The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder

by John Bellairs

Fortunately, the routine proved easy to continue. At every stop Jonathan insisted on walking from site to site, climbing miles of stairs in museums and cathedrals and monuments, and sampling the local cuisine. As their trip took them from Venice to Vienna and then up into Germany, Lewis tightened his belt a second notch. He seemed to have more stamina too, and his legs stopped aching as he became accustomed to all the walking. Lewis noticed that Jonathan was also losing weight. His uncle had a potbelly that swelled his red vest out, but all the walking they did began to make that shrink. Maybe the vacation would be good for both of them, Lewis thought.

  However, Lewis had to admit that one thing threatened to spoil all the fun he was having. It did not happen often: maybe once a week. It was a terrible dream. In the dream, Lewis was lost in a brushy field. A few leafless trees grew here and there, and everywhere else the dead yellow grass stood knee high. Strange bushes poked up through the grass. The bushes had red, writhing, wormlike branches and twigs, and the leaves on them were the same crimson color as blood. In the dream it was always the same kind of day: overcast and dark. And Lewis always had the uneasy notion that he had to get somewhere very fast. But he did not know where he was supposed to go or what he had to do when he arrived. Worse, with the sky so gloomy and the sun hidden from view, he could not even judge directions.

  So he stayed in the center of the field while a feeling of dread grew stronger and stronger. Finally he could stand it no more, and he began to walk. The tough yellow grass snared his ankles and threatened to trip him. The bushes began to stir and rustle, though Lewis could feel no breeze. Then he could see that the bushes were straining to reach out and grab him. They wanted to wrap those horrible red tentaclelike branches around his arms and legs.

  In the dream Lewis started to run. He could hardly drag his feet. It was like running through molasses, or like trying to run with concrete blocks strapped to both feet. And he heard a horrible sound of thick breathing, as if some monstrous giant lay hidden just out of his sight. The humid air smelled moldy and rank, the smell of decaying plants and slimy earthworms and damp dirt. Somehow, one of the awful bushes suddenly sprang up right in front of him. He tried to stop, but the waving grass felt like the ocean pounding against his legs. It swept him forward, inch by inch. And as it pushed him closer, he saw something dreadful. At the base of the bush sat a human skeleton. The red shoots of the bush grew through its ribs, caressing them, clamping them, and holding the skeleton in position. The skull lolled down on the ribs. As the grass shoved Lewis forward, the skull slowly rose. The bush was growing as Lewis watched, like plants he had seen in a stop-motion movie film. The fleshless skull tipped back and back until he could see the face.

  Green-glass spectacles covered the eye sockets.

  “Bertie!” screamed Lewis. Only his voice came out as a whisper that ripped his throat.

  The skull’s jaw dropped open. It appeared to laugh silently at him. And then the glasses moved. Red twigs grew out of the eye sockets, waving and squirming like handfuls of worms. The horrible, writhing shoots pushed the glasses off. The spectacles dropped to the ground.

  And now Lewis was so close that the branches began to wrap around his arms, drawing him closer to the hungry bush. The leaves had saw-toothed edges, and Lewis felt a million of them begin to cut into his face and hands and arms—

  And then he would wake up, shivering and covered with clammy sweat. On the nights when he had the fearful dream, Lewis would lie awake afterward, silently reciting all the prayers he could remember. The next night he would be afraid to go to bed, and he would lie awake for a long time, fearful of what sleep might bring. Luckily, he never had the dream two nights in a row. Still, it would return to haunt him again a week or so later.

  The last time he had the nightmare was the final night that he and Jonathan were staying in Göttingen. After the nightmare had jerked him awake, Lewis did not sleep again at all that night. He got up the next morning shaky and wretched from the strain. He fumbled with his clothing so much that Jonathan asked, “Are you feeling sick or something?” in a worried tone.

  Lewis shook his head. “I guess I’ve been too excited to sleep well,” he mumbled.

  Jonathan said he could understand that, but he kept looking at Lewis with evident concern. As they came down to breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Lewis and Jonathan passed the front desk. The clerk at the desk brightened when he saw them. “Some mail for the young man,” he said in heavily accented English. He gave Lewis a postcard.

