by Dan Poblocki
From the corner of the room came a low moan that slowly crumbled into an angry growl.
“Leave us alone,” said Harris, through his teeth.
Eddie refused to look.
Leaning forward, all three of them continued the translation.
It was then I realized I needed a new plan. I was in a mess of my own making. I had been so selfish and needed to fix the situation. Simply putting away my pen would not be enough. If I stopped writing her story, the Woman would drive me into madness and then wait for someone else to finish the job. Since I had started this catastrophe, I knew I would end it. Rather than wait for her to find me, I would find her.
But first, I needed to open the gate.
It took me a day to figure out how, but once I thought of it, the answer seemed obvious. I would write my own story using the pendant, the same way I had written all of my books. When I finished, the statue would glow blue and the portal would open for me. I would go through the gate, into the dark realm, and put an end to the Woman in Black before she had a chance to follow me home.
Eddie …, a voice said from the corner of the room.
Trembling, Eddie tried to ignore everything but The Enigmatic Manuscript. As he focused on the book and continued to work, the distractions began to diminish, as if the Woman in Black had no power if he simply didn’t acknowledge her presence.
In order for my plan to work, I needed to prepare. As I grasped the silver chain, I was certain that I would not be able to take anything with me—not the book, and most certainly not the pendant.
I knew I needed to write my story, but in leaving it behind, I understood how dangerous the book would be if it fell into the wrong hands. It would act as a set of indestructible instructions, a record of what I had done. Anyone who found and read it would know how to open the gate too. It had been easy enough for me to do it, even unwittingly. And if I failed to destroy the Woman in Black, if she destroyed me first, then there would still be the possibility for her to come through. I decided to write my story in a way that would be difficult to read and leave no evidence. I would need to write the story in code.
Grabbing the pendant, I hastily jotted down a code key in the blank space where I had stopped writing The Wish of the Woman in Black. I opened to the first page of an empty notebook from the local bookstore and drew the chet symbol, as usual. Then, using the new alphabet to translate as I wrote, I began my own story.
Only later did I realize my mistake. In using the pendant to write the code, I’d made it permanent. I knew I’d have to finish quickly, then hide The Wish of the Woman in Black and the code key somewhere no one would ever find it in my absence. A separate place, away from the book containing my own story. I decided to dig a hole underneath a stone in my basement. It seemed appropriate, like a character had done in The Witch’s Doom.
After that, I would need to hide my own story and the pendant where they would be protected. The idea for the perfect place came to me from another of my books.
The lake.
If anyone ever came close to the water, just like in The Rumor of the Haunted Nunnery, the dogs would chase him away. The animals would guard my two relics—the pendant and my book. After trying to destroy The Wish of the Woman in Black, I already knew that the water would not hurt my new book’s pages. If the pendant eventually became oxidized and rusted, then no one would ever be able to open the gate again, though I doubted such good fortune.
I buried The Wish of the Woman in Black under the stone in my basement. That night, I brought the still-unfinished story of my life, the pendant, a canvas bag, and a metal box with me into the woods.
In the clearing, my flashlight swept across the stone girl’s face. Ignoring her, I made my way down the hill toward the lake. The water reflected the stars. I placed the bag onto the shore and reached inside. I pulled out the pendant and the notebook. I turned to the end and began to write. I have been doing so ever since. …
I’ve written everything on the past two pages only moments ago. Here I stand on the edge of this nameless lake in the middle of these nameless woods. I’ve finally caught up to myself.
When I finish this last paragraph, I will stand up and place the notebook and the pendant into the bag. I will place the bag in the box. After that is done, I will close the box and throw it into the lake as far as my strength will allow. I will watch the box sink. Finally, I will climb the hill toward the clearing where the statue will be waiting, I hope, to let me through. What happens after that is a story for when I return … if I return. Even though this isn’t over, I must write The End or it won’t work. So here goes. …
The End.
There was silence.
Finally, Harris said, “But what did happen after that?” “Maybe there’s more,” said Eddie. “Maybe there’s another book.”
Harris flashed him a grimace. “There’s no other book, Eddie. This is it. The end. He wrote it right here.”
“But it’s not the end,” said Eddie. “We can’t give up now. The Woman in Black is still haunting Gatesweed, which means that Nathaniel didn’t succeed.”
“Does that mean we should try?” said Maggie.
“Of course we should try,” said Eddie.
“Hold on a second,” said Maggie. “According to this book, the Woman in Black really has no power to harm us or anyone in Gatesweed, right? Other than her being truly creepy, what’s the real danger of just leaving her alone?”
“The danger,” said Eddie, “is the possibility of danger. We’re talking about the end of the world! If we have the power to stop her, we should do it. She’s there, watching and waiting for someone just like Nathaniel to come along so she can use him to do what she wants. As long as she exists, she’s going to want someone to open the stone child’s gate.”
“But in order for that to happen,” said Maggie, “someone would need to have the pendant. The one he used to write all of his books. And it’s at the bottom of the lake, right?”
Harris and Eddie glanced at each other.
“What’s wrong?” said Maggie.
“I guess you should show her,” said Eddie.
