The Dark Secret of Weatherend (6 page)

Anthony went down the hall to the bathroom. He splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth. As he was rinsing his mouth he thought about the book full of J. K. Borkman's mad ravings and about meeting his son Anders. Maybe there was a curse on the book. Maybe that was why his mind had been playing tricks on him lately. Well, if that was the case, he ought to just take the book out and burn it in the incinerator in the backyard. Anthony walked back to his bedroom. Carefully he began to open the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk. Inch by inch he slid it out, as if he expected the book to spew flames in his face. A little more...

And then he got his third shock of the morning. The book was gone!

Anthony stepped back. His mouth dropped open, and he could feel the palms of his hands getting sweaty. Then all of a sudden he got angry. His
mother!
Had she been messing around in his desk and swiped the book? Anthony's mother was a bit on the nosy side. She found it hard to keep out of his business, and once or twice she had even opened mail that had been sent to him. For the time being all worries about these mysterious goings-on were swept out of Anthony's mind. His mother had no right to go poking around in his desk, and Anthony would go downstairs and tell her so.

Mrs. Monday was sitting at the kitchen table, cutting up carrots for the big Sunday dinner. She was not a pleasant-looking person. Her mouth was always set in a thin-lipped, suspicious frown. She could be kind, but she had a sour attitude toward the world in general.

Anthony burst into the room, filled with righteous anger. "Mom!" he said in a loud, accusing voice. "Did you take a book out of my desk?"

Mrs. Monday laid down the paring knife. At first she looked utterly stunned, but then she got angry. "No!" she said in a voice that was just as loud as his. "No, I did
not
take anything from your desk, and I'll thank you not to go around making wild accusations. I try hard to respect your privacy, and I wouldn't
dream
of prying into your personal affairs." Mrs. Monday paused. "What sort of a book was it?" she asked.

Anthony was about to answer, but he hesitated. He didn't want his mom to find out about their expedition to the Weatherend estate. He shrugged carelessly. "Oh, uh, it ... it was just a crummy old book with a leather cover. It was somebody's diary, I guess. I, uh, found it in a barn."

"I see. Well, as I said, I have not been muxing about in your desk, and I haven't seen any book of that description anywhere in this house. And now, I'd like to go back to fixing dinner!"

Anthony stared gloomily at his mother. He knew from her tone that she didn't have the diary. If she did,
she would have been evasive, but there was only anger in her voice now. So then what
had
happened to the blasted book? Had he been walking in his sleep last night? Had he taken the diary away himself while he was in a trance? But he had never walked in his sleep before. It was all very, very strange.

"I'm sorry, Mom," he said at last. "I shouldn't've flown off the handle like that." Anthony smiled weakly at his mother. He wanted to smooth things over a bit so she wouldn't be mad at him about his "accusation." "Is... is there anything I can do to help?" he asked timidly.

Mrs. Monday smiled up at her son. "You bet your life there is," she said. "You can help me peel some potatoes!"

One sunny morning later that week Miss Eells was up in the tower room of the library, sorting magazines. She was wearing a blue denim apron, and an old-fashioned turk's-head feather duster lay at her side. Miss Eells was kneeling down, and she was reading a thrilling story in the June
195
1
issue of
Cosmopolitan.
That was the trouble with sorting magazines. You just had to stop every now and then to look at something fascinating. Oh, well, it was better to do this than to think about what was going on at four o'clock that afternoon. Miss Eells groaned. Mrs. Oxenstern was throwing yet another sweet little tea party up in the new Genealogy Room. It was enough to make you sick. First the grand opening party, and now a tea for the Minnesota Genealogical Society. And who
was expected to be there, all dressed up and looking sweet and saying nice, polite, boring things? Why, Miss Eells, the head librarian, of course.

Miss Eells ground her teeth and sighed. Then she got up, brushed dust off her apron, and looked around in dismay at the tall, tottering piles of old, dog-eared magazines and journals.
I
have to get organized,
she said to herself. At that moment a blast of wind hit the tower, making the loose glass in the windows rattle. Gazing wistfully out at the park far below, she thought how badly she wanted to be out there, flying a kite...

