Lewis shook his head.
“Tell him the story,” Mrs. Hardwick urged. “Halloween’s coming soon! It’s a good time to hear it.”
“Well,” said Mr. Hardwick, clipping more grass, “back in 1878 Belle Frisson was touring the country, doing her communicating-with-the-dead act. She had made an appearance in Detroit and was heading west by train. Just outside Cristobal the train jumped the tracks. Quite a few people were hurt.”
“It was a famous accident,” Mrs. Hardwick added. “It happened in the middle of October on a clear, dry night, and no one ever discovered the cause.”
Mr. Hardwick agreed. “It was very puzzling. Many injuries, as I said, but only Belle Frisson’s were serious. There used to be a farm right here, owned by a doctor. He and his wife took Belle Frisson in to treat her injuries. She regained consciousness, but she knew she wasn’t going to make it. So on her deathbed she did something very eccentric. She arranged to buy the doctor’s farm from him.”
“Was she rich?” asked Lewis.
“Rich enough,” replied Mr. Hardwick. “She spent nearly a week sketching out her tombstone, ordering it to be made exactly the way she drew it. Then strange people came to the farm—people the doctor had certainly not telegraphed, people whom Belle Frisson couldn’t possibly have contacted in any normal way. She saw them one at a time and gave them some kind of orders. She also told the doctor that she was going to be buried in the front yard of the farm. And she wrote out her will. She also created a very peculiar scroll that I have in the museum. She died on Halloween night, 1878. The next day the doctor and his wife moved away. Those outsiders came—stonemasons, carpenters, an undertaker, I don’t know what—and they spent a month burying Belle and putting up that monument. Then they dismantled the house and went away.”
“They left just the one grave,” said Mrs. Hardwick. “Over the years, that changed. Belle Frisson’s will said that anyone who couldn’t afford a burial anywhere else could have a plot for free. Any magician could also be buried in this cemetery.”
Mr. Hardwick continued. “About six or seven conjurors have taken her up on the offer.” He patted the grave that he was working on. “Freddy, here, better known as the Great Candelini, is one of them. I knew him back before the war. He passed away in 1943, at the ripe old age of eighty-seven, and he asked to be buried here. He had a great act that used lighted candles. You would have liked him, Lewis.”
Lewis nodded. “Why are there chalk marks on the ball on top of Belle Frisson’s monument?” he asked.
Mr. Hardwick put the clippers back in the basket and got up. “That’s another peculiar thing. The ball rotates. It moves very slowly. It makes one complete revolution about every six weeks. Nobody can tell how it works, though one science teacher told me it probably has to do with the way the granite expands when the weather is warm and contracts when it cools off again.”
“People put chalk marks on the ball to prove that it moves,” explained Mrs. Hardwick. “And sure enough, it does.”
The two of them began to clean up another grave, and Lewis walked back toward Belle Frisson’s monument. He could not shake a creepy sensation that something was very wrong, and he was worried about Rose Rita. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her, standing on the far side of the monument. She had her arms spread out, her palms turned toward the sky, and her head thrown back. The sunlight glinted on her glasses. She seemed to be staring at the ball atop the monument.
“Hi,” he said, coming up to her. She did not answer. “Pretty strange tombstone.”
Rose Rita glared at him. “You don’t know anything about it,” she snapped.
Lewis raised his eyebrows. “What? What’s eating you? I just said—”
“Forget it.”
Lewis went on, “Mr. Hardwick says the ball up there rotates. It turns all by itself. That’s why people have put chalk marks on it. Weird, huh?”
“Where movement is, there is life also,” replied Rose Rita in a strange, hoarse voice. “Blood is the life, and as from one it may be taken, to another it shall be given.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Lewis.
Rose Rita shook her head. “Nothing.”
The day began to feel very cold to Lewis, though the sun still shone through the clouds. The snip-snip of the garden shears, the rustle of a breeze through the grass, were the only sounds. “What do you suppose those marks are?” asked Lewis, trying to fill in the silence. He pointed to the curves and swirls carved into the granite shaft.
“A mystery,” replied Rose Rita in that same harsh, dreamy voice. “One that may be wrapped up or unwrapped in time. One whose answer may be fetched from afar.”
