The Nightmarys (6 page)

Timothy knew the feeling.

The sight of the woman in the entrance had

been enough to make Timothy momentarily

been enough to make Timothy momentarily

forget about the shadowy gure in the other

door. But when he heard brisk footsteps

scu ng away, he turned his head once more to

look. The tal man in the long overcoat was

gone, but a smal book lay on the oor where

he had stood.

Had he imagined the whole thing? Was he

imagining stil ?

“My class is here on a eld trip today,” said

Abigail. “Mom signed the permission slip last

week. Remember?” She ran to meet the woman

in the doorway, leaving Timothy alone among

the glass cases and wide-eyed artifacts.

He could not take his eyes o the book on

the floor beyond the rope. He cautiously moved

toward it. It lay on the ground a few feet past

the door.

“Why, you’re al wet, Abigail,” said her

grandmother. “Didn’t you think to bring an

umbrel a? It’s been raining to end the world for

the past few days.”

Abigail stammered as Timothy ducked

Abigail stammered as Timothy ducked

underneath the velvet rope, “I—I forgot.”

“Wel , you can take mine with you when you

go. My old raincoat does quite wel in weather

like this. Of course, the cab picked me up in

front of the apartment building, so I didn’t have

to walk to the bus stop like you did. Regardless

…”Timothy crawled into the dark administrative

hal way. The book lay just out of reach. Beyond

it was cold, unblinking darkness. Timothy was

terrified to go any farther.

He could make out the cover—something

about a corpse. The hal way seemed to close in

as he inched forward, his ngers reaching the

book.

“Timothy? What are you doing?”

He nearly screamed as he spun around to

nd Mr. Crane and one of the security guards

standing in the doorway next to Abigail and her

grandmother. He slid back underneath the

velvet rope and struggled to rise, clutching the

book behind his back. Slipping it underneath

book behind his back. Slipping it underneath

his shirt and into the lip of his pants, he said, “I

dropped a penny.”

“Please … come away from there,” said Mr.

Crane to Timothy, before noticing the stranger

beside Abigail. “Are you …? You’re not a

chaperone.”

The old woman shook her head. “Thank you

for let ing me know.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Crane, flustered.

“Please don’t be,” she replied. “I’m Abigail’s

grandmother.

Zilpha

Kindred.

Funny

coincidence meeting like this. If I’d

remembered you were planning a trip to the

museum, I would have tagged along for the

ride. As it is, I took a cab. I have particular

business to at end …” She glanced at Abigail,

who seemed to have taken an interest in

picking a piece of dirt out from underneath her

ngernail. “Never mind. Carry on. Pretend I’m

invisible.”

Mr. Crane turned his at ention to Timothy

instead. “I think you’ve got some explaining to

instead. “I think you’ve got some explaining to

do, young man.”

“Me?” said Timothy.

“You’re lucky you didn’t damage that

beautiful painting upstairs. Throwing water

like that. What could you possibly have been

thinking?”

“But I didn’t …”

“It wasn’t Timothy, Mr. Crane,” said Abigail

quietly. “It was … someone else.”

“Who?” said Mr. Crane.

The re in Abigail’s eyes seemed to spark at

that. “Not Timothy!” Timothy felt a pang of

triumph that she was standing up for him.

The teacher turned red, and his mouth

dropped open.

“Abigail,” whispered her grandmother.

“Apologize right now.”

She blushed but mumbled, “I’m sorry, Mr.

Crane.”

“This is not like you, Abigail,” Zilpha said,

placing a hand on her granddaughter’s

placing a hand on her granddaughter’s

shoulder. She glanced harshly at Timothy, as if

it was al his fault.

9.

Timothy and Abigail didn’t tel Mr. Crane who

threw the water bal oon; they couldn’t prove it.

After they had joined the rest of the class,

Zilpha Kindred had kissed her granddaughter

goodbye and quietly slipped back downstairs.

Mr. Crane forced both Abigail and Timothy to

accompany him, as the rest of the students were

now free to roam and gather information

regarding their projects. As they wandered,

silently, Abigail had refused to glance up from

the ground, lost once again in her own private

world—a world where Timothy, apparently,

was not al owed.

On the ride back to school, he sat by himself in

the front of the bus, wel away from both Stuart

and Abigail. By then, he’d nearly dried o and

was able to recal what had happened inside

was able to recal what had happened inside

the museum. Timothy wondered if he’d

momentarily gone bonkers, but he knew that

couldn’t be the case, not entirely. He had nearly

forgot en the proof of the shadow man, which

was currently pressed like a cold hand into the

smal of his back.