Brr-rrr-rrring!

Miss Eells jumped a little and looked up at a small white plastic box mounted over the tower room's only door. Set in one end of the box was a small red warning light. It was blinking on and off, and the box vibrated as the alarm bell rang again. It meant that someone was at the main desk.

Br-rring!
The bell rang again. Whoever it was was getting impatient. Miss Eells threw down her feather duster and bustled off toward the stairs.

When she got to the main desk, Miss Eells found none other than Anders Borkman glowering into space. He was holding a briefcase in one hand, and with his other hand he was jabbing the alarm button.

"Good morning, Mr. Borkman," said Miss Eells, and she smiled politely as she seated herself. "I'm sorry there was no one here when you came in."

"So am I," said Borkman snappishly. "I'm rather busy
at present. I have one book to return, and another to renew. And I'd appreciate it if you'd hurry."

And with that Borkman raised the briefcase and deposited it on the desk. With a fussy flourish he undid the clasp and took out two books. One was a large blue tome called
Weather Patterns of the Upper Mississippi Valley.
The other was a small, battered volume with a black oilskin cover. There was no title that Miss Eells could see, but a Dewey decimal number had been printed on the spine in white ink. Borkman told Miss Eells that he wanted to renew the blue volume. The other was simply being returned.

When the blue book had been stamped, Borkman took it and slid it into the briefcase. He nodded stiffly at Miss Eells and started to go.

"Nice day, isn't it?" said Miss Eells pleasantly as she pulled the black book toward her.

"Eh?" said Borkman, staring malevolently at her.

Miss Eells met Borkman's gaze—for some reason she wasn't afraid of him this time. "I
said,
it's a nice day, isn't it?"

Borkman sniffed contemptuously. "It may be, for some. But I prefer turbulent weather—storms and lashing rains and raging seas. I suppose my tastes are odd, but I feel that such weather rouses the spirit within one. It tests one's mettle."

Miss Eells did not say what she thought about this rather pompous little speech. She merely shrugged and began flipping through her desk calendar. As Borkman
went out she glanced up at him quickly, and then she shook her head. She had been uncertain about him before, but now her mind was made up.
Test one's mettle, your grandmother!
she muttered under her breath. She hated phony, pretentious people.

Miss Eells pulled the black book toward her and opened the front cover. And then she did a double take; she had never seen this book before. The frontispiece was a dark old woodcut that showed bearded men seated around a large table. The title page was done in Old English type and said

THE
BOOK OF THE DEAD

by Simon of Salisbury

Quidquid latet, apparebit Nil inultum remanebit

—Venantius Fortunatus

London, 1873

Well!
said Miss Eells to herself.
This is one on me! I thought I knew most of the old books in this library.
She flipped through it quickly, and to her surprise she found that it was all printed in Old English letters and appeared to be written entirely in Latin.

Miss Eells closed the book and frowned. What on earth was this book doing in the library, anyway? Several years ago she had gone through the place thoroughly
trying to weed out all the old unreadable books that had just been gathering dust for years. How had this one gotten past her? Miss Eells turned it over in her hands. She wanted to pitch it into the nearest wastebasket, but since it appeared to be a real library book, with a card in the catalogue, she figured she'd better put it back where it belonged. Later she could figure out how to get rid of it officially. With the book in her hand Miss Eells headed back into the stacks. As she went she sidled past a teenager who was standing on a stool, straining to reach a volume on the top rack. She glanced quickly at the long row of green Loeb Classical Library volumes. Again she checked the book's decimal number... Aha! This was the right section. Miss Eells stopped. She saw a gap on one shelf and was about to stuff the black volume into it when something happened.

