room and a crow perched on his chest. A crow?
“Boo!” the bird said, snapping open its beak, and Oliver gasped and bolted upright. It was only a dream, he understood on some level—he was back in his bed now at Blackford House—but somehow the crow was still there, fluttering up and away from him into the shadows!
Everything next happened in a blur. Oliver screamed again, the crow squeezed out through a sliver of open space at the bottom of the window, and then the casement slammed shut. At the same time, Lucy burst in through the doorway. She cried out her brother’s name and rushed to his side. A moment later, their father appeared in the doorway, groggy and asking what happened.
“I—I—” Oliver sputtered, blinking around, “I had a nightmare and—”
Oliver shivered and burst into tears. Lucy hugged him, while their father flicked on the lantern and sat down on the opposite bed. Oliver was dimly aware of them trying to comfort him, but his mind was already trying to process what had happened. He’d never been so terrified. The nightmare about his mother had been so real—especially the part about the crow.
Oliver dragged the back of his hand across his nose and swiveled his eyes to the window. The crow, he thought, had been in his dream—and yet, he could still feel its weight and the imprint of its claws on his chest.
Oliver took a deep breath and pulled himself together. He suddenly felt ashamed, acting like such a wuss over a dream in front of his younger sister. But where had she been when he woke up? Oliver asked her, and in the dim lantern light, he thought Lucy looked almost guilty when she replied.
“Er—I was in the bathroom,” she said hesitantly. “I heard you screaming and— Well, do you want to talk about it?”
Oliver shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do was upset everyone by telling them the details of his dream. Besides, it was already starting to grow fuzzy and dim inside his head.
“Funny,” said Mr. Tinker, rubbing his eyes. “I was having the weirdest dream, too. Something about the clock being fixed. Matter of fact, when I woke up, I could’ve sworn I heard it ticking.”
Oliver felt Lucy shift uncomfortably beside him—all this talk about bad dreams was scaring her, he thought—so he told the others that he wanted to go back to bed. Mr. Tinker wished the children goodnight and returned to his bedroom, while Lucy grabbed her pillow and slid under the covers with her brother—head to toe, just as they always slept in their bed back home. Neither of them said a word, and for a long time, Oliver lay there in the moonlight, trying to ignore the fragments of his dream that still haunted him.
Eventually, Oliver fell asleep. There were no more dreams, only a long, black blink, and when next he opened his eyes, the room was gray with the soft light of dawn. And there was Lucy, sleeping soundly at the foot of his bed.
Oliver’s heart twisted. What a jerk he was for scaring her. And come to think of it, had the dream really been that scary? It was all a murky jumble now in his head—the graveyard, his mother, something about a skull and a crow. And there was something else, too; something that his mother had said—or given him, maybe—but for the life of him, Oliver couldn’t remember.
Oliver grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and slipped silently into the bathroom across the hall. The smell of coffee drifted in from the kitchen, which meant his father was awake, too. He’d set up one of the library’s antique oil burners on the stove the night before so they wouldn’t have to use the generator just to boil water.
The light filtering in through the tiny window above the tub was barely enough to see anything, which is why, when Oliver caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he thought at first that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Oliver blinked and touched his forehead. His eyes might be lying but his fingers weren’t.
The pimples on his forehead were completely gone.
Oliver’s mouth hung open. His chin was still a mess, but—
A lightbulb went on in his head. The acorn dust in his pocket. He’d only touched his forehead with it.
Oliver quickly washed and dressed and hurried out into the kitchen, where he joined his father at the table and poured them each a bowl of cereal. Oliver waited for his father to notice his skin, but when he didn’t, Oliver pointed out his forehead and explained his theory about the acorn dust. His father chuckled.
“Probably just a coincidence,” he said. “But if not, you’ve got a great career ahead of you as a dermatologist.”
Oliver was so excited that he completely forgot about his dream and spent the next hour or so with his father in the clock, taking measurements for the new winding mechanism. They had decided that the best place for it would be on the floor between the pipe coupling for the six hole and the iron sphere in the center of the machinery—the conductor sphere, Mr. Tinker called it.
“A winding mechanism attached to the conductor sphere will jump start the pendulum,” he said, shinnying on his back under some gears. “The conductor sphere distributes the shadow wood energy to the rest of the clock.”
Then why did the other clocksmith try to reroute pipes back into the clock face? Oliver wondered. He stood on his tippy-toes and stuck his fingers into the pipe coupling for the three hole—which on the other side, Oliver remembered, was shaped like a rabbit.
“Do you think Mr. Quigley might be wrong about the missing statues being decorative?” Oliver asked, and his father squirted some oil into the gears.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if shadow wood powers the clock, maybe the pipes used to connect to the missing statues. Maybe they were made of shadow wood, and, you know, they worked like batteries or something. You think maybe the other guy was just trying to put the pipes back where they belonged?”
“I doubt that, Ollie. Mr. Quigley said the previous clocksmith nearly blew up the house. Besides, the couplings are just bolted into the stone—the holes don’t go all the way through. Maybe that was the other fella’s intention—you know, to drill some holes and carve new statues at some point. But with an entire wall of shadow wood, I don’t see why he’d need to do that. . . .”
