Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull (4 page)

"... and he claimed that he never made one, and he got really huffy and acted insulted when I said he did," Johnny was saying as they stood at a corner, waiting for the light to change. "But you saw it, didn't you?"

"Yeah... I guess so," said Fergie uncertainly. He wrinkled up his nose, as if he were smelling something unpleasant. Fergie liked mysteries, but he always felt they ought to have nice, reasonable explanations. "Sure —there was a jack-o'-lantern," he added as the light changed and they started across the street. "An' I'll tell you how come the old so-and-so made it: He got a little schnockered an' he carved it out, jist fer fun, an' then when you asked him about it, he got embarrassed an' tried to lie his way out. How's that for an answer to your great big fat mystery? Huh?"

Johnny gave Fergie a dirty look. He liked the professor a lot, and he didn't enjoy hearing anybody call him an "old so-and-so." Also, to tell the truth, he did not think much of Fergie's wonderful explanation.

"The professor doesn't ever get drunk," said Johnny, frowning stubbornly. "And besides, when I asked him about the jack-o'-lantern, he didn't act embarrassed—he really didn't! He just looked at me like I was from outer space. Like he'd never heard anything so unbelievable in his life."

Fergie stooped and picked up a rock that lay on the sidewalk. He threw it across the street, and it pinged loudly as it bounced off a fire hydrant. "Maybe he's a real good actor," said Fergie, who could be just as stubborn as Johnny when he thought he was right.

"He's not
that
good an actor," muttered Johnny, digging his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket.

"Well, then, what the heck
was
the darned thing?" exclaimed Fergie impatiently. "Was it a mirage, like the kind they have out in the desert? It had to be real—it just
had
to be! And don't tell me it was a ghost. That's the next thing you'll be tryin' to say!"

Silence fell. The two boys trudged moodily along, staring at the sidewalk. Two blocks passed, and then they reached the Main Street Bridge. Fergie lived over in Cranbrook, on the other side of the bridge.

Fergie threw a shamefaced glance at Johnny. He wanted to stay friends, and he was beginning to be afraid that he had hurt Johnny's feelings by telling him that his ideas were dumb.

"Look," said Fergie hurriedly, "I gotta go. But we can talk about this later. Maybe we can figure out what really happened."

"Yeah, maybe," muttered Johnny. He wanted to be alone, so he could think things out. "See ya around."

Fergie turned and walked off into the darkness. Johnny trotted across Main Street and started climbing the steep hill toward home. The wind had let up, and the night was still. Up ahead, off to the right, loomed the dark shadow of the professor's house. Johnny glanced up, and his jaw dropped. There, leering down at him from a second-story window, was the jack-o'-lantern.

Fear clutched at Johnny's heart. He told himself that he was being silly, that this was the professor's idea of a joke. For a long time Johnny just stood there, gazing like a hypnotized person at the sinister, grinning mask. Then, abruptly, he made a decision: he had to find out what was going on. Johnny raced across the street and cut through a gap in the spirea hedge that bordered the professor's front yard. Nervously he scanned the front of the house. Overhead the lantern burned, but the downstairs windows were dark. He could see that the window over the porch was lit—that was the professor's study, where he often was at this time of night.

Warily Johnny crept forward. Acorns and twigs crunched under his feet, and he stumbled over a dead limb. But he righted himself and moved steadily on. He could see that the back porch light was on, and there was a lamp lit in the kitchen too. Johnny paused.
Why was he so tense?
Blood was pounding in his temples, and he kept expecting to see horrible things come rushing at him out of nowhere. But nothing happened, and he edged closer to the back porch. He tried the screen door. It was unlocked. So was the inside door. The professor's kitchen was in its usual messy state, with unwashed dishes piled in the sink. A saucepan with something black burned inside it was sitting on the stove, and the kitchen table was covered with flour. An old-fashioned Waterbury clock ticked quietly on a shelf above the spice rack.

"Hello!" Johnny called, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Professor? Are you home?"

No answer. Johnny felt embarrassed. He shouldn't be barging in on his old friend this way. But he just
had
to find out about that lantern. Also, for no reason that he could put his finger on, there was a growing fear that something bad might have happened to Professor Childermass.

