The Strangers (18 page)

With both arms, Olive thrust the clothes apart.

The closet extended far beyond the rack of clothes. A deep, narrow space dwindled away before them, its dark walls lined with stacks of old hatboxes and leather trunks. In the distance, nearly hidden behind a wall of boxes, were two big brocade armchairs.

Two armchairs that were occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody.

By the narrow beam of Rutherford’s flashlight, Olive could see that her parents’ eyes were closed, and their heads were flopped back against the chair cushions. Mr. Dunwoody’s face looked oddly naked without his thick glasses, but otherwise, her parents looked perfectly normal. And perfectly
alive.

“Dad!” Olive cried. “Mom!”

She dove into the back of the closet, knocking down the boxes, sending stacks of storage spilling across the floor.

“Perhaps you should keep your voice down, Olive,” Rutherford whispered.

But Olive wasn’t listening.

“Mom!” She shook her mother’s arm, feeling its warm, wonderful alive-ness even through its cardigan sleeve. The arm flopped back over the armrest the moment Olive released it. She grabbed Mr. Dunwoody’s hand. “Dad, can you hear me?”

“They appear to be under some sort of sleeping spell,” said Rutherford as Mr. Dunwoody let out a resonant snore. “Perhaps that explains why I was able to read their thoughts, even from a greater distance.”

“It certainly explains why Walter was rooting around in our garden!” Olive growled, her happiness sliding back into anger. “Let’s get Doctor Widdecombe and Delora, and they can help—”

There was a creak of disused hinges. A flicker of firelight filled the opening closet door.

Doctor Widdecombe stood in the doorway. Delora, holding a glass-shaded lamp, hovered in the hall behind him. Their faces wore matching expressions of worry and surprise.

“Delora!” Olive stumbled over the heaps of boxes, rushing toward the door. “Doctor Widdecombe!
Walter
is the one who took my parents!”

Doctor Widdecombe looked down at Olive. His worried eyes began to crinkle, and his beard began to twitch, and then he placed both hands on his belly and let out a long, jolly chuckle. Delora smiled in spite of herself, hiding her mouth behind one pale hand.

“Walter?” repeated Doctor Widdecombe, between hearty
Ho-ho-ha’
s. “You think
Walter
could manage such a thing, in secrecy, with
or
without the help of a greater magician?” He laughed once more—
Ha-ho-hoom
—and then patted his belly in a contented way. “No, Olive,” he said, still smiling cheerily down at her. “
We
are the ones who took your parents.”

N
EXT TO
O
LIVE,
Rutherford froze. The beam of his flashlight had come to rest on Doctor Widdecombe’s tweed lapel, and it stayed there, casting its bluish light over the edge of the professor’s round, smiling face.

Olive’s arrangement of thoughts, everything she knew or thought she knew, slipped out of place and tumbled downward, filling her brain with a shattered mess. “What?” she said. “But—
why?
”

“Our plan was, as
you
were the only inhabitant who knew everything about the McMartin house,” Doctor Widdecombe began, “to remove your parents, and then to let you lead us directly to the house’s most valuable secrets—the familiars, the grimoire, Elsewhere and how to enter it, the ingredients for Aldous’s paints, and so forth. You proved to be extremely stubborn about sharing these things, however. So our next course of action involved removing
you.
” He folded his hands behind his back, still smiling. “If you vacated the house, we would have time to search it in perfect privacy, at our leisure. With your parents gone, we assumed that you too would wish to leave the house—to stay with Mrs. Dewey, perhaps. In time, we would have reunited you with your family, someplace safely far from here.”

“But you just wouldn’t
leave,
” Delora put in, widening her silvery eyes.

“Yes, you turned out to be astonishingly stubborn,” said Doctor Widdecombe pleasantly. “Our plan was to draw the McMartin shades out of their resting places and set them loose in the house, which we successfully did. And
still,
even with your house full of those hateful things, you refused to depart.” Doctor Widdecombe gave an aggravated little shake of his head. “We were discussing our next move—something that wouldn’t require the destruction or weakening of the house itself, of course—when we were interrupted by tonight’s intrusions. And here we are.” Doctor Widdecombe smiled down at the two of them, joggling gently on his feet.

