With an embarrassed grin, Mr. Keller said, “Well, yes I have. You see, the water has been cut off for years and years, and I’ve been under the house trying to get the rusty main valve to turn to the on position. Right now, the only water we have is from an outside tap, and—”
“Say no more!” said Uncle Jonathan. “I am a wizard at unclogging fouled drains, freeing rusty taps, and especially at opening recalcitrant valves! Your good wife was just about to take Mrs. Zimmermann on a quick tour of your home—”
“I was?” asked Mrs. Keller in a weak voice.
Uncle Jonathan did not seem to notice the interruption, but plowed right on:—“and that will give you and me an ample opportunity to bring that valve back to a sense of its proper duty. Lewis, you and David stay here in this room. Touch nothing, do you understand?”
Lewis nodded. David’s eyes were big and round, and when Uncle Jonathan and Mr. Keller left toward the back of the house and Mrs. Keller led Mrs. Zimmermann off to see the hallway and bedrooms, David demanded, “Wh-wh-what are thuh-they u-u-p to?”
Lewis grimaced. He was basically very honest, and he didn’t like lying to David, but what could he do? If only Rose Rita had come, she would have no problem spinning out some complicated but believable yarn about why Uncle Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann were behaving so strangely, but he felt pretty helpless. “Well,” he said slowly, “you have to understand that everybody in New Zebedee is pretty curious about this house. It’s been empty for a long time, and I guess they’ve just been wondering what kind of shape it’s in. Mr. Barlow is kind of a sharp operator, people say, and my uncle might want to be sure that he didn’t cheat your family when he sold them this place.”
David gave Lewis a very suspicious look.
Desperately trying to change the subject, Lewis walked to one of the tall, narrow shelves and picked up a bottle that had inside it a wooden model of a two-masted schooner. The hull was a deep blue, with a yellow stripe running around it, and the fore and aft sails were a sort of creamy tan color, like aged canvas. In tiny little white letters on the bow, the name Sword had been written in decorative script. Lewis marveled at how detailed the craft was. He said to David, “This is pretty neat. Do you and your dad build models or something?”
David shook his head. “N-n-no. All, all th-that suh-stuff w-was here when we muh-moved in, like Muh-Mom t-told you. I g-guess the muh-man who b-built the h-house made it.”
Lewis put the ship in a bottle down as if it had turned boiling hot. Just as he did, he felt the hair rising on the back of his neck and on his arms. Someone was groaning in terrible pain! It started out as a low sound, like “Ohhhhhhhhhh,” and then it became a rising moan, “Mmmmmoooooooo,” and it rose even further, into a wild, insane shriek, “Eewweeeee!”
David jumped about a foot and yelped, “What’s that?”
If only he could get his frozen legs to work, Lewis was ready to run out of the house, down the drive, and all the way back to his house, but at that moment the unearthly sound died away, and from outside he heard Jonathan’s hearty voice: “We’ve done it! The old pipes are complaining, but now you’ll have water!”
A few seconds later, Mr. Keller and Uncle Jonathan tramped in again, and Mr. Keller rushed straight down the hall to the right, the opposite direction from that taken by Mrs. Zimmermann and Mrs. Keller. Lewis heard a gushing, gurgling noise, and then Mr. Keller yelled, “It’s rusty-looking and it sounds like a screaming Mimi, but the water’s running in the kitchen!”
Uncle Jonathan paused to ask, “Everything all right, Lewis?”
When Lewis nodded, Uncle Jonathan raised his voice: “Excellent, Ernest, since we both need to wash our grimy hands!”
Mrs. Keller and Mrs. Zimmermann returned, with Mrs. Keller asking, “Ernest, what in the world is that horrible noise?”
A beaming Mr. Keller came from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a white towel embroidered with pale blue ducks. “We have water!” he announced. “The taps may look like antiques, but they work. All the rust has cleared up, the water is running clear, and now we can make this place livable. Oh, Mr. Barnavelt, the guest bathroom is the first door on the left. There’s some Borax hand soap and some old towels in there if you want to wash up.”
“It’s Jonathan, and I would love to scrub my hands, thank you very much.”
