The Strangers (16 page)

As Rutherford hurried away, Olive lunged into the kitchen, yanking open each cupboard and drawer. She checked the downstairs bathroom, avoiding the grasping shade that rippled behind the door, and looked under all the furniture in the dining room and parlor.

Rutherford was waiting for her on the back porch when she returned.

“I searched the shed, the lawn, and the crawl space underneath the porch,” he announced, peeling an old spiderweb from one sleeve. “I found nothing.”

“Me too.” Olive gave an exasperated sigh. “Do you think we’re getting close? Are you reading anything else?”

Rutherford shook his head. “Nothing but you running through a checklist of searched spots.”

“I don’t get it.” Olive flopped against the doorframe, the hope that had lightened her leaking away. She gazed out over the withered lawn, and felt the cold, and the darkness, and the
hugeness
of the night looming all around her. “If they’re so close, then where could they be?”

Rutherford adjusted his smudgy glasses. “There is one positive factor to keep in mind,” he said, shuffling nearer to Olive. “If it is your parents that I’m reading, it means that they’re still alive.”

“I suppose,” said Olive, not feeling very comforted.

Rutherford tensed. “My grandmother just woke up,” he whispered. “She fell asleep on the couch with a book, and I was supposed to be in bed an hour ago.”

“Remember,” said Olive as Rutherford darted toward the hedge, “don’t tell her about the—the congregation and exception—”

“The conjuration and expulsion.”

“
That.
Not yet. She would probably blame Delora and Doctor Widdecombe for trying it, but it was really my fault, because . . .” Olive’s mind traveled back to the painting of Linden Street, where memories of the Calling Candle and Leopold and Annabelle were waiting. “. . . Because I did some stupid things today.”

“I am aware of that,” said Rutherford. “I should be able to make up an excuse to keep her away for a while. Besides, she and Doctor Widdecombe and Delora are casting some Seeking Spells tomorrow, so they will all be occupied.” Rutherford gave Olive a last sharp look. “If you need me, let me know,” he added. With a courtly bow, he shoved his way through the barren lilac hedge and hustled away into the dark.

Locking the heavy back door behind her, Olive shuffled down the hall. She glanced into the library, the only downstairs room that she’d left unlit. A black shape—a shape like a horse, but with an alligator’s long, pointed teeth filling its jaws—galloped out of the shadows straight toward her. Olive flicked on the library’s chandelier. The horse vanished, leaving the smoky outline of a gaunt man with thick sideburns. He glowered at Olive, backing toward the wall until he seeped into its stones.

The clock in the entryway played its soft song. Eleven o’clock: well past Olive’s bedtime. Olive paused on the staircase, listening to the last chime ring away through the lifeless rooms. And then even the echoes died away.

Having Walter lurking around the house had been uncomfortable, but at least she hadn’t been alone overnight. Olive’s chest started to ache. Now the house was one huge, empty reminder of everything that wasn’t there. She missed the sound of her father’s toothbrush tapping the sink—always an even number of times. She missed her mother peeping through her bedroom door to wish her good night. She missed the soft sound of her parents talking, lulling her to sleep from the other end of the hall.

But her parents were gone. The neighbors had fled. Leopold was in the hands of her enemy.

“Horatio?” Olive called, hating the way her voice sounded in this huge, hollow house, too loud and too small at the same time. “Harvey?”

There was no answer.

Maybe the other cats had left her as well. Maybe they had never come back inside the house after Walter had drawn them out of it. Or maybe they were hiding somewhere, frightened and furious. Maybe they were hiding from
her.

Olive hurried along the upstairs hall, switching on more lights as she went. Shades hissed and whispered in the corners. In her own bedroom, even with all the lights on, the space under her bed was dark. A pair of shadowy hands reached out from beneath the dust ruffle. Olive spotted the tip of a scaly tail under her closet door. Even if she knew that the shades couldn’t hurt her, there was no way that she could sleep here tonight.

How could she ever sleep again?

Olive stared at Hershel, the worn brown bear lying limply on her pillows, and felt her throat clench.

