The House With a Clock in Its Walls

by John Bellairs

  Lewis was frightened. "What's wrong, Uncle Jonathan?" he asked.

  "Ask me later, Lewis. Florence, what's the best way—other way—back to New Zebedee?"

  "Take the next side road to your right. That's Twelve Mile Road, and it runs into the Wilder Creek Road. And step on it. They're gaining."

  Many times, when he had been out riding with his father and mother, Lewis had pretended that they were being followed by some car or other. It was a good game to pass the time on long dull evening rides, and he remembered how he had always felt disappointed when the mystery car turned away into a side street or a driveway. But tonight the game was for real.

  Around sharp curves they went, lurching dangerously far over and squealing the tires. Up hills, down hills, then seventy or eighty miles an hour on the straightaway, which was never straight for long on these winding country roads. Lewis had never seen Jonathan drive so fast, or so recklessly. But no matter how fast he drove, the two cold circles of light still burned in his rear-view mirror.

  Both Mrs. Zimmermann and Uncle Jonathan seemed to know who or what was in the car behind them—or at least they seemed to know that it was someone that had the power to do them harm. But they said as little as possible, except to confer now and then about directions. So Lewis just sat there, trying to feel comforted by the green dashboard lights and the warm breath of the heater on his knees. Of course, he also felt comforted by the two wizards, whose warm friendly bodies pressed against his in the furry darkness. But he knew that they were scared, and this made him twice as scared.

  What was after them? Why didn't Uncle Jonathan or Mrs. Zimmermann just wave an arm and turn the evil car into a wad of smoldering tinfoil? Lewis stared up at the reflected headlights, and he thought of what he had seen in the cemetery, and of what Uncle Jonathan had told him about Mrs. Izard's eyeglasses. He was beginning to have a theory about how all these things fitted together.

  The car raced on, spitting stones from under its tires. Down into hollows bordered by dark skeletal trees, up over high hills, on and on while the setting moon seemed to race to keep up with them. They covered a large part of Capharnaum County that night, because the way around was a long way. After what seemed like hours of driving, they came to a place where three roads met. As the car screeched around the turn, Lewis saw—for a few seconds—a Civil War cannon white with frost, a wooden church with smeary stained-glass windows, and a general store with a dark glimmering window that said:

  SALADA.

  "We're on the Wilder Creek Road now, Lewis," said Mrs. Zimmermann as she put her arm around him. "It won't be long now. Don't be afraid."

  The car raced on. Dead roadside stalks bent in its hot wind, and overhanging branches whipped along the metal roof. The burning white holes danced in the mirror as before, and it looked like they were getting closer. They had never, since the start of the chase, been more than two or three car lengths away.

  Jonathan shoved the accelerator to the floor. The needle moved up to eighty, which was dangerous, to say the least, on these roads. But the greater danger was behind, so Jonathan took the big roundhouse curves as well as he could, and the tires screeched, and the fenders almost touched the crumbling asphalt at the side of the road. This was blacktop, and you could go faster on it than you could on loose gravel.

  At last they came to the top of a high hill and, there below them, glimmering peacefully in the starlight—the moon had gone down some time ago—was Wilder Creek. There was the bridge, a maze of crisscrossing black girders. Down the hill they barrelled, faster and faster. The car behind followed, just as fast. They were almost to the bridge when the lights in the rear-view mirror did something headlights had never done before. They grew and brightened till the reflection was a blinding bar of white light. Lewis clapped his hands to his eyes. Had he been struck blind? Had Jonathan been blinded too? Would the car crash, or....

  Suddenly Lewis heard the rolling clatter of the bridge boards under the car. He took his hands away from his face. He could see. Jonathan was smiling and putting on the brakes. Mrs. Zimmermann heaved a deep sigh of relief. They were across the bridge.

  As Jonathan opened the door to get out, Lewis twisted around in his seat and saw that the other car had stopped just before it got to the bridge. Its headlights were dark now, except for two smoldering yellow pinpoints. Lewis could not tell if there was anyone in the car, because the windshield was covered by a blank silvery sheen.

  Jonathan stood there, his hands on his hips, watching. He did not seem to be afraid of the other car now. Slowly the mysterious car turned around and drove away. When Jonathan got back to the Muggins Simoon he was chuckling.

