Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull (12 page)

But Johnny shook off the priest's hand. He was feeling better by the minute. "Father," he said, pointing toward the dark house, "did... did you see it?"

Father Higgins looked grim. "If you mean that Halloween face, yes, I saw it. I saw it from way up at the top o' the hill, where I was talkin' with young Byron here. He was tryin' to figure out where you had gone to, and then all of a sudden I saw that face, and I remembered what you had told me. So I charged on down the hill and busted into that house over there, and all of a sudden I was face to face with that horrible thing on the wall, and I felt the presence of evil all over my body. I don't mind tellin' you, I nearly turned and ran. But I pulled myself together, and then I gave the rotten, miserable thing a good dose of
this!"
He held up the crucifix and shook it menacingly. "This's a blessed crucifix, and there's this glass bubble on it, and underneath are two splinters from the True Cross, the cross Jesus was crucified on. And I said
lumen Christi,
which means
light of Christ.
It's a powerful charm and part of the Holy Saturday service. Y'see... "

Johnny laid his hand on the priest's arm. "Father," he said nervously, "I... I have to tell you something."

Father Higgins grinned. "I'll just bet you do. Well, go ahead. I'm listening."

Johnny began slowly, with lots of little stops and starts. As clearly as he could, he explained about the skull. He told how he had found it, how he had felt when he owned it, and why he had finally decided to get rid of it. He also described the strange vision that he had had in the workroom of the Fitzwilliam Inn at midnight. This was the first time that Johnny had been able to tell anyone about these things, and it felt wonderful to just get everything off his chest.

"How... how come I couldn't talk about this before?" he asked, staring hard at the priest. "I couldn't tell the professor. Every time I tried I got this awful pain in my chest, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Why couldn't I tell him?"

"John," said Father Higgins slowly and gravely, "it is becoming more and more clear to me that we are dealing with some kind of incredibly evil intelligence, a disembodied spirit that has decided to attack you and the professor for some reason. The skull and the jack-o'-lantern face and the scarecrow you saw on the ferryboat—they are all manifestations of that evil mind. Well, the mind did not want you to tip off the prof that something bad was going to happen to him. It also did not want you to do anything that might clear up the mystery of the prof's disappearance. And do you want to know why you can tell us now? The evil influence was driven off by the power of the True Cross. You feel better now, don't you—getting the thing out in the open, I mean."

Johnny nodded. "Yeah, I do. Do you think that vision I saw at the Fitzwilliam Inn has anything to do with the second clue, the one about the great reckoning in the little room? I should've thought of this before, but it just wasn't clear to me. What I'm tryin' to say is, the room in the vision is the little room, the dollhouse room—only full size."

Father Higgins patted Johnny on the shoulder. "Very good, my friend! Very
good!
And a reckoning is the settling of an account—that is one meaning of the word, anyway—and it certainly looks like you saw a reenactment of the way the professor's granduncle got
his
account settled! Hmmm. Things are getting clearer. Not a whole lot clearer, but somewhat clearer. I wish we knew more about the skull that you took from the doll-house room. If we knew why the prof's father chose to put it in the—"

"Will it come back?" Johnny blurted suddenly. He sounded very anxious. "That is, it... it came back once, so it must be able to come back whenever it wants to. How... how'm I gonna get rid of it?"

"I don't know, John," said Father Higgins. He bit his lip and glared into the night. "I wish I knew more about what's goin' on, but I don't. However, I do know this. My crucifix saved you, and so you better keep it for the time being. Here."

Father Higgins pressed the crucifix into Johnny's hand. "There's a chain on it," he went on. "Put it around your neck, and don't take it off for
any
reason! You understand?"

Johnny nodded and smiled gratefully. He looped the chain around his neck and slid the crucifix in under his shirt, but just as he had finished doing this, he turned his head and noticed something. Fergie was gone!

"Hey, Father!" he exclaimed, looking about wildly. "What happened to Fergie?"

With a loud exclamation Father Higgins sprang to his feet. He turned just in time to see Fergie appear out of the darkness. He was coming from the direction of the shack, and he was holding something in his hands.

Father Higgins's jaw sagged. Then he got angry. "Byron!" he roared. "What the devil do you think you're doing?"

Fergie smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I... uh, I just thought I'd like to go an' see what the old place was like. Just to see, y'know."