The Kellers, who really seemed to be a very kind couple, shyly invited everyone to stay for dinner—“It’s only bologna sandwiches, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Keller apologetically, “but we’d love to share them with you.”
Lewis saw Uncle Jonathan dart a quick glance at Mrs. Zimmermann, and he saw her give her head one swift, negative shake. Uncle Jonathan said, “Why, that’s very nice of you, Evelyn, but we have things to do. Thank you for letting David come over today, though. We all enjoyed his company, and Lewis and I hope you’ll let him visit just as often as he likes.”
Mrs. Keller fondly ruffled David’s hair. Lewis saw him wince, and from his expression, Lewis understood that David felt embarrassed.
They said their good-byes, and as they approached the old car, Uncle Jonathan asked, “Well, Florence? Did your super-duper magic radar detector find any ghosts or ghouls? Spill everything.”
“Shh!” warned Mrs. Zimmermann.
Lewis turned. David stood on the veranda, looking shocked. He must have heard Uncle Jonathan’s crack about ghosts.
“Sorry,” muttered Jonathan. Once they were in the car, he repeated, “Well? Did you detect anything?”
“You didn’t find anything, I know,” returned Mrs. Zimmermann.
“Nothing except a rusty old water valve and a few thousand cobwebs. You know, if the winter is cold, those old pipes under the house are going to freeze and burst, as sure as bunnies come from top hats. I warned Ernest to wrap them all in insulation, though, and maybe he’ll take my advice. What could have possessed Abediah Chadwick to build such a ridiculous structure in these parts? But tell me, Florence, did you sense anything wrong?”
For a few seconds, Mrs. Zimmermann didn’t answer. Then, as if hating to admit it, she said, “No. Nothing specific. Nobody’s cast any evil spells in that house. But there’s something I don’t like about it, something I can’t put my finger on. You must have felt it, too, even though your magical antennae aren’t exactly the greatest.”
“Well, I wouldn’t live there,” said Jonathan. “I couldn’t find anything actively evil either, but you’re right about the bad creepy-crawly feeling, like knowing there’s a robber hiding quiet beside a lonely road, waiting for you in the dark of night. Lewis, did anything happen when you and David were alone in the living room?”
“No,” admitted Lewis. “The racket the pipes made kind of scared us, but that was all.”
They didn’t say anything else. The car drove on through the evening twilight, turned onto Main Street and then onto Mansion and then High Street, and Jonathan let Mrs. Zimmermann and Lewis out in front of the house before he drove around back to the garage. A few bright stars already glittered overhead. Mrs. Zimmermann put a hand on Lewis’s shoulder, lightly. “You’re going to have to pay very close attention to your friend David,” she said softly. “Think of yourself as a kind of spy. There are dangers around the Keller family, dangers that I cannot even guess at, and you will have to be alert to any hint of them.”
Lewis groaned inwardly. He knew he was not brave, and he dreaded the thought of having to check up on David and having to lie to him. He almost regretted the friendly impulse that had led him to wave David over to the table in the lunchroom at school. But he nodded miserably. “I guess I’ll have to do it,” he said.
For the next few days, it seemed to Lewis as if he were off the hook. David didn’t appear to want his friendship. At school, David tried to eat his lunch as far away from anybody else as he could, slipping to the end of a table where only two or three other kids were sitting. He avoided the bullies as much as possible, and when they caught him, he just balled up his fists, lowered his head,
and stubbornly outwaited them. Sometimes he would talk a little to Rose Rita, but he hardly had a word for Lewis.
The next Saturday, while the two of them were sitting in the public library and working on their English homework, Rose Rita tried to explain things to Lewis. “I think Mrs. Zimmermann and your uncle really spooked him. From what little he says, they acted pretty odd when they visited.”
“Well,” objected Lewis, “they were trying to check out the house to see if nefarious magic spells were at work, like the one old Isaac Izard left behind him in our house.”
“But they didn’t find anything.”
Lewis took a deep breath, inhaling the smells of the library, the ink the librarians used to stamp the date cards, the oily sweeping compound that left the tile floor shiny, and most of all the wonderful, spicy-dusty scent of row on row of books. He hated to admit that his uncle had struck out. “That doesn’t mean nothing is wrong,” he insisted.
