The Midnight Door

by Sam Fisher

  But the timing could not be worse. Despite his ignorance, Brown knows that the full moon is the key to his ceremony, so if I am to relieve him of his dangerous toy, then it must be on that night — which, of course, is the very night I intend to attack my true foe.

  But I cannot risk putting Brown off for another month. In truth, I cannot even be certain I will live that long. My enemy knows I plan to strike while he is vulnerable, and he will not sit idly by. I will confess that I am afraid.

  “What?” Melissa yelped, snatching the book from Morton’s hands as if needing to see the words with her own eyes. “Enemy? What enemy? I thought Brown was his enemy.”

  Morton was equally shocked by this revelation. “It sounds like King was worried about someone much worse than Mr. Brown.”

  “Worse than Brown!” Melissa said with a shiver. “Now there’s a cheery thought.”

  Morton also felt a shiver run down his own spine and suddenly had a longing to be tucked into his warm bed.

  “Is that who’s been following us around with Bat Eyes?” Melissa said.

  “Maybe,” Morton replied, “although I don’t see why anyone would want to do that.”

  “I do,” James said, now glancing nervously at the deep shadows under the trees around them. “Think about it. A few kids move into King’s house and the very same month there are reports of Zombie Twin sightings, missing cats, toys coming to life, and the strange disappearance of Mr. Brown. If you were King’s enemy, wouldn’t you keep a close watch on us?”

  “I suppose I would,” Morton agreed, “but I wouldn’t make Derek’s Antigravity Laser work like the real thing. That would be pointless.”

  “Maybe that was a mistake,” Melissa said. “I mean, we know magic can go wrong.”

  Morton wasn’t sure about this. It was true that he’d seen plenty of magic going wrong, but if this enemy of King’s was as dangerous as King implied, it didn’t seem likely that he would accidentally cause Derek’s laser to make things float up to the ceiling.

  “We should definitely read the rest of the diary,” Morton prompted, drawing Melissa’s attention back to the still glowing pages.

  Melissa sighed wearily, the blue flames casting a flickering glow over her pale face, and leafed through the diary. “Wait a minute,” she said, turning to the end of the book. “That wasn’t the last entry you read. There’s a whole lot of blank pages and then another note right at the back.”

  Everyone huddled in around the book again and Melissa lowered it so that they could see. There on the second-to-last page was what looked to be a hastily scrawled paragraph written in splotchy ink. Melissa read it quickly.

  Again, my luck turns against me, and perhaps for the last time. For certain he played his game well. How foolish of me to not realize that he was using Brown as a pawn in his careful attack. Yet I can hardly punish myself for that. Even Brown himself was unaware that he played a part.

  If I were truly brave I would destroy The Book of Parchments here and now to be sure it never falls into his hands, but the Parchments are the most valuable magical artifacts I have ever discovered. Who then am I to cast them into the abyss? No, I will protect them. And more — I will finally use them.

  In truth I have been afraid to use the Parchments before now, wary of unleashing their full power, for magic is no inert controllable force. We use it at our peril, for it spreads like ink on blotting paper, or fire in a forest. And the Parchments act on the one same principle as all magic: the opening of the veil between this world and what modern scientists call parallel dimensions, and “borrowing” from alternate realities, for that which is science in one universe is magic in this one. Yet that veil is more fragile than we would wish to believe, and too much magic, as the ancient scholars knew, can irreversibly rupture the fabric between the worlds. I have already been forced to use more magic than I think is safe, and if I turn to the Parchments, I fear that action may cause permanent ripples in this once tranquil town. Yet how can I do otherwise? I see a glimmer of hope…. One possible path to defeat him and pass on the legacy …

  But wait, I see his army of shadows approaching. The time is now. I will use the Parchments. I will risk laying my ink in the eternity of their blank pages, knowing that even if I succeed, this could well be my final hour.

  “Ugh!” Melissa growled, getting suddenly angry. “Is it just me or was John King a complete idiot?”

  “An idiot?” Morton said, confused by the outburst. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, why did he even bother writing this at all?” Melissa snapped. “Honestly, for a man who made a living writing stories, you’d think he could string two words together so that they made at least a little bit of sense. I mean this is all, ‘Ooh, legacy, ah, Parchments, blah de blah, Mr. Brown, thingumy wotsit, mysterious enemy.’ For heaven’s sake, he reminds me of my math teacher, ‘the sum of the square root of weird stuff equals pi times vanilla ice cream.’ It makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “What’s so confusing?” Morton said.

  “For one thing, what is this Book of Parchments he’s so worried about?”

  “Well, obviously it’s another book of spells,” James said. “Like The Book of Portals.”

  “That’s not quite right,” Morton put in. “I mean, it’s not a book of spells, more just a magic book.”

  “Now you’re making even less sense than King,” Melissa said.

  “What I mean,” Morton explained, “is that according to Scare Scape, the Parchments were magical artifacts that looked like blank pieces of paper. Just by drawing or writing on them, a person could make almost anything happen. With a spell book like The Book of Portals, you’re limited to whatever spells are written down. With a Book of Parchments, you wouldn’t have any limits besides your imagination.”

