by Sam Fisher
Morton could hardly believe his ears. “You think it’s just going to go away on its own?”
“It might,” James responded with a hint of impatience. “Either way we don’t want to do anything rash.”
Morton thought about Robbie’s possible Snarf sighting and wanted to ask James if that was part of his “magical echo” but thought better of it, mostly because by now they were walking along Hemlock Hill and Morton spotted Wendy leaning against the fence at the top of her yard. Wendy saw them approaching and waved anxiously, pointing to an imaginary watch on her wrist.
“Look, we’re going to have to discuss this later,” James said.
“But this is urgent,” Morton persisted.
“What’s urgent?” Wendy asked, now within earshot.
James and Morton came to a stop beside Wendy, and James made a big sigh. “If I explain it now, we’ll definitely miss practice,” he said.
“Does it have to do with the rats?” Wendy said.
“It’s a lot more than that,” Morton cut in before James had a chance to speak. “It’s something completely new, and we need to discuss it right away.”
Wendy gave James a questioning look, and James rubbed his forehead again. “It might be something new,” he finally admitted. “In any case, it can wait another hour. Wendy can come for supper and we can talk about it after Dad leaves for work, okay?”
Morton was forced to agree that this sounded reasonable, and James and Wendy continued along Hemlock Hill toward the tennis courts.
Just over an hour later, Morton was sitting at the table doing his history homework when, as promised, Wendy and James returned, and James asked if Wendy could stay for dinner. Dad, who was busily stirring pots and chopping up ingredients, of course agreed, proudly announcing that he was making one of his favorite dishes. The dish involved rice, lumpy cheese sauce, and sweet corn. He called it his “Globular Cluster,” and while this described it perfectly, Dad seemed incapable of understanding why the name was no more appetizing than the meal. Despite this, Wendy very politely ate everything on her plate and even offered to wash the dishes, which Morton helped her with because he knew from experience that Globular Cluster was very difficult to clean up, especially the pans, which usually had a thick rubbery coating on the inside that needed to be scraped off with a knife.
By the time Dad left, the sun had already gone down and a cold chill crept through the house, reminding Morton that winter was rapidly approaching. Melissa, who had been unusually quiet throughout dinner, decided to start a fire in the large fireplace in the living room. Morton whipped up some hot chocolate for them to drink, which was not only comfortingly warm but also helped wash away the peculiar aftertaste of supper.
Morton then told Wendy and Melissa about the inexplicable incident with Derek and his toy laser.
As soon as he had finished his tale, Melissa let out a dramatic sigh. “Well, if that’s not magic, then Dad’s a master chef.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Wendy said. “But where’s Robbie? Shouldn’t he be here for this?”
“Oh, he’s kind of busy with the band,” Morton said.
“Not that stupid punk band?” Melissa exclaimed. “I can’t believe he’d rather be out damaging his eardrums than hanging out with us.”
“Look, Robbie’s business is his own,” Morton said, surprised at just how annoyed the subject made him feel. “The important thing here is that magic is obviously still happening and we have to do something about it.”
“And by ‘do something,’ I presume you mean start messing with magic from Brown’s horrible book of spells,” Melissa said, glancing at James in a way that made Morton feel, not for the first time, as though they’d been talking about him behind his back.
“I’m not suggesting we ‘mess’ with anything,” Morton replied calmly, “but I think we obviously need to learn more about magic, and right now the only way I can think of to learn more is by taking a closer look at The Book of Portals.”
“And I still say it’s too soon,” James cut in. “And anyway, what do you expect to do with The Book of Portals? Conjure another Galosh and get it to eat all the rats?”
“Hey, that’s not such a bad idea,” Melissa said.
“Yes, it is a bad idea,” James said, gritting his teeth and glaring at Melissa. “Magic is dangerous, remember?”
Morton clutched his head in frustration. “Look, at least read the story before making a decision,” he said, and rushed to grab the Mutant Rodent issue from his schoolbag and place it open to the final page of the story.
Melissa, James, and Wendy stared for a long time at the image of a million rats swarming over the last survivors of the small town, who were attempting unsuccessfully to find refuge in a church.
“Don’t you ever get tired of the ‘and they were all eaten unhappily ever after’ endings?” Melissa said at last.
“I don’t write the stories,” Morton said. “But I’m telling you, if there’s any truth to this, then we’re going to need more than a few bags of rat pellets to get Dimvale back to normal.”
For the first time all evening, Morton thought he saw a shift in Melissa’s mood. “I guess that is pretty terrifying,” she said in a serious tone.
“But it’s just a drawing,” James said, directing his comments at Melissa. “Who says that’s what’s going to happen here?”
“I think James is right,” Wendy said. “It’s too soon to start messing with magic again.”
Morton was hardly surprised that Wendy was siding with James, but he turned hopefully to Melissa, who was still staring at the open comic on the table.
Melissa chewed on her lip for a long time, until James cleared his throat loudly. Melissa then glanced up at James, gave him a strange look, and said, “James is right. It’s too dangerous.”
James clapped his hands almost gleefully. “That settles it, then. It’s three against one, so let’s not hear any more talk of doing magic.”