Johnny walked through the first floor of the house, peering into empty rooms and calling the professor's name. At the bottom of the stairs he paused again. Should he go up? Maybe the professor was just out for an evening stroll. He might come back at any minute. Or he might be upstairs in his study, correcting papers or reading. Johnny gritted his teeth.

One more try first. Cupping his hands, Johnny bellowed up the stairs:
"Hey, professor! Are you home?"

Again no answer. Clenching his fists resolutely, Johnny strode up the steps. At the top he paused a second longer and then headed for the professor's study. The door was ajar, and the desk lamp was on. Everything looked perfectly normal. The professor's desk was littered with blue examination books, and the stuffed owl on the pillar in the corner glowered indignantly at Johnny. But the desk chair was empty. As Johnny moved farther into the room, he saw some things that astonished and disturbed him. On the desk pad, next to the pile of exam books, was a cup of coffee. Steam curled up from it—it was still hot! And, perched on the lip of the glass ashtray, was one of the professor's black-and-gold Balkan Sobranie cigarettes. It was half-smoked and still lit. The pungent aroma of the cigarette tickled Johnny's nostrils. Had the professor been called out of the room a second or two ago? If so, where was he?

Johnny went out into the hall. He glanced toward the bathroom. But the door was open, and from where he was standing he could see that the room was dark. He was really panicky now—he could feel his palms sweating. He crept to the entrance of the professor's bedroom and, with a sudden motion, flung the door inward. It banged loudly against the wall, and the violent noise almost made Johnny scream. But he got control of himself and flipped on the overhead light: nobody there. Johnny braced himself for the next step. He had to go down to the room where the jack-o'-lantern was. Nervously he clenched and unclenched his fists and tried to calm himself.
Why was he so scared to do this?
With a grim frown on his face, he strode boldly down the hall and stopped outside the massive paneled oak door. With a loud exclamation he seized the knob and twisted it. The door flew open, and Johnny's hand fumbled for the light switch. A harsh glare flooded the room. In it was a gloomy mahogany bed, a marble-topped bureau, and a chair with a caned seat. White lace curtains hung on the room's only window. There was no jack-o'-lantern. There wasn't even a table or stand on which one could have been standing. Nor was there the smell of hot pumpkin and candle wax that hung in the air where a jack-o'-lantern had been burning. The only smell in the room was the wonderful aroma of balsam-fir needles that rose from a pillow-shaped white packet that lay on top of the bureau. A canoeing scene was picked out in green thread on the surface of the cloth packet, along with the

Words WELCOME TO NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Johnny fought down the shapeless fear that was in his mind. At the far end of the narrow room, next to the window, was a closet door. Could there be a jack-o'-lantern in there? Maybe one of those new plastic ones, with a light bulb in it. That would explain why... Halfway to the window Johnny froze. He had seen something out of the corner of his eye, a sudden image in the small rectangular mirror that hung over the bureau. He turned and looked. In the mirror he saw the professor's face, looking haggard and disheveled. His eyes pleaded and, as Johnny watched, his lips formed silent words.
"Help me?

 

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

 

Johnny gazed, horror-struck. As he watched, the picture in the mirror dissolved into writhing curls of steam. The steam evaporated, and Johnny was looking at his own frightened face. Somehow, he got out of the room. He galloped down the hall, down the stairs, and out the back door, slamming it hard behind him. Outside, under the cold stars again, he halted. His face was streaming with sweat, and he was breathing hard.
"What can I do, what can I do, what...
" Johnny babbled hysterically. Then he pulled himself together. There was nothing he could do—not right away. Something awful, something supernatural, had happened to the professor. But at least he was alive. If he weren't, he would not have been able to speak to Johnny from the mirror. But where was he? In outer space? In another dimension? Buried deep under the earth? Where? And what did his disappearance have to do with the ghostly scene that Johnny had seen in the Fitzwilliam Inn? Johnny had no answer to any of these questions. He was totally, thoroughly stumped.

Suddenly Johnny realized that he was supposed to be home. His grandmother always worried about him when he was out at night. By now she would be phoning all the—

A sound interrupted Johnny's thoughts. It was a phone ringing inside the professor's house. He knew who that was. Throwing a quick glance at the silent, empty house, he set out for home on the run.

