The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring

by John Bellairs

  She turned, and her gaze met Gert Bigger's.

  "What's the matter now?" Gert Bigger growled. "You forget the number you were supposed to call?"

  "Uh... yeah, I mean, no ma'am, er... never mind," Rose Rita stammered. She turned to the phone. This is dumb, she told herself. That crabby old lady isn't any witch. She doesn't have any magic ring. Just stop playing detective and make your crummy phone call and get it over with!

  Rose Rita dialed O and got the operator. She told her that she wanted to make a collect call to New Zebedee, Michigan, to Mr. Jonathan Barnavelt. His number was 865. Rose Rita waited. She heard vague scratchy and fumbly sounds, and then she heard the buzzing sound that meant that the operator was ringing Jonathan's phone. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.

  "I beg your pardon," said the operator, "but the party does not answer. Would you—"

  "Please try a little longer," said Rose Rita. "Please, ma'am. It's an emergency."

  "Very well." The ringing went on.

  As she waited, Rose Rita's eyes began to wander. On the wall next to the phone she saw an old photograph in a black frame. It was a picture of a man in an old-fashioned suit. He had a handlebar mustache...

  Rose Rita froze. She knew who the man was. He was the man in the picture Mrs. Zimmermann had found in the junk shop. And now she remembered his name: Mordecai. Mordecai Hunks. He was the man Mrs. Zimmermann and Gert Bigger had fought over, a long time ago. He was the reason for Gert Bigger's hatred of Mrs. Zimmermann, her long-standing grudge. It was all beginning to fall together now...

  Rose Rita turned her head slightly and glanced toward Mrs. Bigger. But at that moment a horn beeped outside. Somebody wanted gas. Gert Bigger heaved a discontented sigh, got up heavily, and stumped to the door.

  "I'm sorry, Miss," said the operator, "but I cannot continue to ring the party's number. Would you care to call back at another time?"

  Rose Rita was startled. She had forgotten about the phone call she was making. "Uh... okay," she mumbled. "I'll... uh, try later. Thanks."

  Rose Rita hung up the phone and glanced quickly around. Now was her chance. Behind the counter was a doorway covered by a heavy brown curtain. Rose Rita looked again toward the front of the store. Through the wide plate glass window, she could see Gert Bigger pumping gas. And now she saw another car pulling up on the other side of the pumps. The old bat would probably be out there for a while. Rose Rita took a deep breath, pulled the curtain aside, and ducked in through the doorway.

  She found herself in an ugly little room with pale green walls. There was a coal company calendar on the wall and a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. A small iron safe stood in one corner, and against the long wall was a high narrow shelflike desk. On the desk was a faded green blotter with columns of figures added up all over it. Arranged neatly next to the blotter were a bottle of Parker's Quink, a pile of wooden pens with rusty metal nibs, a brown gum eraser, and several well-sharpened pencils. On the other side of the blotter was an account book with a green cardboard cover. The date 1950 was printed on the cover. There was nothing here that looked in any way magical.

  Rose Rita's heart sank. She felt foolish for doing what she was doing. But wait a minute. What were these? Rose Rita knelt down. Under the desk was a shelf, and on it were piled more green-covered account books. They looked just like the one on the desk, except that they were very dusty and had different dates. 1949, 1948, and so on back. Rose Rita opened one up. Just dull columns of figures. Debits, credits, receipts, and stuff like that. She was about to put the book back when she noticed something sticking out of the middle. She pulled it out and found that it was a folded piece of paper. When she opened the paper, she found a drawing done in pencil. It looked like this:

  Rose Rita held the paper with trembling hands. She could feel her heart beating faster. She was no wizard, but she knew what this was, because she had once been allowed a closely supervised look into one of Uncle Jonathan's magic books. The drawing was a magic pentacle, one of those charms that witches and wizards use when they want good things or bad things to happen. Rose Rita stared at the drawing. She stared at it so long and so hard that she did not hear the soft tinkle of the bell as the front door of the store was quietly opened and carefully closed. A board creaked behind her. Suddenly the curtain was whipped aside, and Rose Rita turned to find Gert Bigger standing over her.

  "Well now! What do you think you're doin'? Eh?"

