The House With a Clock in Its Walls

by John Bellairs

"Okay," she said. "So be it. First we put lighted candles in all the windows. Real candles, that is."

  "Yes," said Jonathan, wrinkling up his nose. "I see Lewis has the poor taste to prefer real candles. Ah, well... let's get going. There are several boxes of candle ends in the sideboard."

  Jonathan took the first floor, Mrs. Zimmermann took the second floor, and Lewis took the third floor and the stained-glass windows, wherever they might be. Before long, the whole house was lit up for Christmas in April.

  Lewis paused outside the door of the room that had Isaac Izard's organ in it. He looked into the shoe box that had been full of candle stubs. Only one left. Should he put it in there? No, there was a better place.

  With a fat red candle in his hand, Lewis climbed the dusty spiral staircase that led to the cupola room. He shoved open the narrow door. The room was dark except for streaks of moonlight on the floor. Lewis moved over to the window. He knelt down and leaned forward into the deep embrasure.

  The oval window gave him a bird's-eye view of the Hanchett house. Or would have, if he had been able to see it. Brilliant moonlight bathed the hill, but the Hanchett house lay in a mass of shadow. Only the dark point of its roof could be seen.

  Lewis stared, fascinated. Then, suddenly, he began to hear the ticking, faint but audible, that filled even this room in the house at 100 High Street. He shook his head, got out his matches, and quickly lit the candle.

  When he got back downstairs, he found that his second instruction was being obeyed. Mrs. Zimmermann was playing "Chopsticks" on the organ in the front parlor. When she got up and went back to the dining room, the organ kept on playing "Chopsticks," since it was a player organ, and she had set it on "Infinite Replay." The silly monotonous music almost drowned out the steady ticking—almost, but not quite.

  Jonathan came bouncing in from the back bedrooms. His face was red, and he was breathing hard. "Okay," he said. "What's next?"

  Mrs. Zimmermann picked up the paper and read in a solemn voice. "We are to play a game of Bon-Sour-One-Frank until the Ace of Nitwits appears."

  As unlikely as it may seem, Jonathan knew what Bon-Sour-One-Frank was. It was Lewis's name for poker. The three of them had played a lot of poker since that first August evening, and Lewis had named the game for the inscription he thought he saw on the shiny brass one-franc pieces. When you called someone, you had to shout, "Bon Sour One Frank!" very loudly.

  But Jonathan was puzzled about one detail. He turned to Lewis with a quizzical look on his face. "And what, may I ask, is the Ace of Nitwits?"

  "I don't know. It just came to me. I guess we'll know when we find it."

  Out came the red box of coins. Out came the blue and gold cards. Jonathan lit his pipe and unbuttoned his vest till it was only held together by the chain of paper clips. He got his dusty old gray fedora out of the closet and parked it on the back of his head. This, he explained, was the proper poker-playing costume.

  Jonathan shuffled and dealt. Shekels and guilders, ducats and florins, drachmas and didrachmas clattered over the table. At first the hands were ordinary. Pair of eights, nothing, kings and tens. Then people started getting six of a kind and cards with square-root signs and question marks all over them. Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann were not pulling any tricks. The strange cards appeared all by themselves. On they played, while the giant clock ticked and the organ played "Chopsticks" and the candles threw fruit and flower patterns or plain yellow splotches onto the gray moonlit grass outside.

  It was after a half hour of playing that Lewis picked up a card and found that he was staring at the Ace of Nitwits. There it was. Instead of clubs or hearts, it had ears of corn and green peppers all over it. In the center was a dopey-looking man in a flat black hat called a mortarboard, the kind of hat that college professors wear to graduations. Ice cream was heaped up on the hat, and the professor was tasting it with his index finger. Lewis showed the card around.

  "Why so it is!" cried Jonathan. "The Ace of Nitwits! I'd recognize it anywhere. Now just what does that mean, Lewis?"

  "It means you have to wear it stuck to your forehead with a piece of bubble gum. Here." Lewis took out the piece he had been chewing and handed it to Uncle Jonathan.

  "Thanks awfully," said Jonathan. He squashed the card against his forehead. "Now what?"

  "You get all done up and come down with the eight ball, like it says in the instructions."

  "Hm. Yes. Righty-ho, and all that sort of thing. See you, folks."

