The Curse of the Blue Figurine

by John Bellairs

  "Yes, yes!" muttered the professor in his sleep. "How could Johnny Dixon what?"

  But Miss Vary wouldn't tell him. She wouldn't repeat the rest of the question. Young Roddy asked her again; he pleaded tearfully, but she still refused. The professor thrashed back and forth in his bed, muttering and cursing. How could... how could... how could Johnny...

  Suddenly the professor sat up. He was groggy but awake. And now, to his astonishment, he found himself thinking about something that he had never thought about before. He thought about the name Beard. Mr. Beard. That was the name of the man Johnny claimed he had met in the church. This was the man who had —supposedly—turned into the ghost of Father Baart. The professor was a learned man, and he knew several languages. He asked himself what the German word for beard was. Bart, that was what it was. There was a similar word in Dutch, baard. But Johnny didn't know German or Dutch. How on earth, then, how on earth had he hit upon a name that meant the same as...

  The professor was wide awake now. Wide awake, and frightened. He fumbled for the lamp and turned it on. He found his glasses and shoved them onto his face. When he looked across the room he saw that Johnny was gone.

  In an instant the professor was on his feet. He was pulling on his pants, pulling them on over his pajama bottoms. Now he was putting on his tennis shoes and lacing them up. He rushed to his suitcase, unsnapped it, and took out his flashlight. Cursing and growling to himself, he hurried to the door and yanked it open. Outside, the wind had died down, but the sky was overcast. Thunder rumbled in the distance—a storm was brewing in the mountains. The professor snapped on his flashlight and played the beam this way and that. Beyond the gravel path was long grass. A matted track had been beaten down through the middle of the grass. That had to be the route that Johnny had taken. The professor moved forward cautiously, eyes to the ground. The grass, slick with rain, squished under his feet. Now he was at the edge of the highway. Quickly he looked to the right and to the left. No cars. He raced across.

  On the other side he stopped to pick up the trail again. As it turned out, there was no problem about that. The shoulder of the road was muddy from the rain, and there were tracks in the mud. They were the tracks of a boy's bare feet, and they were the only tracks around. Good! said the Professor to himself. Stay on the muddy ground, for God's sake! Setting his jaw grimly, he plodded on behind the footprints.

  Before long the professor was swinging along on one of the trails that ran up the side of Hellbent Mountain. Luckily the White Mountains were low, humped mountains, and they could be climbed by anyone who could set one foot in front of the other. The White Cross was one of Hellbent Mountain's easier trails. Not that this mattered much to the professor. He was a tough, wiry little man who walked several miles each day and exercised with dumbbells. And in the mood he was in right now, he could have tramped up the side of the Empire State Building. He had—as the saying goes—the bit between his teeth.

  Onward and upward. As he climbed the professor kept checking for footprints. When the trail ran over muddy ground, he had no problem. But for long stretches the trail was rocky. Nevertheless the professor did not falter. He marched grimly on, hoping that he would pick up the muddy tracks again. And he always did. But as he went he kept thinking: Where is he going? and Is there anyone with him? There was only one set of tracks— Johnny's tracks—but if the professor's suspicions were correct, Johnny might have company, company that left no tracks on the ground. He plodded on.

  Up and up and up. Higher and higher, over rocks and roots and logs. The thunder was rumbling louder, and now and then lightning would flash off to the right or to the left. Drops of rain pattered among the leaves. If there is a ghost, and he has dragged me out on a night like this, I'll brain him! The professor said this to himself, grumbling as he climbed. He said this and things like it to keep up his courage. For to tell the truth, there was a cold pool of fear in his heart. He didn't know what he would find when he reached the end of the trail.

  Finally the professor came to a place where the White Cross Trail met another trail, a rocky trail that ran off to the right, and to the left. Heaving a weary sigh, the professor stopped. He was beginning to get tired. He had been climbing for an hour, and his legs felt rubbery. His feet felt like they were going to fall off, and his shirt was wringing wet with sweat. "Ohhhh... Gawwwwwd!" said the professor, and he took off his glasses. He cleaned them with his handkerchief and put them back on again. Before him were two signs. One pointed off to the right. It said:

  TO THE WHIMBY SCENIC OVERLOOK

  The other pointed off to the left. It said:

  TO THE ANGEL SCENIC VIEW

  Tacked to the bottom part of this sign was a rain-spotted piece of cardboard. A message had been scrawled on it in ink. The ink was runny, but the message could still be read: Danger. Rockslide.