  Lewis recognized Mrs. Goodring’s handwriting at once. The card bore an airmail stamp and was postmarked the day before yesterday. The message written on the front made Lewis’s heart thump painfully. It was just one sentence:

  Dear Lewis,

  I’m awfully glad you are coming back to Barnavelt Manor soon.

  Your friend, Bertie

  “Awfully” was one of the code words. Something was wrong at Barnavelt Manor. And today Jonathan and Lewis would leave Germany to return to England.

  Lewis had the panicky feeling that all his nightmares were about to come true.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Once again the train pulled into the country station. Once again Jonathan and Lewis stood on the platform surrounded by their luggage. And once again the boxy old Austin Seven came puttering toward them, with the tall, lean figure of Cousin Pelly behind the wheel. But this time Lewis felt a suffocating dread. Part of it was the weather. The sky did not seem to have changed since they had left Barnavelt Manor more than a month earlier. The gloomy gray clouds seemed so low that you could climb up a tall ladder and touch them. The air was muggy and close, just like the oppressive atmosphere in Lewis’s nightmare. The whole world seemed waiting for something to happen. Something awful and deadly.

  The car creaked to a halt, and Cousin Pelly climbed out. He clapped his bony hands together. “So home are the travelers, eh? So jolly! Ripping times await us, I can tell you!” He grinned wolfishly.

  Lewis caught his breath. Was this his gentle, eccentric Cousin Pelly? The old man’s eyes were red rimmed, and the flesh under his cheeks had sunken in. His wild silver hair had not been trimmed. His smile looked sly and knowing. Lewis felt his uncle start in surprise. Then Jonathan said, “Yes, Cousin Pelly, we have returned. It will be good to rest in the ancestral mansion tonight. I hope we aren’t inconveniencing you.”

  Pelly gave him a sharp, suspicious look. “Inconveniencing me? Nonsense! I want to show you all the, ah, hospitality that Barnavelt Manor affords. We have to stick together, what? After all, we are the last living male Barnavelts!” And then Pelly snickered in a most unpleasant way. “Come along, let’s get your baggage loaded. I can hardly wait to get you back to the Manor!”

  Jonathan and Lewis loaded the luggage into the car. Jonathan kept glancing at his oddball English cousin. He could not put his finger on it, but he knew that the old man had changed somehow, and not for the better. Jonathan sighed. He knew that something was bothering Lewis too, something that his nephew was not ready to talk about. Although Jonathan had tried hard to remain cheerful and upbeat during the long trip, he was well aware that Lewis occasionally had nightmares. Several times Lewis’s groans and moans had wakened Jonathan at night. But Lewis had never complained or asked to talk about whatever was bothering him, and Jonathan felt that he should respect his nephew’s privacy. He knew that sometimes people had troubles they simply had to work out for themselves.

  Now, though, Jonathan began to regret not offering his help to Lewis. He waited until Lewis had squeezed into the backseat of the car, and then he climbed into the passenger seat beside Pelly. As Pelly started the ancient automobile, Jonathan took out his pipe. He had almost stopped smoking over the past year, and he was determined to cut out tobacco altogether as soon as his supply ran out this time. But right now he felt like a meditative pipe. He puffed away as the car careened along the narrow road toward Barnavelt Manor.

  For his part, Lewis felt his discomfort increasing as they clattere
d between the fields of grazing sheep. He looked away from the hedge maze as Pelly turned in at the drive. That was why Lewis was looking straight at the gatekeeper’s cottage as they passed it on the right. And there was a white, hollow-eyed face staring out at him. It was only a momentary glimpse, but Lewis could see the deep-set glaring eyes, the tight-lipped grin, and the clenched, crooked teeth. Lewis glanced at Jonathan, but his uncle had noticed nothing. He merely sat staring straight ahead, his pipe clenched in his teeth.

  The Austin creaked to a weary halt in front of the Manor, and old Jenkins came out to help with the luggage again. This time the servant did not speak at all. He just gave both Jonathan and Lewis a long, disapproving gaze, as if he blamed them for the stifling weather and the general atmosphere of gloom. They took the same rooms they had occupied before, and Lewis was grateful when he reflected that a door led from his bedroom directly into Jonathan’s. If he felt really frightened, he could always get up and leave the communicating door open. And maybe lock the hall door to keep the ghosts and ghouls out.