Harris went over to his desk. He turned on his computer. After typing Nathaniel Olmstead’s name into the search engine, he said, “Here. Look.” On the screen was the article that Harris had showed Eddie at the beginning of the month. Harris read part of it aloud, “‘When the lake was dredged, police discovered a small metal box. The nature of its contents is being kept secret as the investigation is ongoing. However, an anonymous source has exclusively revealed that this secret evidence has itself mysteriously disappeared.’”
“Oh no,” said Maggie. “The book and the pendant were in the box.”
Harris nodded. “The police pulled the box out of the lake. If we have The Enigmatic Manuscript, that means it’s possible that someone else has the pendant.”
“Right,” said Eddie. “It’s only a matter of time before this all happens again to someone else. The Woman in Black is not going to stop until she gets what she wants.”
“Unless we stop her,” said Harris. “Like Nathaniel tried to do.”
“But how?” said Maggie.
They sat in silence for a few seconds.
“Maybe the answer is still in The Enigmatic Manuscript,” said Eddie. “Could we have missed something?”
Harris’s bedroom door swung open, and they all screamed.
Frances stood in the doorway, smiling. “Gosh, you are jumpy today! Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but soup’s on.”
Harris groaned, “Mom! You have to stop scaring us like that.”
When they finished eating dinner, Eddie, Harris, and Maggie decided to spend the rest of the night thinking about what they’d read.
After everything that had happened, Eddie was frightened to ride home alone, but he knew he needed to be brave. He pedaled as fast as he could, and by the time he made it up the steep road, Eddie was out of breath. He parked his bike in the barn but paused at
the walkway that led to the front door. He looked down at Gatesweed. The streetlamps glittered in their concentric circles at the bottom of the hill, like firelight reflecting off ripples in a dark pool of water.
Tonight, a shadow was descending, a gathering darkness, and it was not merely the fallen night. Something sinister is hiding in the corners of this town, and everybody senses it, Eddie thought. They’re too scared to acknowledge it. Even if people could comprehend what had happened to Nathaniel, Eddie had a feeling they still would keep it a secret.
Harris, Maggie, and Eddie were different. He now understood their responsibility.
Part of him wanted to beg his parents to take him away, yet something was telling him to stay. He had found his first true friends here. The secret of the stone child had bound them together. They couldn’t leave the mystery unsolved. A character in a Nathaniel Olmstead story would never allow that to happen.
The wind tickled his neck and mussed his hair with its cold fingers. Eddie shivered. It was time to go inside.
16
When the phone rang on Saturday morning, Eddie was still in bed. Moments later, his mother knocked on his door.
“It’s for you,” she said, and handed him the phone.
Eddie sat up and said, “Hello?” Harris was on the other end of the line. He asked Eddie to come apple picking with him and Frances. Eddie had never done anything like that before, but it sounded fun. It would be a pleasant distraction from everything else.
“I thought your mother’s store was open today,” Eddie said.
“It is,” said Harris, “but since we’re open later for the reading tonight, my mom thought she’d take the morning off. I heard your mother’s gonna read something she wrote. That’s so cool!”
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “I know.”
Around noon, Frances and Harris picked him up, and they drove west along Black Ribbon Road. To Eddie’s surprise, she turned left into Maggie’s driveway. Maggie was waiting for them outside the small house. She wore a long black coat and a red scarf. She ran to the car and got into the backseat, next to Eddie. “Hi, Ms. May. Hi, Eddie,” she said. Then she quietly added, “Thanks for inviting me, Harris.”
Harris mumbled something that sounded like “You’re welcome.” As Frances looked over her shoulder and backed out of the driveway, Eddie noticed that she wore a tiny smile.
The apple orchard a few miles north of Gatesweed was much larger than the overgrown one behind Nathaniel Olmstead’s house. Together, they picked four big bags of apples, tasting them as they went along. McIntosh were the sweetest—Eddie’s favorite. After that, they each chose a pumpkin from the farm stand.
When Frances wandered away to look for mums for the front porch, Eddie, Harris, and Maggie huddled together and sipped on cider.
“Do you think the Woman in Black will go away now that we finished reading The Enigmatic Manuscript?” said Maggie.
“Maybe,” said Harris. “Unless we figure out what she didn’t want us to know.”
Before they could continue, Frances waved to them from the counter near the cash register. She needed help carrying the flowers back to her car. Eddie lifted two small plastic buckets filled with burgundy blossoms off the ground and hugged them to his chest. As he carried them to Frances’s car, their pungent scent tickled his nose. Harris and Maggie helped him place them into the trunk of the car, unable now to discuss what they were all secretly thinking about.
Back in Gatesweed, they spent the afternoon helping Frances organize the store for the reading. Eddie set up several rows of folding chairs. Upstairs in the kitchen, Maggie helped Frances put together a couple plates filled with cheese and crackers. Harris went through the store with a feather duster, cleaning places that hadn’t been touched in weeks.
As they worked into dusk, Eddie half expected the Woman in Black to appear again. Something told him she wasn’t through with them yet.