Gramma was waiting for him on the front steps. The porch light was on, and he could see plainly that she was not in a good mood. Gramma was frowning darkly, and her arms were folded across the front of her apron.

"John Dixon," she said angrily, "what on
earth
do you mean by stayin' out so late? I've been worried sick about you! I called the movie theater, an'—"

"Gramma," said Johnny, cutting in on her excitedly, "there... there's something wrong across the street. The professor's gone! He's disappeared!"

Gramma snorted skeptically. "Huh! I'll just bet he has! Young man, is that the best excuse you c'n come up with? Eh?"

Johnny's heart sank. He felt utterly helpless. How was he ever going to explain to his grandmother what he had seen? Gramma was superstitious, but she would hardly believe what he had to tell her. What would she say if he started talking about phantom jack-o'-lanterns and ghostly faces in mirrors?

Johnny hung his head and looked ashamed. "I... I'm sorry I stayed out late," he said in a low, hesitant voice. "I forgot what time it was and... and I had a question about my schoolwork that I wanted to ask the professor. I won't do it again. Please don't be angry."

Gramma's harsh look softened, and she smiled and opened the screen door for Johnny. "All right, young man," she said, trying hard to sound stern and forbidding, "but don't let this kind of behavior turn into a habit. You run on upstairs 'n' brush your teeth 'n' wash your face 'n' get off to bed! It's gonna be rise 'n' shine early tomorrow mornin', so you better catch some shut-eye."

"He really is gone, Gramma," said Johnny, glancing quickly at the old woman. "The professor, I mean—he's not there!"

Gramma shrugged. "Old bachelors like him keep funny kinds of hours," she said as she hooked the screen. "If you're all by yourself you c'n stay up all night 'n' nobody'll mind. But don't you worry. He'll be cornin' outa that front door in the early A.M., just like he always does."

Johnny shook his head gloomily. After what he had seen, he knew very well that the professor was not going to be there tomorrow. Or the next day, or the day after that. Johnny felt horribly frustrated. He wanted to yell that she was wrong. He wanted to tell her that witchcraft and dark mysterious forces were involved in the professor's disappearance. But with a mighty effort, he forced his feelings back down inside. Grimly he plodded up the stairs. He went to his room and put on his pajamas. After brushing his teeth he flung himself into bed and lay there, wide-eyed, waiting for the sleep that he knew was not going to come.

All that night Johnny tossed and turned. Again and again the professor's tormented face appeared before him.
Help me. Help me.
And Johnny wanted to scream back at him,
How? How
'
m I gonna help you, I don't even know where you are!
Twice he jumped out of bed and ran to the window to stare wildly at the professor's house. He kept hoping that he would see his old friend come ambling up the walk. But the street lamp threw its cold light on the empty sidewalk, and the professor's house stayed dark. Back in bed again, Johnny tried a new angle: Had he been hallucinating? The mind could play tricks—he knew that. But he was so utterly sure that he had seen the face in the mirror. And then there was the jack-o'-lantern—Fergie had seen it too. And on top of everything else, Johnny still had the nagging feeling that the vision he had seen in the Fitzwilliam Inn—the vision that he couldn't tell the professor about—had something to do with this mystery. Some evil force had kept him from telling the professor about the ghostly scene he had witnessed. Why? If the professor had known about the vision, would he have guessed about what was going to happen to him? Nothing made any sense to Johnny at this point. In his mind he feverishly chased old clocks and inns and grinning jack-o'-lanterns around and around and around. When dawn came, he felt exhausted, as if he had been running for miles. He also felt heartsick: He knew his dear old friend was gone, and he wondered if he would ever see him again.

In the morning Johnny was so socked that he hardly knew what he was doing. He clumped down the front staircase slowly, as if there were weights on his feet. When he reached the bottom, he saw the front door was open. Grampa was standing out on the porch, taking in the morning air. He was a tall, stooped, friendly old man in his midseventies, and he wore gray work shirts and gray wash pants all the time. Instead of heading out to the kitchen for breakfast, Johnny decided that he would go out and talk to Grampa for a minute. And he was desperately hoping that he would see the professor come out of his house as usual, get into his car, and drive off to the college to teach his Saturday-morning World History class.