The Stone Child (25 page)

Weeks later, on the evening of Halloween, the town green bustled with activity. The first autumn festival in many years had brought people out of the woodwork. Tents open for business lined the perimeter of the lawn. People were selling everything from cotton candy and caramel apples to balloon animals shaped like vampires and werewolves. There were games where contestants had to topple heavy bottles with baseballs to win giant stuffed frogs for their girlfriends. A small Ferris wheel whirred on one of the long stretches of grass near the church. A portable carousel spun at the opposite end of the park, next to the big mill. Its music hummed cheerfully, oblivious, as several people stumbled away from it, green and dizzy. On a banner spanning the front of the white gazebo, someone had painted in bright red the words
WELCOME TO DARK TIMES IN GATESWEED
. Eddie strolled through
the park and thought it all looked beautiful. He wished he could take his time, but he knew there were other matters he needed to attend to.

Standing next to the gazebo were a tall skinny witch and a floating white sheet with legs, which, Eddie assumed, was supposed to be a ghost—Maggie and Harris in costume. They waved as he approached.

Harris shouted, “You’re late!” and grabbed Eddie’s red sweatshirt sleeve.

“Sorry,” said Eddie, laughing as he tripped over his own red shoelaces. He was dressed like a devil. He’d painted his face maroon and glued two latex horns to his forehead. Even though the coming night was brisk, he’d already begun to sweat. He could feel the makeup running down his neck. He pointed over his shoulder to the vendor tents where his parents lolled, looking at some of the crafts the local artisans were selling. “My dad couldn’t find a parking spot.”

“Excuses, excuses,” said Maggie from behind her own bright green face paint. “We’re going to be late.”

“The reading doesn’t start for a half hour!” said Eddie.

“But we need to get good seats,” said Harris, stepping into Center Street and making his way toward The Enigmatic Manuscript, which was lit up like a jack-o’-lantern. There was already a crowd at the door, spilling off of the recently painted front porch. People were dressed in costume, scattered across the sidewalk. Eddie could see several news vans
parked along the curb; reporters and cameramen leaned against them, as if waiting for something exciting to happen. If Eddie didn’t know better, he might have thought that, inside the store, Frances was offering the best treats in Gatesweed.

As Harris pushed his way through the crowd, Eddie heard whispers from behind the crowd’s many masks. In the front window, Eddie read the sign that Frances had posted early last week—
WELCOME THE RETURN OF NATHANIEL OLMSTEAD. JOIN US ON HALLOWEEN FOR HIS READING OF A
NEW
STORY, HIS FIRST IN OVER THIRTEEN YEARS!

The crowd continued to push back, until finally, when the three of them made it to the top of the stairs, a blond woman wearing a tutu and pink tights turned around and glared at them. “There’s a
line
, you know,” she said through her teeth.

Harris blinked at her through the eyeholes cut in the sheet. “This is
my
store,” he answered simply. Harris took out his key and held it up for everyone to see. The woman in the tutu shot them all a dirty look but stepped aside.

Eddie chuckled to himself as he squeezed past her and followed Harris and Maggie through the front door of the empty bookstore. Nathaniel Olmstead’s diehard fans had come many miles to see him. Who could blame them for being excited?

Inside, Eddie followed Harris and Maggie past rows of
folding chairs to the very front, where big pieces of white paper marked
RESERVED
were taped to the seats.

“See?” said Eddie. “We’re not late at all.”

Harris rolled his eyes, but Eddie could tell that his friend was smiling. Each sat down with a satisfied huff. The door in the rear wall of the store opened, and Frances peeked out. When she saw them, she waved. “Oh good,” she said, “I was about to start letting people in. Eddie, make sure you save two seats for your parents. Your mother is really excited.”

“I will,” said Eddie.

A month earlier—on the night he, Harris, and Maggie destroyed the gate in the Nameless Woods—Eddie had come home to find his mother typing at the kitchen table. He expected her to be upset with him for taking the pendant. He wasn’t sure how to tell her that she’d never see it again. When he closed the front door, she glanced up, and he realized that she was upset for a different reason.