Father Higgins was stunned. "Good grief, man! Do you realize what that house
is?
It's a den of Satan! Don't you have any sense at all? And what, in the name of heaven, is that thing you've got in your hands?"

Fergie held the thing out, and now Johnny saw that he had in his hands an old leather-bound book with dogeared covers. It looked very dirty, and a long piece of cobweb trailed from one end of it. With a look of awe and fear on his face, Father Higgins reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a Pen-Lite. He snapped it on and played the narrow beam over the cover of the book. In a gingerly way he took hold of the cover and folded it back. Curious, Johnny scrambled to his feet and joined the other two, who were huddled over the book, peering at the flyleaf. Now Johnny saw that there was old-fashioned writing with lots of odd loops and flowing swirls on the moldy, liver-spotted sheet. But it was not hard to read. It said:

 

Warren Windrow

A great reckoning in a little room—

this I dreamt, April 30, 1842.

 

"Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed Father Higgins. With an odd expression on his face, he reached out and carefully peeled back the flyleaf. Now they were looking at the title page. At the top, large black letters said
La Clavicule de Salomon.
Under this title was a crude engraving of a leering demon's face inside a circle, and around the outside of the circle the word
Azoth
was repeated over and over. Father Higgins wrinkled up his nose, as if he were smelling something unpleasant. As Fergie held the book steady for him, the priest riffled quickly through several pages.

"This is a book of black magic," he said, looking up at last. "It's printed in French, and my French isn't terribly good, but I can make out enough to tell what's being said. Now... "

Then something happened. Johnny reached out and—for the first time—actually touched the book, which began to steam and smoke. With a loud yell, Fergie dropped it, and the other two leaped back. The pages of the book began to writhe and twist, and more whitish smoke curled upward. It was burning—being consumed by a fire that could not be seen. In a few minutes there was nothing left on the ground but a heap of gray ashes.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" breathed Father Higgins as he crossed himself.

"What... I mean, how come... " stammered Johnny in confusion.

"You were wearing the silver cross," said Father Higgins solemnly. "And you touched the cursed thing, and so it was destroyed." He heaved a deep sigh and turned to Fergie. "Byron, I don't know what crazy—or blessed—force it was that drove you to go into that house and bring that book out, but you have given us our first good lead. Warren Windrow... hmm. I wonder who he was, and why he dreamed the same phrase that was given to us by the mysterious writing that we found under the statue. Well, come on, gentlemen. We're going back up to the library. John? Are you able to navigate okay?"

Johnny nodded. Most of the queasiness and dizziness had worn off, and he felt more like himself again. With Fergie on one side of him and Father Higgins on the other, he climbed the hill once more. Above them the windows of the library glowed yellow, and all around the trees rustled in the night breeze that had suddenly sprung up. When they reached the front steps of the library, Father Higgins told the boys to wait outside. He said that he had a pretty good idea of the kind of book he wanted to look for, and he wouldn't be long. So Fergie and Johnny sat down on the granite steps and waited. They watched the stars and listened to the shrill piping of May frogs in some nearby pool. Finally Father Higgins returned. And from the way he was grinning and rubbing his hands together, they knew he had found something.

"Hey, Father, what is it?" asked Fergie as he scrambled to his feet. "Didja find out who that guy was?"

"I did indeed!" exclaimed the priest, who was practically bubbling over with self-satisfaction and triumphant glee. "Yes, I most certainly did! Come along, gentlemen, and I'll tell you everything."

Father Higgins started walking toward a clump of dark shadowy trees that rose on the horizon.

"Hey, Father!" exclaimed Johnny, running after him. "The inn's back that way!"

"Yes, I know it is," said Father Higgins as he strode along. "But we aren't going to the inn. We're going down to the beach, to a boathouse run by a guy named Hank Dodge. When I was out here last year, I rented a boat from him, and I think I'm gonna do it again. He also sells camping supplies and canned food to dumb landlubbers like us who come out here without being prepared to go on an expedition."

Johnny's mouth dropped open. "Expedition? Father, where are we going?"

"Yeah, come on, Father!" added Fergie, who was walking on the other side of him. "Give us the whole story!"