  “Sort of like the blank tiles in a game of Scrabble, then,” Melissa said. “You can use them for whatever you want.”

  “Uh, maybe,” Morton said.

  “Oh, well, that would at least explain why this enemy of his was trying to steal it. I mean, imagine how great it would be if every time you played Scrabble, all your tiles were blank.”

  James glanced at Melissa irritably. “It still leaves a lot of questions,” he said. “Like when exactly did he write this diary entry? Obviously he must have written it before Brown came over to do the ceremony, but he says Brown was unaware of the part he played, which almost makes it sound like he wrote it after.”

  Morton had to admit there was something nonsensical about the entry. Why and when would King have written it?

  “Keep reading,” James said. “Maybe it will make sense eventually.”

  “Okay, I’ll start at the beginning,” Melissa said, turning to the first page of the diary. “But I’m going to read quickly. There’s a lot to —”

  Quite suddenly Melissa let out a loud yelp and dropped the book on the ground.

  “Be careful with that,” Morton said. He bent to pick up the book, but Melissa stopped him before he could touch it.

  “Don’t!” she warned. “It just burned my hand.”

  Morton froze, his fingers a few inches from the flaming book, and at that very instant, the cold blue flame flared into a brilliant orange ball that glowed with blistering heat. Everyone jumped back and shielded their faces. The flame grew rapidly brighter until the book was consumed in white-hot light. James rushed forward and attempted to stomp out the fire, but it did nothing other than cause his sneakers to smoke and give off a strong smell of burning rubber.

  Eventually he gave up and jumped away again. The blaze sizzled for a few seconds longer and then, like a dying firework, abruptly went out. For a moment, Morton could see only green splotches in the darkness where the intense white light had burned into his eyes, but when his vision cleared, he saw that nothing of the book remained.

  Melissa growled angrily. “Typical. Just when we were getting somewhere, magic goes haywire.”

  James knelt down and examined the charred squa
re of grass where the book had fallen. No trace of it remained. “Yeah, I don’t think any amount of magic will bring it back this time,” he said, turning to look at Morton with a frustrated sigh. “Well, at least we’ve learned something.”

  “Nothing useful,” Melissa exclaimed. “I mean, so what if he had lots of books on magic and some mysterious enemy was trying to get The Book of Parchments from him. It hardly helps us figure a way out of our mess, especially if it does turn out that every kid in Dimvale has one of his spooky books.”

  “I don’t think that’s very likely,” James said. “Books like that are usually expensive collector’s items. It’s more likely that one very wealthy collector bought the whole set.”

  “Of course!” Morton said, realizing that James was right. “That might be the clue we’re looking for. King’s enemy wanted his books, especially The Book of Parchments, so he would for sure have bought the whole collection after King died.”

  “Yeah, well, King could have saved us a lot of trouble if he’d just written his name down,” Melissa said, still looking annoyed.

  “Well, if Morton is right, and I think he might be,” James said, “we should be able to figure out who this enemy was just by finding out who bought all of King’s books.”

  “How do you suppose we do that?” Melissa asked skeptically.

  “It should be easy. There’s probably only one big auction house in Dimvale, so all we have to do is find somebody who works there and get them to look at the accounts to find out who bought King’s books.”

  Melissa’s face suddenly dropped.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Morton prodded.

  Melissa scratched her head. “You know, this is a weird coincidence, but I just happen to know someone who works at a big auction house.”

  “You do?” James exclaimed.

  “Yes. Jake.”

  “Jake?” James said. “Do we know him?”

  “You met him the other day when he gave Wendy and me a ride to school.”

  A look of recognition crossed James’s face. “Oh, that guy! But that’s great! So you can just ask him.”

  Melissa snorted dismissively. “I doubt it’s going to be that easy. He only works there part-time, and all that stuff about who bought what and when and for how much is highly confidential.”

  “But if he works in the building, can’t you just ask him to sneak in and take a look at the files?” Morton asked.

  “Are you serious?” Melissa exclaimed. “I hardly know him. I can’t very well ask him to risk his job by sneaking into the office and looking at private documents.”

  “Yes you can,” James said in an unusually firm tone. “You just have to spend some time with him.”

  Morton wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Melissa blushing in the darkness.

  “That’s not going to happen,” she said. “I mean, he’s got to be the least cool guy in Dimvale. He wears those lumberjack shirts all the time, and I’m sure his mother irons creases into his jeans.”

  “So? This is important,” James persisted.

  “Did I mention he smells of engine oil? I think he sleeps under his car.”

  James folded his arms and continued to glare at Melissa with an intensity Morton had seldom seen. It was as if the two of them were having some kind of silent staring contest — one that James apparently won a moment later because Melissa finally said, “Okay, fine! I’ll try. But let’s not stand here all night. My feet are freezing, and it’s way past Morton’s bedtime.”

  Morton was actually very relieved to hear this. He was starting to feel so tired that he was having trouble keeping his eyes open, and when he finally climbed into bed for the second time that night, it didn’t take him long to drift off into an exhausted, dreamless void. He did, however, have time for one curious thought before falling asleep. Images of John King’s neat, flowing script drifted before his eyes and he wondered vaguely how a blind man had been able to write a diary….