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Rose Rita knelt there on the floor and looked up at Gert Bigger's angry face. In her trembling hands she still held the piece of paper with the strange drawing on it.

  Gert Bigger stepped into the little room and pulled the curtain shut behind her. "I asked you, Miss, what you think you're doing? There's a law against trespassing, you know, and there are reform schools for girls who steal things. Would you like your parents to know what you've been up to? Eh? Would you?"

  Rose Rita opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was "I... I... please... I didn't mean..."

  Gert Bigger took a step forward. She reached down and snatched the paper from Rose Rita's numb fingers.

  Silence fell while Gert Bigger stood there looking from the paper to Rose Rita and back to the paper again. She seemed to be trying to make up her mind.

  At that moment the bell on the front door of the store jangled, and a voice yelled "Yoo-hoo, Gertie! Are you home?"

  Gert Bigger turned and swore under her breath. Rose Rita jumped up and ducked out through the narrow curtained opening. She sprinted down the main aisle of the store, right past the surprised face of a middle-aged woman with a shopping bag in her hand. Slam went the door behind her. Rose Rita clattered down the steps and dashed across the road. She ran blindly, and she could hear herself crying as she ran. She cut across the corner of a cornfield, trampling the wrinkly green plants underfoot. Her feet found a pathway of green grass that ran along the edge of the cornfield and up over the top of a low hill. Rose Rita ran up it, ran as hard as she could, until she collapsed under a droopy elm tree that grew near a flat-topped boulder. She threw herself down on the grass, tore off her glasses, and cried.

  Rose Rita lay there crying for a long time. She was tired and hungry and frightened and alone. She hadn't had any food at all since last night, and she had gotten almost no sleep. At first she was afraid that Gert Bigger would come after her. At any moment her hand would be on Rose Rita's shoulder. But Gert Bigger never came. Rose Rita went on crying, but she could feel her body starting to relax. She didn't care about anything now... anything at all. It was a delicious feeling. Slowly her mind started to drift off. It was so nice lying here in the shade... so very, very nice... but it would be even nicer to be home. Home... in...

  Rose Rita's eyes closed. A soft breeze rustled through the corn, and in the distance a fly was lazily buzzing. Rose Rita shook her head, fighting weakly against the drowsiness that was falling over her. She was trying to think of something. What was it? She never found out, because in a very few minutes she was fast asleep.

  "Hey you, wake up! You better wake up! Don't you know it's bad to sleep on the wet ground? You might catch cold. Come on, wake up."

  Rose Rita awoke to hear this worried insistent voice speaking to her. She shook her head and looked up. All she saw was a blur. Then she remembered her glasses. After fumbling a bit in the grass near her, she located them and put them on. When she looked up, Rose Rita saw a girl about her own age. She was wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt and jeans, and muddy army boots. The girl had straight dishwater-blonde hair, and it was combed down on both sides of her head. Her face was longish, and it had a sad worried expression. The dark eyebrows curved up into worry lines. Rose Rita thought that she had seen this face somewhere before. But where?

  When she remembered, she almost laughed. The girl looked just like the Jack of Clubs.

  "Hi there," said the girl. "Gee, I'm glad you woke up! Didn't anybody ever tell you it was bad to sleep on the ground when it's wet? It rained last night, you
know."

  "Yeah, I know," said Rose Rita. She got up and put out her hand. "I'm Rose Rita Pottinger. What's your name?"

  "Agatha Sipes. They call me Aggie for short. I live up that way, over that hill. This's my father's farm. By the way, are you the one that stomped all over those corn plants back there?"

  Rose Rita nodded sadly. "Yeah, that was me. I'm sorry, but I was crying so hard that I didn't look where I was going."

  The girl looked worried. "You oughtn't to do that kind of thing. Farmers work hard for their living." She added, in a less severe tone, "Why were you crying?"

  Rose Rita opened her mouth, but then she hesitated. She wanted to tell her troubles to someone, but she wanted to be believed. "My friend Mrs. Zimmermann is lost, and I don't know where to find her. We were staying at a farm down the road last night, and she ran out the front door and just disappeared."