It was time to give up. Everything she had done to solve her problems—releasing the shades, using the Calling Candle, even taking Morton out for Halloween—had only made the problems worse. Her arms were filled with cement. Her legs were like lead. She was tired, and hopeless, and it was time to set the weight of this big stone house down.

Olive took a heavy breath. She could still go Elsewhere. She could climb into the painting of Linden Street, and curl up on Morton’s quiet front porch, and go to sleep. By the time she woke up, it would all be over. She wouldn’t have won the fight . . . but at least the fight would be done.

With a little good-bye wave to Hershel, Olive stepped back into the hall. She arranged the spectacles carefully on her nose.
I keep trusting the wrong people,
she thought, dragging her body over the bottom of the thick gold frame. Trusting herself had been one more mistake. She had scared away the neighbors, lost Leopold, and failed her parents. It was time for her to get out of the way, before anyone else got hurt.

“Olive!” shouted a distant voice.

But Olive had already fallen through the frame.

O
LIVE!” THE VOICE
shouted again. “Olive!”

It wasn’t until the third shout that Olive realized the voice came from
inside
the frame. And the voice was growing louder, or closer, or both. She blinked up from the misty grass into a pair of bright green eyes.

“Olive,” gasped Horatio. “Are you all right?”

“Horatio!” Olive sat up. “I’m so glad to see you!” She threw both arms around the huge orange cat and gave him a passionate squeeze. “You weren’t trying to hide from me?”

“From
you?
What a ridiculous idea,” said the cat, squirming unappreciatively in Olive’s arms. “Why would we want to get away from you?” With a final squirm, he leaped back to the ground. “We picked this painting precisely because you were likely to visit it.”

“So Harvey is here too? Oh, good.” Olive let out a sigh of relief. “I was sure you were angry at me.”

Horatio stopped smoothing his hug-rumpled fur and gave Olive a sharp look. “A logical conclusion,” he snapped. “Tricking your allies in order to proceed with a
truly IDIOTIC plan
might indeed leave those allies the slightest bit irritated.” Horatio released a slow breath. “But I am
not
angry at you, Olive,” he went on, more calmly. “And I’ll tell you why: Next to the mess you’re in, my anger will seem about as threatening as a stick in a swordfight. And you will have to deal with that mess
on your own.
”

“On my own?” Olive repeated in a small voice. “But—why?”

Horatio stared up at Olive from the mist, his eyes glittering. “The shades are a part of this house,” he said. “And we
belong
to this house.”

“You mean, they could still control you?”

“They would certainly try.” Horatio gave his whiskers a tense stroke. “That’s why we must remain Elsewhere for the time being. This house—and the McMartin family—is searching for an heir. It needs someone to use its power. It will manipulate, or influence, or corrupt anyone it can.”

Olive bit the inside of her cheek. Another wave of hopelessness made her eyes sting. “But if this house will try to turn everyone against me . . . then who can I trust?” she whispered.

Horatio watched her. His green eyes softened slightly. “Perhaps you should trust Olive Dunwoody,” he said, after several quiet seconds. “That’s what
I
am going to do.”

Morton and Harvey were waiting for them on the porch of the tall gray house. Morton sat on the steps, kicking a pebble that zoomed back to his toes again and again. Harvey leaned against the railing nearby. He was wearing his coffee can helmet, but it had been turned around so that the eyehole revealed a splotchy patch of the back of his head.

“Is that you, Olive?” Harvey asked in a muffled voice. “How kind you are, to visit me in the cell where I have been unfairly imprisoned by this conspiracy!”

“Why does he have his helmet on backward?” Olive whispered to Horatio.

“Have you ever seen
The Man in the Iron Mask
?” Horatio whispered back.

“No.”

“Don’t bother.”

“How long must this go on?” Harvey wailed from inside the can, banging his head tinnily against the wooden rails. “How long will evil reign? How long must I, the rightful leader of my homeland, wait for justice?”

“‘Rightful leader’?” Horatio repeated. “I think the world would be a rather different place if France were led by a cat with his head in a coffee can.”

“Morton,” said Olive, “I have a lot to tell you, about—”

“About the Calling Candle and Leopold and the shades. I already know,” said Morton, folding his arms importantly.

“Oh,” said Olive. “Good.”

“So, what are you going to do?” Morton asked.

