Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull (3 page)

The professor was stunned. "My Lord, John!" he exclaimed. "What in heaven's name is the matter? I've never seen you like this before! Do you want me to call a doctor? What should I do?"

Johnny didn't know what to say—he didn't even know if he
could
say anything. But the pain in his chest had gone, and he was breathing more easily. He was feeling better because he had stopped trying to tell the professor about the vision he had seen. Frightened, Johnny knew that he had to yield to this spell—or whatever it was—that had been cast on him.

"I... I guess it was just heart-heartburn or something like that," he muttered faintly. He closed his eyes, took out his handkerchief, and mopped his forehead. "I... I'm sorry I scared you," he added.

The professor was still quite concerned. He had seen cases of food poisoning when he was in the army, and he knew it could be fatal. He was ready to go out to the kitchen and give the cook a severe talking-to, but Johnny insisted that he was okay. And so the two of them went back to eating.

After an uncomfortable silence Johnny spoke up again. "How's your car doing?" he asked. "Is... is it wrecked, or can we go home in it?"

The professor made a sour face. "Ah, yes, my car! Well, I went over to Finsterwald's Garage before breakfast, and they told me that I could stagger on home with it. They said I might get picked up for having only one headlight, but considering all the one-eyed cars I've seen driving around in the last year, I will be
very
put out if the cops stop me. Yes, it's driveable... but the bill for the towing and the etcetera is not pretty, it's not pretty at all! However, I suppose it must be paid... ." The professor's voice trailed off. He leaned forward and stared hard at Johnny. "Are you
sure
you're okay? You're in my care while we're on this trip, and I'd feel awful if something happened to you. Please be honest with me. If you're feeling ill, I'll take you to a doctor and have you checked up."

Johnny really got flustered this time. He did not want to be taken anywhere for a checkup. So he gritted his teeth, smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way, and forced himself to eat two mouthfuls of pancakes and syrup. "Yeah, I'm all right," he mumbled, as he chewed. "Let's not talk about it anymore, okay?"

After they had finished their meal, the professor went out to the front desk to settle the bill and Johnny went upstairs to the bedroom to get the suitcases. Then the two of them got ready to stump off through the snow to Finsterwald's Garage to fetch the poor battered Pontiac so they could drive home.

 

A month passed. The snow melted, and the ice on the Merrimack River broke up and washed out to sea. As the March winds boomed in the trees, kids started playing Softball on muddy vacant lots. Johnny Dixon went on with his usual life. He did homework, watched television, and went places with his best friend, Fergie. He helped his grandfather carry out the ashes from the furnace and raked up some soggy leaves that were left from last fall. He visited with the professor and ate pieces of his delicious cakes and played chess and backgammon with him. But all the while, in the back of his mind, he carried around the memory of the eerie scene that had been played before his eyes in that dark back room in the Fitzwilliam Inn. Several times he got his courage up and decided that he would try to tell the professor about what had happened. But each time he felt that awful tightening pain in the chest and a deep nameless fear that was enough to stop him. Of course, he could have tried to tell somebody else about his experience, but in his mind the whole incident was surrounded with fear. It was as if he had done something horrible that he didn't dare talk about. So Johnny just kept quiet about that cold windy February night. He didn't tell Grampa or Gramma or Fergie or anybody.

He also kept clammed up about the skull. It was funny how he felt about it: He wanted to protect the thing, to preserve it from harm. For a while he carried it in his pocket, but he got worried that it would drop out through a hole in his pants or get scarred up by coins or his house keys. So he put the skull in an old blue watch-case with a snap lid, and he kept it hidden under the shirts in his top bureau drawer. Now and then his conscience would prick him, and he would feel guilty about keeping the skull. Shouldn't he wrap it up and send it back to the Fitzwilliam Inn? He could do it anonymously and stay out of trouble that way. But then he told himself that skulls were lucky. He remembered the story the professor had told him about Mexican village festivals, where they made candy skulls and ate them for good luck. And now that he thought about it, it was possible that the skull had saved him from an awful fate. He remembered the shadowy evil shape he had seen in the vision. What if it had decided to go after him? It might have done just that if the skull had not fallen out of the dollhouse room and landed at his feet. Perhaps there was some kindly force at work in the haunted clock, a force that had said,
Here, take this talisman—it will protect you from harm.
This was the way Johnny reasoned, and his reasoning always led him to one conclusion—he'd better hang on to the skull and keep it safe.

