The Figure in the Shadows

by John Bellairs

  "Rose Rita! Come over here! Come over here quick!"

  Rose Rita thrashed through the snow till she was at Mrs. Zimmermann's side.

  "Hold out your hand!" Mrs. Zimmermann barked.

  Rose Rita held out her hand. Mrs. Zimmermann reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a piece of phosphorescent chalk. When she put it in Rose Rita's hand, it burned like an icicle.

  "Take this and go to him! It's our only chance. Go on, run, before it's too late!"

  Rose Rita took the thing in her fist and started down the hill. She expected it to be hard going, but it was strange. It seemed as if the snow was giving way in front of her. Before she knew it she was standing in the strange circular clearing. The shadow was still beckoning to Lewis. It took no notice of her.

  And now Rose Rita was filled with anger at this horrible creature that was trying to kill Lewis. She wanted to rush at it and tear it to shreds. Was that what she was supposed to do, kill it? With the thing Mrs. Zimmermann had put in her hand? Or should she go straight to Lewis?

  She didn't have long to make up her mind. Lewis's feet were touching the rock rim of the well. A slight push would send him plunging head first into darkness. With a loud screech Rose Rita ran forward. "Get away from him! Get away from him, don't you dare touch him, you filthy rotten thing!" she yelled.

  The shadow turned and faced Rose Rita. And now it changed. Before, it had been a hooded, muffled shape. Now it was a ragged, spindly silhouette. A blackened, shrunken corpse with living eyes. It moved toward her with outstretched, hungry arms. And Rose Rita heard what it was saying. She heard the words in her brain, although no sound was uttered. The thing was saying that it would wrap its arms around her and dive with her to the bottom of the dark, icy well. And there they would be, together, face to face, forever.

  Rose Rita knew that if she thought, she would faint, or die. She clenched her teeth and rushed forward, saying over and over to herself the meaningless words of a commercial she had heard on the radio the other day. "Use Wildroot Cream Oil Charlie, use Wildroot Cream Oil Charlie, use..." The fearful shape rushed at her, and for a moment there was blackness all around her and the sickening, stifling smell of wet ashes. And then she was past it and standing by Lewis's side.

  Lewis was actually teetering on the edge of the well. He had put one foot forward into nothingness, like somebody testing the water before he goes in. With a hard shove, Rose Rita pushed him sideways and back. Now her hands were around his neck, groping for the chain. Lewis did not resist. He acted like somebody who had been drugged. Still, it was hard for Rose Rita to get the chain off, because she had to hang onto the cold glowing object Mrs. Zimmermann had given her. She had a pretty good idea of what would happen to her if she let go of it.

  With a jerk, Rose Rita pulled the chain up over Lewis's ears. She had it wadded in her hand now. When she turned toward the well, she saw the shape, muffled in darkness once again. It stood watching.

  Rose Rita felt suddenly calm. Calm and triumphant.

  "You see this?" she shouted, waving the amulet. "Well, take a good look!" And with that she flung the coin, chain and all, into the well.

  There was a long second while the amulet fell. And then, from far below, came a tiny sound. Flip. And with that the dark hooded form vanished. It turned into a wisp of black smoke and was whipped away by the wind. Nothing was left, not even a smudge on the ground.

  Rose Rita stood looking down into the well. It fascinated her. For a moment the well seemed like the only thing in the world. It was a great black whirlpool that would swallow her up. It was a dead eyesocket looking out of nothing into nothing. Rose Rita was caught in a sick convulsive shudder. She trembled from head to foot. But when she stopped trembling, her mind was clear. She stepped back from the edge of the well and turned to see if she could help Lewis.

  Lewis was sitting on the ground crying. His face was red and raw from wind and snow and cold. His gloves were gone, his hat was gone, and there was a big piece torn out of his trouser leg. The first thing he said was, "Rose Rita, do you have a handkerchief? I have to blow my nose." Weeping with joy, Rose Rita threw her arms around Lewis and hugged him tight.

  Now Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann were with them. They were crying too. But eventually Mrs. Zimmermann pulled herself together. She knelt down next to Lewis and started examining him like a doctor. She looked into his eyes, into his ears, and down his throat. She made him stick his tongue out and say "Aaah!" Jonathan and Rose Rita stood near, tense and nervous, waiting for Mrs. Zimmermann's verdict. Finally she stood up. She shook snow out of her cape and smoothed down her dress. "All that's wrong with him," she snorted, "is that he's been out in the weather too long. He's exhausted, and I think he has a cold. Rose Rita, would you hand me that thing I gave you?"