Something tickled Lewis’s neck. He slapped at it, thinking it was a bug. He felt something stringy and looked at his fingers. A thin strand of cobweb connected them. Grimacing in revulsion, he stooped and scrubbed his hand on the grass. Then he felt another light touch on his face, and another. Crying out in alarm, Lewis began to flail the air. It was full of wispy, floating strands of cobweb—and at the end of each strand was a tiny, almost invisible, gray spider. Lewis hated spiders. He grabbed Rose Rita’s arm. “Let’s get out of here!” he said, dragging her down the path.
The floating baby spiders vanished as soon as they were a few steps away from the Frisson grave. Lewis told the Hardwicks about them, and they thought the baby spiders were probably just migrating. “I’ve heard of them doing that,” said Mr. Hardwick. “Thought they did it in the spring, though.”
Rose Rita didn’t say anything, and she said very little on the way back to New Zebedee. Lewis watched her, tried to remember her exact words, and brooded.
* * *
That evening he told Uncle Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann about everything that he remembered. They listened gravely, and when he finished, they exchanged long looks. “Does this tomb with its revolving ball sound familiar to you, Jonathan?” asked Mrs. Zimmermann.
“It sounds like something out of the Egyptian Book of the Dead,” responded Jonathan. “What about the spiders? Wasn’t there something about spiders in Egyptian mythology?”
Mrs. Zimmermann touched a finger to her chin. “Hmm. I don’t remember anything especially about spiders. Of course, the Egyptians placed great store in the scarab, which is a type of beetle, but spiders aren’t even insects, so that wouldn’t apply. I’m coming up blank. I can remember the myth of Arachne, whom the gods turned into a spider, and I can recall the African folk tales about Anansi, the trickster spider, but that’s all.”
“It’s a mystery,” pronounced Jonathan.
“One whose answer may be fetched from afar,” said Lewis solemnly. Both Uncle Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann stared at him as though he had suddenly sprouted an extra head. “What is it?” he asked, a little alarmed.
“That was a mighty odd thing to say,” replied Jonathan. “One whose answer may be fetched from afar? What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know,” confessed Lewis. “It’s something Rose Rita said.”
“She used those exact words?” asked Jonathan, his voice troubled.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure,” Lewis said. “If not those words, almost the same ones.”
Jonathan took a pipe cleaner—he still carried them around, though he never smoked anymore—from his vest and twisted it into the shape of a spring. He pressed the ends together until the pipe cleaner slipped out of his fingers and leaped away. Then he said tightly, “Florence, I may be a fussbudget and a gloomy Gus, but that has a bad sound to me. You know all about fetches, of course.”
“Ye-s-s,” she said. “Still, it could be a coincidence.”
“What are fetches?” asked Lewis.
Jonathan looked somberly at Mrs. Zimmermann. “You explain them, Haggy. You’re the professional here.”
“Well, Lewis,” Mrs. Zimmermann began, “a fetch is a kind of apparition or spirit. In England and Ireland fetches take the form of a person. In fact they are identical to the person they
apply to. That kind of fetch is what the Germans call a Doppelgänger, which more or less means ‘walking double.’ Anyway, usually a friend or family member sees the fetch of a victim—”
“V-victim?” stammered Lewis. Now he knew he wasn’t going to like learning about fetches.
Jonathan nodded. “Sometimes even the victim himself or herself sees the fetch. Usually other people mistake it for the victim.”
“That’s a human kind of fetch,” said Mrs. Zimmermann. “In other countries and other time periods, though, people believed in other kinds. They might be animals, or birds, or insects.”
“Or s-spiders?” guessed Lewis.
“Yes, or spiders,” answered Mrs. Zimmermann. “All fetches, whether animal or bird or creepy-crawler, have one job to do, and that is how they get their name. They are sent forth to fetch the soul of a doomed person.”
“And the person dies?” asked Lewis in a small voice.
Softly, Uncle Jonathan replied, “That’s right, Lewis. The person dies.”
Lewis didn’t say anything. He could only think of his friend, Rose Rita, and of the terrible spider they had seen outside her house. Was it truly a fetch? Was Rose Rita doomed to die?
CHAPTER TEN
That Sunday afternoon Rose Rita was getting ready to leave the house. Her mother called, “Where are you going, dear?”