  This time no midmorning snack awaited them. Mrs. Goodring told them that she would make sandwiches for lunch, but her voice was low and troubled. She kept her hands clutched in her apron as she spoke, and she kept stealing nervous glances at Cousin Pelly. If the very idea had not been absurd, Lewis would have guessed that she was afraid of the harmless old man. Lewis set off to find Bertie, who was playing, Mrs. Goodring said distractedly, “somewhere about.”

  He found Bertie outside, behind the house. Bertie sat with his back against an oak tree, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He tilted his head as Lewis approached and said, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me,” said Lewis ungrammatically. “We got here as soon as we could.” He took a long and careful look around. Jenkins was doing something in the garden, off to the left. He was much too far away to hear the boys. No one else was around. Still, Lewis lowered his voice as he sat next to Bertie. “What’s up? I got the note you sent.”

  Bertie took a long, deep breath. “Crikey, but I’m glad you’re back. Oh, Lewis, I’ve had a terrible summer. Do you have bad dreams about—about you-know-what?”

  Lewis flinched. He had expected trouble of some sort, but not that. “Yeah,” he admitted. He hesitated, but then he went on to describe the awful nightmares to Bertie. He found that he could finally talk freely about them, since Bertie had shared his adventure in the hedge maze. It was a relief to spill out all his fears at last, even though talking about them made Lewis breathe faster and made his heart race. “So then I always wake up,” he finished. “I guess you’ve been sleeping pretty badly too.”

  “Yes,” Bertie said. “Only mine are sort of different. In my dream, I hear hushed sounds everywhere—from my closet, from under my bed, from outside. It’s like a lot of tiny voices, speaking in whispers just too low for me to hear. Except I hear my name every once in a while—‘Mumum mumum mumum, Bertie,’ the voices will say.” Bertie shivered and hugged his knees against his chest. “And there are other sounds too. Sounds like an enormous spider, as big as a plate, walking slowly across the floor toward my bed. Tapping sounds at my window, like a skeleton drumming its fingers on the glass. I just lie there terrified until I wake up and the sounds stop. And sometimes I think they go on a little while after I wake up.”

  “Wow,” Lewis said in an unsteady voice. He had never been particularly afraid of the dark, but then he could chase it away with a flashlight or a match. He had never considered what awful nightmares a blind person might have. “I don’t think I could stand a dream like that,” he admitted.

  “That isn’t the worst,” whispered Bertie. “Two other things happened, just last week. That’s why I sent you the card.”

  “What?” asked Lewis, though he dreaded hearing the answer.

  Bertie lowered his voice even more, so Lewis had to lean close to hear him. “First, a gentleman from London came and asked to rent the gatekeeper’s house. Mr. Barnavelt agreed, and he moved in. But, Lewis, he’s horrible!”

  Lewis began to shiver. Get hold of yourself, he thought. You can’t show Bertie that you’re afraid. He cleared his throat and said, “How do you mean, ‘horrible’?”

  Bertie shook his head miserably. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. I was out front when Jenkins hauled his trunk into the gatekeeper’s cottage, and I think the man walked past me. I felt something cold, the way you feel sometimes on a hot day if a cloud covers the sun. It was just like a cool shadow passing over me. And the man said, ‘What a likely-looking lad.’ Just that, and nothing more. But his voice, Lewis, sounded like those terrible whispery voices I’ve been dreaming about. It sounded like the voice of a ghost. And—and—I don’t think I can talk about this—”

  Lewis put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You can tell me,” he said. “You’re good old Watson, remember?”

  Bertie smiled, but Lewis saw a tear creep down from behind his green spectacles. It surprised him a little. He had not stopped to think that a blind person might be able to cry. Bertie took off his spectacles and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Lewis noticed that he had blue eyes, and they looked normal, except the pupils were very wide and black. Bertie slipped the glasses back on and said, “Thank you, Holmes.” Then he took a couple of deep breaths. “It’s hard to say this, and it sounds crazy. But Lewis, the man has no footstep!”