  The girl rubbed her chin and looked wise. "Oh, I'll bet I know what happened. She probably went walkin' in the woods and got lost. It happens to lots of people up here in the summertime. Let's go up to my place, and we'll call up the sheriff's department, and they'll send out some people to look for her. They'll find her all right."

  Rose Rita thought of the circle of trampled grass in front of the farmhouse. The circle with no path leading away. It was no use. She'd just have to tell the truth and risk the consequences. "Do... do you believe in magic?" she said suddenly.

  The girl looked startled. "Huh?"

  "I said, do you believe in magic?"

  "You mean ghosts and witches and magic spells and stuff like that?"

  "Yeah."

  Agatha grinned shyly. "Yeah, I do. I know you're not supposed to, but I can't help it." She added, in a worried voice, "Sometimes I think there's a ghost in the cellar in our house, but Mom says it's just the wind at night. You don't think there's a ghost in our cellar, do you?"

  "How would I know?" said Rose Rita, in an irritated voice. "Hey, do you want to hear about what happened to Mrs. Zimmermann or don't you?"

  "Sure I want to hear. I really do. Tell me all about it."

  Rose Rita and Agatha Sipes sat down on the grass under the elm tree. Rose Rita's stomach growled, and she remembered that she hadn't eaten since last night. She was terribly hungry. But she wanted to tell her story, and Agatha seemed eager to listen. Rose Rita began.

  She told the whole story, as far as she knew it, from Oley's mysterious letter and the empty ring box, on through the very strange things that had been happening to her and Mrs. Zimmermann lately. When she got to the part about Mrs. Zimmermann's disappearance, Agatha's eyes grew wide. And when she described her run-in with Mrs. Bigger, Agatha's eyes got even wider, and her mouth dropped open. She glanced nervously in the direction of Gert Bigger's store.

  "My gosh!" she said. "It's a wonder she didn't kill you! And you know what? I bet she's the one who made your friend disappear."

  Rose Rita looked strangely at Agatha. "Do... do you know anything about her? Mrs. Bigger, I mean?"

  "I sure do. She's a witch."

  Now it was Rose Rita's turn to be flabbergasted. "Huh? How do you know?"

  "How do I know? Because last year I worked in the Ellis Corners library, and she came in and took out every last book about magic that we had, that's how I know. Some of 'em were in the Reference Room, and she couldn't take 'em out, so she just sat there for hours and read. I asked Mrs. Bryer the librarian about her, and she said Mrs. Bigger had been doing that for years. Said she had library cards for all the libraries around here, and took out all the magic books she could find. Mrs. Bryer says she reads the covers off of 'em and never takes 'em back till the library starts houndin' her. Isn't that weird?"

  "Yeah, it sure is." Rose Rita felt strange. She was wildly elated, because her hunch had been proved right—at least, she felt that it had been proved right. But at the same time she felt helpless and scared. If Mrs. Bigger really was a witch, what could she and Aggie do about it?

  Rose Rita got up and paced around. Then she sat down on the flat-topped boulder and lapsed into deep thought. Aggie stood near her, looking uncomfortable. She shifted nervously from one foot to the other, and puckered up her eyebrows into the most worried frown she had produced yet. "Did I say something wrong, Rose Rita?" she asked, after several silent minutes had passed. "If I did, I'm sorry, I really am."

  Rose Rita shook herself out of her trance and looked up. "No, Aggie, you didn't say anything wrong. Honest you didn't. But I just don't know what to do. If you're right, and old Mrs. Bigger is a witch, and she has done something to Mrs. Zimmermann, then... well, what can we do? Just the two of us, I mean."

  "I don't know."

  "Neither do I."

  More silence. Silence for a good five minutes. Then Aggie spoke up again.

  "Hey, I know what let's do. Let's go home to my house and have some lunch. My mom always fixes a lot of food, because we have a really big family, and I'm sure there'd be enough for you. Come on. After lunch maybe we can figure out what to do. You can't think good on an empty stomach. That's what my dad says, anyway."