Rose Rita punched her glasses back into place on her nose. “David says he’s having bad dreams.”
Lewis closed his eyes and thought, I don’t want to hear about this.
But Rose Rita went on: “David says that some nights he thinks he hears a lot of drums pounding away in the distance, and other times it’s like voices chanting just too far away to be sure he’s hearing them at all. And yesterday he said that night before last, he woke up very late, and someone was standing right beside his bed, holding a hand spread out just above his face. David felt like he was frozen. He couldn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t even breathe.”
Lewis wanted to ask her to stop, but he was afraid his voice would squeak out of sheer dread. He shook his head, wanting to signal her to change the subject.
“Then he heard his dad start to snore,” continued Rose Rita. “And that made whatever it was fade away. David could breathe again, but he was so scared he couldn’t even yell. He hid under his sheet like a little kid until—”
“He told you all that?” asked Lewis.
Rose Rita nodded. “During afternoon study break,” she said. “Of course, he had a hard time talking about it, but he eventually told me the whole story. He looks awful, Lewis. His eyes are all red and baggy. I don’t think he’s getting enough sleep.”
Lewis said, “Uncle Jonathan made a kind of joke about ghosts. That might explain the dreams.” Rose Rita did not reply and at last he asked, “Have you told Mrs. Zimmermann about it?”
“I called her yesterday as soon as I got home from school.”
“What did she think?”
Rose Rita shook her head. “She just told me that dreams are dreams, and they can’t hurt you. But she said something else. Dreams can be caused by real things. And real things can be pretty dangerous.”
They worked on their English assignment for a while longer, but Lewis had a hard time concentrating. He kept imagining what it would be like to wake up in a pitch-dark room, paralyzed. And he kept thinking of how it would be to sense some evil, unseen creature hunched at his bedside and to know that in the darkness an inhuman hand was poised just inches above his face, coming closer and closer, the fingers slightly clenched, the nails like claws....
Lewis shivered. He couldn’t help imagining what it must have been like for David, and he wanted more than ever not to have to go any further with the whole business. If something like that horrible dream happened to him, if he had an experience like the one David had described to Rose Rita—
Well, Lewis thought, he would just about lose his mind.
CHAPTER 7
SEPTEMBER WORE ON, AND the maples began to glow yellow and red. The days were still warm, but evenings began to grow chilly, and one morning Lewis woke up to see the delicate lace of frost on his bedroom window. He settled down into the routine of school and grew used to dashing from one class to another one.
David became a little less skittish, and from time to time he would talk to Lewis about this and that—but never about any nightmares. He didn’t want to discuss his house either, or his family. Lewis didn’t care to bring up the subject of ghosts, so they had little to talk about. Rose Rita was right, though: David looked terrible, as if he never got enough sleep. He had lost some weight, and his bloodshot eyes darted at any sudden sound. Lewis couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Like David, once or twice in his life Lewis had been burdened by troubles and secrets he was reluctant to discuss with anyone, even his uncle. Still, he couldn’t force David to open up. All he could do was to give his new friend some time and a sympathetic ear. And there was a lot to like about David: He didn’t fight the bullies, but he didn’t back down either. He was very smart at math and he liked baseball almost as much as Rose Rita did. Lewis liked him, though he found the friendship a little difficult to maintain when he had to be so careful not to bring up subjects that would upset David.
Late one Friday afternoon toward the end of the month, Uncle Jonathan asked Lewis if David was ever going to come over again. “I don’t know,” confessed Lewis. “He doesn’t seem to get away from home very much.”
They were sitting in the parlor of 100 High Street, watching the evening news on the nifty Zenith Stratocaster television set that Uncle Jonathan had installed. It had a gleaming wood cabinet and a perfectly circular screen, like the porthole of a ship. Lewis gazed at the flickering black-and-white image of a weatherman who was explaining that the weekend would be partly cloudy with some chance of rain. Lewis was lying on his side on the sofa, his neck propped up with a plush cushion that had a red maple leaf on it, together with the words “Souvenir of Halifax.” Lewis had never been to Halifax and in fact was not quite sure of exactly where it was, but Uncle Jonathan’s house was full of odds and ends like that.
