The House With a Clock in Its Walls

by John Bellairs

  Lewis was out in the field. It was getting dark, and he was having trouble seeing the ball, and besides he was a little bored. He stood there thinking, or "doping off" as Tarby called it.

  He wanted to do something nice for Tarby. Something nice that would really impress him and make him a stronger friend than ever. Maybe he could get Uncle Jonathan to do a magic trick for Tarby. Sure, that would do it. Lewis hesitated a minute, remembering Jonathan saying that he was only a "parlor magician." The kind that pulled rabbits out of hats and told you what card you were holding in your hand. But then he had said that he knew a few tricks that went beyond that....

  Lewis thought some more. Oh, well, Jonathan could probably do it. Anyone who could make windows change their pictures could do what Lewis had in mind. And anyway, Lewis thought that he remembered hearing Jonathan say that he had done such a thing once.

  "Hey, Lewis! I hit the ball out to you about six hours ago. Did you go to sleep?"

  Lewis looked up. "Huh? Oh, gee, I'm sorry, Tarby. Say, how would you like to see my uncle eclipse the moon?"

  Tarby stared at him. "What did you say?"

  "I said... oh, c'mon, Tarby, let's go home. It's too dark to see the ball. C'mon and I'll tell you all about my Uncle Jonathan. He's a real wizard."

  The two boys walked back under the streetlights, playing catch as they went. Lewis tried to explain about Uncle Jonathan's magic powers, but he could see that Tarby was not convinced.

  "Boy, I'll bet your uncle can eclipse the moon. I'll just bet he can. He prob'ly sits up in his room drinking beer, and then he goes out in back and stares up at the moon, and boy does it go rround... and... rraounnd." Tarby staggered out into the street and rolled his eyes.

  Lewis felt like hitting him, but he knew that Tarby could beat him up, so he just said, "You wanta see him do it?"

  "Yeah," said Tarby in a sneery voice. "I wanta see him do it."

  "Okay," said Lewis. "I'll ask him tonight. When he's ready to do it, I'll let you know."

  "Gee, I hope I won't have to wait too long," said Tarby sarcastically. "I really do want to see Old Lard Guts eclipse the moo-hoo-hoo, moo-hoo-ha...."

  "Stop it. Stop making fun of my uncle." Lewis's face was red, and he was almost crying.

  "Make me," said Tarby.

  "I can't, and you know it," said Lewis. Tarby went on moo-hooing until they reached the khaki-colored mailbox at the foot of High Street. This time when they split up to go home, Lewis didn't say goodby to Tarby. He didn't even wave. But by the time he was inside the gate at 100 High Street, Lewis had gotten over his mad—more or less—and so he went straight inside to see his uncle.

  He found Jonathan laying out a game of solitaire on the dining-room table. It was a complicated game called "Napoleon at St. Helena," and the layout covered most of the ivory-colored oilcloth pad. Jonathan looked up and smiled as Lewis walked into the room.

  "Hi, Lewis! How's baseball these days?"

  "Getting better, I guess. Tarby helps me a lot. Say, Uncle Jonathan, do you suppose we could do something nice for Tarby? He really is a good friend of mine."

  "Sure, Lewis. We'll invite him to dinner. Is that what you mean?"

  Lewis blushed and fidgeted. "Uh... well, yeah... kind of. Do you think that maybe after dinner we could... uh, that is, you could... eclipse the moon for him?"

  Jonathan stared at him. "Did I tell you I could do that?"

  "Yes. Remember, one night when you were bragging... er, talking to Mrs. Zimmermann about whether earth magic was stronger than moon magic? You said that a moon wizard could eclipse the moon any time he felt like it, and that you were a moon wizard."

  Jonathan smiled and shook his head. "Did I say that? My, my, how I do run on. Let me see, I do seem to recall eclipsing the moon one night in 1932. That was during a picnic out at Wilder Creek Park. I remember the date, April 30, which is Walpurgis Night. That's the night when witches and warlocks all over the world get together for whoop-te-doos. Ours was just a convention of the Capharnaum County Magicians Society, but some of them are real wizards. At any rate, to get back to what I was saying..."

  "Never mind," said Lewis, turning away with a pouty look on his face. "I'll tell Tarby that you can't do it."