  Suddenly Rose Rita remembered the object that had saved her. It was still in her hand, though it no longer glowed or felt cold. She opened her fist, and there was a glass tube about two inches long. Inside the tube was a perforated metal sleeve, and inside that were some pale violet crystals. On the end of the tube was a shiny gold-colored metal cap. There were words stamped into the top of the cap:

  Rose Rita turned to Mrs. Zimmermann. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You mean that's all it was? One of those things you stick in your nose when your head is all stuffed up?"

  "Yes, of course," said Mrs. Zimmermann, impatiently. "Now give it here. Thank you." As she worked over Lewis with the inhalator, Mrs. Zimmermann added: "It's also a magic object, the first one I ever made. And up until a minute ago, I thought the thing was a total flop. You see, it was made so it would only work if it was in the hands of a child. It was supposed to protect the child who used it from evil creatures. And it was supposed to have certain healing powers. Well, after I made it I lent it to a niece of mine in Muskegon, and she kept it for years. She's a grown-up woman now, and a few months ago she sent the thing back in a box with a little note saying that it was very good for clearing out a stuffy head, but that she didn't see anything magic about it. So I put the silly thing in a pocket of my cloak and forgot about it—until just now." Mrs. Zimmermann chuckled grimly. "I guess my niece just led a dull life. She never ran into anything like that dark shadow by the well."

  Mrs. Zimmermann stood up and shook snow out of her cloak. Rose Rita looked down at Lewis, and she felt like cheering. Lewis looked dazed, but remarkably healthy. Now Mrs. Zimmermann turned to Rose Rita. She handed her the tube. "Here. Take it. It's yours. For good."

  Tears came to Rose Rita's eyes. "Thanks. I hope I never have to use it the way I did tonight."

  "So do I," said Mrs. Zimmermann.

  "And I," said Jonathan, helping Lewis to his feet.

  After Jonathan had made an unsuccessful attempt to get the lid back on the well, the four of them set out for the road. When they got there, they found an ambulance with its motor running. And there was Jute Feasel with Jonathan's car.

  "Hi everybody!" Jute called. "I thought maybe you'd need this. I left my truck back where your car was, so if you'd drop me off there, I'd be obliged to you."

  "It's a deal," Jonathan called, over his shoulder. He was talking with the ambulance driver, telling him that he wanted Lewis to spend the night in the hospital because he was suffering from cold and exposure. After that, Jonathan did a good deal of conferring with Mrs. Zimmermann, and in the end it was decided that she would ride back in the ambulance with Lewis, and the others would go back in Jonathan's car.

  On the way back to New Zebedee, everybody in the car was silent for a long time. Jonathan drove, Jute rode next to him, and Rose Rita sat all by herself in the back. As they passed the CITY LIMITS sign, Jute spoke up. "I don't mean to be nosy, but what the he... oh hell, you don't mind if I swear, do you, Rose Rita? What the hell was Lewis doing out at the old Moss Farm in the middle of the night?"

  Jonathan had begun a very hemmy and hawy explanation, when Rose Rita butted in. "It's all very simple, Mr. Feasel. What really happene
d was, Lewis was out walking by the city limits when this man he'd never seen before stopped in his car and asked him if he'd like to drive out to Homer and back, just to look at the snow. Well, Lewis does dumb things some of the time, and he said sure, and jumped in. But when they were halfway to Homer, the guy turned out to be one of these crazy people you read about in the papers, so Lewis jumped out of the car and hid in the woods. That was where we found him."

  Jute puffed on his cigar and nodded. "Lewis get a good look at this guy?"

  "No. It was dark. And he didn't get his license number, either. It's too bad. They'll probably never catch him."