For a few minutes Father Higgins walked on in silence. The boys found that they were on a winding blacktop road, and the tarred surface felt hard now after the spongy earth they had been treading on. At last Father Higgins was ready to talk. He took a deep breath and began to explain that he had had to leaf through three books of old New England legends before he found the story he was looking for. It was in a book called
Weird Tales of the Maine Seacoast
and told the saga of a man named Warren Windrow, whose ghost supposedly had been seen quite a few times on Vinalhaven and on some of the nearby islands. Back in the 1840s he had lived on Cemetery Island, which was just a dot on the map out in Hurricane Sound, not far from Vinalhaven. Windrow had come from a large family that once lived in the Penobscot Bay area, and the family had a sinister reputation, though the book didn't say why. Well, one day Warren Windrow caught the California gold fever that was sweeping the eastern half of the country in those days, and he went out to California to see if he could strike it rich. Windrow didn't find any gold, but he did get into a saloon fight with another Easterner—a man from Vermont, a man named Lucius J. Childermass. Windrow got beaten up, and apparently he decided to get even, because one night—some time after the fight—he jumped Lucius in a dark alley and tried to kill him with a Bowie knife. Lucius got cut up a bit, but some people who were passing in the street nearby broke up the fight and rescued Lucius. Windrow was taken to San Francisco, where he was tried for attempted murder, convicted, and hanged.

"... and that's the whole story, as far as I can get it from the book I read," said Father Higgins, finishing up. "So we have the ghostly Warren Windrow, and a book of black magic that he once owned, and a tale that connects him with the professor's granduncle. This is all beginning to make sense, in a weird way. Our next step will be to go and have a little look at Cemetery Island. It's not far, only about half an hour's ride. I know Byron here is rarin' to go, but I thought I'd better ask you if you wanted to stay behind, John. You can wait for us, and no one will think you're cowardly or anything like that. And for all I know, we may not find anything but sand and seashells. We ought to be back pretty quick, in any case. What d'ye say, John?"

Johnny squared his jaw and looked as determined as he possibly could. He was still feeling a bit shaky because of the ghastly experience he had just had, but he wasn't going to be cheated out of an adventure. Besides, the professor was more his friend than he was anybody else's—or so he felt, anyway.

"I wanta go, Father," he said defiantly. "You'll hafta tie me up an' chain me to a tree if you want me to stay here."

The road they took petered out into a sandy track that wound over some grassy hummocks and past a long narrow pond that glimmered in the starlight. Before long they arrived at a little cove with a few houses clustered around its edges. At the end of a row of white clapboard shanties stood the Old Harbor Boathouse, a big sprawling building with cedar shingles and a slate roof. Next to the boathouse was a little poky building with a sagging roof and a metal stove chimney. A sign that leaned against the house gave the name of the establishment and listed the rental rates and the name of the owner in straggling white letters:
Hank Dodge, prop.

Father Higgins knocked loudly on the door of the house, and Hank Dodge came out. He wore saggy blue work pants, a red-and-white hunting jacket, and a fishing hat stuck full of fishing flies. His face was red-veined and jowly, and his breath smelled of whiskey. Father Higgins told him what he wanted and pressed a wad of bills into his hand. While waiting for Hank to return, Father Higgins made up a list in his head and rattled it off to Fergie: a couple of cans of beans, a mess kit, a can of Sterno, matches, a tarpaulin, three flashlights, and a bottle of brandy. Fergie recited this list again, took some money from Father Higgins, and raced off down the beach toward a lighted store that he saw in the distance. Hank Dodge returned with the keys to the boat and an oil lantern and led Johnny and Father Higgins around to the back door of the boathouse.

A few minutes later, Fergie, Johnny, and Father Higgins were skimming along over a body of water known as Hurricane Sound. Off to their left, in the distance, rose the low, humped shape of Hurricane Island. Overhead a few stars could be seen through a filmy, overcast sky, and from out in the direction of the open sea came ominous rumbles and occasional lightning flashes—a storm was moving into the mouth of the bay. Johnny sat in the bow seat. He clung tightly to the sides of the boat and felt absolutely petrified—motorboat rides had always scared the dickens out of him. Fergie sat in the middle seat, arms folded and a calm expression on his face, and in the stern sat Father Higgins. He chewed at his empty pipe and maneuvered the steering handle of the motor. Out toward the entrance of the Sound they shot, a long white wake spewing behind them and a loud engine drone filling the air. They were on their way—toward what?