“Where have you been?” she cried. “We called Maggie’s house, and they said you weren’t there.”

Eddie thought quickly. “We were hanging out outside.”

She looked at him skeptically. “How’d you get home?”

“We walked,” said Eddie.

“That doesn’t sound very safe.” She sighed. “How many times do I have to ask you to call?”

“Sorry,” said Eddie. “I promise, I will never, ever, ever forget again.”

She looked at him strangely, but after a moment, she smiled. “Well … I also wanted to tell you my news,” she said. “I’m done!”

Eddie felt his face flush, suddenly panicked that his ordeal in the woods had been for nothing. She had finished the Woman’s story. Did that mean the gate was now open? “But your pen …,” Eddie started to say.

“You can have it,” said Mom, getting up from the table and giving him a hug. “I finally realized that it was hard to write with. For some reason, it always made me sort of cold! I’m better off without the darn thing. I just typed the last few pages directly into my laptop. Simple as that.”

Eddie heaved a sigh of relief.

“Would you like to read it?” Mom asked.

Frances walked to the front of the bookstore and opened the doors. The costumed fans who had been standing on the front porch poured in. Eddie couldn’t help but imagine the gate in the woods as he watched vampires, goblins, pirates, one Frankenstein monster, and several of the living dead crush each other trying to get through the door. He overheard bits and pieces of their many conversations as they filled the empty rows of chairs behind him.

There were the true Olmsteadys: “
I can’t believe he’s back!”
or “
This is going to rock!
”

There were the skeptics: “
I bet you this was all a publicity stunt
to get us to buy a book!”
and “
There’s no way this can live up to the hype. …
”

And finally, there were the tagalongs: “
Nathaniel who?
”

At the very back of the room, Eddie noticed Mrs. Singh, the librarian, standing next to Wally, the policeman. She whispered something into his ear, then glanced at Eddie suspiciously. On the other side of the room, Eddie recognized Sam, the skinny tow truck driver he’d met the day he’d moved to Gatesweed, leaning against a wall in his leather jacket. He kept his eyes fixed intently on the podium at the front of the room, wearing a curious expression as well.

A couple weeks ago, Nathaniel had assured him that every author has his critics, and every reader is entitled to his or her own opinion. An author simply needs to learn how to deal with all of it, for better or worse. The same could be said about people in general, Nathaniel had commented.

When Mrs. Singh accidentally caught his eye, she looked away, startled. Eddie only smiled to himself, then turned around. Let these people believe whatever they wanted about Nathaniel Olmstead—Eddie knew the truth. He hoped that one day they would too.

“Look. Here he comes,” said Maggie, tapping on Eddie’s drooping horn to get his attention. Eddie turned around as his parents snuck through the hushed crowd and took their seats next to him.

The storage-room door swung open to reveal a massive
shadowy figure standing in the darkness of the closet. The audience gasped. The shadow stepped forward into the orange light of the bookstore. A black velvet cloak covered the figure from head to toe. Its hem slithered on the ground as the shadow continued to lurch toward the rapt audience. It paused at the podium, seeming to catch its breath for a moment, until it suddenly whipped the cloak away.

Nathaniel Olmstead stood before his audience as they leapt to their feet and burst into tremendous applause. Camera flashes popped, filling the room with a strange, almost constant stream of white light. Under the cloak, he wore a navy blue wool sweater and a corduroy jacket. He’d cut his hair and trimmed his beard. His slight smile was filled with enormous gratitude. He didn’t look so very different from the picture on the back of his books. Nathaniel waited several seconds before taking a bow.

Eddie, Harris, and Maggie leapt to their feet as well. Eddie clapped so hard, his hands hurt. He felt dizzy when Nathaniel finally turned to the three of them and gave them a sly wink.