  "Yeah." Jute rode the rest of the way in silence. He did wonder how Jonathan and the others happened to know where to go to find Lewis. There weren't any telephones in that grove of pine trees. But Jute had heard that Jonathan was a magician, and maybe magicians had ways of communicating with people in their families. With brain waves or stuff like that. At any rate, Jute didn't ask any more questions, and Rose Rita rode the rest of the way home with a self-satisfied smile on her face.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lewis woke up the next morning in a whitewashed room full of light. New Zebedee's hospital was in an enormous mansion that had once been owned by a rich old lady. Lewis's room was in the attic. The ceiling at the foot of his bed sloped down almost to the floor, and next to his elbow was a white plaster tunnel running out to a curtained dormer window at the end. Icicles hung outside, but it was warm in the room.

  There were other patients in the long room, and nurses came and went all morning. Near noon, Dr. Humphries came to look Lewis over. He was the Barnavelts' family doctor, and Lewis liked him a lot. He had a voice like a bass viol, and he cracked jokes a lot to put people at their ease. And he always carried a black leather bag full of rattling square pill bottles. Dr. Humphries put a wooden stick in Lewis's mouth and flashed a light down his throat. He looked in his ears and eyes. Then he patted Lewis on the shoulder, snapped up his bag, and told him that a couple of days rest at home was all he needed. They shook hands, and Dr. Humphries left.

  A few minutes later, Jonathan came to get Lewis, and they went home. Lewis was ordered to bed by Mrs. Zimmermann, and that evening, when she brought his supper up to him, she told him that she had a surprise: she and Jonathan and Rose Rita had arranged a special pre-Christmas Christmas party for him. He could put on his slippers and bathrobe and come down to the study as soon as he liked.

  At first Lewis was frightened, because he had seen pictures in the paper of children who were dying of some incurable disease, like leukemia. They were always given early Christmas parties. But after Mrs. Zimmermann had reassured him several times that he wasn't on the brink of death, he felt better. In fact, he could hardly wait for the party to begin.

  Lewis was sitting by the Christmas tree. He was looking at the red plaid Sherlock Holmes hat that Jonathan had bought to replace the one Woody had stolen. In one hand Lewis held a glass of Jonathan's special Christmas punch. In the other he held a chocolate-chip cookie.

  This time he didn't have to squint to make the Christmas tree lights turn into stars. He was blinded by tears of happiness.

  Rose Rita was sitting crosslegged on the floor near Lewis's armchair. She was playing with another of his presents, an electric pinball machine. "Mrs. Zimmermann?" she said.

  "Yes, Rose Rita? What is it?" Mrs. Zimmermann was over by the library table, adding more Benedictine to her punch. Every year she claimed Jonathan went light on the Benedictine, and every year she doctored her drinks to suit herself. "Yes, my dear? What do you want?"

  "When are you going to tell us how you figured out where to go? I mean, how you knew where Lewis was?"

  Mrs. Zimmermann turned and smiled. She dipped her index finger in the punch, stirred, and put her finger in her mouth. "Mmm! Good! How did I know? Well, that's a good question. I thought over what you had told me about Lewis's experiences with the magic coin, and one detail kept ringing a bell in my mind. It was a detail that you probably didn't think was very important."

  "Which one was that?" asked Lewis.

  "The way the ghost smelled. Rose Rita said that you had told her the ghost smelled of wet ashes. It smelled like a fire that has just been put out. Well now, I put this fact together with a couple of others that I knew." Mrs. Zimmermann held up a finger. "One: on the night of April 30, 1859, a farmer named Eliphaz Moss was burned to death in his farmhouse out near the Homer Road. My grandfather had a farm near there, and he was part of the bucket brigade that tried to put out the fire. When I was a child, I remember him telling me how awful it was to suddenly see old Eliphaz come tearing out of that house. He was all on fire. Then with a hideous screech (so my grandfather said) he threw himself into—"

  "The well?" Lewis asked. His face had turned very pale.

  "The well," said Mrs. Zimmermann, nodding grimly. "The well put the poor man's fire out, and it drowned him too. It's a very deep well, and they never recovered the body. Later, after the fire, somebody made a big, granite cover for the well, and the cover became Eliphaz's tombstone. That, by the way, is what your uncle is out doing now—helping Jute get the lid back on the well."

  The front door slammed. It was Jonathan. When he came into the library, he was red-faced from the cold, but rather gloomy-acting. As soon as he had poured himself a cup of punch, he seemed more cheerful, so Mrs. Zimmermann went on with her story.