  The next morning, James slept in so late that Morton thought he might have to leave for school without him, but at the last minute he descended the staircase smelling of soap and looking freshly scrubbed, if not entirely awake. Morton lingered in the kitchen for a few extra minutes while James wolfed down a slice of toast and then grabbed a second slice to carry with him to school.

  “I guess you didn’t sleep,” Morton said sympathetically when they finally rushed out of the door.

  “Not a wink,” James said, and munched his toast in silence all the way to school.

  When they arrived about five minutes later, the bell had already rung, and Morton had to race straight to Mr. Noble’s biology class. Fortunately Mr. Noble was handing out work sheets for the day’s assignment and had his back to the door when Morton crept in.

  Morton glanced quickly around the room. By now there were only two seats available, one beside Robbie and another beside Frizz Ferguson. He wondered if he should sit beside Robbie, as he normally did, or beside Frizz. He wanted to make sure Frizz hadn’t told anyone about what had happened to Derek, and he didn’t want to crowd Robbie, but he also didn’t want Robbie to think he was avoiding him….

  At that moment Robbie spotted Morton and beckoned him over enthusiastically. Morton felt a smile lift his face and he tiptoed around the far side of the classroom, hoping Mr. Noble wouldn’t see him.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Robbie whispered, rummaging inside his pencil case as Morton hoisted himself onto the stool. “I have something I want to show you.” Morton half expected him to pull out a printed schedule for the band’s upcoming concerts, but instead he produced a plastic pair of glasses with blue spirals printed on their frosted glass lenses.

  “Uh, what are those?” Morton asked.

  Robbie was about to reply when Mr. Noble appeared directly in front of them. “Morton,” he said, placing two handouts on their table, “if you’re going to arrive late, at least do me the courtesy of not distracting your classmates while I’m trying to teach.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Morton said.

  Robbie and Morton fell silent, and Mr. Noble launched into a long lecture about carnivorous plants, which at any other time Morton would have found fascinating. At this particular moment, it felt like an inconvenient interruption.

  Robbie seemed to feel the same way and kept casting frustrated glances at Morton. After a couple of minutes he pushed the strange pair of spectacles over to Morton’s side of the table and wrote on his notepad in large letters: Try them on!

  Morton glanced cautiously at the glasses. He recognized them now as X-ray Specs from the advertisements that cluttered the back pages of Scare Scape — ads that featured a variety of tricks and trinkets that ranged from plastic fried eggs to exploding cigars and … Antigravity Laser Cannons.

  He’d tried on a pair of X-ray Specs in a joke shop once a couple of years ago. All they did was make everything look fuzzy, which, if you applied enough imagination, sort of resembled the way X-ray images looked, but on the whole they’d been disappointing in the extreme. Something told him that was not going to be the case now.

  He braced himself and then slipped the glasses on. The effect was overwhelming. The room and everything in it changed instantly, and this time, there was nothing fuzzy or vague about what he was seeing. There, before his very eyes, was an entire class of pale skeletons, all sitting in translucent chairs in a room with transparent walls.

  Morton could see every detail around him. He could see the braces on Kelly Talbot’s teeth, even though she was sitting with her back to him. He could see the sprinkler pipes in the ceiling and the wires in the wall. He could see the books in his bag, which was under the bench. He could see Mr. Noble’s lunch box in his desk, and he could even see right through the wall to Mrs. Punjab’s math class, where more skeletons slouched lazily at translucent desks.

  Morton whipped off the glasses and tucked them quickly out of sight in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. “That’s … that’s incredible,” he whispered
out of the corner of his mouth.

  Robbie nodded in agreement with a look of worry on his face. Morton scrawled quickly on the notepad: How did you find out about them?

  Robbie scribbled back: I was going to wear them onstage.

  And he held his hands out and made a funny smile. Morton had a comic image of Robbie singing atonal songs while wearing these nerdy glasses, and he realized it was exactly the sort of thing Nolan would love.

  Robbie then wrote something else: Does this have something to do with what you were going to tell me yesterday?

  Morton sighed. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He’d already made up his mind not to get Robbie involved, but now that Robbie had made this discovery on his own, Morton knew he couldn’t possibly lie to him outright.

  He didn’t believe that was any way to treat a friend.

  A few minutes later Mr. Noble finished his lecture and told them to work in pairs and draw a full-color diagram of a carnivorous plant, being sure to label all the parts that he’d written on the board. Fortunately this meant that everybody started talking, and Morton and Robbie were able to continue their conversation without attracting Mr. Noble’s attention.

  “So?” Robbie prompted. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  Morton decided to tell Robbie everything and let him decide what to do with the knowledge. He filled him in on the bathroom encounter with Derek, and the Bat Eyes in his bedroom, and all the details he could remember from King’s diary.

  “So you think somebody else is doing magic?” Robbie asked.

  “It’s starting to look that way, and with King’s library of magic books out there somewhere, it’s hardly surprising.”

  “At least Melissa knows Jake. That’s one piece of luck.”