He pul ed the book out from his pants. It was

slight, the paper jacket was torn halfway down

the back, and the entire bot om right corner

was missing. On the cover was a simple

painted il ustration of a rosy-cheeked, dark-

haired girl dressed in a calf-length blue skirt,

socks pul ed almost al the way up to her

knees, a white sweater, and a red silk scarf

wrapped around her thin neck. She knelt

before the opening of a smal dark hole that

had been carved into the slope of a hil in a

mossy forest. She looked over her shoulder

curiously, as if she’d noticed someone creeping

up behind her. In the background, silhouet es

of several gothic buildings poked out from a

hil side, looking like Col ege Ridge up near

Edgehil Road. Was this book a New Starkham

Edgehil Road. Was this book a New Starkham

story? Now Timothy was even more intrigued.

He looked closer. The title stretched across the

top of the book. The Clue of the Incomplete

Corpse: A Zelda Kite Mystery. Someone named

Ogden Kentwal had writ en the book.

Weird names. Weird book.

Timothy had the impression that the sight of

the old woman had startled the shadow man,

and in his haste to leave, he’d somehow

dropped the book. Surely the man had meant

to return and pick it up once everyone had

gone. Too late, thought Timothy.

Unless he comes to take it back.

Goose bumps tickled Timothy’s scalp. Maybe

I should have left it there, he thought.

Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder,

peering above the heads of his classmates and

out the rear window of the bus, trying to see

through the mist and the rain to make out if

there was a pair of headlights fol owing close

behind. There was nothing. He immediately

turned and hunched his shoulders, trying to

turned and hunched his shoulders, trying to

become invisible himself.

As the bus bumped back across the Taft

Bridge toward New Starkham, Timothy opened

the book’s cover and began to read.

10.

By the time lunch ended back at school,

Timothy had managed to get through the rst

couple of chapters. The story began with the

description of an ordinary girl named Zelda

Kite whose best friend, a fel ow school

newspaper reporter named Dolores Kaminski,

had disappeared while on assignment at the

local antiques shop. The mystery was simple,

and the writing was ne, if not exactly literary

like the stories Mrs. Medina made them read

for English class. Timothy wondered what the

man in the museum had been doing with an

odd lit le book like this.

In fact, Timothy was so distracted by it, he

didn’t consider that Stuart Chen had neglected

to sit with him at their usual table in the

cafeteria. He also didn’t notice the girl who

regarded him curiously from the lunch line, her

red hair nal y lightening as it dried into

red hair nal y lightening as it dried into

stringy ringlets upon her hunched shoulders.

At the end of the day, Timothy was standing at

his locker, lea ng through the nal few pages

of the fth chapter of The Incomplete Corpse

when he came across a name writ en in the

margins, scribbled in pencil just below the

page number 102.

Carlton Quigley

At rst, Timothy didn’t even notice the

writing. It had been writ en so lightly that it

seemed almost ghostly compared to the text in

the rest of the book. He held the pages like a

ipbook, zipping through to the end in case

there happened to be any more writing.

To his surprise, Timothy found two names

further along. Bucky Jenkins stared at him from

page 149 and Leroy “Two Fingers” Fromm

from page 203, the second to last in the book.

from page 203, the second to last in the book.

Carlton Quigley. Bucky Jenkins. Leroy “Two

Fingers” Fromm.

Timothy ipped, again and again, looking at

the writing. Who were these people? he

wondered. Why had someone writ en their

names there?

Timothy grabbed his backpack. The faint

scent of chlorine l ed his nose as he unzipped

it. That morning, somehow, he’d remembered

to shove his swimsuit, goggles, and towel inside

before leaving the house. Now he placed the

strange new book on top of his swim gear and

zipped up the bag.

Outside, to Timothy’s surprise, he noticed

Mrs. Chen’s burgundy minivan waiting at the

curb. Stuart sat in the front seat and actual y

waved at him. Timothy trudged down the stairs

to the sidewalk. Stuart rol ed down his

window, and Mrs. Chen leaned past her son,

obviously oblivious to the events of the day.

“Hi, Timothy!” she said. “Hurry up. Get in.

Don’t want to be late!” Timothy hesitated.

Don’t want to be late!” Timothy hesitated.

“What are you waiting for?” she added.

“Yeah, what are you waiting for?” Stuart

echoed her.

11.

Timothy meant to mention the water-bal oon

at ack while stil in the car, in front of Stuart’s

mother, but by the time they’d driven up the

hil to the col ege’s entrance, he realized that if

he talked about what had happened at the

museum, he might be forced to talk about why

Stuart had done what he’d done in the rst

place. And if he mentioned the reason, he

might be forced to mention some other things

—things his parents had forbidden him

mentioning, to Mrs. Chen especial y. By the

time the great gothic gymnasium appeared

ahead, Timothy realized how much he wanted

to talk about Ben with someone, anyone, who

would listen.

But now, he wouldn’t give Stuart the

satisfaction, even if he apologized a mil ion

times.

Mrs. Chen pul ed up to the curb in front of

Mrs. Chen pul ed up to the curb in front of

the main entrance. Before Timothy was able to

ful y jump out of the vehicle, she cal ed to him,

“Please tel your mother I said hel o.”

“I wil ,” Timothy answered, hiking his bag

onto his shoulder.

“Timothy?” Mrs. Chen cal ed. Stuart had