“I don’t know.”

Morton looked back down at his toes. He gave the pebble another I-don’t-really-care-about-any-of-this kick. “Are you going to leave?”

Horatio stared up at her. Subtly, Harvey turned his coffee can until one eye peered through its eyehole.

“No,” said Olive. “This is our house. I’m not giving up.” She sank down next to Morton on the steps. “I just wish there weren’t so many problems at once. One problem is stacked on top of another problem, and there’s another problem under that, and I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning,” said Morton.

Olive gave him a little smile. “That’s what my dad would say. ‘Start at the beginning. Retrace your steps.’”

Leaning her chin on her knee, Olive pushed her mind back through the awful week. She moved past the hideous shades, and Ms. McMartin’s hollow eyes, and Annabelle’s smile as she walked off with Leopold in her arms, and Walter lurking around the corners, to the spot where it had all began: in a heap of spilled candy at the foot of the stairs. “My parents,” she murmured. “That’s where it began.”

“Good,” said Horatio. “And what’s the next question?”

“We know
who
took them,” said Olive. “But we don’t know
why.
If the McMartins are trying to get us out of their house, why wouldn’t they take me too? Unless . . .” Olive paused as a door creaked open in the back of her mind. “Unless they had some other reason to want my parents. If there was something my parents could do that I couldn’t . . .”

Olive jumped to her feet. “I know where to start!” she shouted, already tearing toward the deserted street. “Thank you!”

“Good luck, Olive!” shouted Morton behind her.

“Be careful!” called Horatio.

Harvey’s words—“Go, with the blessings of the rightful king of France!”—followed her over the misty grass and through the picture frame.

Olive thundered down the stairs. It was nearly midnight now, and the sky beyond the windows was black and starless. Sticking to well-lighted spots, Olive skidded across the entryway and through the library’s wooden doors.

The brass chandelier glowed reassuringly above her. Still, the edges of the room flickered with shadows of beastly bodies and groping limbs. Cold air trailed along the walls. Dozens of eyes followed Olive to her mother’s desk.

Stacks of papers waited on the desktop, already gathering a thin coat of dust. Being careful to keep the pages in order, Olive flipped through the first stack. The papers were covered with her mother’s neat handwriting, some of it forming actual words, some of it dissolving into chains of symbols that could have meant anything at all. Could this have something to do with magic?

Olive moved to her father’s desk. She set aside a pile of students’ quizzes and picked up the notebook underneath. It was filled with symbols and scribbles, this time in her father’s loopy handwriting. Olive squinted down at one mark that looked like a picnic table lying on its side, and another that looked like a cherry bomb with a bent wick. Could she be staring at the explanation without even seeing it?

Olive was still frowning down at the chain of squiggles when the entire page went black.

A breath caught in Olive’s throat.

The chandelier had gone out. So had the lights in the hall, and in the front parlor, whose entrance she could see through the library’s open doors. Even without looking, Olive knew the other rooms would be the same. The entire house had gone dark.

Around her, the air came alive. Gusts of cold burst from the walls. Sinuous, scaly forms swam around her in the blackness. Something with horns sprouting from its massive head loomed over her left shoulder, while something with an insect’s rippling legs scuttled up her right arm. Dropping the notebook onto the desk, Olive backed away, shaking her arm until the crawling thing dropped off.

“Get out,”
she heard the inhuman voices hiss and mutter around her.

If she could make it to the wall, she could test the light switch. If the power had gone out—or been cut off—she would have to run to the kitchen, through the crowded, crawling blackness, to find a flashlight. Olive kept her head down, blocking out the voices, and made a beeline for the wall. She had only a few more steps to go when a tall, dark figure—too solid and too human to be a shade—loomed through the open double doors.

Olive froze.

The figure in the doorway didn’t seem to see her. It wavered for a moment, its hooded head swiveling from side to side, surveying the huge, dark room. Then it glided into the library, its long cloak rustling over the floor.

The air around Olive grew instantly warmer. She felt claws and tails and slippery limbs sliding past her as the shades moved away, following the intruder. Olive watched a clot of shadow drift across the room toward the bookshelves, its blackness so thick that it seemed to pull in every last mote of light; to swallow it, like a huge, hungry mouth. Olive saw it envelop the hooded figure. Holding her breath, she inched backward, toward the doors.