  "Oh, great!" muttered the professor. "Rockslide! But have the rocks slid, or are they getting ready to slide? It would be nice to know which." Still grumbling, he played the beam of the flashlight back and forth over the trail. Lots of rocks, and some tough, knotty roots, but not much dirt to leave tracks in. The professor's heart sank. How would he know which way to go?

  And then he saw something. Off to the left a root stuck up out of a clump of stones. And caught on the end of the root was a ragged patch of black cloth. The professor pounced on the cloth and ripped it away from the root.

  He held it up, but then his nostrils twitched, and a shudder of disgust ran through his body. The cloth smelled. It smelled of mold, and of things worse than mold. With a quick twitch of his hand the professor threw the piece of cloth to the ground. At least he knew the way to go now.

  The path curved around to the left, and the professor followed it, head down, flashlight beam constantly playing back and forth. There were no more tracks, but he had decided that this had to be the way. It was very dark. He couldn't see a thing beyond the pale circle cast by the flashlight's beam. He did notice, however, that the trail was getting narrower. And for some reason—he didn't know exactly why—he had the feeling that the ground was dropping away on the left. Finally he stopped and flashed his light to the right. A beetling, shelving rock wall rose above him. He flashed the light to the left, and he gasped. He was aiming his light out into nothingness. Now everything was clear—altogether too clear. He was on a very narrow path that skirted the edge of a precipice. How far was the drop? It was impossible to say—the beam of his flashlight didn't reach that far. Then thunder rumbled, and lightning leaped from the clouds above. The professor saw, for a split second, the glimmering surface of a lake. It was so far below that it looked about as big as his hand. The professor closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He was afraid of heights. High places gave him attacks of dizziness. But he gritted his teeth and said to himself a line from Shakespeare that had always given him courage: "Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and damned be he that first cries hold, enough!" Then he began to pick his way forward again.

  More lightning. More thunder. By the fitful pale flashes the professor caught glimpses, now and then, of where the path was going. It seemed to be winding up the eastern face of the mountain. Most of Hellbent Mountain was covered with trees. But the eastern side was a great shattered wall of stone three thousand feet high. Far above the professor's head, in the darkness, were the rocks that formed the face of the Hag. Not that he was terribly interested in scenic rock formations—not right at this moment, thank you. He was just hoping that the trail would hold out. And while he was hoping and wishing and worrying about Johnny, he saw, ahead of him, a glimmering yellow square. It was a wooden sign on a post. The sign said:

  NO TRAIL BEYOND THIS POINT

  The professor stopped. He inched closer to the sign and played the flashlight beam out into the darkness beyond. Immediately he saw what had happened. A rock slide had wiped out part of the trail. There was a little, narrow, wispy trail left, a ledge about a foot wide. If you were a mountain goat, you would ha
ve no trouble bounding along it. The professor's heart sank. Was this it, then? Was this as far as he could go? He tried to imagine himself picking his way along that narrow, bumpy lip of rock. Below, the vast empty darkness gaped. The professor shuddered. As he stood there he was in an agony of indecision. What should he do? What could he do?

  And then the lightning flashed. Far ahead he saw something.

  The trail—what was left of it—straggled along the mountain face to a wide, flat patch, a little grassy lookout that hung over the precipice. And when the lightning flashed, the professor saw two figures standing in this place.

  "Oh, God!" said the professor, and he clenched his teeth and closed his eyes. He opened his eyes and began to pray. And as he prayed he crept forward out past the sign to the narrow rocky ledge. He shut off his flashlight, stuck it in his hip pocket, and stepped out into blackness. Splaying his body against the rough rock wall, he began to sidle along. The right side of his head scraped against the stone, and as he went his lips moved constantly. He was saying one of the prayers he had learned as a boy:

  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the hour of battle. Be our safeguard against the malice and snares of the Devil. Rebuke him we humbly pray, and do Thou O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and all the other evil spirits that wander about the world seeking the ruin of souls...