Uncle Jonathan sat silent for a long time. He had a pipe in his mouth. Some time back, he had been through a bout of bronchitis and had given up smoking on a dare from Mrs. Zimmermann, who herself had once smoked funny little crooked cigars. He had double-dog-dared her to quit too, and neither of them now touched tobacco, but when he was feeling thoughtful, Jonathan still liked to clench his teeth on a pipe. If he were in a good mood, sometimes he would cast a magic spell so that the bowl glowed bright colors and huge, wonderful shimmering bubbles popped out of the pipe, filled with lifelike figures doing odd things: Mr. Beemuth, the bald, stern-faced science teacher might be seen wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes, or a little figure that looked like Lewis might be riding a bucking bronco while juggling three lemon meringue pies. Jonathan was not in a particularly frivolous mood that afternoon, so the pipe bowl remained dark and bubble-less.
After a few thoughtful minutes, Jonathan said, “Well, if David was scared by our visit to his house, that’s understandable. Florence and I had to get in somehow and check things out, and we may have been too blundering and obvious for his peace of mind. Maybe you could go over to his house some afternoon, just to make sure nothing odd is going on.”
Lewis’s face felt hot. “I’m no good at that!” he objected. “Rose Rita is braver than I am and smarter than I am, so if you want someone to spy on the Kellers, ask her.”
Uncle Jonathan looked startled. He turned in his chair and took the pipe from his mouth, his eyes wide. Then he said, “Oh, Lewis, don’t take what I said the wrong way. Sure, I’m worried about the Kellers, and about the Hawaii House. Whatever happened there nearly eighty years ago has the funny taste of the uncanny about it. But I wasn’t criticizing you or questioning your courage, and I would never ask you to put yourself into danger.”
“I’m not afraid,” insisted Lewis.
“Of course not,” replied his uncle. “I never thought you were.” He sighed. “All right, let’s leave it at this: If David asks for your help, or if he begins to talk about anything that sounds odd, let me know. That’s not spying—it’s just being friendly. If this business is getting to you, I’d rather you stay on the sidelines. All right?”
“All right,” muttered Lewis, though he felt as if he had let David down somehow.
&n
bsp; Uncle Jonathan stood up and stretched. As usual, he was dressed casually in khaki wash pants, a blue long-sleeved shirt, and his old red vest with four pockets. The vest hung open, but now Uncle Jonathan carefully buttoned it up. “It won’t be long before the weather turns cold for keeps,” he said. “These balmy evenings aren’t long for this world. Let’s see if Rose Rita wants to join us on an excursion downtown, and we’ll gorge ourselves on banana splits. I’m in a walking mood!”
Lewis loved banana splits. He still felt a little guilty, because his uncle rarely asked anything of him. Uncle Jonathan had a knack of treating Lewis as if he were an adult, and somehow he had enough kid in him to meet Lewis more than halfway. Now when Uncle Jonathan made a simple request, Lewis couldn’t get up the nerve to do as he asked. Something about the Hawaii House scared him, and he never wanted to go there again.
Uncle Jonathan paused in the front hall to take his favorite cane from the blue vase, and as he did, he happened to glance into the little round mirror on the coat rack. He had idly enchanted the mirror many years before, so that sometimes instead of reflecting your face it showed random scenes from exotic corners of the world, and sometimes it received radio broadcasts from WGN in Chicago. Every so often it also dipped into history or what seemed to be the future, and it had given Lewis glimpses of a team of workers building an Egyptian pyramid and a giant rocket blasting off into the heavens. Jonathan took a step back and lowered his chin as he stared into the mirror, muttering, “Hum! That’s strange. I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.”
Lewis craned around him and saw that the circle of glass pulsated and flickered with brilliant flashes of orange light. An incandescent fountain jetted up, turned ruddy, and then fell in glowing globs through the dark air again. It looked very much like the fountain downtown, if the fountain had been made of glaring light instead of water. “What is it?”
The House Where Nobody Lived Page 4