The Stone Child (23 page)

He continued to follow Harris and Maggie quietly through the brush. They came down from the ridge, and the entire forest seemed to shudder. Tonight the trees looked different—they were larger, more gnarled, more threatening. The leafy ground seemed to ripple in waves like whitecaps in the ocean, but whenever Eddie looked directly down, it stopped moving. The light shining through the treetops was almost green. Eddie thought it might be an illusion, possibly sent by the Woman in Black to frighten them, but still, it looked so real.

Above them, something rustled through the treetops, scattering leaves and twigs to the forest floor like hail. The three of them froze where they stood. Looking up, Eddie couldn’t see anything but the silhouette of the black branches against the starry sky. Wide-eyed, Harris pointed at Eddie’s backpack. “Wind chimes,” he whispered.

Cautiously, Eddie unzipped his bag. The small cluster of chimes was buried halfway down, underneath a plastic baggie filled with pieces of leftover roasted chicken from Maggie’s refrigerator. As he pulled out the chimes, they rang. The noise was especially loud in the surrounding darkness. He tied the
string to his belt loop, allowing the chimes to dangle next to his front pocket, where they jingled and jangled with every step.

“Won’t that sound draw attention to us?” said Maggie.

“Maybe,” said Harris. “But that’s better than being snatched up into the sky by a Wendigo, don’t you think? Remember the schoolteacher found in the—”

“If he’s up there watching us,” Eddie interrupted, “the chimes will keep him away. That’s why we brought them.”

Maggie closed her eyes and shook her head, as if trying to block out a terrifying vision. They kept walking.

A few minutes later, Harris held out his hands, stopping Maggie and Eddie in their tracks. To their left about twenty feet away through the trees, Eddie could see vague movement. Harris swung his flashlight toward the shifting shadows, and several pale faces appeared. “They’re here,” he whispered. “Keep your lights on them.”

The Watchers watched from between the trees, trapped between the shadows and the moonlight—their white heads seeming to hover far above the ground, like balloons. Eddie kept his eyes on the creatures as Maggie and Harris led him forward. Slowly, the three kids continued to make their way through the woods. Eddie trudged over the brush, trying desperately not to trip. Finally, he could no longer see the skulllike faces. He made sure to keep his flashlight shining behind
them as they continued their walk, so the creatures could not follow.

Then Harris stopped them again. “We made it,” he said.

Ahead, the statue stood, glowing in the moonlight. Her stone arms reached out to them, holding her stone book. Her stone hair reflected the light in the greenish way the rest of the forest had. She looked so innocent, as if she knew no more about the world than Eddie had before moving to Gatesweed. He almost felt guilty for what he was about to do but then reminded himself that she was merely a piece of rock.

They came into the clearing. A bird chattered in a nearby tree. Another bird cawed, and Eddie heard the flapping of wings. He glanced over his shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t see those pale faces and the stretched red lips. There was nothing there but shadows and light.

Harris crossed the clearing. He stopped abruptly, and Eddie nearly ran into his shoulder. Maggie came up beside Eddie. The statue stood only a few feet away. Trembling, Eddie placed his bag on the ground, reached inside, and pulled out the hammer. The moonlight glinted off its tarnished metal claw. The weight of the tool was a relief in Eddie’s hand—it felt powerful. Everything was happening so quickly. In a few moments, all of this would be over.

But before Eddie could move, the night groaned and the shadows grew. He glanced toward the edge of the clearing,
beyond which the slope led downhill to the Nameless Lake. Several pairs of glowing red lights hovered in the darkness like fireflies. Eddie knew they weren’t insects—these strange lights were the eyes of the dogs that had crawled from the lake. The animals’ harsh growls began to surround them as more and more of their glowing red eyes appeared on all sides of the clearing. Other sounds came from the forest as well—soft slithering sounds, harsh hissing sounds, the sounds of claws dragging through dirt. Though he couldn’t see much in the shadows, Eddie imagined all of Nathaniel Olmstead’s monsters approaching through the darkness.

“Quick,” he whispered. “The chicken bones. In my bag …”

Maggie knelt down and pulled the baggie out of Eddie’s backpack. “What do I do?”

“Throw them,” said Harris.