Rutherford had been staring, slack-jawed, at the professor. His mouth slammed shut with an audible click. “It was
you?
” he asked. “An expert on magical history, and an academically honored author?” His voice grew louder and faster. “You deceived us!” he shouted. “Olive, my grandmother; all of us!” He stepped closer to Doctor Widdecombe, his eyes coming in line with the professor’s straining coat buttons. “Why couldn’t I tell that you were plotting against us?” he demanded. “I’ve read your thoughts for days now, and—”

“And learned nothing; yes, I know,” said Doctor Widdecombe mildly. “You see, we were well aware that you were a reader long before we arrived on Linden Street. It is not so difficult for accomplished witches like ourselves to control our thoughts while in your vicinity, to avoid eye contact, and so forth. I did dislike deceiving you,” he went on, sounding almost apologetic. “You are a talented boy. Don’t let this failure discourage you.”

Rutherford looked as though he might explode.

“But
why?
” Olive asked, moving to Rutherford’s side. “Why did you do this?” She glanced back at her parents’ faces, still fast asleep in the flickering lamplight. “Are you working for Annabelle?”

“Goodness, no,” said Delora.

“We would like to be rid of her as much as you would, Olive.” Doctor Widdecombe brought his face closer to Olive’s, like an instructor explaining a particularly important fact. He smiled a glinting, hungry smile. “It’s because of your
house,
Olive.”

“My house,” Olive echoed.

“The simple truth is, it should not be
your
house,” Doctor Widdecombe said gently. The oil lamp flared, edging his huge body with ripples of darkness. “And it
isn’t
your house. It requires—no, it
deserves
a great magician to inhabit it, to make use of its treasures, its legacy, its wealth of knowledge. It deserves a worthy heir. And you, Olive, as I have said from the start, are simply an ordinary little girl.” Doctor Widdecombe placed one heavy hand on Olive’s shoulder. “But now that you know so much, and remain so stubborn, we have no choice but to get rid of you permanently.”

A flood of ice filled Olive’s body. She shuddered as the truth sank in: They were stuck in a closet inside an enemy’s house, blockaded by two powerful witches, with her parents sound asleep just a few feet away. They were trapped.

Rutherford’s mind had clearly leaped to the same conclusion. “What about Walter?” he asked, stalling. “Did he fool me with his thoughts too? Or didn’t he know anything about this?”

Doctor Widdecombe and Delora exchanged a bemused smile.

“Walter knows nothing at all,” said Doctor Widdecombe.

“I have been burdened with him since my sister passed into the dark realm,” said Delora. “She was as much a simpleton as Walter, but I promised to teach him all I could.” Delora gave a lofty sigh. “However, there are some who just cannot be taught.”

“Walter was merely supposed to keep an eye on you,” Doctor Widdecombe added. “His task was to report back to us about your doings, nothing more.”

Olive frowned. “If he wasn’t working with you, then why did
he try to sneak into my house? Who was he going to steal the McMartins’ things for? Why—”

“That’s enough,” said Doctor Widdecombe, brushing her words away with a wave of his hand. “As much as I enjoy teaching the young, there comes a time for words to end and for actions to take their place. Hold still, Olive,” he continued, tugging a silk handkerchief out of his pocket. His other hand tightened its grip on her shoulder. “This first part is completely painless.”

He cupped the handkerchief in his palm. Olive jerked backward, but Doctor Widdecombe’s hand on her shoulder was too heavy and too strong. She watched the handkerchief coming closer, about to cover her nose and mouth, and she caught the faintest whiff of something bitter rising from the fabric.

But before he could clamp the cloth over Olive’s face, a change came over Doctor Widdecombe. The same change came over Delora, who was still hovering in the flickering hallway just behind him. Simultaneously, they stiffened, their faces going perfectly blank, as if they’d been listening to a long and detailed lecture on the merits of unwaxed dental floss. Their bodies rocked slowly backward. Then, like two mismatched dominoes, they toppled over, revealing Walter standing in the hallway behind them, his empty hands still raised in their direction.

Their bodies hit the floor with a resounding crash. The lamp that Delora had been clutching shattered on the floorboards, its oil spattering from the broken glass base, its flames shooting upward and outward into a roaring fountain of fire.

W
ALTER WAVERED AT
the edge of the burning puddle, looking too stunned to move.

“We need to stifle the fire!” Rutherford shouted. “Hurry!”

Olive lunged back into the closet, grabbing a heavy wool coat from its hanger. She flew back through the door, tossing the outspread cloth over the flame, and Rutherford stomped on it with both slippered feet.

Almost as quickly as it had begun, the fire was out. Darkness filled the hallway once again, except for the beam of Rutherford’s flashlight, which was now focused on Walter’s face.

“Mmm . . . sorry . . .” said Walter, shifting awkwardly on his skinny legs. “I didn’t think about the lamp.”

“Are they dead?” Olive nudged the scorched coat aside to look at Doctor Widdecombe and Delora. The fire had begun to singe Delora’s flowing black skirts, but her face was still completely blank.