Eventually, a few people showed up for the reading. Eddie thought it was nice that Frances had some town support. It was not a large audience, but there were enough people to create a small din. When Eddie saw his own mother and father, he gave them both a big hug. His father wore a tweed jacket and a navy blue tie. His mother wore a simple charcoal-colored dress with a fuzzy red shawl draped across her shoulders.
“Mom, you look pretty,” Eddie said as he took a seat next to her. He saved two chairs on the other side for Maggie and Harris.
“Thanks, honey,” she said. She tapped her foot on the chair in front of her.
“Are you nervous?”
“A little bit. It’s silly, I know—this is a small bookstore in the middle of nowhere,” said Mom.
“It’s not silly,” said Eddie. “I can’t wait to hear your story.”
“Well, the story isn’t quite finished.”
“But you’re not reading the whole thing, right?” said Eddie.
“No, only the very first part. I’ll feel better once I finish. I think I only have a couple pages left. I’d like to be done by tomorrow.”
“Wow,” said Eddie. “It only took you a month to write a whole book?”
Mom smiled. “What can I say? Since we moved here, I’ve been feeling inspired!”
A couple minutes later, Frances stood before the audience and thanked everyone for coming. Harris and Maggie sat down next to Eddie. Frances introduced the first reader, who happened to be a substitute teacher at Eddie’s school. She read a short poem about her cat. Next came one of the high school students, who read an essay he’d written for his English class. That was followed by an elderly woman who read a picture book about tadpoles that her daughter had written. Eddie didn’t listen to a single word. In his head, Nathaniel Olmstead’s story churned around and around, like storm clouds gathering and growing.
Finally, Frances stood up and introduced Eddie’s mom. She clenched her husband’s hand, then leaned toward Eddie and whispered in his ear, “Wish me luck!” She squeezed past him and made her way up the aisle to the front of the audience.
“Good luck,” he whispered back.
She stood beside the table Frances had set up as a podium. In her hands, she held a small notebook. Eddie closed his eyes and leaned forward to pay close attention to his mother’s story. Eddie’s mother lifted the cover of her notebook and took a deep breath. “The piece I’ll be reading is an excerpt from a larger work called The Dark Mistress’s Desire.” Then she began to read. “‘In the town of Coxglenn, children feared the fall of night. It wasn’t the darkness that frightened them—it was sleep. For when they lay in bed and closed their eyes, she watched them.’”
Eddie felt his stomach turn to ice. What was going on here?
His mother was reading the story Harris had pulled from the hole in Nathaniel Olmstead’s basement earlier that week! She couldn’t have written these words, could she? The Dark Mistress’s Desire. The Wish of the Woman in Black. The titles were eerily similar, but the stories were exactly the same—the descriptions of the town, the main characters, the plot.
Harris reached out and grabbed Eddie’s arm. He mouthed the words, What is she doing?
Eddie shook his head and tried to ignore him. His heart pounded silently as his mother read the first chapter of her first book to her first audience. He wanted to stand up, to shout for her to stop, to explain herself, but he couldn’t do that, of course. Not only would he embarrass himself and his family, but it would bring attention to the fear he felt inside, and it was the fear that frightened him most. He was certain this was the work of the Woman in Black, that she was watching him even now. Was this merely one of the Woman’s illusions? Was it possible that Mom was currently reading a different story, but the Woman in Black was making him hear this one?
Eddie almost couldn’t stand to listen to the rest, but finally his mother finished. The audience slowly began to applaud. Eddie turned around. Though most of the crowd appeared to be enthusiastic, several people looked upset. He heard someone behind him say, “I think we’ve got
another Nathaniel Olmstead in our midst. …” Eddie couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a compliment.
The words echoed in his head.
Another Nathaniel Olmstead … Another Nathaniel Olmstead …
Slowly, the puzzle pieces started to fit together.
He leapt to his feet, stepping past Maggie and Harris into the aisle. Turning around, he waved to them and quietly said, “Follow me.” Without waiting for the audience to stop clapping, he made his way through the store, out the door, and onto the front porch. Harris and Maggie were close behind.
Harris shut the door and said, “What the heck is going on? Did you tell your mother about the book we found in Nathaniel’s basement? Is that why she wrote all that?”
“No,” said Eddie. “I didn’t tell her a thing.”
“Did she find the book? The Wish of the Woman in Black? Did she copy it?” said Harris.
Eddie shook his head.
“So how did she—” Maggie began, but then she interrupted herself, her realization dawning. “Oh my gosh …”
“Is someone going to tell me what’s happening here?” said Harris.
Eddie cleared his throat. “I think I know the real reason my family moved to Gatesweed.”
The door opened and Dad’s face appeared. He looked annoyed. “Edgar, come back inside and tell your mother what you thought of her story. She’s waiting for you.”
Eddie opened his mouth to speak, but words wouldn’t come out. He glanced at his friends. Harris nodded toward the door, and Eddie reluctantly followed his father back inside. Harris and Maggie trailed behind him. Mom and Frances stood chatting near the food table. As Eddie approached, Mom turned and smiled at him.
“So what did you think?” she said.
“I’ll let you two talk,” said Frances, ruffling his hair and wandering off to greet her other customers.