  Rose Rita looked reluctant, but she really didn't have any better ideas. On the way to the farmhouse Aggie talked a blue streak. She talked about things that she was worried about, like rabies and tetanus and electrical shock and mayonnaise that has been left out of the icebox too long. Rose Rita, however, was only half listening. She was still thinking, trying to make up her mind what to do. Should she give up playing Nancy Drew, girl detective, and call her folks and have them come and get her? No. Rose Rita was a stubborn girl, and she still thought she might be able to find Mrs. Zimmermann without the aid of her parents. What Aggie had told her about Mrs. Bigger and the magic books had made her more certain than ever that Mrs. Zimmermann had been carried off by witchcraft of some kind. So Rose Rita went back to her idea of calling Jonathan. She would do that as soon as she got to Aggie's house. With her mind racing along in high gear, Rose Rita tried to figure out what her next move would be. What should she say to Mrs. Sipes about what had happened?

  They were within sight of the farmhouse when Rose Rita reached out and grabbed Aggie's arm. "Wait a minute, Aggie."

  "Why? What's the matter?"

  "We have to think up a story to tell your mother. I can't tell her what I told you. She'll think I'm crazy. I can't even tell her my real name, because then she'd want to call up my folks, and I don't want her to call them up."

  Aggie frowned. "I don't think you ought to lie to my mother. It's not nice to lie, and anyway I think you'll get caught. My mom is pretty smart. She'd see through it in a minute."

  When people disagreed with Rose Rita, it usually made her mad. But in this case she was doubly mad, because she was proud of her ability to make up alibis and excuses. Making up excuses is hard, and it is not quite the same thing as telling tall stories. You have to be able to come up with a story that people will believe. And Rose Rita could really do that—most of the time.

  Rose Rita threw an irritated glance at Aggie. "Your mom isn't the smartest person in the world, I bet. And anyway, I'm good at making things up. All we have to do is sit down and figure out a story. Then we both memorize it, so there won't be any slip-ups."

  Now it was Aggie's turn to be crabby. "Oh yeah? What're we gonna tell her? Here's my new friend, Rose Rita, who just fell out of a flying saucer?"

  "No, dope. We don't tell her something like that. We tell her something she'll think is true. And then we call Uncle Jonathan and get him to tell us what kind of spell to say to make Mrs. Bigger tell us what she did with Mrs. Zimmermann. Okay?"

  Aggie bit her lip and wrinkled up her forehead. She took a deep breath and let it out. "Oh all right. But if we get caught, I'm gonna say it's all your fault. I'm not gonna get bawled out just because you think it's nice to lie to people."

  Rose Rita gritted her teeth. "I don't think it's nice to lie. But we have to, that's all. Now come on. This is what we'll say..."

  A bell began to ring. A little s
harp clangy handbell was calling people in for lunch at the Sipes farmhouse. Aggie started forward, but Rose Rita grabbed her arm and dragged her over behind a forsythia bush. She put her lips to Aggie's ear and started to whisper.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Sipes farmhouse was big and white, with a wide screened-in porch. Spirea bushes grew next to the porch, and there were peony bushes in the front yard. A large apple tree grew on one side of the house, and from one of its saggy limbs hung a tractor tire on a rope. There were kids' things scattered all over the yard. Baseball bats, bicycles, tricycles, puzzles, dolls, toy trucks, and plastic machine guns. Things like that. But when Aggie opened the front door, Rose Rita was struck by how neat and clean the house was inside. All the woodwork shone with polish, and there were doilies or embroidered runners on all the tables, chests, and shelves. There was a flowered carpet on the staircase, and a shelf clock ticking in the front hail. A pleasant smell of cooking was in the air.

  Aggie took Rose Rita straight out to the kitchen and introduced her to her mother. Mrs. Sipes had the same long face and worry eyebrows that her daughter had, but she seemed friendly enough. She wiped her floury hands on her apron and greeted Rose Rita warmly.

  "Hi! Glad to meet you! I wondered what was keeping Aggie. I rang the bell for lunch about five times, and I had just about given up on her. What did you say your name was?"

  Rose Rita hesitated, just a second. "Uh, Rosemary. Rosemary Potts."

  "What a nice name! Hi, Rosemary! How're you? Are you visiting in the neighborhood? I don't think I've seen you around before."

  Rose Rita squirmed uncomfortably. "Uh, no, you haven't on... on account of I was just up here on vacation with... with Mrs. Zimmermann." Rose Rita paused. "She's a friend of my family, a real good friend," she added quickly.