On a Thursday night late in the month of March, Johnny and his friend Fergie were doing their home work in the parlor of the Dixon house. They went to different schools, in different parts of the city, but they both were taking Latin, and right now they were helping each other memorize the demonstrative pronoun
hic, haec, hoc. Hic, haec, hoc
just means
this,
but it has lots of forms, and you have to memorize them if you are going to pass beginning Latin. Fergie was a gangly, skinny kid with dark skin, black, greasy, curly hair, a long, blunt-ended nose, enormous ears, and droopy features. At this moment he was trying to get through
hic, haec, hoc
without a mistake.

"Hic, haec, hoc,"
Fergie began,
"hujus, hupus, hujus; huic, huic, huic; hunc, hanc, hoc...
" Fergie's voice began to waver—he was getting the giggles, as he always did when he said these silly words too many times. He fought the laughter down and struggled on:
"Hoc, hac, hoc. Hi, hae, haec; horum, harum...
" But it was no use—he couldn't go on. He was giggling helplessly now.

Usually when this kind of thing happened, Johnny would break into laughter too. But this time he got angry. His face turned red, and he slammed the book shut. "Oh, come
on,
Fergie!" he yelled. "Will you cut that out! We've got
work
to do!"

Fergie was so startled by Johnny's outburst that he stopped giggling. He stared, open-mouthed. What on earth was the matter with his friend?

"Hey," he said in a soft, wondering tone, "what's got into you, John baby? I mean, it's not all
that
important, to lose your temper about! It's just a crummy Latin test, and you'll probably cream it anyway—you always do. So why're you in such an uproar, huh?"

Johnny put down the book he was holding. He wiped his hand across his face and shook his head. Sometimes you can be in a rotten mood and not know it until you pop off at somebody. That was the way it was with Johnny today. And it wasn't just bad temper all by itself. He had had a deep sense of foreboding all day. In his belly he felt that something bad was going to happen to somebody that he knew. He had brooded and worried, and that was why he was so edgy right now. He felt like somebody who is waiting for a thunderstorm to break loose on the world.

"I... I'm sorry, Fergie, honest I am," he stammered. "I dunno what's the matter with me. I've been worried all day about... about something. I keep thinking that a really awful thing is gonna happen."

"You mean, like you might step on a nail and get tetanus?" said Fergie, grinning. He knew about Johnny's fear of tetanus, and it amused him no end.

Johnny shook his head. "Nope," he said miserably. "It's not something that's gonna happen to me. It's gonna happen to somebody I know, like you or Gramma or Grampa or the professor. I don't know why I have this darned feeling. I just do, that's all."

Fergie frowned skeptically. He was a real no-nonsense type—at least he tried to be. In some ways he was just as superstitious as Johnny, but he put up a good front. He was always saying that he believed in science and cold, hard facts. "You're probably just comin' down with a cold," he said, shrugging. "My uncle Harvey always used to think that he was gonna die durin' the night, while he was sleepin'. But he didn't—he got killed in a car crash. You can't believe in these funny feelings that you get."

"Maybe not," said Johnny. He grimaced and bit his lip. "All the same," he went on, "I wish I knew why I felt this... "

Johnny's voice died. He had been looking around while he talked, and he had happened to peer out the big bay window. Across the street was the professor's house, an enormous two-story barn of a place. There were lights on downstairs, but the upstairs windows were dark. Except for one. In it an orange jack-o'-lantern face glowed.

Johnny was utterly astonished. "Hey!" he exclaimed, poking Fergie in the arm. "Look at that, would you!"

Fergie looked, and he did a double take. Then he let out a long, low whistle. "Wow!" he said, shaking his head in awe. "Your pal the professor has finally gone out of his jug! I mean, he's only about seven months early for Halloween! My gosh! Whaddaya think of that?"