Across the room, voices muttered, growing louder and louder. Olive caught fragments of their words.
This house . . . Join . . . Power . . .

Olive felt her shoulder bump against the wall. The tiny scuff of sweater meeting wood made her heart stand still, but the hooded figure—Annabelle, or Aldous, or someone else—didn’t seem to hear it. Olive was just about to duck out the door and make a run for it when from across the room, there came a soft
click
.
A round blotch of light traveled across the bookshelves, glimmering on the embossed spines. The shades backed out of reach of the beam, growling and hissing angrily. Aldous and Annabelle wouldn’t have needed a light to find something inside of their own house, would they? And would either of them have carried a
flashlight?

Olive swept one arm along the wall. Her fingers brushed the light switch.

It won’t work,
she told herself.
Of course it won’t. It won’t—

The chandelier flared.

A burst of warm gold light filled the library. The McMartin shades thinned to wispy human outlines, scattering into the shadows.

The hooded figure dropped its flashlight. It hit the rug with a thump.

Olive took a tentative step forward. The figure kept its back to her, its now-empty hands in the air, as though an imaginary police officer had just shouted
Halt!

Frowning now, Olive strode across the room. With each step she recognized another detail: the tattered gray robes, the long, bony hands, the narrow, hunching shoulders.

She grabbed the intruder by the sleeve.

Walter spun around, blinking down at Olive from the depths of the ghoul’s hood.

“Walter!
”
The name burst out of Olive like a small explosion. “What are you doing back here? I thought you were one of the McMartins!”

Walter blinked down at her. His Adam’s apple bobbed wildly.

“What were you looking for?” Olive glanced up at the bookshelves. “And why would you sneak back in here, instead of just . . .” The air gushed out of her lungs. “Wait a minute,” she whispered. “You were going to steal something. Something you knew no one would want you to have. Weren’t you?”

“Mmm . . .” said Walter. His eyes blinked even faster.

A sudden frost filled Olive’s body. She was too numb to be angry or frightened now; she was merely cold. Cold and hard. “Was it the grimoire?” she asked. “Or something else that belonged to the McMartins? Is that why you were snooping around all week, looking through the books, searching the garden?”

“Mmm . . .” Walter mumbled again. He took a step backward, colliding with the bookshelf. “Mmm . . . yes, but . . .”

“Why?”
Olive asked, staring up into Walter’s face. He couldn’t meet her eyes. “Never mind,” she said slowly. “I know why. You wanted this house. You wanted its secrets for yourself, to show your aunt and uncle what a great magician you could be.” She glanced at the pool of shadows lurking in the corner. The frost grew thicker, hardening her skin, turning her spine into steel. “You were working with
them,
” she said. “You were going to help them get this house back, if they would make you their heir.”

“No,” said Walter, speaking clearly for the first time. “I swear. I—mmm—I just needed something.”

“What?”

Walter’s Adam’s apple bounced like a bobber on a fishing line. “I—I can’t tell you.”

“If you can’t even tell me what it is, how am I supposed to believe you?” Olive frowned up at Walter. She folded her arms across her chest, squeezing herself as tight as she could. This didn’t help her feel any less alone.

Walter didn’t answer.

“I don’t know what to do,” Olive said at last. “Should I put you into Elsewhere and leave you there? Should I call your aunt and uncle and Mrs. Dewey, and tell them all about—”

“No!” Walter interrupted. Fear glittered in his eyes. “Please. No. Don’t—don’t do that.”

Olive shook her head, letting out another angry breath. “I
knew
I couldn’t trust you,” she whispered.

Walter’s shoulders sank. His mouth twitched. For a moment, he looked as though he was about to say something, but then he closed his eyes and swallowed, and whatever words had been waiting slipped back down his throat.

“Here’s what I’m going to do to you,” said Olive, after a long, quiet moment. Walter stared at her, clearly terrified. “I’m going to let you leave.” Walter’s eyes grew even wider. “But you can
never
enter this house again. If I even think you’ve tried, I’ll tell your aunt about all of this.”