  "Oh, Lewis!" cried Jonathan, throwing the pack of cards down on the table. "You are the most easily discouraged boy I ever met. If I did it once, I can do it again. It's just that it's not a normal occurrence. And everything has to be just right. In the heavens, that is."

  "Oh."

  "Yes, oh. Now, as soon as I have won this silly game from myself, you and I will go to the library and consult the almanac. So be quiet for a minute."

  Lewis fidgeted and clasped and unclasped his hands and stared at the light fixture until Jonathan finished his game. Then the two of them went to the library, slid back the panelled doors, and entered the marvelous room that smelled of damp paper, wood smoke, and Turkoman's Terror, Jonathan's personal tobacco blend. Jonathan moved the stepladder to the part of the wall that contained his magic books, climbed up, and pulled down a thick dusty volume labelled:

  HARDESTY'S

  Universal Omnium Gatherum

  Perpetual Calendar, Date Book, Almanac, and Book of Days

  He flipped to the section on eclipses, did some rapid mental calculations, and said, "You're in luck, Lewis. 1948 is a good year for lunar eclipses. The planets will be favorable next Friday. Invite Tarby to dinner for that night. I'll be ready."

  Friday night came around, and Lewis brought Tarby home for dinner. There was nothing especially magic about the meal, except that the cider jug on the table burped a lot, and that might have been because the cider was getting hard. After the dishes were cleared away, Jonathan asked Lewis and Tarby to help Mrs. Zimmermann carry some kitchen chairs out into the back yard. Then he walked out into the front hall and consulted his cane rack, a blue Willoware vase full of walking sticks of all sizes and shapes. Some had ivory or bone handles, some were tough, crooked old pieces of hickory or maplewood, and some had thin springy swords concealed inside. But only one cane was magic.

  It was a long black rod of some very hard wood. At one end was a ferrule of polished brass, and at the other was a glass globe the size of a baseball. It seemed to be snowing inside the globe. Through the swirling little flakes you could see, now and then, an odd little miniature castle. The globe burned with an icy gray light. Jonathan picked up the cane, hefted it, and walked back toward the kitchen with it tucked under his arm.

  Out in the back yard, the audience was ready. Mrs. Zimmermann, Lewis, and Tarby sat in straight chairs facing the birdbath. It was a chilly, clear October night. All the stars were out, and a large full moon was rising over the four elm trees at the far end of Jonathan's yard. The screen door slammed, and everyone looked up. The magician had arrived.

  Without saying a word, Jonathan went around to the north side of the house. An old mossy rain barrel stood there against the sandstone wall. Jonathan looked into the barrel, breathed three times on the dark water, and with his left forefinger cut the faintly shimmering surface into four quarters. Then he leaned low over the mouth of the barrel and began whispering in a strange language. The three spectators had not left their chairs—Jonathan had told them to stay where they were—but they craned their necks around a good deal trying to figure out what the wizard was doing.

  The whispering, weirdly magnified by the mouth of the barrel, went on for some time. Lewis twisted way around in his chair, but all he could see was the dark shape of Uncle Jonathan and the faintly glowing gray globe of the magic cane. Finally Jonathan returned. In one hand he held the cane, and in the other he had a saucepan full of rain water.

  "Is your uncle going to wash his hair?" whispered Tarby.

  "Oh, be quiet!" hissed Lewis. "He knows what he's doing. Just you watch."

  Tarby, Lewis, and Mrs. Zimmermann watched anxiously as Jonathan poured the saucepan into the birdbath. Then he went back to the rain barrel for more. Dip. Splash. He c
ame back with another panful. He emptied it. And he went back for a third.

  The third panful seemed to be enough. Jonathan set down the empty pan and picked up his cane, which had been leaning against the birdbath. The glass ball glowed and sent out a ray of dusty gray light. The ray rested on the surface of the water in the birdbath. Jonathan made signs over the water with the cane and started muttering again.

  "Come on and look," he said, motioning to the three spectators. They got up and walked over to the birdbath. The water in the flat, shallow concrete pan had started to heave and pitch, like ocean water in a storm. Lewis was surprised to see tiny whitecaps forming. Then long rollers began to crash silently into the rim, sending pinpoint flecks of foam out onto the grass. Jonathan watched for a while along with the rest. Then, suddenly, he raised the cane and cried, "Peace! Peace to the waters of the earth! Show unto us the round disk of the moon, even as she now appeareth in the heavens above!"