Rose Rita was wearing jeans, a bulky jacket, and a purple knit cap that Mrs. Zimmermann had made for her. She yelled back, “Lewis and I are going to study for a big test. I probably won’t be back until late.”
“Don’t be too late,” Mrs. Pottinger called.
Rose Rita dashed outside. She had several things stuffed inside her jacket: the scroll, the book, a flashlight, and a couple of sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper. In a way she felt very guilty about what she was going to do. Rose Rita liked to tell outrageous stories, but she almost never lied to her parents. She climbed onto her bike and rode downtown, pumping away like a machine. She headed west, past the fountain and the National House Hotel, and then out into the countryside.
She rode for maybe three or four miles before finally climbing off her bike. She looked around. Just north of the highway was a cornfield, with the brown, dry cornstalks still standing. It had a three-rail fence around it, but that was no problem. Rose Rita climbed the fence, then wrestled her bike through. It was easy to hide the bike in the corn. Rose Rita headed back down to the highway and began to hitchhike.
Six cars zoomed past without even slowing. Then a rusty red Ford pickup came sputtering along, slowed, and pulled over. A plump woman opened the passenger door. “Need a ride, dearie?” she asked in a cheerful voice. “Climb in!”
Rose Rita did. “Thank you,” she said.
The woman banged the truck into gear. “That’s all right, dearie. My name’s Susanna Seidler. What’s yours?”
“Rowena Potter,” declared Rose Rita, who had already made up the fake name.
“Well, Rowena Potter, where are you bound?”
“I’m trying to get back to Cristobal,” said Rose Rita.
Mrs. Seidler had the broad, red face of a farmer, and she wore a red-and-black checked flannel shirt and overalls with a big red bandanna tied around her neck. Her hair was short, straight, and copper red. She gave Rose Rita a surprised look from cornflower-blue eyes. “My stars, Rowena, that’s quite a ways. How’d you get clear over to New Zebedee?”
Rose Rita stared ahead at the highway. “Well, that’s a long story,” she said slowly, her mind working furiously. “My uncle had to come into New Zebedee yesterday to see the doctor. He asked me if I’d ride along with him, so I did. But the doctor decided he had to have his appendix out right then, so he stuck my uncle in the hospital. It was so sudden that nobody thought about me. Anyway, today my uncle asked me if I could get back home to feed his chickens and pigs and let my mom and dad know he’s all right.”
“You could’ve just phoned,” said Mrs. Seidler.
“We don’t have a phone,” replied Rose Rita. “Both of my parents are deaf.”
“My stars!” cried Mrs. Seidler. “You certainly have a rough time of it! Why didn’t you ask the doctor for help?”
“He’s not in New Zebedee anymore,” said Rose Rita. “As soon as he operated on my uncle, he went off for a week-long fishing trip on the Upper Peninsula.”
“I never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Seidler indignantly. “Well, Rowena, just you relax. I’ll take you right to your front door, because I’m passing through Cristobal. My husband and I have a farm about ten miles past there, so it’s no trouble.”
Rose Rita bit her lip in consternation. Sometimes her stories were too good. She didn’t say much else about her family but instead asked Mrs. Seidler about hers. Mrs. Seidler loved to talk about her children, and as the miles rolled past, Rose Rita heard all about Hiram and Ernst and Clara and Velma, the baby, whom everyone called “Snookums.” They drove through Cristobal just before sunset. Rose Rita began to feel anxious. Then she saw a farmhouse on the left. “That’s my house,” she said hurriedly, stopping Mrs. Seidler in the middle of a story about how Snookums had painted the kitchen walls with ketchup.
“I’ll drive up and say howdy,” said Mrs. Seidler, slowing the truck.
“No, that’s all right,” replied Rose Rita. “They’re probably at church anyhow. Thanks for the ride.” She insisted until Mrs. Seidler just pulled over and let her out of the truck. Rose Rita stood and waved until the rusty old Ford had driven away out of sight. Then she began to walk. The turnoff to the cemetery was not far past the farmhouse.