  Jonathan went upstairs. He stayed up there a long time, so long that the parlor organ broke into "Stars and Stripes Forever" out of pure boredom. Mrs. Zimmermann sat tapping her fingers on the table, while Lewis did what he always did when he was nervously waiting for somebody. He slapped the sides of his chair, rocked back and forth, and wiggled his right leg.

  "Well, here I am!"

  Mrs. Zimmermann and Lewis looked up. There at the head of the stairs stood Jonathan. He was wearing a cape made from a crazy quilt, and on his head was a flowered toaster cover Mrs. Zimmermann had made. The Ace of Nitwits was still glued to his forehead, and he bore in his hands a small, round, black object. As he started down the stairs, the organ played "Pomp and Circumstance," but it soon got tired of that and switched to radio commercials:

  Call for Cuticura

  It's fragrant, and pura

  It's mildly medicated too

  It's grand for you and yoo-hooo!

  Clark's Super One Hundred Gasoline

  Thousands say it's best!

  The largest-selling, independent gasoline

  In the Middle West!

  Super Suds, Super Suds

  Lots more suds from Super Su-u-uds

  Richer longer lasting too

  They're the ones with Super Doo-oo-oooo.

  To this solemn accompaniment, Jonathan advanced to the dining-room table and set down the black ball. It was one of those fortune-telling eight-balls, the kind you buy in dime stores. The ball was full of fluid, and when you shook it, ghostly white cards came floating up to the little window. There were only three of them: YES, NO, and MAYBE.

  "Now what?" asked Jonathan.

  "Ask it," said Lewis.

  "Ask it what?" Jonathan looked blank.

  "The circumference of the moon, you bearded booby!" screamed Mrs. Zimmermann. "Where I left my hat after the Chicago World's Fair! Now think a minute, Jonathan. What would you want to ask it?"

  "Where the clock is?" asked Jonathan in a small voice.

  A burst of rather mechanical applause came from the front room. It was the organ, smarting off as usual. Jonathan stuck his tongue out at it over his shoulder. Then he turned back to the table where the eight-ball lay.

  Carefully, reverently, he picked it up. He held it like a microphone and talked into it. "Where is the clock?"

  The dark window stayed dark. Jonathan shook the ball till the liquid inside it foamed. "Where is the clock?" he shouted, and he repeated this question in Greek, Latin, French, German, and Middle-Kingdom Egyptian. Still no answer.

  "Your French is terrible," said Mrs. Zimmermann, grabbing the ball out of his hand. "Here... let me try."

  Holding the ball under a corner of her cloak as if she were protecting it from rain, Mrs. Zimmermann jabbered at it in Bengali, Finno-Ugric, Basque, Old High Norse, and Geez. She used all the commands for unlocking the secrets of specular stones that are favored by Regiomontanus, Albertus Magnus, and Count Cagliostro. Still nothing.

  "Can I try?" asked Lewis. His voice was timid and weak.

  Mrs. Zimmermann looked down at him. Perspiration was pouring along all the wrinkles of her face. Her eyes looked wild. "What did you say?"

  "I wonder if I might try. I know I'm not a wizard or anything, but it is my ball. I bought it in Chicago and..."

  "Of course!" cried Mrs. Zimmermann, pounding the table with her fist. "Of course! What fools we are! Like any magic object, it only responds to its owner. Here. But hurry!" She shoved the ball into his hands.

 
The ticking of the clock got softer, but it was faster now.

  Lewis held the magic toy up before his face. His voice was calm and quiet. "Please tell us where the clock is," he whispered.

  There was motion inside the ball, YES drifted out of the void like a ghostly newspaper in a black wind. It passed by. So did NO and MAYBE. Finally, after several tense minutes, a card appeared bearing the words: COAL PIT.

  "It says coal pit." Lewis's voice was dull and lifeless now. He hung his head.

  "May I see the ball?" said Jonathan softly. Lewis handed it to him.

  Jonathan held the ball up to the light. He wrinkled his forehead, and the Ace of Nitwits fluttered away to the floor. "Yes, it certainly says 'coal pit.' Coal pit? Coal pit? What the devil does it mean by saying that?" Jonathan glowered at the shiny little ball. He was beginning to think it might be nice to dash the wretched thing against the mantelpiece.

  Suddenly the ball hiccuped. Jonathan glanced quickly down at it, and saw that the little window was filled with bubbles.

  "Oh, good grief! Look at this, Florence. Now it thinks it's a Bendix washer. Shall we get out the ouija board?"

