“Not do anything?” I said, feeling panicky. “But what about getting the clock back?”
“Think about it,” Henry said. “They’ll fool around with the clock and they won’t be able to get it to do anything. If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll bust it.” He touched the sore on his cheek, which was still bright pink. “But they probably won’t. They’ll watch their videos again. And if they’re not all total imbeciles, they’ll pick up what you said about how it takes the basement creatures and you and the clock all together to make a slowdown. And then they’ll come to get you—like I was saying yesterday afternoon.”
“Yesterday you said they’d come and force me to make a slowdown!” I said, my voice rising again. “Do you really think—”
He quickly grimaced and put a finger to his lips. I snapped my mouth shut before anybody noticed. “We’ll talk about this after school—I’ll be thinking about it until then,” Henry said quietly.
But after school Henry still didn’t have any ideas about what to do when Crutchley came to get me.
At home, I brought him down to the basement. I didn’t care that the creatures wouldn’t like it. I wanted him to get their reaction to the missing clock firsthand.
It hit us both at the same time as we were approaching the root cellar—a wave of loss so bleak and so powerful we both stopped for a moment and stared at each other. They had instantly picked up the news about the missing clock.
“I’m afraid to go in there,” I whispered. I understood how they felt about the clock—I missed it, too. I felt so sorry for them, I didn’t know how to face them.
“Come on,” Henry said.
Very quickly the fizzling impulses in our heads began to change. When we entered the root cellar, a group of the sleek ones were already dancing in the small open space in front of the palace, wearing their funny little metallic hats. Inside the palace they were dancing, too, all of them stopping frequently to bow and touch their heads to the ground. Two of the larger ones were running around the palace in opposite directions, wrapping it in the fiber that came out of their bodies.
We honor you! We honor you! We beseech you! We beseech you! We call you back to us! We call you back to us! We honor you! We honor ...
Over and over again they repeated this chant in their heads, ignoring Henry and me completely.
Hello? Are you okay? Is there anything we can do to help? I asked them.
They paid no attention, just kept on mindlessly dancing, bowing, and chanting. There was something almost endearing—and heartrending—about the way they believed in their rituals. At the same time I was irritated that they were ignoring me; I needed their attention somehow. “Big help they are!” I whispered to Henry. We went back upstairs.
“Could you do me a favor and stay here until Aunt Ruth comes home?” I asked Henry. “I’m kind of afraid to be here alone—like if they try to kidnap me.”
“You’re not worried about your aunt finding me here?” Henry asked me, surprised.
“I’m tired of worrying about what Aunt Ruth thinks,” I said. “She’s lied to me and controlled me for my whole life —and she’s gross and disgusting, too. Didn’t you think so last night at dinner? You can say it.”
“Well, the way we had to sit in smoking because of her —my parents were kind of appalled by that.”
“Good. The worse they get along with her, the better.”
“I’ve never heard you talk like this, Annie,” Henry said, as though he wasn’t sure he liked it.
I sighed. “Maybe I’m overdoing it. I don’t know how to be calm and rational about fighting Aunt Ruth; I haven’t had much practice. Anyway, as long as she has control of Uncle Marco’s annuity, there isn’t much I can do.”
“Why does she have control of his annuity?” Henry asked me. “Shouldn’t he control it?”
I had never thought of that. “I’ll have to ask Uncle Marco—if I ever see him again.”
“Come over to my house instead of hanging around here,” Henry suggested.
I was curious about his house; I’d seen it many times, but I’d never been inside. And if Aunt Ruth didn’t like me going over there with him—tough.
His house was at the top of a steep hill, slow going on the icy sidewalk. We turned off the street onto a gravel driveway, which went through a gate in a wrought-iron fence and curved slightly as it continued to climb inside their steep property. A short, bumpy lawn sloped up to the house. A couple of tall, thin cypress trees stood beside the drive, and a few other large trees took up most of the lawn.
“I didn’t realize how beautiful this property was,” I said, panting a little as we climbed the cracked cement steps up to the house.
“You should see it in the summer,” Henry said. “Nobody gardens anymore, but there used to be a little formal garden and now it’s wild, different kinds of flowers in unexpected places ...” His voice faded. We were both thinking the same thing.
As we reached the castlelike stone building, I noticed again the crouching shape just barely visible under the dark eaves of the turret. “Is that a gargoyle up there or something?” I asked, pointing. “Why would anybody put it there? You can hardly see it.”
Henry shaded his eyes against the glare of the late-afternoon winter sun. “Oh, that.” He chuckled. “The shadow ghost, Dad calls it. Sometimes there’s a shadow there; sometimes there isn’t. Something about the light. That’s why people used to joke about the house being haunted. It’s nothing.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Weird. I saw it on Crutchley’s video, too.”
The house was big but rundown. The woodwork around the windows and doors needed painting, there were missing tiles in the roof, and the small wooden outbuilding looked like it was about to collapse. Inside it was the same, with very grand, large dark rooms separated by arched double doorways. The walls were wood paneled, but the paneling needed repairs. The old wallpaper was peeling, the furniture sagged, and the Oriental rugs were threadbare.
