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.