  "Wait a minute," said Mrs. Zimmermann. "It looks like the bubbles are starting to break up."

  Lewis, Jonathan, and Mrs. Zimmermann watched breathlessly as the little bubbles popped, one by one. Pop, pop, pop. It seemed to take forever. Meanwhile, the clock ticked.

  At last the window was clear. Now the sign said: COAL BIN.

  "Oh, great!" said Jonathan. "Just great! Now it says coal bin! That's a big improvement."

  "Don't you have a coal bin?" asked Mrs. Zimmermann.

  Jonathan gave her an irritated look. "Of course not, Florence! You ought to know that. Remember, I switched to oil when I bought this... oh! Oh!" Jonathan clapped his hands over his mouth. "Oh! I think I see! Come on, everybody. We're going to the basement."

  Lewis and Mrs. Zimmermann followed Jonathan to the kitchen. He opened the cellar door, and jumped back as if he had been hit in the face. The ticking down there was thunderous.

  Jonathan looked at Mrs. Zimmermann. His face was haggard, and his eyes were wide with fear. "Got your umbrella, Florence? Good. Then down we go."

  Over in a black sooty corner of the basement was the old coal bin. Two of its walls were formed by gray slats nailed to worm-eaten wooden pillars. The other two walls were whitewashed stone, and up against one of these lay a high rampart of coal. It had been there when Jonathan moved in, and he had always meant to have it hauled away.

  "I certainly get the idiot prize," he said quietly. Jonathan took a long backswing and started shoveling. Lewis and Mrs. Zimmermann helped with their hands. Before long they had cleared all the coal away from the wall.

  "Doesn't look like there's any secret panel," said Jonathan, feeling around for springs and hidden levers. "But then, if it looked that way, it wouldn't be secret, would it? Hmm... no... nothing. I'm afraid we'll have to use the pick. Stand back, everybody."

  Lewis and Mrs. Zimmermann got well away from the wall, and Jonathan started swinging. By now the ticking was hurried and staccato, and the blows of the pick were like heavy beats in the rhythm. Every stroke sent whitish-gray chips flying in all directions. But it was an easier job than anyone would have thought. The wall began to shake and crumble at Jonathan's first stroke, and the whole solid-looking mass was soon lying in pieces on the hard dirt floor of the cellar. For it had not been a real wall, but merely a plaster mock-up. What lay behind was a weathered, old wooden door with a black china knob. There was a lock plate, but there was no keyhole.

  Jonathan leaned his pick up against a pillar and stepped back.

  "Don't dawdle!" said Mrs. Zimmermann nervously. "Get that door open! I have a feeling that we are on the very edge of disaster."

  Jonathan stood there rubbing his chin. Exasperated, Mrs. Zimmermann grabbed his arm and started to shake it. "Hurry, Jonathan! What on earth are you waiting for?"

  "I'm trying to think of door-opening spells. Know any?"

  "Why not pull at it?" said Lewis. "It may not be locked."

  Jonathan was about to say that he had never heard of anything so stupid in all his life. But he never got a chance to say this. The door opened all by itself.

  Jonathan, Mrs. Zimmermann, and Lewis stared. They were looking down a long corridor—more like a mine shaft it was, really, with square wooden arches diminishing into the dark distance. Something vague and gray was moving at the far end of the tunnel. It seemed to be getting closer.

  "Look!" cried Lewis.

  He was not pointing at the gray shape. He was pointing at something that was sitting on the floor of the tunnel, right there at their feet.

  A clock. A plain, old, Waterbury eight-day clock.

  Its pendulum oscillated madly behind a little glass door, and it was making a sound like a Geiger counter gone crazy.

  "I'm so glad you've done my work for me," said a voice behind them. Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann spun around and froze. Really froze. They could not move their hands or feet or heads. They couldn't even wiggle their ears. They were completely paralyzed, though they could still see and hear.

  There stood Mrs. Izard. Or Mrs. O'Meagher, or whatever name you choose. She was wearing a black-velvet cloak with an ivory brooch at her neck. The brooch bore a raised Greek omega. In her right hand was a plain black rod, and in her left she carried what looked like a severed hand with a lighted candle growing out of its back. Concentric rings of yellow light spread outward from the hand, and through them Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann could see Mrs. Izard's glasses, which looked like tablets of gray slate.