The past two months had been like a dream—at first a nightmare but now a fantasy beyond anything he could have imagined. Over the past few weeks, he and his friends had visited Nathaniel Olmstead several times as the author began to reconnect to Gatesweed and beyond. They helped him clean up the mess that was his house, they brought him
groceries and such until he managed to buy a new car, and they kept him company after school when he was afraid to be alone. Once upon a time, Eddie had known what that felt like, and he was happy to be of assistance. Eddie couldn’t believe that he could now call his favorite author his friend.

During visits to Nathaniel’s house, the four often theorized answers to some of the questions they still had about the Woman in Black and the statue in the woods. For example, was she a particularly nasty member of the Lilim or was she actually Lilith herself? Was she really as powerful as she’d have them believe? Harris wondered why the Woman in Black didn’t just have one of the creatures use the pendant to write her story? Nathaniel was certain that none of the creatures would have been capable of such a feat. As cunning and clever as some of the monsters had appeared to be, none of them had ever been thoughtful enough to create something from nothing. To actually write a story, the author explained, is purely a human talent.

After a few weeks, the four of them had become certain that when it came to the Woman in Black, there would always be mystery. These uncertainties, Nathaniel explained, were what made the villains in books so enigmatic and frightening.

Shortly before Halloween, Nathaniel had asked the three friends to accompany him on a walk into the Nameless
Woods. They made their way up the ridge and down into the forest. They passed through the empty clearing where the statue had once stood. The sun hung low in the sky as they hiked toward the lake. Harris, Maggie, and Eddie watched from a distance as Nathaniel plucked a pebble from the shore and tossed it at the glassy water. After a few minutes, the ripples disappeared. The lake was still, reflecting the clear blue sky overhead.

Nathaniel turned around and smiled. “Just to be sure,” he whispered.

The crowd in the bookstore roared.

Finally, the author was forced to hold up his hands so the audience would sit down and listen. He waited a few more seconds until the room was totally quiet, then he said, “Welcome. Happy Halloween. Thank you all so much for coming. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see your …
horrific
faces.”

The audience laughed. Nathaniel merely smirked and picked up a pile of loose papers from the table. “Contrary to reports you might have read in the news, I have not spent the past thirteen years writing a large novel,” he said. “Since I have always struggled to come up with interesting ideas, tales of epic proportions have never been my cup of tea. But since I returned to Gatesweed nearly a month ago, I have had the privilege of meeting three amazing people who’ve not only
rescued me from an exile of my own making, but who’ve also inspired me with their story.”

Eddie felt Harris poke him in the arm. Eddie couldn’t keep from smiling.

Nathaniel continued, “With their permission, I have begun working on a new book, based on their own recent experiences.” The audience gave another round of excited applause. “It is unfinished. I cannot promise that everything I read to you is true. I am a fiction writer, after all … but that’s not to say this story is a lie. All I can truly promise is a jolt or two, which, I believe, is all anyone really needs in order to remember he’s still alive.”

Nathaniel did not bother explaining to his first audience in over thirteen years that he used to write all of his books by hand. Only Eddie, Harris, and Maggie knew that after so many years, Nathaniel had a good reason to stop working that way. Since returning to Gatesweed, Nathaniel had purchased a computer for himself. Having recently buried his formerly favorite writing implement under a stone in his secret basement, like Eddie’s mother he’d decided to entirely type his stories instead.

These writers would be fine, Eddie knew. With a stone child or without, he had a feeling Gatesweed would always provide inspiration to anyone looking for it.

“Now, without further ado, I present to you
The Secret of the Stone Child.”
With a small bow, Nathaniel began. “‘The
blue station wagon had just come around a sharp bend in the road when the creature stepped out of the woods,’” he read. “‘Eddie was the first to see it—a blur of black hair and four long, thin legs. It looked at him with red-rimmed yellow eyes and a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth. “Watch out!” Eddie cried from the backseat.’”

Sitting in the front row, Eddie closed his eyes and listened to Nathaniel’s story, his heart racing as he tried to picture what in the world would happen next. Secretly he knew, of course, but he could not admit it to himself. A true fan would never peek ahead to the end of a Nathaniel Olmstead book.