  The water calmed down. Soon it was a flat pool again, and floating on the still black surface was the cold reflection of the full moon. Now Jonathan did something very unlikely. As the others watched, he bent over and pulled a small boulder out of the pile of rocks at the base of the birdbath. Then, lifting it high in the air, he shouted, "Stand back!" and dropped the rock. Splash! Water slopped everywhere, and Lewis did not get out of the way soon enough to keep from getting some on his shoes.

  When the water had calmed down again, Jonathan picked up the rock and looked into the pool. There, wobbly and creased with ripples, was the moon's reflection.

  "Still there?" said Jonathan, grinning. "Well, we'll just see about that!"

  He reached down into the water and picked up the reflection. It might have been a trick, but the cold, icy-gray disk he held up looked like the reflection that had floated in the pool a moment before. And sure enough, when Lewis looked into the water, all he saw now was a shiny blackness.

  Jonathan held up the reflection and turned it back and forth as if it were a dinner plate. The disk burned cold and bitter, and sparkled like freshly fallen snow. It hurt Lewis's eyes to stare at it for very long. Now Jonathan snapped his wrist and sent the disk flying across the yard. It sailed clear across to the dark thicket in front of the four elm trees. Then Jonathan, cane in hand, ran off after the disk. It was a long yard and, even in the moonlight, the boys and Mrs. Zimmermann could not see what he was doing down there.

  Suddenly the air was filled with the inane glockling and blockling of bamboo wind chimes. There was a set of them hanging from one of the elm trees, and Jonathan had given it a good hard yank. Now he came dancing back up the yard, dueling with shadows and saying things like, "Ha! Have at you in your bladder for a blaggardly slacker! Hoo! Hunh! And the third in his bosom!"

  He stopped in front of the birdbath and held the ball of the cane up under his chin so that his face looked like an actor's face when it is lit from below by footlights. Slowly he raised his right hand and pointed at the sky. "Look!" he cried.

  All three of the spectators looked up. At first they saw nothing strange. Then, slowly, a black, tarry, drippy shadow oozed down over the face of the surprised moon. In no time at all the moon was dark, completely dark, blacked out, without even the faint brownish umbra that marks its place during an ordinary eclipse.

  And now Uncle Jonathan's back yard came to life. It was full of strange sights and sounds. The grass glowed a phosphorescent green, and red worms wriggled through the tall blades with a hushing sound. Strange insects dropped down out of the overhanging boughs of the willow tree and started to dance on the picnic table. They waltzed and wiggled in a shaking blue light, and the music they danced to, faint though it was, sounded to Lewis like "Rugbug," the famous fox trot composed by Maxine Hollister. This was one of the tunes that Jonathan's parlor organ played.

  Uncle Jonathan walked over to the tulip bed, put his ear to the ground, and listened. He motioned for the others to join him. Lewis put his ear to the damp earth, and he heard strange things. He heard the noise that earthworms make as they slowly inch along, breaking hard black clods with their blunt heads. He heard the secret inwound conversations of bulbs and roots, and the breathing of flowers. And Lewis knew strange things, without knowing how he came to know them. He knew that there was a cat named Texaco buried in the patch of ground he knelt on. Its delicate ivory skeleton was falling slowly to pieces down there, and its dank fur was shrivelled and matted and rotten. The boy who had buried the cat had buried a sand pail full of shells near it. Lewis did not know the name of the boy, or how long ago he had buried the cat and the pail, but he could see the red and blue pail clearly. Blotches of brown rust were eating up the bright designs, and the shells were covered with green mold.

  After a long while, Lewis sat up and looked around. Tarby was kneeling near him, his ear to the ground and his eyes wide with wonder. But where was Uncle Jonathan? Where, for that matter, was Mrs. Zimmermann? At the far end of the yard, in the shadow of the four elm trees, Lewis thought he saw them moving around. He tapped Tarby on the shoulder, pointed, and the two boys silently got up and went to join the magicians.

