“By yourself?”
“I’m strong. I can do it. See?” Morton made a fist and rolled up the sleeve over one spaghetti noodleish arm. There was a moment of silence. Then Olive nudged Harvey and Leopold, who made impressed, supportive noises.
Morton wiggled to the side of the bed. “He was in here,” Morton said. “He put out the candle. It got so dark, and he came after me. Then he told me to close my eyes and go to sleep. I didn’t want to do it. But he was making me do it. Just like—just like before.” He looked at them and swallowed. “And then it got even darker, and I screamed, and then you came.”
Morton looked up at Olive, his breath making puffs of steam in the dark air. “I want to go home,” he said. “My REAL home.” His lip wobbled precariously.
“I know,” said Olive. “We’re trying,” she added, because trying was all she could promise. She brushed a small dust bunny off Morton’s sleeve.
“Whither did the villain go?” snarled Harvey, running one claw demonstratively over the leg of the bed. “Let me see but his shadow, and I will show you a duel that time will not soon forget!”
“You can’t see anything
but
his shadow, you nitwit,” snapped Horatio.
“Men, this is no time for quarreling.” Leopold hopped up onto the bed and marched along the edge of the mattress, gazing down at his troops. “This is a time for action. The first question is: Where did he go?”
“I don’t think he went anywhere,” said Morton, pulling the askew blankets down around him like a cape. Hershel plopped down onto the floorboards.
Harvey sniffed the air. “The lad speaks aright,” he whispered.
Olive let the beam of her flashlight run slowly over the walls. Shadows swirled and thinned in the corners, trailing bony arms along the edges of the light. Something that looked like a long, twisted hand beckoned with one lumpy finger. The flashlight beam was growing dim.
“I think these batteries are dying,” said Olive. As they watched, the light became fuzzy and thin. Then it deepened slowly into black, fading out like the last image on a movie screen.
As Olive scrambled to pull a fresh flashlight out of her pocket, Morton gave a terrified peep. Leopold jumped down onto her shoulders. Horatio and Harvey arched their backs, hissing. Blackness fell over them like a blanket.
Again, Olive felt the cold, wet touch of the shadows. They trailed over her bare arms, brushed her face. And this time, they held on.
Olive tried to reach for the flashlight but her arms were being held tight. Long, dark fingers had wrapped like cables around her wrists. She felt a cold breath brush her cheek, and she was sure it wasn’t Leopold’s. “
Olive . . .”
a voice whispered.
“Be gone, fiend!” yowled Harvey, leaping into the darkness. Horatio jumped after him. The shadows retreated for just a moment. Olive used that split second to get a firm grip on the backup flashlight in her right pocket. She sliced the beam through the darkness like a sword.
Harvey was lying on his back with all four claws in midair. Leopold was sitting up on his two hind legs with his forepaws posed like a boxer. Horatio had positioned himself defensively, teeth bared, on Morton’s lap. The three cats froze in their positions as a clot of shadows slithered swiftly around the edge of the door.
“There he goes!” shouted Leopold, bounding toward the hallway. “Harvey, guard the boy!” Harvey made a pouting sound, which Leopold ignored. “Miss, bring the lantern! Hurry! We’ll guard your flank—he’s heading for the attic!”
“I’m coming too!” shouted Morton. “Somebody give me a lantern!”
Olive scrambled to her feet, gripping the handle of the camp lantern in her left hand and the flashlight in her right. Horatio and Leopold ran at her heels. Behind them came Morton and Harvey, looking for something to light Morton’s candle. Olive skidded into the hallway, raced to the front bedroom, and stopped in front of the huge gold frame. The ancient town, like every other painting, had gone dark. Only the huge stone arch remained on the canvas, its stern-faced soldiers staring down from either side. But now, at the end of its massive stone tunnel, there was only blackness.
“The spectacles—” moaned Olive. “I can’t get through.”
“I’ll take you, miss,” said Leopold.
“It would be a privilege, my lady,” said Harvey, bolting into the room and bumping Leopold aside.
“I’ll take you, but I’m not sure what will happen if we go through a painting that looks like this,” said Horatio.
For a moment, all of them stared through the stone archway into the darkness.
“We have to try it anyway,” said Olive. “Let’s all go.”
Olive grabbed Horatio’s tail in one hand and Leopold’s in the other. Morton, unlit candle still clamped in one fist, took hold of Harvey’s tail with his free hand. Together, they all stepped through the archway, and beyond the frame.
It was like passing through a waterfall. In a blink, the darkness washed over them, cold and heavy. Then they were all standing in the tiny, dusty entry to the attic. Olive let go of the cats’ tails and groped for the doorknob.
A blast of freezing air hit her face. Olive didn’t hesitate. She was already on the first stair when something knocked the flashlight out of her hand. The attic door slammed shut behind her, leaving her all alone.
22
O
LIVE COULD HEAR the cats scratching furiously at the other side of the door. She groped for the doorknob and pulled, but the door was stuck firmly shut. It was as if the entire weight of the darkness were pressing against it, sealing it closed.
“Morton!” she called, tugging wildly at the door. “Horatio!”
If anyone gave an answer, Olive couldn’t hear it.
Olive groped along the dusty steps for her dropped flashlight, but it was nowhere to be found. It was as if it had been swallowed by the darkness. She pulled out the flashlight that was still wedged in her left pocket. It was a smallish light, the kind people keep in their glove compartments in case they have to change a tire in the dark. Olive wished that she were only changing a tire. She had no idea how it was done, but she was sure that it would be easier than this.
Cautiously, she moved the light back and forth along each step of the attic stairs. Spiders skittered out of the beam. Other bugs—dead ones—littered the steps. Olive would normally have minded the dead bugs just as much as the living ones, but she realized that at the moment, bugs—even dead ones—seemed positively friendly.