Mr. Tinker trailed off, his attention on oiling the gears, and Oliver examined the coupling on the back of the eight hole—the one for the pig. The coupling appeared to be older than the couplings in the wall of shadow wood, but that didn’t mean the clock wasn’t in its present configuration when the previous clocksmith started working on it—which would make sense if the statues had been missing for some time and the clock had been reconfigured to run off the shadow wood.
Oliver stuck his finger into the pig coupling and felt the cold brick inside. Maybe his father was right. Since the pipes didn’t go through to the animal holes, even if the statues had been made from shadow wood, they couldn’t have acted as batteries—which meant they really were just decorative after all. In addition to the cat, pig, rabbit, rat, duck, dog, and turtle, Oliver had discovered the other holes had once housed a beaver, a squirrel, a raccoon, a skunk, and a fawn—all animals one might find in the woods surrounding the property, his father pointed out. But what that had to do with anything, Oliver had no idea.
Oliver impulsively moved to the round window on the back wall and gazed out at the woods. He hadn’t seen so muc
h as a fly since they’d arrived, never mind rabbits and deer. But who could blame them? If I were an animal, Oliver thought, I wouldn’t want to live in the Shadow Woods either.
Then again, the Shadow Woods couldn’t be all bad. Teddy and his father lived in them—not to mention, the Shadow Woods were filled with acne-curing acorns. Oliver touched his forehead. He still couldn’t get over how it had cleared up. Maybe there was some truth in what Teddy said; maybe the Shadow Woods were magical after all!
Clang! The sound of his father dropping a wrench startled Oliver from his thoughts, and he turned around to find him on his back with his face covered in oil. Oliver burst out laughing.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny,” his father grumbled, wiping off the oil with a rag, and then he glanced at his watch. “It’s almost eight. Why don’t you make yourself useful and load those empty gas cans onto the truck—we can fill up on the way back from the hardware store. And wake Lucy, too, while you’re at it. If she ever wants to get to the beach, she’ll have to start pulling her weight around here. . . .”
Mr. Tinker trailed off again as he cleaned up the oil, and in a flash, Oliver bounded outside and headed straight for the carriage house. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t notice how much the Shadow Woods had advanced until he’d stepped into them.
Oliver froze at the entrance to the carriage house, which was now completely covered in branches. And not only that, there were trees growing in front of it, too—just a half dozen or so saplings that were not there the day before, and that couldn’t have possibly grown so quickly overnight.
“Quite remarkable, isn’t it?” someone said, and Oliver whirled to find Teddy standing at the entrance to the tunnel in the woods twenty or so yards away. He was dressed in the same old-fashioned hunting outfit and cap and, in one outstretched palm, held something round and black. Oliver’s heart began to pound. Even from a distance, he could tell what it was.
An acorn.
As Oliver hurried over, he noticed that the flagstone path seemed shorter—which meant the Shadow Woods had advanced here, too. Then again, Oliver couldn’t be sure. The trees at the entrance to the tunnel were older than the trees by the carriage house, and the flagstones still ended at the edge of the woods as they did the day before. However, something about the path there looked different, Oliver realized as he drew closer; it was as if the flagstones had been removed and the dirt freshly tamped at Teddy’s feet.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Teddy said, rolling the acorn between his thumb and forefinger. “That is one of the peculiarities of the Shadow Woods. When they expand, they do so very fast. You arrived at the height of the growing season. I imagine, however, all that’s nearly done. Mr. Quigley told my father that he plans on trimming back the trees after he moves in. Better hop to it soon, don’t you think?”
Teddy chuckled, and Oliver swallowed hard. “Speaking of your fa-ther,” he said, his voice cracking again, “I was wondering if I could ask him a couple of questions.”
Teddy’s eyes darkened. “Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s just that, well, Mr. Quigley told us your father tried something different with the clock, and I wanted to ask him—you know—if he might have any advice for us.”
Teddy seemed to consider this for a moment.
“The trick is to get that pendulum moving,” he said finally. “My father explained to me that, the way the clock works in conjunction with the properties of the shadow wood, everything is cyclical and self-perpetuating.”
Oliver blinked back at Teddy blankly.
“Simply put, once you get the pendulum moving, the shadow wood will keep it moving forever. You’re the son of a clocksmith. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a perpetual motion clock?”
“Oh—yes, of course,” Oliver said. “A perpetual motion clock doesn’t need to be wound. It runs on temperature and atmospheric pressure changes—you know, the expansion and contraction of gases—that are contained in airtight bellows. The bellows are connected to the clock’s mainspring, so when the gases expand and contract, the bellows move the mainspring and it doesn’t have to be wound.”
Oliver cleared his throat—stupid voice cracking—and Teddy smiled.
“Impressive,” he said. “Perhaps Mr. Quigley should’ve hired you.”
“But the clock here can’t be a perpetual motion clock,” Oliver said, more to himself. “It doesn’t have any bellows or the right kind of mainspring.”
“The way I understand it, the shadow wood provides the temperature and atmospheric changes. In a manner of speaking, that is.”