Once she got onto the turnoff road, it was a long way, and Rose Rita got hotter and hotter. The sun sank low, and her shadow stretched out long and dark. At last she stood before the strange monument. Squinting up at it, Rose Rita thought the chalk marks had moved a little. The mysterious ball atop the monument had revolved half an inch or so in the few hours since she had been here. The rugged, pitted gray globe was halfway in ruddy sunlight and halfway in deep shadow. Rose Rita reached inside her jacket and pulled out the scroll. She took it out of its embroidered wrapper and began to unroll it. “Now what do I do?” she muttered aloud.
The answer was startling. Rose Rita squeaked out in surprise as she felt a tug. The scroll seemed to have come to life. It yanked and jerked in her grasp, trying to tear itself free. Holding it was like holding a piece of iron near a very strong magnet. The scroll wanted to leap out of her hands and fly toward the monument. Rose Rita let go.
Whoosh! The scroll unwound! It stretched out to more than twelve feet. It snaked through the air, rippling and fluttering. One end of it caught at the very base of the many-sided pillar, and the other began to fly around and around the shaft. The scroll stretched out, longer and longer, as it wrapped itself around the pillar in a spiral. About an inch of the stone showed between the bands of the scroll. With a final slap the free end of the scroll plastered itself just beneath the sphere. The sun set at that moment, leaving Rose Rita in the sudden chill of twilight.
There was still enough light to see. Rose Rita walked around the pillar, looking up. She gasped. The marks along the edges of the scroll had lined up with those carved into the stone. Together, they made up letters. Rose Rita began to speak them, her heart bursting with terror. Some spell was at work. She could not stop reading the words aloud:
IN THE NAME OF NEITH
IN THE NAME OF ANUBIS,
IN THE NAME OF OSIRIS, HEAR!
Rose Rita’s vision became blurry, though the letters of the chant burned bright and clear. Slowly she walked around the stone shaft in a counterclockwise direction, reading strange, ancient-Egyptian-sounding words in a voice edged with grief and fear.
The air around her seemed to shimmer. The sandwiches and the flashlight fell from her jacket, but she did not notice. When she tried to stop walking, something drew her on. She had the weird feeling that hundreds of tiny ropes had been tied to her arms and legs, and they dragged her along like a
living puppet. She screamed out the last words of the chant, “UR-NIPISHTIM! HORLA! THUT-IM-SHOLA!” Then she stood reeling and exhausted.
Silence dropped around her. Rose Rita had no sense that any time had passed, but overhead, stars shone in a dark sky, and a gibbous moon was rising in the east. In its light everything looked different. The tombstones were like snaggly teeth jutting from ancient gums. The tomb before her resembled a tall, standing figure glaring down at her. The sphere on the top began to spin faster and faster. Sparks began to fly. The sound grew sharper, until Rose Rita fell to her knees and clamped her hands over her ears.
Then, with a rumble that made the ground tremble, the whole monument—cube, shaft, and sphere—shifted, pivoting to the left. The moving cube uncovered a dark, square opening beneath it. Again feeling as if she were being pulled by strings, Rose Rita jerked to her feet and lurched forward onto stairs carved from stone. They led down into the earth.
“No!” she cried, but it was no use. She hated closed-in spaces, and the opening was more frightening than anything she had known. She tried to scream, but something soft and clinging, something like yards and yards of cobweb, closed her mouth, reducing her to terrified squeaks.
And then she stepped down into the darkness. Overhead, the monument shuddered as it slid back into place. The last rays of light died.
Rose Rita was trapped inside the tomb.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lewis was in bed reading when he heard the phone ring. The Westclox alarm clock beside his bed said the time was nine forty-four. Curious, Lewis got out of bed and padded downstairs barefoot to find out who was calling so late.
His uncle stood in the front hall, speaking into the receiver: “No, she hasn’t . . . . Yes, that’s what I’d do . . . . I wouldn’t worry just yet. I tell you what, Mrs. Pottinger, I’ll call Mrs. Zimmermann. She may have an idea or two . . . . I understand. Certainly . . . . Yes, you do that. Good-bye.” Jonathan hung up the phone and turned to Lewis, looking very upset. “That was Louise Pottinger. She said Rose Rita came over here around four o’clock to study for a test with you. She didn’t, did she?”
The Specter from the Magician's Museum Page 8