The attic smelled, as before, of dust and old paper, but now the smell was fainter, dulled by the freezing cold. The stairs creaked under her feet. She climbed carefully, twitching the beam of light back and forth,
Olive reached the top of the stairs and looked around. The lumpy shapes of covered furniture and jumbled boxes made vague mounds in the darkness. She ran the small white circle of her flashlight around the room.
The darkness played tricks with her eyes, making the piled shape of an old armoire look like someone looming in the shadows, and turning the hat rack into a leering skeleton. Olive could hear her own heart thundering in her ears. She wished that something—anything—would break the menacing silence.
So she cleared her throat and started to sing.
Olive wasn’t a very good singer, but she was a very loud singer. She began with “This Little Light of Mine,” and moved on to “Let the Sun Shine In.” Then she sang as many verses of “Candle on the Water” as she could remember, which wasn’t very many, so she sang the refrain five or six times. As long as she was singing, Olive felt just the teeniest bit less alone.
The darkness seemed to be listening. Olive edged slowly around the attic, peering into the clutter with her flashlight. As she moved, the shadows on the slanted walls flickered and twisted like black smoke.
She was singing the only words she could remember from “Glow, Little Glowworm” when the beam of her flashlight sputtered and went out. “Glitter, glitter . . .” Her voice wavered and faded away like the beam of light.
Olive’s hand quivered. She heard the flashlight fall from her fingers and thump on the floor. The light had been too small to do any real good, of course. She might as well have tried to fight a duel with a toothpick. But it had been comforting. The camping lantern still dangled from her other hand. It was her last chance. She knew she had to save it.
Something moved in the dark behind her. She felt a cold touch on her neck. Olive spun around. There was nothing there. At least, nothing that she could see.
The cold came from every direction. The shadows grew thicker and thicker. They reminded Olive of thunderclouds, pulling themselves together into huge piles before a storm.
And then Olive felt something filmy and cold run over her arm. A scream moved up her throat and tried to get out of her mouth, but it ran into her clenched teeth and came out of her nose instead. Olive bolted toward the stairs. Halfway there, she remembered that the door was stuck shut. And, on the other side of that door, Morton, Horatio, Leopold, and Harvey were waiting. They were probably listening, with all of their ears pressed to the door. They would hear her running down the stairs, giving up.
Olive stopped. She turned slowly back toward the center of the attic.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said to the darkness. Her voice sounded weak and quivery. Olive took a deep breath and said it again. “I’m not afraid of you, Mr. Aldous McMartin! And I don’t think you’re such a great painter, either!”
This time her words filled up the whole attic. For a moment, the darkness pulled back. Then it rushed toward her, wrapping itself around her body, freezing against her bare skin. Olive’s arms and legs felt full of lead.
Her teeth were chattering, but she said as lightly as she could, “Is that supposed to be scary? Because it isn’t.”
She shuffled toward the center of the attic, rubbing her freezing arms with her hands. Her toe bumped something tall and wooden, which creaked on its hinges. Olive reached out one tentative palm. It was a mirror—the old, floor-length, tilting kind. And with that, the little twinkling seed of a plan rooted itself in Olive’s mind.
She worked quickly. The attic was freezing, its cold air stinging her throat and lungs, but Olive forced herself to keep moving. Even though it was still much too dark to see, her other senses were adjusting. She had never heard things so sharply and clearly; she had never realized how much her fingertips could tell her. Olive whipped the dusty sheets off of the old furniture, running her hands quickly over their surfaces, dragging things into place.
At first, she thought she was imagining it when strange things began to appear in the darkness. She knew that when you stared at a light and then closed your eyes, you could still see its traces on the inside of your eyelids. If you pushed your fingers against your closed eyes, sometimes spots of color jumped and flashed against the blackness, like Christmas lights stuck through black paper. So maybe it was only her eyes playing tricks when a long, eely shape moved through the darkness and flickered past her face. That was what Olive told herself. She told herself the same thing when something with wide, staring eyes and long teeth swam through the corner of her vision. But when something slippery and cold and covered with scales dragged itself slowly across her ankles, Olive knew that it wasn’t her imagination.
She wished that she could reach out and flick a light switch. But she couldn’t. She was having a nightmare, and she couldn’t wake up.
In spite of the cold, beads of sweat popped up like a rash on Olive’s bare skin. She rubbed her arms, holding herself tightly. For a moment, she felt so forlorn that she wanted to lie down on the floor and cry. She would probably fall asleep and get hypothermia, she knew, but at least all of this would be over. No more cold snaky things with big eyes and teeth slithering past her through the black.
“That’s just what you want, isn’t it?” Olive whispered to the darkness.
No one answered.
Olive kicked both her feet. There was nothing there—at least, not anymore. She took a shaky breath and got back to work.
More grayish shapes with long, whipping tails swam around her. Some shapes had beaks, long noses, claws that sliced through the dark air. Olive ignored them, or pretended to. They were only a distraction, an illusion. The real danger was still lurking in the darkness, not yet allowing itself to be seen. She went back to humming “Let the Sun Shine In” as carelessly as she could, pushing the furniture into position.
It was getting harder to ignore the cold, however. Her whole body was shaking so badly that she was afraid she was going to knock something over. Her toes, especially the ones on her bare foot, were as lifeless as pebbles. She couldn’t even feel the cold in them anymore. Her fingers were so stiff and numb, she was afraid they might shatter. The armoire rattled as she hauled it slowly toward the center of the attic. Olive knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep going for much longer. Her eyelashes were freezing together, coated by the quickly cooling steam of her breath.
Finally, all of the pieces were in place. Olive pulled an old footstool into the very center of the attic, held the camping lantern in her lap, and waited.