  "It's all over, Lewis. Relax. Witches and other evil things can't cross running water. It's an old rule, but it still applies."

  "You might throw in the fact," said Mrs. Zimmermann in her most pedantic tone, "that Elihu Clabbernong built that iron bridge in 1892. He was supposed to be doing it for the county, but he was really trying to make sure that the ghost of his dead uncle, Jedediah, didn't cross the stream to get him. Now Elihu was a part-time warlock, and what he put into the iron of the bridge..."

  "Oh, good heavens!" cried Jonathan, covering his ears. "Are you going to go through the whole history of Capharnaum County at four a.m.?"

  "Is it that late?" asked Lewis.

  "That late or later," said Jonathan wearily. "It's been quite a ride."

  They drove on toward New Zebedee. On the way they stopped at an all-night diner and had a large breakfast of waffles, eggs, American fries, sausage, coffee, and milk. Then they sat around for a long time talking about the narrow escape they had just had. Lewis asked a lot of questions, but he didn't get many answers.

  When they got back to New Zebedee, it was dawn. Dawn of an overcast November day. The town and its hills appeared to be swimming in a gray grainy murk. When Jonathan pulled up in front of his house he said, "There's something wrong, Florence. Stay in the car with Lewis."

  "Oh, dear!" she cried, wrinkling up her mouth. "What more can happen?"

  Jonathan swung back the iron gate and marched up the walk. From where he was sitting, Lewis could see that the front door was open. This could easily be explained, since people in New Zebedee never locked their doors, and sometimes the latches didn't hold when they closed them. Jonathan disappeared into the house, and he didn't come back for ten full minutes. When he did reappear, he looked worried.

  "Come on, Florence," he said, opening the door on her side. "It's safe to go in, I think. But the house has been broken into."

  Lewis burst into tears. "They didn't steal your water-pipe, did they? Or the Bon-Sour coins?"

  Jonathan smiled weakly. "No, Lewis, I'm afraid it's not as simple as all that. Someone was looking for something, and I think they found it. Come on in."

  Lewis expected to find the house in wild disorder, with chairs and lamps smashed and things all scattered around. But when he got to the front hall, he found everything in order. At least, that's the way it looked. Jonathan tapped him on the shoulder and pointed toward the ceiling. "Look up there," he said.

  Lewis gasped. The brass cup that covered the place where the ceiling fixture met the ceiling had been pried loose. It dangled halfway down the chain.

  "It's like that all over the house," said Jonathan. "Every wall sconce and ceiling light has had its cup jimmied loose. A few chairs were overturned and a couple of vases were broken, just to make it look like this was an ordinary break-in. But we ought not to be fooled. Whoever it was had a general idea of where to look. Come here."

  Jonathan led Lewis and Mrs. Zimmermann into the front parlor, a more or less unused room full of fussy little red-velvet chairs and settees. On the wall over the parlor organ was a brass light fixture like all the others in the house: a tarnished cup-shaped thing fitted to the wall, and a crooked little brass tube sticking out of it. On the end of the tube was a socket and a bulb with a frilly pink shade.

  "I thought you said the cup was loose,
" said Lewis.

  "It was. It is," said Jonathan. "In this case Whosis tried to fit it back just the way it was, which was kind of stupid, seeing as how all the other cups in the house are at half mast. Some of them are slid all the way down to the socket. But I think Whosis was trying, in a clumsy way, to keep me from looking too closely at this one."

  Jonathan pulled over a chair and stood up on it. He slid the cup out and peered inside. Then he got down and went to the cellarway for a flashlight. When he got back, Mrs. Zimmermann and Lewis had taken turns looking into the cup. They both were puzzled. What they saw inside the dusty bowl was a greenish rust blot. It reminded Lewis of the stuff in the cracks and crevices of the copper Roman coins they played poker with. It was the mark of something that had lain concealed inside the old brass cup for a long, long time. The mark looked like this:

  "It looks like a clock key," said Lewis in a weak, throaty voice.

  "Yes, it does," said Jonathan. He played the light around inside the cup and squinted hard.

  "Uncle Jonathan, what does all this mean?" Lewis sounded as if he were about to burst into tears.