  "I do hope you haven't tired yourselves, my dears," said the old woman in a nasty, sneering voice. "I do hope you haven't. But if you have, it's all been in a good cause. I couldn't have done anything without you. Not a thing. Because, you see, since I was set free, I've been able to pass through walls and doors, but these poor old hands of mine just haven't been able to wield tools. I even had to get Mr. Hammerhandle to find this for me."

  She let go of her wand—it stood up by itself—and reached deep into the folds of her cloak. What she brought out was a greenish copper key. She held it up and turned it around. "Pretty, isn't it? I told him where to look, but he had to do the work. He's really been very good at following directions, and he made it quite easy for me to set up light housekeeping across the street. But, alas, that is all over and done with. You played right into my hands as I thought you would. Did you really think you had defeated me, you foolish old biddy? You merely hastened the Day of Judgment. And it is at hand. My Lord and master is coming to meet us. And when he arrives it will be a very different world. Very different, I assure you. Let me see... you two will change first, I think." She pointed at Jonathan and then at Mrs. Zimmermann. "Yes, that's the way it will be. You two first, so Sonny here can watch. You'll want to watch, won't you, Lewis?"

  Lewis stood with his back to Mrs. Izard. He was as still as a clothes-store dummy.

  "Turn around, Lewis," said Mrs. Izard, in that nasty-sweet voice she had used from the beginning. "Don't you want to kiss your old Auntie Izard?"

  He didn't move.

  "Come now, Lewis. I command you. Don't be foolish. It'll just make things worse for you in the end. Turn around, I say!"

  Lewis's body grew tense, and then he rushed forward into the tunnel. He picked up the clock, which had just begun to make that whirring sound clocks make when they are going to strike the hour.

  "Stop, boy!" shouted Mrs. Izard. "Stop, you filthy fat pig! I'll turn you into something that your own mother wouldn't—don't you dare! Don't...."

  Lewis threw the clock down. There was a sproinging of uncoiled springs and a clatter of cogs and a splintering of wood and a tinkle of broken glass. He reached down into the wreckage and ripped the pendulum free of the works, which were still buzzing furiously. At that moment, a figure which stood only a few yards from Lewis, the figure of an elderly man in a rotting black Sunday suit, vanished. The
n there was an awful shriek, a loud, inhuman sound like a siren at the top of its wail. It filled the air and seemed to turn it red. Lewis covered his ears, but the sound was inside his head and in the marrow of his bones. And then it was gone.

  He turned around. There stood Jonathan, smiling and trying to blink away the tears in his eyes. There stood Mrs. Zimmermann, smiling even more broadly. And behind them, on the cellar floor, under a swaying bare bulb, lay a crumpled pile of black cloth. A yellow skull was staring up out of it, staring up in gap-jawed amazement. A few wisps of gray hair clung to the crevices in the smooth dome, and over the empty eyeholes a pair of rimless glasses was perched. The glasses were shattered.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Three days after the destruction of Mrs. Izard and her magic clock, Jonathan, Mrs. Zimmermann, and Lewis were sitting around a bonfire in the driveway of the house at 100 High Street. It was a chilly night, and the stars were cold overhead, but the fire burned a warm, bright orange. Mrs. Zimmermann had a steaming earthenware pot of cocoa by her side. She kept it close to the fire so it would stay warm. Jonathan and Lewis stared at the fire and sipped cocoa from their mugs. It tasted very good.

  There was a pile of Isaac Izard's dusty papers in Jonathan's lap. Every now and then he would pick one up and throw it into the fire. Lewis watched each sheet as the fire licked at its corners, then blackened it, then wadded it into a fluffy ball of ashes.

  After a while Lewis said, "Uncle Jonathan?"

  "Yes, Lewis?"

  "Was Mrs. Izard really trying to make the world end?"

  "As far as I can tell, she was," said Jonathan. "And she would have done it, too, if you hadn't fixed her clock for her. But tell me, Lewis. Why didn't you turn around when we did?"

  Lewis smiled broadly. "I looked at the glass door on the clock and I saw the reflection of what Mrs. Izard was holding, and I knew it was a Hand of Glory. John L. Stoddard tells you all about Hands of Glory."

  "I'm glad he does," said Mrs. Zimmermann. "One look at that hand and you'd have been as numb as we were. But still, it took a great deal of courage for you to rush in and smash the clock. After all, you didn't know what would happen to you when you did that."