Spellbound: The Books of Elsewhere (5 page)

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Authors: Jacqueline West

BOOK: Spellbound: The Books of Elsewhere
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“If you know something about this other person that he or she wishes to keep secret, then he or she is less likely to tell
your
secret, and risk you telling his.”
“Isn’t that like blackmail?” asked Olive, pulling out her chair at the table.
“I would say it’s more like Newton’s third law,” said Mr. Dunwoody, carefully straightening his placemat so that it was parallel to the edge of the table. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
“I already straightened the placemats, dear,” said Mrs. Dunwoody, approaching the table with the lasagna pan.
“Yes, darling. But you know how I feel about parallel lines . . .”
Mrs. Dunwoody smiled. “That their perfection gives them their identity.”
“And that’s also just how I feel about you,” said Mr. Dunwoody, kissing the back of his wife’s hand.
Olive sighed and laid her head down on her dinner plate.
5
 
O
LIVE COULD HARDLY sleep that night. Little halfdreams of whirling stacks of books and messages written backward on mirrors kept knocking around inside her brain. Sometimes the messages said things like,
The spellbook is in the bloobquepoo,
or some other nonsense that was no help at all. Other times, the message said,
My house used to be owned by witches!
and as Olive watched, the message reflected from one mirror to another and another and another, unfurling into a huge web of repeated words. The web was tangling around her. She was stuck in it, pinned in place and unable to escape. Only the book could help her. It would keep her safe. It would save Morton. She had to find it, before anyone else did
.
She thrashed and kicked, her heart revving up to panic mode—
The BOOK,
went her heartbeat, echoing inside of her own head.
The BOOK. The BOOK. The BOOK
.
The BOOK.
Something let out a loud hiss.
Olive jerked awake and found that she had been kicking wildly at the sheets. Horatio, who liked to sleep at the foot of the bed, was glaring up at her from the floor.
“I’m sorry, Horatio,” Olive whispered. “I was having a nightmare.”
“I see,” huffed the cat. “Well, don’t worry about me. Although it
is
harder to land on your feet when you’re
asleep
.”
“Sorry,” Olive whispered again.
Horatio hopped back onto the mattress, giving Olive’s feet a wide berth.
“I did something stupid today,” said Olive, picking up Hershel, her worn brown bear, and squeezing him tightly against her collarbone.
“Imagine that,” the cat murmured.
“And now I can’t sleep, because I just keep thinking and thinking about it.”
“Sounds very productive,” said the cat, settling back into the blankets.
“There’s this boy living with Mrs. Dewey,” Olive went on as Horatio let out an exasperated sigh, “and he’s the one who asked me about the spellbook. But he only asked me about the spellbook because . . .” Olive’s voice dwindled to a mumble. “. . . Because I told him about the McMartins.”
Horatio turned sharply. “What, exactly, did you tell him?”
“I just told him that witches used to live here. I didn’t even say their names.” Olive rubbed Hershel’s head with her chin, which was usually very comforting. Tonight, it wasn’t. “I don’t know why I said anything at all.”
For a moment, Horatio gazed at the window. Moonlight reflected in his eyes, making them glow like delicate fires. “This boy is living with
Mrs. Dewey,
you say?”
“Yes. His name is Rutherford Dewey.”
“Then I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” said Horatio, nuzzling into the covers.
“But I
am
worried!” said Olive. “I keep thinking and thinking about it.” She nudged Horatio gently with her foot. “Horatio, I’m not going to get back to sleep. Could we go visit Morton? Just for a little while? Please?”
Horatio sidled away from Olive’s nudging toes.
“Please?”
The cat gave Olive a hard look. “
If
I take you, will you promise to let me spend the rest of the night without getting booted out of bed?”
“Yes. I’ll even sleep sideways.”
“Fine.” Horatio leaped lightly to the floorboards and trotted through the door. Olive hurried after him, but she turned back for just a moment to tuck Hershel under the covers.
Squares of moonlight through distant windows gave the upstairs hall its only light. Horatio moved soundlessly over the thick carpet. Olive tiptoed behind him, listening to the house creak and shift, taking up as little space as she could in the darkness.
They stopped in front of the painting of Linden Street. “Hold on,” Horatio commanded. Olive grasped his tail. The moment her fingers were buried in the cat’s fur, Olive saw the painting come to life. Soft breezes rippled the misty grass. Far in the distance, lights from the houses twinkled and flickered. Horatio hopped over the frame’s bottom edge, dragging Olive’s arm after him. With the familiar sensation of sliding through warm Jell-O, Olive pushed her head through the frame, and then her shoulders, and then her whole body was toppling forward, over the bottom of the frame, into the painting.
She landed in the dewy grass on the other side. The frame floated in the air above her. Horatio, who naturally landed on his feet, was already heading up the soft green hill toward the street, where a few lamps glowed like welcoming beacons. Olive got up and hurried after him.
It was always evening in Morton’s world. A faint, misty twilight swaddled the painted version of Linden Street, never turning darker or brighter. On this street, no one ever had to go to bed, or come inside for dinner, or get their pajamas on. In fact, since most of the people in this painting had been lured straight out of their beds and into Aldous McMartin’s canvas, they were already wearing their pajamas anyway.
The first time Olive had visited this painting, the street was eerily still, and faces had peered at her distrustfully through the tiny windows of locked doors. Now the faces peered at her and smiled. Through many of the closed curtains came the soft glow of candles or lamplight. A few people even sat on their porches in the silvery mist, rocking gently on porch swings. One old man in a nightcap raised his hand in a wave. Olive waved back.
Horatio trotted ahead of her, up the pavement, past the empty spot where the big stone house would have been if Aldous McMartin had painted it, toward the tall grayish house just beyond.
“I’m going to get you!” someone shouted.
Olive jumped. Horatio bristled.
The sound of laughter trailed around the corner of the tall gray house. Instinctively, Olive crouched down in the dewy grass, trying not to be seen. A moment later, a small boy in a long white nightshirt raced around the house’s side, panting and chuckling, reaching out as if he were trying to catch something that dangled in the air just in front of his face. His nearly white hair stood up in tufts, and his face looked like a smiling moon.
Giving the empty air a wild swipe, the boy tripped on the hem of his nightshirt and sprawled on the grass, laughing. “All right,” he declared, getting back to his feet. The grass where he’d landed got back up too. “You win this time.”
Olive blinked hard. She scanned the entire lawn, but she still couldn’t see anyone but the boy in the white nightshirt. Who was he talking to?
“That means I’m still It,” the boy announced to the empty yard as he trotted up to the front porch railing. “I’ll count to one hundred. Ready, set, GO!” He put his face down on his arms and began to count.
Olive and Horatio exchanged a dubious glance. With a last slow look around the yard, Olive tiptoed toward the porch steps.
“Pssst . . . Morton!”
“Twenty-eight—What?” The boy in the nightshirt looked up, and a smile broke across his round, pale face. “Olive!” he exclaimed. The smile disappeared. “You made me lose count.”
“Sorry. Are you playing hide-and-seek?”
“Yeah.” Morton beamed, hopping down the steps. “I’m It.”
Olive glanced around again. The nearest person she could see was an old woman in a rocking chair on the porch next door, several yards away. She certainly didn’t seem to be hiding. “But . . . Morton . . . who are you playing with?”
“My friends,” said Morton, with a silent
obviously
at the end.
“I don’t see anybody here,” said Olive.
“Of course you don’t,” said Morton. “They’re invisible.”
“Invisible?” Olive repeated. “Do you mean they’re . . . um . . . imaginary?”
Morton gave a one-shouldered shrug. He grabbed the bottom post of the porch rail and swung back and forth. “Maybe. But they still play with me. They play with me more than
some
people. Some people who you really
can
see.” He cast a pointed look in Olive’s direction.
“Morton, you know the spectacles got broken. I can’t come in here whenever I want to anymore. I have to get one of the cats to bring me.” Olive glanced over her shoulder at the fuzzy orange bulk of Horatio, who was currently sculpting his whiskers.
Morton started swinging in such wide arcs that Olive had to step out of the way. “My
real
friends come and play with me whenever I want them to, because they know I don’t have—” Morton stopped in midswing, glancing up at the dark windows of his big, empty house. Olive could almost hear the words
a family
hanging in the air, but Morton didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he spun around and pointed across the yard. “Ronald is hiding right over there, under that porch. Charlotte Harris is the one behind those bushes, and Elmer Gorley always wears plaid pajamas. You can come out, guys!” he yelled toward the street.
They waited, Morton smiling, Olive frowning, as Morton’s invisible friends approached.
“This is Olive,” Morton told the empty yard. “I’ve told you about her. . . . Yep, she’s the one who helped me get rid of the Old Man.”
“Helped
you
?” interrupted Olive.
Morton ignored her. “No, she doesn’t know how,” he went on, answering a question Olive hadn’t heard. “She still hasn’t figured it out. So we’re all stuck here until she does. Besides,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper and bending toward someone’s invisible ear, “I don’t think she’s really trying. Most of the time, she’s probably just doing
girl
stuff. Playing with dolls. Fixing her hair.”
“I don’t even have any dolls!” Olive protested.
Morton giggled, as though one of his invisible friends had said something funny. He looked at Olive, hiding his smile behind one cupped hand. “Yeah, she does, doesn’t she?”
 