  "I wish I knew," said Jonathan. "I really wish I knew."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It rained a lot in New Zebedee that November. Cold rain fell steadily through each night and left the sidewalk a glaze of ice in the morning. Lewis sat in his window seat and watched the rain peck at the chipped slates of the front porch roof. He felt sick inside. It was an empty, black feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was eaten up with guilt and remorse because he knew what he had done—or thought he knew, at any rate. He had let Mrs. Izard out of her tomb, and now she had stolen the key. The key that wound up the magic clock ticking in the walls of Jonathan's house, ticking away morning, noon, and night; sometimes loud, sometimes soft, but always there.

  What was going to happen? How could anyone stop her? Had she used the key? What would happen if she did? Lewis had no answers for any of these questions.

  It might have helped if he had been able to talk the whole matter over with Jonathan, but then he would have had to admit what he had done. And Lewis was afraid to do that. It was not that Uncle Jonathan was such a hard man to talk to. He was easier to talk to than most people Lewis knew, easier by far than Lewis's own father had ever been. Then, why was Lewis afraid?

  Well, he was afraid because he was afraid. Maybe it was because his mother had once threatened to send him to the Detention Home when he was bad. The Detention Home was a big white house on the outskirts of the town that Lewis and his parents had lived in. It stood on a high hill and had bars and chicken wire over the windows. Bad boys and girls were sent there—at least, that's what everyone said. Lewis had never known anyone who had actually gotten sent there. Of course, Lewis's mother would never have sent him there for being bad. Not really. But Lewis didn't know that, and now when Lewis thought of telling his uncle about Halloween night, he thought of the Detention Home, and he was afraid. It wasn't a reasonable fear, considering the kind of man Jonathan was. But Lewis had not known him for very long, and anyway, people are not always so reasonable.

  And there was another thing that added to Lewis's despair. He had lost Tarby. He had lost him in spite of all his sneaking and planning—or maybe he had lost him because of it. It was one thing to say that you could raise the dead, but when you did it—well, ordinary people have never cared much for the company of wizards. Tarby was afraid of Lewis now, or else he was enjoying himself with the other boys, the boys who could hit home runs and catch fly balls. Whichever way it was, Lewis had not seen Tarby since Halloween night.

  The month wore on, the rain kept falling, and nothing mysterious or evil happened. Until one day—the third of December it was—when the Hanchetts moved out.

  The Hanchetts lived across the street from Uncle Jonathan in a boxy, dark-brown house with tiny windows, the kind of windows that have little diamond-shaped panes and swing out instead of sliding up and down. The Hanchetts were a friendly, middle-aged couple, and they liked Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann a lot, but one morning they were gone. A couple of days after their disappearance a truck came and a couple of movers in gray uniforms packed all the Hanchetts' furniture into it, and drove off. A real-estate man came around and hung a big red and white sign on their front door. The sign said:

  HI THERE!

  I'M FOR SALE

  Call Bishop Barlow Realtors

  Phone: 865

  Bishop Barlow was not a real bishop. Bishop was just his first name. Lewis knew the man: he was a fat loudmouth who wore sunglasses all the time, even on rainy days. He smoked cheap smelly cigars and wore sports coats that looked like awnings.

  Jonathan seemed really upset at the departure of the Hanchetts. He phoned their son, who was a lawyer in Osee Five Hills, and he found out that the Hanchetts were living with him. The frightened couple would not talk to Jonathan over the phone, and they seemed to blame him for whatever had made them leave. The son did not seem to know much about the matter. He muttered something about ghosts and "messing around with magic" and hung up.

  One day Lewis was walking home from school when he saw a small moving van pull up in front of the empty Hanchett house. The big black letters on the side of the van said: TERMINUS MOVERS INC. Lewis was about to cross the street to watch the men unload the truck when he realized, with a shock, that he knew the driver. It was Hammerhandle.

  All the children in New Zebedee knew Hammerhandle and, if they were smart, they were afraid of him. He was a mean old hobo who lived in a tar-paper shack down by the railroad tracks, and he had a reputation for being able to foretell the future. Lewis had stood once on the outskirts of a crowd of kids gathered about the door of Hammerhandle's shack on a hot summer day. He remembered seeing Hammerhandle seated in the doorway on a broken kitchen chair. He was telling stories about the World's Last Night, which, if you believed him, was not far off. Behind Hammerhandle, in the disorder and darkness of the old shack, stood ranks of smooth yellow poles: ax handles, hoe handles, hammer handles. He made them and sold them. That was how he got his name.