Henry turned on a couple of lamps, which didn’t do much to dispel the gloom. “If Mom and Dad had a lot of money, we could fix it up,” Henry said wistfully. “But the only way they’ll get a lot of money is by selling it—and then Crutchley will tear it down.”
He didn’t take his coat off and didn’t offer to take mine. It had to be even more expensive to heat this place than to heat our house. “It’s not that Mom and Dad don’t love the place,” Henry said apologetically. “It’s just—a million dollars is a million dollars.”
“I know.” I sighed.
A phone rang distantly, echoing. “Hang on a minute. I’ll be right back,” he said, running out of the room.
I wandered over to an old built-in bookcase, but the light was almost too dim to read any of the titles. I wished the place was brighter.
Henry hurried back. “I have to go,” he said. “Mom had trouble with the car and she’s leaving it at the garage down on Main Street. She needs me to help her carry the groceries home.”
“I better go, then,” I said.
“Well, actually, if you could do us a favor, it would be great if you stayed here. See, we only have one car.” He sounded embarrassed about that. “Dad’s expecting Mom to pick him up at work and she can’t reach him. He’ll probably phone here. It would be great if you could wait here and tell him what’s going on.”
I didn’t feel like staying alone in this big, dark house. “Well ... I guess so,” I said.
Henry sensed my discomfort. “You’ll be safer here than at your house,” he said gently. “Nobody was following us. If they think you’re anywhere, they’ll think you’re at home.”
That made sense. And Henry had helped me out a lot lately. “Sure, I’ll stay,” I said. “When do you think you’ll be back?”
“No more than half an hour,” Henry said. “Thanks, Annie. Don’t let Fifi out of the basement. I gotta hurry. Be sure to lock the door after I leave.” We walked over to the front door. “Just turn this thing to the right.”
&nb
sp; “Okay. See you later.”
Henry dashed outside and I carefully clicked on the lock and tested the door.
I was uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable to poke around their house. What else was there to do? The kitchen was behind the stairway—and the light switch was easy to find, just inside the door. It needed remodeling more than our kitchen did. The appliances were decades old, really dated-looking. A door in the kitchen probably led to the basement, but I didn’t open it to find out. I wasn’t supposed to let the dog out, and I was in no mood for a dark basement anyway. The upstairs would be more interesting.
I wouldn’t have gone up at all if I hadn’t found the switch at the bottom of the stairs that turned on a light up above. I moved slowly, my hand on the wooden banister, boards creaking on every step. The landing had a bigger stained glass window than at our house.
The second-floor hallway was larger, too. The bedroom doors were open and I peeked into all of them, turning the light on and off in each one. Henry’s room was in the front, I noticed. The only strange thing about it was a peculiar leafless vine, oddly familiar, growing out of a pot up to the ceiling on the far wall. I didn’t know Henry was into plants.
The bathroom was terribly old-fashioned, with tiny white tiles and white fixtures even older-looking than the kitchen appliances and rust marks in the tub and sink. One room was a kind of study, with a big old computer, and another room was just full of junk.
The house did have more space here than a three-person family really needed. In a way it made sense for Henry’s parents to sell—but not to somebody like Crutchley, who was just going to tear it down!
I kept turning around abruptly every time I heard a creak or a rustle, telling myself not to be scared. Henry had said his house made a lot of noise. I just wished it wasn’t so dark. But I didn’t want to leave on a lot of lights—they were probably careful about their electric bill.
I checked my watch. Only ten minutes had gone by. What was I going to do for the next twenty minutes? I could go downstairs and read a book under one of the lamps.
Or I could go up to the attic and try to get a better look at that “shadow ghost” thing. I was very curious about it. I knew I had seen it on the video at Crutchley’s office. Henry said it was nothing, but I still wanted to check it out.
I turned the old-fashioned twist-switch at the bottom of the steep, narrow attic stairs, and a bleak light went on above. I climbed quickly, leaving the door below wide open—I wanted to get this over with fast. Even though I was curious, I was scared, forcing myself to go up. I also didn’t want them to find me snooping around up here when they came home. The stairway turned once, and now I could see the bare bulb hanging from the beamed, sloping roof.
It was clear that Henry’s family rarely if ever came up here. Cobwebs were everywhere, even on the floor; the garment bags hanging on a rack under the eaves were so heavily coated with dust I could easily have written on them with my finger.
The roofline was complicated because of the various eaves and the turret. I tried to figure out which was the front of the house—both views in which I had seen this object on the roof had been from the front. It was dark now, and all I could see outside the windows were the patches of lights from streetlamps and other houses. None of the small windows in the main attic room looked out toward a sloping lawn and the street below it.
But in one dark corner of the attic a short wooden stairway curved up to a closed door. Some of the treads were missing, so it didn’t look very safe. But I thought it seemed to lead to the front of the house.
Carefully I made my way up, stepping over the black, empty places where there was nowhere to put my feet, clinging tightly to the banister with one shaky hand. How long ago had anyone come up these stairs?
At the top I turned and pushed the doorknob. At first I thought the room was locked. Then the door moved slightly but didn’t open. It was stuck, warped. Obviously nobody ever came in here. I pushed harder. And suddenly, with a loud scraping noise that made me jump, the door swung open, and dust and bits of plaster fell down on me.