Johnny didn't know what to think. But his sense of foreboding came back, stronger than ever. It was true that the professor had a weird sense of humor, but making a jack-o'-lantern in March... well, it just didn't seem like the kind of thing he would do. For a long time Johnny just stood there, watching, while the grinning orange mask hovered in the darkness. Then—reluctantly—he went back to working on his Latin with Fergie.

Johnny thought a lot about the jack-o'-lantern that evening. After Fergie had gone home, he wondered if maybe he ought to call the professor up and see if everything was all right. Which—as Johnny told himself—was a silly, worrywart kind of thought. Why
shouldn't
everything be all right? If the professor wanted to make jack-o'-lanterns in March, that was his business. And it probably didn't mean that he had gone out of his mind, or was going to hang himself from the chandelier in the dining room. The professor was an oddball, and oddballs did peculiar, unpredictable things. And yet... there were still a lot of
and yet
's
in Johnny's anxious mind when he went to bed that night.

The next morning, as Johnny was leaving the house to go to school, he saw the professor backing his car out of his driveway. Probably he was heading for Haggstrum College, where he taught history. Suddenly a thought seized Johnny: He ought to go over and make some mention of the jack-o'-lantern to the professor, just to see what his reaction would be. Quickly he ran down the steps and out into the street. He was waiting as the professor's car slid slowly past, spewing clouds of exhaust smoke. Johnny reached out and rapped on the car window with his knuckles, so the professor would know he was there. The car halted, and the window rolled down. As soon as the professor saw that it was Johnny, he grinned.

"Good morning, John!" he said, smiling wearily. "As you see, I'm on my way to that wonderful temple of learning where I try to beat ideas into the heads of dullards. Would you care for a ride to school?"

Johnny said that yes, he'd like a ride. But there was something he wanted to ask the professor about first.

"Oh, really?" said the professor dryly. "Would you like to know about torture methods in sixteenth-century England? Or how many blows of the axe it took to chop off the Duke of Monmouth's head? Something like that?"

Johnny laughed. "Nope. I just wanta know how come you made a jack-o'-lantern when it's only March."

The professor's mouth dropped open. He was utterly dumbfounded. "You want to know how come I made a
what?"

Now it was Johnny's turn to be astonished. This was not a reply that he had expected: Of course, the professor might be kidding—but he didn't act it. "I... I mean the j-jack-o'-lantern that w-was in your up-upstairs window last n-night," said Johnny. He often stammered when he was flustered or upset.

The professor continued to stare at Johnny. "My dear friend," he said slowly and gravely, "either this is some kind of bizarre joke that you're trying out on me, or you need to get a new pair of glasses! I don't make jack-o'-lanterns even when it
is
Halloween! They attract trick-or-treaters, and I cannot stand that kind of silly, greedy rigmarole! John, honestly, I have no idea of what you're talking about. Are you sure you didn't see the reflection of the moon? Or maybe it was my bedside lamp. It has a reddish shade. Well, if you don't mind, I think we'd better be getting on, or we'll both be late for school. Hop in, won't you?"

Johnny opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, but he couldn't think of anything to say. He sighed weakly, walked around the car, and climbed in. As they drove down the street he sat staring numbly at the dashboard. He felt dazed. Was he going out of his mind? No, that couldn't be, because Fergie had seen the jack-o'-lantern too. With a sick feeling he realized that there was another possible explanation: The professor might be losing
his
mind. Johnny had heard that sometimes old people got very scatty and did peculiar things, and even forgot the names and faces of people they had known all their lives. But the professor did not act like someone who had lost his marbles—he was behaving just like his usual cranky but likeable self. It was all very strange. Again Johnny had the urge to tell the professor about the vision—or dream, or whatever it was—that he had seen at the Fitzwilliam Inn. He opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly he felt that shortness of breath, that tightening in the chest. And he decided that he had better think of other things until it was time to get out of the car

That evening, after school, Johnny and Fergie went to the movies together. This was a Friday-night habit of theirs, and they went in good weather or bad, to lousy movies or to good ones. On this particular Friday, they happened to land a really rousing, slam-bang pirate movie. They always sat way down in front and munched popcorn and made smart remarks, until the usher came down and threatened to throw them out if they didn't shut up. After the show, as they walked the dark, windy streets, Fergie and Johnny talked about the professor and the problem of the jack-o'-lantern that was—or was not—there.