  Lewis frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You know how I got to recognize your footstep so fast?”

  Lewis nodded without thinking, then said, “Yeah. That’s a neat trick.”

  “Well, I can’t hear this man’s footsteps at all. He passed right by me, and I couldn’t hear the grass rustling. He stepped up onto the threshold, and his boots made no sound at all. And twice when I’ve been out front, he’s suddenly spoken to me from quite close by, and yet I’ve never heard him approach.”

  Lewis understood his friend’s fear. Now that he thought about it, being blind and not hearing someone coming might be even more frightening than hearing someone you are afraid of step closer and closer. “Wh-what did he say to you?” stammered Lewis.

  “Nothing important. Once he said, ‘A quiet, lonely life here, eh, lad?’ And the other time, he just said, ‘Old houses have their own spirit, don’t they?’ You see, it wasn’t really what he said that bothered me. It was sort of what he didn’t say.”

  “Hmm,” said Lewis. “You mean, he might have meant ‘You are all alone here, and there’s no help for miles’ the first time, and ‘Barnavelt Manor is a haunted house’ the second one. Or something like that.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Bertie. “He was—now what is the word?—implying more than he actually said. And he knew that I would understand that.”

  Lewis swallowed. “What was the second bad thing that happened?”

  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “Of course not,” said Lewis with some surprise.

  “Well—the chickens died. All of them.”

  “What?” Lewis did not know what to make of this news. “Did an animal kill them, or—?”

  “No,” Bertie said. “The morning after that strange man first showed up, Jenkins went to collect the eggs, as usual. He came back very upset. Every chicken was lying dead on the ground, but none of them had any injury. At first we thought it might be a disease, but the vet checked some of them and said he couldn’t explain it. They just—died. As if something might have frightened them to death.”

  Lewis shuddered. He did not like this piece of news. It reminded him too much of the awful night when something had chased him and Bertie. He himself had felt almost on the verge of dying from fright then.

  After a moment, Bertie went on: “And ever since Mr. Prester—that’s his name, Jenkins says, Mr. Matthew Prester of London—moved into the cottage, Jenkins and Mr. Barnavelt and even Mum have changed. They seem frightfully nervous and edgy. Mr. Barnavelt snaps at me if I make any noise at all, and he’s never done that. And Mum g
ets cross at me as easy as anything. Oh, Lewis, what are we to do?”

  Lewis bit his lip. That was the sixty-four dollar question, all right: What were two boys to do when they were up against something they could not begin to comprehend? But even Sherlock Holmes must have been a boy once, Lewis reminded himself. Every great hero has to begin someplace. After a few moments, Lewis said, “Okay, here’s what I think. First, we can’t go to Cousin Pelly and complain about this Matthew Whosis. I know Pelly needs the rent money, and without any evidence, he wouldn’t kick this guy out of the cottage. So before we go to anybody, we have to make sure that the fellow is up to no good. I think I might have seen him when we drove in. Somebody peeked out at us from inside the cottage. He looks about as bad to me as he sounds to you. Still, you just can’t go by appearances, I guess. We have to find evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?” asked Bertie.

  “I don’t know,” confessed Lewis. “Something that might prove to the others that this man isn’t what he seems. I’ll try to question Jenkins without making him suspicious. And maybe the two of us can sneak up to the cottage and see what he is doing in there. Are you with me?”

  Bertie gave him a sickly grin. “As always, Holmes.”

  “Stout fellow,” said Lewis. He hoped his voice sounded a lot braver than he felt at the moment.

  Jenkins had gone inside by the time they finished talking, and Lewis did not see him anywhere about. At noon Mrs. Goodring called the two boys in for lunch. She said that Uncle Jonathan and Cousin Pelly were out having a stroll around the grounds, so Bertie and Lewis ate together at a small kitchen table. It was not much of a meal: just some toasted cheese sandwiches and milk, and a small slice of cake each for dessert. After lunch Bertie asked if they might go outside to play, and Mrs. Goodring said they could. “Mind you, hurry right back inside if it begins to storm,” she said, with an uneasy glance out the window. The clouds still hung unbroken and threatening, and the air fairly hummed with the tension that precedes a really big thunderstorm.