Morton opened his mouth to protest, but James cut him off immediately. “Morton, we’ve made a decision. Now let’s not ruin the rest of the evening by arguing about it.”
“Ruin the evening?” Morton echoed, jumping to his feet. “You want to just sit here and make small talk as if everything is normal?”
“Well, it would make a nice change,” James said, in a tone that made it clear that was exactly what he wanted to do.
Morton felt his whole face flush with heat. Part of him could understand why nobody wanted to venture back into King’s attic and relive the horrifying memories of the time when Brown conjured a Galosh. But to blithely announce that their whole strategy for dealing with the ongoing outbreaks of magic was to intentionally ignore it was nothing short of suicidal.
“In that case, I’m going to bed,” Morton spluttered, and he stomped across the room, snatching his comic as he went. “And I’ll take this,” he added, “so that you guys don’t have to think any unpleasant thoughts while I’m gone.”
Morton had barely made it to his room when he started to feel embarrassed. It wasn’t at all like him to lose his temper and he wasn’t quite sure why he’d gotten so upset. There was something about the way James and Melissa had been behaving since the appearance of the rats that gave him the feeling that they were conspiring against him.
Morton changed wearily into his pajamas and clambered into bed, thinking again about the purple spine Robbie had found. Might it be possible James was turning into a Snarf at night and then somehow transforming back into a human in the day? Might that somehow explain James’s behavior? Could Melissa possibly be in on it? Morton lay there for a long time, pondering this over and listening to the hushed voices of the others downstairs.
At some point he must have fallen into a deep sleep, because the next thing he knew the moon had vanished from his window and the voices had stopped. Something had awoken him, however. His senses were on full alert. He sat up and looked into the dense shadows around him. Dark blotches swam across his
vision, which at first he took as a sign that his eyes were adjusting to the lack of light. But then he realized the truth: Something was moving. Something was in the room with him.
A strange shape seemed to hover before him, shifting and oozing in the air like a pool of oil and accompanied by a rhythmical flapping sound. He couldn’t make any sense of it. He felt his whole body tense and coil like a spring.
Suddenly the shape lurched toward him, and before he could react, his head was plunged into a moving sea of shadows. Something cold and fleshy brushed against his face, and a sharp claw settled on his shoulder.
Morton threw up his arms and lashed wildly at his attacker, then leaped for the light switch beside the door. His room burst into a blaze of brightness, and he saw at once that the dark shape was not in fact one creature, but half a dozen Bat Eyes, fluttering around in a tight swirl of leathery wings. Morton felt a wave of relief wash over him — Bat Eyes were not usually dangerous. But at the same time he was puzzled. What were they doing here?
Without warning, the Bat Eyes swooped into motion. At first Morton thought they were about to swarm his head again, but in fact they whooshed right past him and fluttered with one mind out through his bedroom door and down the landing.
Morton turned to watch them go and immediately spotted that the small door to the main attic was ajar. The Bat Eyes were headed right for it in an orderly single-file line. Morton remembered that there were several small broken windows in the attic and he realized that this was probably how they had gotten into the house. He also realized that they were probably now racing to escape.
In a flash Morton snatched a sheet from his bed and bounded down the hall in pursuit. In some deep part of his brain he realized that if he could catch one of these Bat Eyes alive, it might be the evidence he needed to convince James that recent events were more than just some harmless magical echo.
He skidded to a halt at the base of the attic stairs just in time to catch sight of the winged creatures slipping through the door at the top. He leaped after them, taking two steps at a time, and he opened the sheet like a net in front of him and lunged into the attic, intending to fling the sheet over the flock and bring at least one of them down to the ground. But as he dashed forward his left foot smashed into something hard and heavy, and the next thing he knew he was falling flat on his face. A plume of dust billowed up his nose, causing him to sneeze, and by the time he managed to pull himself into a sitting position the last of the Bat Eyes was flitting away through one of the small, broken dormer windows.
Morton cursed his luck and clambered back to his feet, taking care not to put too much weight on his injured toe. Aside from being very annoyed at having completely failed to capture a Bat Eye, he was now also perplexed as to what exactly had collided with his foot. In the faint glow spilling up the stairs from his bedroom, he could just make out the shape of a small wooden chest with heavy metal straps running around the lid. Morton had only ventured into this attic once before, on the very first day they’d arrived in the house, and even though it had been crammed with all manner of discarded artifacts, he was quite certain there had not been a wooden trunk lying in the very center of the entrance.
Despite the lateness of the hour and the cold air seeping in from the broken windows, Morton’s curiosity got the better of him, and he crouched back down beside the box and lifted the lid.
Morton wasn’t really surprised to find that the box contained nothing more exciting than a few dusty old documents, and he was about to close it again when he spotted a stack of yellowing photographs right at the bottom of the pile. He pulled the photos out and leaned over into the shaft of light to get a closer look at them.