  On crept the professor, inch by inch. He was in an ecstasy of terror. He hardly knew who he was or what he was doing. Horrible thoughts came into his mind. He kept having the awful, insane urge to throw himself backward over the ledge. His temples throbbed, and his glasses steamed up. His body was soaked with sweat. A flake of rock crumbled away under the pressure of his foot. He heard it clatter down, down into the void. Now he imagined that the rock wall was expanding and contracting, like a bellows. It would heave him over no matter what he did. He said the St. Michael prayer again, and the Our Father and the Hail Mary and several Glory Be to the Fathers. Slowly... slowly... had he reached the wide place yet? In the dark how would he know? Yes, how would he know? That's a problem we haven't worked out yet, the professor said to himself, and he began to giggle madly. Then he began to feel like throwing up. Inch by inch... inch by inch...

  The lightning flashed. He was inching along over solid grassy ground.

  He had made it. The sick taste of vomit was in his throat, and he was shuddering, shuddering uncontrollably. But he had made it. And now the professor pulled himself together. He felt his old comfortable rage returning. Where was his blasted flashlight? It was in his hip pocket, where he had put it. He pulled it out and snapped it on. There in the middle of the grassy space stood Johnny. His arms were folded over his chest, and his eyes were closed. The corners of his mouth were curved up into an awful corpselike smile, and on his finger the yellow stone of the ring gleamed. Near Johnny stood a dark, fearful shape. Its face glowed faintly, and it was a face the professor had seen in old pictures. The lips of the figure moved. It spoke in a horrid, rasping, croaking voice:

  "Why have you come here, old fool? This is my time of triumph! You have come to the place where my power is greatest. Soon I will live again, and this detestable creature will die. A fair exchange, they say, is no robbery. What say you? Are you ready for death too?"

  The professor was frightened, but he felt anger welling up inside him. "My mother met you once when you were alive!" he roared. "And she said you were the rottenest, meanest creature that ever crawled on the face of the earth! Go back to the dead and leave this poor child alone!"

  The professor was amazed at himself. He hadn't expected to say anything like this. But the anger felt good. It cleared his head and made him feel stronger. On the other side of the grassy patch the dark shape hovered, motionless. Then it raised its hand, and the professor felt a numbing shock. And his legs started to move. He was walking forward. He didn't want to go, but he had lost control of the lower part of his body. Frightened, the professor dropped his flashlight. It hit the ground and lay there, still burning. And then—without knowing why he did this—he jammed his right hand into his pants pocket. His fingers closed around his Nimrod pipe lighter. The lighter was a tube about two inches long.

  When the two ends were pulled apart, a hole opened in the middle, and flame shot out. Nimrod lighters used a lot of fuel, but they worked in a gale, or in the rain. Fortunately the professor still had control of his hands. He pulled the lighter out and jerked at the ends. A spear of yellow flame shot up into the night. At the same time the professor dug in his heels and struggled as best he could to stop himself.

  It worked. He came to a shuddering halt. And the dark shape sprang backward, covering its face with its hands.

  The professor looked madly this way and that. He wanted... Ah! Glory be to God! Over in a corner of the little lookout place, piled against a cairn of stones, was some wood. But then his heart sank. It had been raining—the wood would be soaked. Frantically, still holding the blazing lighter, he whirled around. And now, for the first time, he saw the cave, a dark hole in the beetling rocky wall. Still holding the lighter up before him, he began to back toward the cave. A few more steps... he was in it now. Again he peered around. Ah! Magnificent! Stupendous! Piled in a corner just inside the mouth of the little cave were brush and twigs and sticks. The professor had his firewood after all.