“Well,” said Olive loudly, putting her clenched fists on her hips, “I came here
in the middle of the night
just to see you. I could be in my bed right now, all warm and comfortable. But I guess I didn’t need to. With all your new friends, I guess I don’t need to worry about you at all anymore.”
“I don’t think you really do worry about me,” said Morton in a low voice.
“Of course I do!” said Olive, throwing her arms up. “I think about how to help you all the time.”
“But you’re not
here
all the time.” Morton studied a spot on the misty ground. “And I am. All the time.”
“You know I can’t stay here, Morton. If I wait too long, I’ll get stuck here too.”
This seemed to trouble Morton for a moment. Olive could see his chin working as his face moved from sad to angry and finally back to uncaring. “I know,” he said at last, sharply, tossing his head so that the white tufts quivered. “That’s why I have these other friends.” He glanced over his shoulder. “They’ll stay with me until—until something else happens.”
Olive shuffled her feet. The painted grass hurried to straighten itself wherever she smushed it flat. “I really am trying, Morton.”
Morton nodded, but he didn’t meet her eyes. “Well, I’m going to start counting to one hundred again.”
“Oh,” said Olive, surprised. She took a step backward. Morton had been crabby and even rude in the past, but he had never been too busy for her before. “I guess . . .” she said, and then didn’t know what to say next. She turned away from Morton’s house. Across the lawn, two bright green eyes glimmered, watching her.

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