  "Of course, that's only part of the tale," she said, pouring herself another cup of punch. "The second part concerns Walter Finzer, the man Grampa Barnavelt won the three-cent piece from. He was Eliphaz Moss's hired man, and everyone always believed that he had set the fire that killed old Eliphaz Moss."

  "Why did they think that?" asked Rose Rita.

  "Because Walter was a foul-tempered, nasty, cruel, lazy lout, that's why!" growled Jonathan. "Of course, you may have gathered that from the way he behaved when Grampa won his lucky piece."

  "Do you think Walter Finzer set the fire, Mrs. Zimmermann?" It was Lewis this time asking the question.

  "Yes," said Mrs. Zimmermann, nodding. "I didn't used to think so, but I do now. It's hard to piece things together from such little scraps and bits of evidence, but I'd say that Walter killed Eliphaz by knocking him unconscious and then setting fire to the house. By the time Eliphaz woke up, the house was on fire and he was, too."

  "Why did Walter want to kill old Elly... whosis?" asked Rose Rita.

  "To keep Eliphaz from getting back at him. You see, I think Walter stumbled into the house while Eliphaz was performing a magic ritual. Do you remember the date of the fire? April 30, 1859. Anybody remember anything special about April 30? You keep quiet, Jonathan. I know you know the answer."

  Lewis thought a bit. "Hey!" he said. "That was the date on the newspaper that I saw just before the ghost came to get me. And 1859 was the date on the coin, too."

  "That just makes me more certain than ever that my theory is right," said Mrs. Zimmermann, smiling. "You see, April 30 is Walpurgis Night. It's sort of like Halloween—a night that is dear to the hearts of those who dabble in the black arts. Eliphaz dabbled in witchcraft, or at least, most of the farmers in the area thought he did. My grandfather thought so, for one." Mrs. Zimmermann stopped and stared into her glass. "You know," she said slowly, "it must have been awfully lonely on farms in those days. No TV, no radio, no car to take you into town for a movie. No movies at all. Farmers just kind of holed up for the winter. Some of them read the Bible, and some of them read—other books."

  "You read those other books, too, don't you, Mrs. Zimmermann?" said Rose Rita in a small frightened voice.

  Mrs. Zimmermann gave her a sour look. "Yes, I do, but I read them so I'll know what to do when something awful happens. And as you saw out there, sometimes it isn't enough to know about all these terrible books. Not when the other side's got more muscle."

  "You're getting off the subject, Florence," said Jonathan. "So old Eliphaz was a wizard. Do you mean he was making
the magic amulet when Walter burst in on him?"

  "Yes. Walter probably came in for a plug of chewing tobacco or a drink of whiskey after a hard day's work. And there was Eliphaz doing some strange mumbo-jumbo over a little tiny silver coin. A three-cent piece. Well, everybody dreams about having a magic doohickey that will solve all their problems. The two men were alone out there, and Walter was probably by far the stronger. So Walter hit Eliphaz on the head, set fire to the house, and lit out—with the amulet. Then Walter must have decided that it would not be good for him to hang around New Zebedee. So he enlisted in the Army. Then the Civil War came along, Walter ran into Grampa Barnavelt—and you know the rest."

  Lewis looked puzzled. "How come the ghost of old Eli... whatever-his-name-is was after me? Did he think I stole his amulet?"

  "Not exactly," said Mrs. Zimmermann. "You see, the amulet was supposed to have the power to summon up a spirit from the depths. A spirit that would do Eliphaz Moss's bidding. But when you're fooling around with evil spirits, you've got to be careful, and the way I figure it, Eliphaz was interrupted before he had finished enchanting the coin. So things came out kind of screwy, as they would if you put the wrong ingredients in a cake you were making. And Eliphaz's spirit—his ghost, his soul, call it what you like—his spirit was the one called up when Lewis said the prayer from my book over the coin."

  Lewis shuddered. "You mean I called him up? The ghost that smelled like ashes?"

  Mrs. Zimmermann nodded. "You most certainly did. The prayer you said is what we professional wizards call a prayer of waking and possession. First, you woke up the spirit that had been asleep, the spirit that haunted the amulet—Eliphaz's spirit. The amulet couldn't do a thing to anybody until you recited that prayer. That is why Walter could never do anything with it, and was finally willing—albeit grudgingly—to toss it into the pot in a poker game. And that is also why Grampa Barnavelt could wear the coin on his belly for forty years and not be affected at all."