  He had to work fast though. The lighter might run out of fuel any minute now, and then where would he be? The professor's mind raced. Tinder. He needed tinder. Some old leathery oak leaves still clung to the broken branches in the pile of firewood. The professor ripped off a handful of them and piled them on the floor of the cave. He touched the lighter to the leaves, and they blazed. Working with mad, headlong speed, the professor snapped his lighter shut and raced over into the corner of the cave. He came back with handfuls of brush and little twigs. The fire grew. The twigs crackled merrily, and now he was throwing on thicker pieces of wood. Every now and then he glanced nervously outside. His flashlight lay where it had fallen. It still cast a line of pale light out across the grass. But except for that he could see nothing.

  Now the fire was burning well. The professor stuck a broken branch into it, and it blazed. Armed with the branch, he stepped out into the open. Johnny had been standing in the middle of the little grassy space. But he was not there anymore. Sick with fear, the professor rushed forward. There stood Johnny, at the very edge of the precipice. One more step and he would plunge thousands of feet to his death. With a quick dash the professor made it to where he was standing. He grabbed Johnny's arm just as he was going over the edge and hauled him back to safety.

  The professor turned. One hand was clenched tight around Johnny's arm. The other hand grasped the burning branch. It was raining lightly now, and the drops hissed in the fire, but the fire did not go out. Nearby, just outside the circle of light, hovered the dark figure. Its eyes were pinpoints of red light. Johnny sagged to the ground. His body was a dead weight. Stooping, the professor grasped Johnny under the right armpit. Slowly, painfully, he dragged him back toward the cave. He still held the blazing branch up with his free hand. It seemed to take forever, but finally they made it. And just in time too, because the rain was really pelting down now, and it was putting out the fire on the branch. With a sudden thrust the professor heaved the smoldering branch at the red-eyed figure that still hovered menacingly in the darkness. "Take that, you rotten thing!" the professor growled. Immediately he was sorry he had thrown the branch. He was going to need all the wood he could find.

  Inside the cave the professor squatted. A pile of sticks lay near him, and he fed them, one by one, into the crackling fire. Beyond the shimmering wall of flame lay darkness. Darkness, and something else. The professor glanced anxiously to his right. There lay Johnny, cold and still. An awful thought occurred to the professor. Was he... No, no, it couldn't be, he wouldn't allow it! And suddenly a new thought came to the professor. He felt like a fool for not thinking of it before. He shuffled over towar
d Johnny on his knees and raised his limp left hand. Slowly he began working the ring off of the finger. It didn't want to come off, but the professor had strong hands. Bit by bit it moved, and then it was off. Johnny groaned. He opened his eyes and blinked and looked around blearily.

  "Wha... where..." he muttered thickly.

  The professor was overjoyed. Tears sprang to his eyes. "Thank God, thank God..." he whispered. He looked at the ring that lay in his hand. The stone was as dull and dark as a chip of coal. It did not even reflect the firelight. The professor had a great urge to fling the ring into the fire, but he thought better of it, so he stuffed it into his pants pocket. Someday some expert on magic might tell him what to do with the ring—if he lived to tell his experiences to anyone.

  Right now there was a problem. The fire was keeping the evil creature at bay, but what would happen when the fire went out? Maybe the creature would have to vanish at dawn, but how far away was that? The professor hadn't brought his watch with him, and he hadn't noticed the time when he dashed out of the cottage. He looked at the pitifully small pile of wood, and he felt panic rising inside him.

  Meanwhile Johnny was slowly returning to the world. He was bewildered and scared. Only a moment ago, or so it seemed to him, he had fallen asleep in his nice comfortable bed in the motel. Now he was in this dank, dark place where firelight leaped on the walls. And the professor was here too. What on earth had happened?

  The professor would have comforted Johnny, but he had no time to be soothing and friendly. His mind was racing as he tried—tried desperately—to think his way out of the mess they were in. The professor believed in thought. He was always telling his students that you could get to the unknown by using the known. If you just put the facts that you knew together in the proper way, you might get some truly amazing results. All right, he said to himself grimly as he fed another stick into the fire, what do you know? Well, he knew that the ghost was there, outside the cave, waiting. And the ghost had said that he was strongest in this place. Why? Why was he strongest here, on the side of Hellbent Mountain, Why? Why? Why?