Maggie opened the baggie, swung her arm up over her head, then tossed the bones as hard as she could into the woods. All pairs of glowing red lights suddenly disappeared as the sound of scrabbling claws rustled farther into the brush. Barking and growling followed as, Eddie imagined, the monster lake-dogs fought over their favorite treat. He knew that the animals would be distracted for only a short time.

From the backpack, Eddie tossed Harris the stapler and Maggie the sack of marbles. Harris immediately bent over and began stapling the shadows of trees that spilled into the
moonlit clearing, as if it were possible to pin them to the ground. “Just to be safe,” he said. “I hope this works.”

“What do I do with these?” Maggie asked, pouring the marbles into the palm of her hand.

“Just drop them,” said Harris. “If the weeping spirits are out there in the woods, those will help.”

Maggie opened her hand, and the marbles spilled onto the rocky soil at her feet. They immediately began to roll toward the edge of the clearing, glistening as they reflected the moon’s greenish light. Maggie gasped and leapt out of their way. The marbles disappeared into the brush. Moments later a strange cry came from the darkness—a harsh, painful wail that Eddie had once tried to imagine as he’d read
The Ghost in the Poet’s Mansion
.

Maggie and Harris glanced at each other, then looked back at Eddie. The three of them seemed to come to a silent understanding, so at the same time, they all nodded. They were safe, but who knew for how long? Any number of other nightmares might be out there, watching them. Eddie turned back toward the statue and raised the hammer. He closed his eyes and brought it down on the corner of the stone child’s book.

To his surprise, the hammer bounced away from the statue as if he’d hit it with a rubber mallet. When he opened his eyes to see what had happened, his stomach turned.

Nothing
had happened. He looked toward his friends, who stood behind him wearing worried expressions.

“Maybe you should try again,” said Harris. He didn’t sound convinced that it would work, but Eddie appreciated his show of almost-enthusiasm.

Eddie turned and raised the hammer again. This time, he aimed for the robe that draped down the statue’s leg. Again, the hammer bounced away as soon as Eddie made contact. He nearly fell to the ground from the ricochet. Wobbling away from the statue, Eddie dropped the hammer in frustration. “What do we do now?” he cried. “We don’t have a lot of time. The creatures won’t stay away forever.”

“Let me try,” said Harris.

Eddie nodded, even though he knew it would probably be useless. Like the pages of Nathaniel’s handwritten books, the stone seemed to be indestructible. No wonder it had not decayed over the course of the millennia—it
could
not. He bent over to pick up the hammer lying near the statue’s base. When he did so, he spotted the carved designs in the pedestal upon which the child stood. Hairy monsters, dragons, sphinxes, and countless other nasty beasts. He had noticed these designs when he’d examined the statue closely that first day Harris had brought him here, and now, in the moonlight, after all he had learned over the past few weeks, they seemed to tell a new story.

“Hold on a second, you guys,” said Eddie, glancing at his friends over his shoulder.

He leaned forward and touched the carvings. Letting his
fingers brush against the images of the mythical beasts, Eddie remembered something he’d read in
The Enigmatic Manuscript
. He inhaled sharply and toppled away from the statue, falling onto his rear end in the dirt.

“What is it?” said Maggie, rushing forward to help him.

Eddie knelt, his head reeling with the possibility that he might have figured out a solution. Reaching inside his backpack, he pulled out the spiral notebook in which he’d written the translated text from
The Enigmatic Manuscript
. He frantically began flipping through the pages. The section he was looking for was somewhere in the middle—where Nathaniel was in Romania, learning about the legend of the key.

“Eddie, what are you doing?” said Harris.

Finally, Eddie found the right page. He held the book close to his face, so he could read the passage aloud. “‘Whenever any creature was refused passage into the Garden, the archangel used the key to carve its image into the stone pedestals as a record of its depravity,’” said Eddie. “Look, you guys.” He pointed to the images of the beasts carved into the base of the statue. “These must be the creatures that the angel refused entry to Eden. The angel used the key to mark them into the stone, so he would remember that they were not allowed to pass.” He waited for Maggie and Harris to understand, but they only looked confused. “The key is the pendant!” Eddie whispered. “According to the legend,
the key can carve the stone
.”

Harris and Maggie both gasped.

Eddie continued, “And if it can carve the stone, it may be the only way we can actually destroy the gate. Nathaniel Olmstead must not have realized he had the tool to stop the Woman in Black before he went through the gate to confront her himself.”