There was a slight hissing sound, and a puff of bluish dust rose from the top of the book. Like pipe smoke the little dust cloud came twisting and drifting through the air. A sweetish, perfumy smell tickled Miss Eells's nostrils. She felt dazed and a little faint, and suddenly in her mind's eye she saw that ring of standing stones again. Four leaning weathered boulders on a grassy hill and in the background a dark, humpbacked mountain and a stormy sky. Then the vision vanished, and the cloud of sweet-smelling dust was gone. Miss Eells stood there, stunned, with the black book in her hand.

She felt very confused and a bit frightened. Had she been working too hard lately? Overworked and worn-
out people sometimes had hallucinations. Maybe she ought to take a couple of aspirin and go lie down for a bit. She stuck the book into the gap on the shelf and hurried away.

Miss Eells stayed in her office for the rest of the morning, and then went out to lunch. When she got back, she felt light-headed and feverish. Maybe she was coming down with a cold. Oh, well, if she was, there wasn't much that could be done about it.

The early afternoon passed in its usual way, and then at a quarter to four Anthony showed up for work. That was late for him, but he had had to stay after school for a play rehearsal. He found Miss Eells standing in front of the fireplace in the East Reading Room. She was staring at herself in the mirror that hung over the mantel, and she was fiddling with loose strands of gray hair that stuck out from her bun-shaped hairdo.

"Oh, hi, Anthony," she said, turning. "I'm getting all gussied up for the shindig that's going on upstairs at four. Don't I look devastating?"

Anthony giggled. "Yeah, you look okay, I guess."

Miss Eells made a face. "I honestly don't know." She sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if I was cut out to be a little old lady. I'm supposed to
like
tea parties, but personally I'd rather be on a slow boat to China. Also I feel kind of out of sorts today. Oh, well. I don't suppose I have to stay
forever.
See you later."

And with that, Miss Eells turned and dragged herself toward the staircase. From the look on her face you
would have thought she was going to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth pulled.

A few minutes later Miss Eells stepped into the Genealogy Room. There were ladies galore: tall ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones. In flower-print dresses, with cameo brooches, lace at the throat, pearl necklaces, and all. On a table near the door stood two silver-plated urns, one with hot water for tea and the other with coffee, and a huge glass punch bowl full of pinkish liquid. Nearby on another table were plates of little triangular sandwiches and bowls of peanuts. At the far end of the room a string quartet was playing. In the midst of all this was Mrs. Oxenstern, bigger than life and twice as bossy-looking. She was wearing her best white silk dress, and on her collar was the jeweled American flag pin that she always wore on special occasions. And, as usual, her silver-gray hair was done in a rippling permanent wave that looked
so
permanent Miss Eells always imagined attacking it with a hammer and chisel to uncover the plaster beneath. Everything was as it should be—polite and proper and indescribably boring.

Miss Eells advanced into the room. She passed up the tea urn and the coffee urn and took a cup of punch. She sipped and winced—it was so sweet that it made her fillings ache. With the cup in her hand she turned and looked this way and that. And at that moment something very strange happened.

It was as if Miss Eells had been suddenly seized by some force outside herself. She went reeling madly
across the room, elbowing people aside and slopping punch everywhere. She stopped in front of Mrs. Oxenstern, and then, with a jerky motion of her hand, she threw the punch all over the front of the fat woman's dress. All Mrs. Oxenstern could do was stare in stupefied horror. Miss Eells was shocked too. She tried to speak, but only a strangled sound emerged from her throat. Then the force took hold of her again and flung her back across the room, to the table where the coffee urn was. Picking up two cups of coffee, one in each hand, Miss Eells went charging off. She raced the full length of the room as the bystanders ducked and dodged to get out of her way. She was headed straight toward the large Chinese vase that stood on a pedestal near one of the tall windows—one of Mrs. Oxenstern's prized possessions. Mrs. Oxenstern had lent it to the library because she wanted the Genealogy Room to look spiffy. Everyone was too shocked to move. They all just stood watching in slack-jawed amazement as the head librarian of the Hoosac Public Library went cannoning into the pedestal. The vase rocked, fell, and smashed to smithereens. One cup went flying one way, the other flew another, and Miss Eells fell down on her back, unconscious. The party was over.