My heart was pounding. I couldn’t find a light switch, frantically feeling on the wall just inside the door. I almost turned around and ran back downstairs.
But the moonlight and distant streetlights outside the window seemed brighter than before. I waited a minute, and my eyes began to adjust. Leaving the door wide open, I stepped inside.
From the moonlight on the round wooden ceiling I could now see that this was the top of the small, round turret. With my hands outstretched so I wouldn’t bump into anything, I moved inch by inch across the floor toward the window, my heart still thudding heavily. The room smelled so stale I was sure nobody had been in here for months or even years.
My whole body was tense with fear. Why was I doing this?
Because of the boxes. Whatever the object on the roof was, I knew it couldn’t be scarier than the clock—and I was so used to the clock now that I missed it.
Something brushed against my forehead and I screamed and stopped walking, my heart speeding up even more. The thing that had brushed my forehead swung back and brushed it gently again. Maybe it was nothing but a string that would turn on a light. I reached up and gave it a tug and the light came on. I moved carefully toward the window again.
There were three windowpanes, at angles to each other, a bay in the round turret. The windowsill was about the height of my chest. The ceiling light illuminated the narrow slope of the roof outside, protected by the eaves of the conical tower roof directly above.
Something sighed behind me.
I cried out and looked back toward the doorway. Nothing was there. I reminded myself again that this house just made a lot of noises.
I peered out through the glass. I could hardly see any of the roof from this angle, only a view of the sloping front lawn and the lights of the city spread below me. I’d only get a good look at what was on the roof by sticking my head out. I promised myself that if the window didn’t open easily, I’d give up and hurry back downstairs.
I could see from the rusty metal latch at the top of the lower panes that the windows weren’t locked. I pushed, grunting. Two of the windowpanes were immovable.
The third slid open so easily I practically fell out. Gripping the windowsill to steady myself, I craned my head outside. First I looked to the right, then to the left, sticking as much of my upper body out of the window as I safely could.
And there, to the left, almost completely hidden by the round turret roof, was the crouching figure. Finally I could see it clearly in the light from the bare ceiling bulb. A shock ran through my body; my hands tightened painfully on the windowsill.
The crouching figure was an amazingly lifelike statue of Uncle Marco.
His craggy profile was unmistakable. The statue stared out impassively over the city. It was unbelievable how lifelike Uncle Marco’s long winter coat was, the bottom hem folded on the roof as the statue crouched there. I could just discern a small box next to the statue, the statue’s right hand inside it. Was I dreaming this, or what?
I wasn’t dreaming the headlights that suddenly careened up the driveway. I was confused. I thought Henry’s mother’s car was at the garage.
When the car reached the porch light, I could see that it was long, black, and familiar—Crutchley. It stopped abruptly, wheels kicking up gravel. Two men hurried out of the vehicle. A moment later I heard footsteps downstairs.
How had they gotten in? What were they doing here?
I looked back to the statue of Uncle Marco. And as I watched, my breath coming in gasps, the statue’s head very, very slowly began to move.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Was I going crazy or what?
Whatever was going on, I didn’t want the Crutchley men to find me. I could barely stand to leave the Uncle Marco statue for even an instant, but I had no choice. I pulled off the light in the turret. Then I hurried as quietly as possible down into the main attic room, turning off
a wall switch at the top of the stairs. I hoped they hadn’t noticed the light from the road. Back up in the little front tower room, I quietly pulled the door shut. It scraped, but I kept pulling until it was as tightly wedged as it had been before. There was also a simple latch on it. I pushed the latch, trying to wiggle it one way, then the other. I pushed so hard the little metal pin cut painfully into my hand—and at last the pin slid home.
I checked my glowing watch dial. There were still ten minutes before Henry and his mother were due home. If only they would get back sooner!
I hurried back to the window and stretched my upper body outside again. The statue’s hand inside the box moved very, very slowly. Only by staring at it could you tell it was moving at all. And the statue’s head had turned farther in my direction and was no longer in profile to me.
I heard footsteps running around on the first floor, but no voices.
This was not the first time I had seen a lifelike statue moving very, very slowly. I saw the same thing watching the pedestrians during the slowdown. But there was no slowdown going on now—the Crutchley car had moved normally; the cars out on the street were moving normally; the footsteps downstairs sounded normal, too.
So if we weren’t in a slowdown, what was this thing on the roof? It was gradually speeding up, the hand lifting slowly from the box, the face perceptibly turning toward me.
The footsteps now seemed to be mounting the stairs to the second floor.
It began to dawn on me, with hope, what this thing on the roof had to be. It couldn’t be a statue. It could only be Uncle Marco, for real. Uncle Marco coming out of his own personal slowdown.
I didn’t know why he had put himself into a slowdown or why he had chosen to do it on Henry’s roof. Neither fact made any sense. But they were facts: This was Uncle Marco—who could maybe help me escape from the Crutchley henchmen running through the house, if he could get unfrozen fast enough.
The kidnapping I was avoiding by not being at home was happening to me here.
The Boxes Page 10