“Quick,” said Harris. “Take the pendant out of your bag. See if it works.”

Eddie shoved his fist into his bag, but the opening became a mouth filled with small sharp zipper teeth. The backpack began to wiggle and squirm, as if it were filled with rats. Two shiny black buttonlike eyes blinked at him from the small front pocket. The bag’s mouth closed on his forearm, and Eddie screamed louder than he had ever screamed in his life. Falling backward into the dust next to the statue, he pushed and kicked the bag away until it was a crumpled, dirty pile of nylon canvas.

“What’s wrong with you, Eddie?” said Harris. “Get the pendant!”

“But it was …,” said Eddie, staring at his bag, which lay a few feet away. “Alive?” It no longer had eyes or a mouth, only a logo and a zipper.

“What do you mean it was alive?” said Maggie, from behind him.

“It bit me,” said Eddie, keeping his eyes on the bag in case it made any sudden movements. What if it was playing dead?
Holding up his forearm, Eddie examined his sleeve. It was intact. He realized that he hadn’t actually felt any pain. “Didn’t you see?”

“No,” said Harris, “I didn’t see. I’m a little busy here.”

Kneeling in the dust, Eddie turned around. Harris stood behind him, shining his flashlight at the pale faces staring from the shadows at the edge of the clearing. The Watchers had found them again.

“Hurry, Eddie,” said Maggie, standing beside Harris, holding her own flashlight against the tall, black-cloaked figures.

Suddenly, Eddie heard a different voice—a deeper voice, a smooth voice, like sweet dark syrup.
Why do you want to hurt me, Eddie?

He gasped, realizing why his book bag had appeared to attack him. The Woman in Black had created the illusion. She was nearby, watching him through the veil between her world and his. She was trying to stop him. Scrambling toward his book bag, Eddie chanted, “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real. …” He looked away from the zipper, took a deep breath, and reached inside. He slid his hand back and forth along the bottom until his fingers finally made contact with cold metal, then he grabbed the chain and yanked it free. The bag began to writhe on the ground beside him, so he quickly kicked it away.

As he scrambled to stand, Eddie noticed that the carvings
on the base of the statue looked different. They were larger than they were before, drawn with more detail. The etching of the dragon now had individual whiskers poking out from the sides of its mouth. The sphinx’s wings were constructed of intricately interlaced feathers. Several hairy little creatures seemed to stare at Eddie, their pupils dripping with anger. Hesitantly, Eddie inched forward, and the symbols began to move. They squirmed and pushed against each other, as if there was suddenly not enough space on the stone pedestal to contain them all. Before Eddie was able to back away, the creatures spilled from the statue’s base and rolled onto the dusty ground inches from where he stood. The monsters appeared to be made out of stone. They rose to their feet, like little moving statues. His first instinct was to run, but he stopped himself. “This must be an illusion too,” he whispered.

Still, he clenched his jaw as the tiny creatures collectively crouched around his ankles. The dragon lowered its head and began to growl as it eyed his shoelaces. Eddie held tight to the pendant and wrapped the silver chain around his wrist. He raised his foot and held it over the small group, threatening the creatures with the sole of his sneaker. Before he could take a step, the monsters leapt into the air. Eddie shrieked and ducked, preparing for the attack, but when none came, he glanced up. The dusty ground around his feet was clear. The monsters were gone!

“Arrgh,” Eddie cried through his teeth. “I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not!”

“Don’t think,” said Maggie, behind him. “Just do it, Eddie!”

Once again, Eddie turned around. His friends were still holding off the Watchers—the beams of their flashlights shaking as the creatures opened their gaping black mouths.

“You wanna switch places?” said Harris.

Eddie shook his head. “No,” he whispered. If he didn’t do this himself, he was certain he’d never be able to sleep again. He turned around. As he found the courage to take a step toward the statue, he saw a hulking mass of shadow rise up from behind the stone child. The Woman in Black wrapped her arms, almost lovingly, around the girl’s neck. Her hideous mouth pulled back into a grotesque smile. The black holes in her face bored into Eddie’s chest, and he felt himself almost pushed backward in revulsion. She was closer than ever to coming through the gate—Eddie could feel her presence trying to burrow under his skin.