“Mmm . . . no. They’re just frozen. I think.”

“How did you do that?” Rutherford asked. He stared at Walter’s empty hands. “You can perform spontaneous spell-casting?”

“I don’t know,” said Walter. “I didn’t know I could.”

“What’s spontaneous spell-casting?” Olive turned to Rutherford.

“It’s magic performed without the use of herbs or symbols or tools of any kind,” Rutherford explained. From the way his flashlight beam began to bounce in the smoky air, Olive knew that he was jiggling very excitedly. “Only force of will, concentration of powers, and occasional words are required. It takes a
highly
gifted witch to do it.”

Olive remembered Annabelle McMartin’s hand flicking through the stormy air above the painted lake, lifting the spectacles from Olive’s neck, tossing a ball of fire that exploded against Lucinda Nivens’s chest. “I’ve seen Annabelle do it,” she murmured.

“I’m not working for her. I swear,” Walter rumbled. “I knew something was wrong. Two days ago, I found your parents in here. I thought—if I had a spellbook, I might find a way to get rid of the shades. Or I could stop Aunt Delora and Doctor Uncle—I mean Uncle Doctor—I mean—”

“But you were looking for the grimoire long before that,” said Olive, a sliver of suspicion still prickling her mind. “And I saw you in the garden, looking for ingredients.”

Walter’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I wanted to make them proud. Before I knew.” He looked down at the silent figures of his aunt and uncle. “And I guess I didn’t need ingredients anyway.”

“No,” said Olive, gazing at Doctor Widdecome. His broad belly rose and fell peacefully. “I guess you didn’t.”

“Fascinating,” Rutherford breathed.

“So, can you wiggle your fingers or something and wake my parents?” Olive asked.

Walter’s eyes widened. “Mmm . . .” he rumbled. “I’m not sure. This was the first time it worked.” He held up his hands, aiming them shakily at the back of the closet. “I’ll try. But it might freeze them instead . . .”

“Never mind,” said Rutherford quickly. “There’s somebody else who’ll know exactly what to do.”

As it happened, Mrs. Dewey owned a rolling cart, which she kept on her patio to wheel potted plants in and out of the sun. This made moving four inert bodies from the Nivenses’ house to the Deweys’ considerably easier. However, it still took the collected efforts of Olive, Rutherford, Mrs. Dewey, and Walter to squish the heap that was Doctor Widdecombe onto the cart and out through the back door.

The hard work didn’t bother Olive one bit. Relief and joy surrounded her like a warm, fuzzy blanket. She felt herself beginning to relax, to cuddle down into the comfort of it . . . and still, something kept tugging at the blanket’s edge, uncovering her toes to the cold.

Once everyone was arranged in Mrs. Dewey’s kitchen, the Dunwoodys propped comfortably in chairs, and Doctor Widdecombe and Delora plopped uncomfortably in a corner of the floor, Mrs. Dewey and Rutherford sprang into action, grinding tiny star-shaped seeds into powder, measuring cups of sugar and something equally pale and sparkly that
wasn’t
sugar, and heating water in the big brass teapot. Olive stood between her parents, not wanting to take her hands off of their sleeping shoulders. A persistent, chilly wrongness prickled at the back of her neck.

“Well, I am absolutely
livid,
” said Mrs. Dewey, pounding some small silvery pods with a meat-tenderizing hammer. “I know Byron and Delora can be arrogant at times, but I had no idea that they were so greedy, so short-sighted, and so
monstrous
as to do a thing like this. I am so sorry, Olive,” she went on, with a
wham
that sent one pod flying toward Mr. Dunwoody’s nose. It bounced off one nostril and landed in his lap. Mr. Dunwoody didn’t move.

“I would never have brought them here if I had suspected . . .” Mrs. Dewey gave the pods another
wham.
“If it wouldn’t be setting a bad example for the three of you, I would be burying them in the garden manure right now.”

“Mmm . . . What
are
you going to do with them?” Walter asked, from his spot beside the warm stove.

“We could put them Elsewhere,” said Rutherford.

“No,”
said Olive.

“I’ll come up with something appropriate,” said Mrs. Dewey, sweeping the crushed pods into a blue china bowl. “Walter, would you hand me that teapot, please?”

As Mrs. Dewey whisked the steaming water into the bowl, sprinkling the sparkly not-sugar over the top, Olive crouched down between her parents. Mr. Dunwoody let out a snore.

“What happens when they wake up?” she asked Mrs. Dewey. “What do we tell them? Will they remember everything?”

