10

Early the next morning, a northern wind chilled Gatesweed. The previous night’s scary dream clung to Eddie’s skin, sending him into fits of shivers over breakfast. Outside, the sky was gray and solemn, so Eddie put on his puffy olive coat with the furry hood and set off on his bike.

He found Harris waiting for him, as usual, on the corner of School and Market. Harris was wide-eyed and looked ready to burst with excitement. “I made some progress last night,” he said mysteriously.

“What kind of progress?”

“Well, I sort of think you should read it for yourself. The Witch’s Doom.”

“What about it?” said Eddie, glancing down the street, where the school waited for them patiently.

“There’s some stuff in there I think might point us in the right direction.”

“Which direction would that be?”

Harris smiled and said, “Nathaniel Olmstead’s house.” He slung his book bag off his back and opened it. He pulled out The Witch’s Doom and handed it to Eddie. “Pay attention to the chapter in the basement. You’ll see what I’m talking about. If you get a chance to read it during class, maybe we can head up there after school and do some exploring.” He pushed away from the curb and swung his bike around into the street. “Come on,” he said, calling over his shoulder, “race you!”

Gertie blindly swung her arms around in the pitch-dark basement. Her fist made contact with something hard, and she screamed. But then she heard a smash and a crash and realized she’d only toppled another small pile of dusty junk. Maybe she’d broken the antique clock radio she’d noticed earlier, or possibly it had been the framed photograph of Sojourner Truth. At this point, she didn’t really care. Smash everything to pieces, she thought, just let me out of here!

When the echoes stopped ringing against the walls of the cramped stone room, she shouted, “I know you’re there!” She was not, in fact, sure that the Watcher had followed her from the woods into the farmhouse, but she figured that if he had, she needed to sound tough, especially now that she couldn’t see. She shuffled forward a few inches. It was impossible to tell where she was. If only she hadn’t dropped her flashlight into the hole under the stone in the floor!

“ I know you can’t move if I’m looking at you, so don’t even try!” she cried. She couldn’t see a thing, but the Watcher didn’t know that. Finally, her fingers made contact with cold, wet rock. Following the slab to the right, she was able to locate the ladder, which ran up the wall of the dank basement. She clutched the bottom rung with her fingers. Keeping her eyes forward, she held on to one bar with her hands and put her left foot on the bottom rung. Slowly, steadily, she made her way up. The stone walls dripped with black moisture, and she tried desperately not to slip.

She couldn’t believe it had come to this. The only comfort she had was the key she’d taken from the secret compartment in the floor in the center of the room. She hoped that if the monster was indeed down here with her, he hadn’t seen her tuck the key in her pocket.

It took all her strength to keep moving up the ladder. Finally, she made it to the top. Reaching up blindly, Gertie could feel the rust-covered door. She pushed at it, but it wouldn’t move.

“ Fudge!” Gertie whispered to herself. “What do I do now? ”

She thought she could hear breathing below her, and when she looked down again, the shadows seemed to move. Gertie screamed. Her voice echoed around the chamber, as she turned and scratched at the rusting metal door above her. Finally, the scream was answered by the turn of the latch and the squeak of the hinges. A sliver of faint light appeared, then the door swung up and out. A face peered at her through the opening.

“ Mrs. Thompson!” Gertie said, shocked. “What are you doing up there? ”

Gertie’s teacher smiled. It was not pleasant. Gertie had never seen Mrs. Thompson look like this before. “Oh, Gertrude. I knew when you found out, you’d act like a nincompoop. You were never very good at tests.” Gertie’s grip loosened. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It had been her teacher, all along. The notes. The voices. The nightmares. Mrs. Thompson was the witch. “But this is what was meant to be,” Mrs. Thompson continued. “This has always been your destiny, my dear one. Now why don’t you climb up here.” The witch’s eyes darkened. “So you can give me what you have in your pocket.”

Something grabbed at Gertie’s sneaker, and she screamed louder than before. She swung her foot away from the ladder, but before she could scramble away, the thing’s claws tightened around her ankle. Looking down, Gertie could see the terrible face of the Watcher rising toward her from the darkness below.

“Maybe Edgar can tell us?”

Eddie looked up from his book. Ms. Phelps was staring at him; so was the rest of the class. A pie chart was drawn on the blackboard. The students had their math books out. “Uh,” said Eddie. The book he was reading was obviously not math. “I don’t know?”

Ms. Phelps came over to his desk. She picked the book up. “The Witch’s Doom? Detention,” said Ms. Phelps, placing the book back on his desk.

Eddie flinched. “What?”

“You may join me after school this afternoon to read up on all the things you’ve missed this morning, Mr. Fennicks.”

Eddie’s mouth went dry. He slipped the book into his bag. Detention? Eddie didn’t know what to think. What would his mother and father say? And more importantly, would it be dark when he got out?

After class, Eddie found Harris outside of the gym. Eddie’s conscience was burning about receiving his first detention ever. He told Harris that their after-school adventure would start later than anticipated. “But before you get too upset, I should tell you that I at least got to read the chapter you wanted me to.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought it was totally creepy,” said Eddie, “but I don’t get why you think it’s so important.”

Harris raised his eyebrows. “Come on, Fennicks, use your brain. If Nathaniel Olmstead did actually write about stuff he saw with his own eyes, like the lake and the dogs, then we should try looking around his place. Like you said-the answer might be in Nathaniel’s stories. In The Witch’s Doom, the key is in a secret compartment in the basement of a farmhouse… Maybe there’s something similar in Nathaniel’s own farmhouse, like the one Gertie found, down in his basement, or under the stairs, or somewhere-any type of place he’d have his characters find stuff.”

Eddie understood what Harris was getting at. “If there is some sort of secret compartment, we might find something inside it. A clue of some sort… or maybe even the code key itself?”

“Right. That… or monsters,” said Harris, chuckling.

“Yeah, right. Monsters…,” said Eddie, trying to chuckle too, but for some reason, he didn’t find that to be as funny as Harris did.

When Ms. Phelps finally let Eddie go, the sun had almost set. He couldn’t believe how long detention had been. The sky was a light indigo, and the stars were just beginning to twinkle. It was the start of a crisp fall evening. In a month, it would probably be too cold to ride bikes anymore, but what truly gave Eddie goose bumps was the thought of going up to Nathaniel Olmstead’s place in the dark.

He turned right onto School Street. The trees on both sides were tall and wide, their big colorful leaves muted in the shadows. He rode past the post office and the row of boarded-up restaurants at the intersection of Farm Road. The church was dark as he passed it on his right. He left crystallized breath floating behind him as he took a left onto Upper Church, heading toward Center Street. On his right, a few streetlights in the town green eliminated some shadows even as they made more.