  When they found them, Jonathan was arguing with Mrs. Zimmermann, who argued right back, though her ear was pressed flat to the ground.

  "I say it's the old storm sewer system," she muttered. "It was lost track of in 1868 because the charts got thrown out with the wastepaper."

  "Well, you can think what you like, Frizzy Wig," said Jonathan as he knelt down for another listen. "I say it's an underground stream. Capharnaum County is full of them, and it would account for the fact that Sin-and-Flesh Creek is much bigger when it leaves New Zebedee than it is when it enters it."

  "You're full of beans, Fatso," said Mrs. Zimmermann, whose ear was still pressed to the ground. "I think I know the sound of water rushing through a brick tunnel. It's all vaulty and hollow."

  "Like your head?"

  Lewis and Tarby pressed their ears to the ground, but all they could hear was a sound like the one you hear when you press your ear against an inner tube that you are floating on in a lake. Lewis felt very excited. He wanted to be all over the garden at once, touching things and smelling them and listening. The magic in the back yard lasted for over an hour. Then the phosphorescence changed to plain old ordinary moonlight, and the moon floated high overhead, free from enchantments.

  As they walked back into the house, Lewis asked his uncle if the police department didn't get mad when he eclipsed the moon. Jonathan chuckled and put his arm around Lewis.

  "No," he said, "strangely enough they don't. I've never been quite sure why, but maybe it's because the eclipse is only visible in this yard."

  "You mean it's not real?"

  "Of course, it's real. You saw it, didn't you? But one of the troubles with human beings is that they can only see out of their own eyes. If I could be two people, I'd station the other me across town to see if the eclipse was operating over there."

  "Why don't you ask Mrs. Zimmermann to go watch?"

  "Because she'd be crabby. She always wants to be in on things. Don't you, Pruny?"

  "Yes, I do. And right now I'd like to be in on some chocolate-chip cookies. Why don't you all come over to my place?"

  And that is what they did. Lewis was happy to have a chance to show off Mrs. Zimmermann's house to Tarby. It was not a mansion, by any means. Just a little two-story bungalow with a screened-in front porch. But it was full of strange things, most of them purple. Mrs. Zimmermann had a thing about the color purple. Her rugs, her wallpaper, her staircase runner, her toilet paper, and her bath soap were all purple. So was the large surrealistic painting of a dragon that hung in her living room. It had been done for her specially by the French painter Odilon Redon.

  As they munched their cookies and drank their milk and walked around looking at the purple things in Mrs. Zimmermann's house, Lewis noticed that Tarby wasn't saying much. When it came time for him to go, Tarby shook Jonathan's hand while staring at the carpet, and he mumbled, "T
hanks for the cookies" to Mrs. Zimmermann in such a low voice that he couldn't be understood. Lewis saw Tarby to the front gate. He knew this was odd behavior for Tarby, who was usually loud and sassy-acting, even in front of grownups.

  "Thanks for the magic show," said Tarby, shaking Lewis's hand and looking very serious. "It was kind of scary, but it was fun. I take back all the things I said about your uncle, I guess. Well, see you around." And with that, Tarby went trudging down the hill.

  Lewis stared after him with a worried frown on his face. He hoped that Tarby had had a good time. Most people do not like to be proven wrong, even when they enjoy themselves in the process. Tarby was a popular boy, and he was used to being right about everything. He had turned out to be wrong about Jonathan's magic powers. Now what would he do? Lewis didn't want to lose his only friend.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was the last week of October, and Tarby's arm had almost healed. Lewis saw less and less of him now. He still waited for him on the baseball diamond out behind the school, and sometimes Tarby showed up, and sometimes he didn't.

  Of course, Tarby couldn't be expected to be very interested in flies and grounders at this time of year. The football season was getting underway. Lewis had seen Tarby playing football with the other boys after school. Needless to say, Tarby was always the quarterback. He threw long passes and made end runs and pulled off tricky plays, like the "Statue of Liberty."

  Lewis had thought of trying to join the football game, but he remembered what had happened back in Wisconsin. Whenever anyone charged over the line at him, he fell to the ground and covered his head with his hands. He couldn't catch passes and, if he tried to kick the ball, he usually wound up bunting it with his knee. Maybe if he got really good at baseball, he could get Tarby to teach him football next year.