Morton was fascinated to see that they were all photos of John King at various stages in his life. At the top of the pile was a relatively recent photo of him with his wild, straggly gray hair and dark glasses. This photo, Morton knew, would likely have been taken shortly before he died, but as he moved through the pile, the photos became increasingly older and John King became increasingly younger. There were several photos of him receiving awards at various comic conventions, and at each one the gray in his hair diminished until Morton reached a photo of a very handsome young man with jet-black hair, a sharp and delicate nose, and piercing dark eyes. The next photo showed the same youthful King, arm in arm with a smiling young woman with frizzy curls and pale blue eyes. This image was the most surprising of all. He’d always presumed that King had been a somber, brooding hermit his whole life, and yet here he was, seemingly happy and carefree, and quite possibly in love.
There was only one more photo, and this one was definitely the oldest. It was black-and-white, and scarred with creases as if it had been carried in a wallet for many years, and it showed two teenage boys standing in front of a storefront. The dark-haired boy, who was obviously King, had a big smile on his face and was standing on a ladder with a paintbrush in hand. It looked like he had just finished painting the ornamental letters on the sign above the door, which read Crooks Collectible Books. The other boy was much lighter in coloring, with a round freckled face, and he was standing at the base of the ladder.
Morton flipped the photo over. On the back were written the words My brother Syd and me, age 14. This came as a complete surprise to Morton. He knew for a fact that King had always claimed to be an only child in numerous articles and interviews, and he even remembered one article that insisted he’d been a homeless orphan. Yet this photo contradicted all of that. Was it possible that everything he’d read was entirely false? He knew that his publishers had spread false rumors about him to make him appear more sinister than he really was, but surely some of what he’d read had to be true.
Morton placed the photos carefully back in the bottom of the box and scanned through the other documents, wondering if he might learn more about the enigmatic man who had once owned their home. There were a few old passports, postcards from various seaside resorts, and a fiftieth birthday card from someone named Beatrice. In short, nothing that seemed too important.
Morton yawned and started rubbing his eyes. Realizing that he really did need to get to bed, he pushed the trunk off to the side so that whoever ventured up here next didn’t trip on it as he had done. He then padded softly down the stairs, thinking about King’s past and the big smile on his face in the photograph. To his surprise, even though the man was a stranger to him, Morton felt a comforting glow inside at the thought that King might have enjoyed a happy childhood despite the stories his publishers had spun. Unfortunately the feeling didn’t last more than a few seconds.
Just as he was about to turn and head back to his bedroom, he saw a flash of light coming from inside Dad’s office. The flickering was unmistakably that of a flashlight beam dancing across the windows and walls. But who would be snooping through the house at this time of night with a flashlight?
Morton knew only too well that The Book of Portals was hidden in the secret attic above Dad’s study, and a jolt of panic shot up his spine. Was it possible that somebody was trying to steal it? That would certainly explain why the Bat Eyes had been snooping around.
Morton dashed back into his bedroom and retrieved a baseball bat from inside his closet. The night’s terrifying adventures, it seemed, were far from over.
Morton shuffled silently back onto the landing, hardening his nerves for whoever, or whatever, was prowling in Dad’s office. He decided the best thing to do would be to awaken Melissa first, remembering that she still had swords hidden under her bed that she’d found deep inside her once infinitely large closet, yet as he approached her room, he saw that her door was open and her bed was empty. He then spotted something else that made no sense to him. From where he was standing, he could see right into Dad’s office, and there in the center of the room was the jagged outline of a stepladder — and at its base was a bright pink toolbox.
He recognized the toolbox immediately because it had once been his mother’s. Morton himself had painted his father’s red t
oolbox pink one day and given it to her as a joke, since she’d proven far better with tools than Dad.
But what kind of burglar didn’t bring his own tools? Morton had a feeling he knew the answer.
He crept quietly into Dad’s study. Looking up, he saw that the dark wooden hatch in the ceiling was wide open. The face on its garish brass handle stared down at him, and despite himself he shivered at the sight of it. Nonetheless he forced himself to climb the ladder.
When he reached the top, he peered over the jamb of the hatch, and the smell of dust and wax and burned parchment hit his nostrils and triggered a rapid series of memories to flash through his head. Suddenly he was back. Back on that horrible night when Mr. Brown had conjured a Galosh and tried to kill them. Back on the night when James had almost fully transformed into a Snarf, the night when somehow, from beyond the grave, John King had wreaked his vengeance on Brown and saved them from certain death.
Morton had a moment of dizziness so intense he had to grasp at the opening to steady himself, but as he did so, his feet shifted and the ladder twisted beneath him, toppling over with a loud crash. Morton dropped the baseball bat and suddenly found himself hanging by his fingertips like a chimpanzee. In the same instant he looked up to see a pale face glaring down at him from within the attic. Before he had time to react, a pair of equally pale arms dropped down out of the impenetrable dark and hoisted him up.
“Morton! What the heck do you think you’re doing?”
Morton found himself standing on the rough planked floor of King’s secret attic staring into the bemused face of Melissa.
“What am I doing? What are you doing?” he said, finally getting his bearings and glancing around the room. Everything was just as he remembered it. The five stone candle holders. The five desiccated animal carcasses and the painted spiral leading to the ornately carved stone font at the center. The only thing that was not exactly as they’d left it was The Book of Portals, which they’d hidden under a loose floorboard, but that now lay on the floor just beside Melissa’s purple leather school satchel.