  Lewis stood there wondering what he was doing driving a moving van. Hammerhandle slammed the door on the driver's side and walked across the street. He looked around him quickly and then grabbed Lewis by the collar. His bristly face was close to Lewis's now, and his breath smelled of whiskey and tobacco.

  "What the hell you starin' at, kid?"

  "N-nothing. I-I just like to watch people moving in." It was getting dark, and Lewis wondered if anyone could see him. If he yelled, would Jonathan or Mrs. Zimmermann come?

  Hammerhandle let go of Lewis's collar. "Look, kid," he said in his harsh scraping voice, "you just keep yer nose on your side of the fence, okay? An' that goes f'ya fat uncle too. Just don't bother me, okay?" He glared at Lewis, turned, and went back to the truck.

  Lewis stood there trembling for a few moments. He was sweating all over. Then he turned and ran in through the open gate, up the walk, and into the house.

  "Uncle Jonathan! Uncle Jonathan!" he shouted. He yanked open the doors of the study and looked. No Jonathan. He shouted into the front parlor and into the kitchen and up the stairwell. At last Uncle Jonathan appeared at the top of the stairs. He was wearing his bathrobe, which was made in the shape of the robes professors wear at graduation ceremonies, black with red stripes on the sleeves. In one hand he held a dripping, long-handled scrub brush. In the other, he held the book he had been reading in the tub.

  "Yes, Lewis? What is it?" He sounded cross at first, but when he saw the state that Lewis was in, he dropped the book and the brush and clumped down the stairs to throw his arms around the boy. It was a damp embrace, but it felt good to Lewis.

  "Lewis, my boy!" said Jonathan, kneeling in front of him. "What in the name of heaven is wrong? You look awful!"

  Lewis, stuttering and breaking down several times, told Jonathan what had happened. When he was through, he watched Jonathan's expression change. There was a hard, angry look
on his face now, but his anger was not directed at Lewis. He stood up, knotted his bathrobe tighter about him, and stalked to the front door. For a minute Lewis thought that Jonathan was going out to challenge Hammerhandle right then and there. But he merely opened the front door and stared across at the Hanchett house. The workmen were just hitching up the tail gate and getting ready to drive off. Apparently there hadn't been much to unload.

  With folded arms Jonathan watched the truck drive away. "I might have known he'd be in on it," he said bitterly. Lewis stared up at his uncle. He didn't have the faintest idea of what was going on, and for some reason he was afraid to ask what Jonathan meant.

  That evening at supper, Lewis asked Jonathan why Hammerhandle had acted so mean. Jonathan threw down his fork and said angrily, "Because he's mean, that's why! Do you have to have explanations? Just stay away from him and you'll be all right. And stay away... stay away... oh, I don't know what I mean!" He got up and stomped out of the room. Lewis heard the study doors slam.

  Mrs. Zimmermann reached across the table and laid her hand gently on Lewis's. "Don't worry, Lewis," she said. "He's not angry at you. But he does have a lot on his mind these days, and he hasn't been getting much sleep. Come on over to my house and we'll have a game of chess."

  "Okay." Lewis was grateful for the suggestion. They played chess till ten o'clock at night and, since Lewis won most of the games, he was in a happy mood when he went home. Upstairs he saw a line of light under the door of Jonathan's bedroom. He decided not to disturb him. When he had gotten ready for bed, Lewis went to his window seat, sat down, and pulled back the heavy curtain.

  It was a bright, cold, starry night. The water tower at the top of the hill glimmered in the moonlight, and the roofs of the houses were dark pointed shadows. There were lights on in the houses that stood on either side of the Hanchett house and, in one window, Lewis saw the gray aquarium-glow of one of those new television sets. Jonathan hadn't gotten one yet. The Hanchett house seemed to lie in deep shadow, except for faint patches of moonlight on the roof. By the light of a street lamp, Lewis could see that there was a car parked in the driveway.