“Yeah, but the pendulum mechanism is all wrong for a perpetual motion clock. Then again, there are those pipes—and clearly the iron sphere in the middle is a conductor for the magnetic energy—”
“Precisely,” Teddy said. “When the pendulum moves, the energy from the shadow wood in the house flows through the pipes. And when the energy from the shadow wood flows through the pipes, the pendulum moves. Perpetually.”
“So, did your father think a new winding mechanism was the answer?”
Teddy shrugged. “My father was an amateur compared to yours. But again, the way I understand it, all the pendulum needs is a powerful enough kick start—either manually or from a burst of shadow wood energy through the pipes. Unfortunately, the stones there in the house and around the property counteract the energy of the shadow wood. A type of granite that the locals call sunstone. Nasty stuff, really. Consequently, you need a powerful enough burst of shadow wood energy to neutralize it. Perhaps even just one more might do the trick.”
“Your father tried to reroute the pipes into the clock face, didn’t he?” Oliver said, the light dawning. “That’s why he almost blew up the house—the bricks in the clock face are made of sunstone!”
Teddy frowned and, without warning, tossed the acorn onto one of the flagstones at Oliver’s feet. The acorn smoked and sizzled, flared briefly, and then crumbled into ash. Oliver’s mouth hung open in disbelief.
“Sunstone and shadow wood are dangerous together,” Teddy said. “Unfortunately for my father, he learned this lesson the hard way. The shadow wood in the house is much stronger than that poor acorn there, but still the sunstone has a negative effect on it. You just get that pendulum moving with the shadow wood energy and all will be well.”
Oliver, still stunned from the reaction of the acorn and the flagstone—which was sunstone, he now realized—swallowed hard and made to speak. His voice cracked, so he swallowed again.
“But how come the shadow wood energy never runs out?” Oliver asked. “I mean, there is no such thing as a true perpetual motion clock—that is, a clock that runs forever. Even the most advanced of them has to be recharged eventually.”
Teddy smiled and produced another acorn from his pocket.
“As you yourself said, it really is all about the atmosphere in the house. The Shadow Woods work in ways that very few people understand. But isn’t that the way of things? There is great power in the unknown.”
Oliver blinked back at Teddy, confused, and Teddy pointed to Oliver’s forehead.
“The outside of your head has already discovered the Shadow Woods’ power. Now the inside needs to catch up.” He held out the acorn for Oliver. “Go ahead, take it.”
Oliver took the acorn, brushing Teddy’s palm with his fingertips. Teddy’s skin was ice cold.
“There are very few acorns this time of year,” Teddy said, looking around. “The trees don’t start dropping them until mid-September. However, if I run across any, I can bring them to you, if you’d like.”
Oliver’s stomach squeezed excitedly—his zits were as good as gone forever!
“Sure, that’d be great,” Oliver said, pushing up his glasses, and then his voice cracked on “Thanks.”
“No, thank you,” Teddy said, smiling. “It’s nice to have someone my age around here for a change, even if it’s just for a few weeks. It can get a little lonely living in the woods. Maybe when your wo
rk is done, you can come play with me sometime. Or we can go fishing.”
Oliver’s eyes flitted up at the trees. Just the idea of playing in the Shadow Woods made him nervous; imagine what Teddy must feel like living in them.
“Er—yeah—or we can hang here,” Oliver said, jerking his thumb back at the house.
Teddy’s smile faltered, and his eyes flickered with alarm.
“Mr. Quigley won’t allow it,” he said tersely. “Given that my father nearly blew up the old man’s house, I think you can understand why.”
“That’s too bad,” Oliver said. “But hey, at least he’s allowing you guys to stay on in the caretaker’s cottage, right? How long have you been living there?”
Teddy’s face grew sad. “Much too long,” he said, and a breeze moaned through the tunnel, rustling the leaves and rattling the branches behind him. Oliver caught a whiff of something foul and garbagy.
“I need to go,” Teddy said quietly. “If I find any more acorns, I’ll bring them to you. They turn into powder when you bring them inside the house—the effect of the sunstone, of course—but their medicinal properties remain. Just don’t let your acorns touch the sunstone. The poor things are not strong enough yet for that.”
Teddy pointed to the flagstone at Oliver’s feet. There was no sign anywhere of the acorn he’d tossed. Oliver nodded numbly. Teddy turned and walked slowly into the woods, his shape getting darker and darker until he dissolved into the shadows.
Oliver ran toward the house, his eyes never leaving his acorn, and as soon as he reached the back door, the acorn began to shrivel and grow warm in his hand. Oliver’s heart pounded with excitement, and by the time he entered the kitchen, the acorn had turned to dust and his hand was itching.
Without thinking, Oliver rubbed the acorn dust on his chin and then, for good measure, all over his face, which began to itch at once. Oliver forced himself to endure it so that, as Teddy said, the medicinal properties could take effect. Soon, however, the itching turned to burning, and Oliver raced into the bathroom and washed his hands and face. The burning stopped, but the itching was worse than ever. Still, a small price to pay for no more zits, he thought.
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