“That’s what
these
are for,” said Mrs. Dewey, reaching for one of the many cookie jars that stood on her kitchen shelves. She whipped off the lid. “My Dutch-cocoa-sour-cream swirls. Your parents will wake up disoriented and hungry, and these will erase their recent memories. The more they eat, the more will be erased. Don’t worry, Olive,” she went on, as Olive’s eyes widened. “I’ll make sure to stop them long before they forget the important things.”

“If you could make them forget my last math grade, that would be fine,” said Olive.

Mrs. Dewey smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The blue bowl was beginning to send up wafts of curly green steam, which smelled like mint and early-summer mornings. Mrs. Dewey ladled the steaming liquid into two teacups and sprinkled a pinch of ground star seeds over the tops. “Now, stay back, you two, or you’ll be up all night,” she warned Olive and Rutherford. Then she held the cups under Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody’s softly snoring noses.

Olive watched the sea-green steam swirl up over her parents’ faces. Her father’s eyebrows twitched. Her mother’s eyelashes fluttered. Together, they raised their heads and opened their eyes, which focused, at the very same instant, on Olive.

“Olive!” they both shouted, grasping her hands.

“You’re all right!” said her mother, brushing the hair from Olive’s face.

“They didn’t take you too, did they? The masked intruders?” her father demanded.

“I
thought
they were too tall to be trick-or-treaters,” said Mrs. Dunwoody.

“Yes, but as we discussed before we let them in, there are sufficient outliers to the rules of average height and weight to make it not impossible that they were children,” said Mr. Dunwoody.

“Not impossible, but unlikely,” said Mrs. Dunwoody. “Statistically speaking, I would guess that children under the age of fourteen—pre-high-school, that is—who weigh approximately three hundred pounds and are nearly six feet tall would make up a percentage of—”

“You must be hungry after that ordeal, Alec and Alice,” said Mrs. Dewey, sweeping in with a plateful of cookies.

“You are absolutely right, Lydia,” said Mr. Dunwoody, taking a large bite of a Dutch-cocoa-sour-cream swirl. “Thank you. Now, what was I saying?”

“I believe . . .” Mrs. Dunwoody hesitated, chewing. “These are delicious, Lydia. Thank you very much. I believe
I
was saying something.”

“Would either of you care for a cup of tea? Or coffee?” Mrs. Dewey offered.

“Coffee,” said Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody simultaneously.

“Were we talking about Halloween?” Mrs. Dunwoody resumed.

“I could have sworn we were discussing prime numbers.” Mr. Dunwoody rubbed his forehead. Then he paused, patting slowly at the space around both of his eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t remember where I left my glasses.”

“I’ll find them,” Olive promised, beaming at Mr. Dunwoody.

Mr. Dunwoody beamed blindly back up at her.

“I’ll be right back!” she called from the kitchen doorway.

“What did Olive say she was going to do?” she heard her father ask as she bolted through the back door and flew across Mrs. Dewey’s yard.

Outside, the sky was still dark, and the air was still cold. This night had seemed to go on forever, yet there wasn’t even a streak of blue on the horizon. Frost clung to the lawns, coating each blade of grass with hazy silver.

Olive galloped around the hedge up the front porch steps, too overjoyed to notice that the lights in the entry and the library had gone out once again. She flipped the switch beside the front door, and the old stone house seemed to welcome her in, its golden light sweeping around her like protective arms.

Her father’s glasses would be waiting safely on the table beside Olive’s bed, just where she had left them. Olive jogged up the stairs. Her parents were safe, and they were coming home, and everything was—

Everything was—

Olive’s steps slowed.

At the top of the stairs, everything was dark. This wasn’t the darkness of a room without lights; it was solid darkness. Aggressive darkness. A wall of blackness waited for her, extending across the hall from Olive’s bedroom all the way to her parents’ door—a living wall, rippling with hands and claws and teeth and faces.

Olive froze, balanced on the edge of two stairs.

There was the soft rustle of silk, and the wall parted, giving way to a pretty woman in a long white gown.

Annabelle McMartin, with her painted gold eyes and small, chilly smile stepped slowly toward the head of the staircase. Beside her strode a glossy black cat, sleek and silent as a panther. Behind them both, like a long black bridal train, the retinue of monstrous shadows rippled and shifted, spidery legs skittering, jaws gaping with sharpened teeth.

Olive knew what had been prickling at the back of her mind.

She had left the house unguarded for far too long.

“There you are, Olive Dunwoody,” Annabelle said sweetly. “We wondered when you would be back.”

She raised one hand, fingers sweeping daintily through the air.

The last of the lights went out.