The next room gave me an even bigger scare.
As I pulled open the door, light from the hallway swept over the wallpaper—and I gasped.
The room was bare inside, except for two small armchairs, both covered with sheets, standing side by side like ghosts in the middle of the room.
But the dark green wallpaper … the walls … the walls …
They were covered with scratches.
Long, deep scratch marks. Like ruts cut into the walls.
As if some animal had raked its claws over the walls … clawed them … clawed them … until the wallpaper on all four walls stood scratched and shredded.
An animal … a creature …
I backed out into the hall.
Heard loud breathing.
And realized I wasn’t alone.
“Marianna!” I gasped.
Her dark eyes burned into mine. “Heidi, what are you looking at?”
“This room—” I choked out. “The walls … They’re all scratched. The wallpaper is in shreds. As if …” I didn’t finish my thought.
Marianna stared at me for a moment longer. Then she turned her eyes away. “George did that,” she said softly.
“Huh? George?”
“Our cat. We had a very bad cat,” she explained. “He couldn’t stand to be by himself. One day, he got locked in this room by accident. And he went nuts.”
I peered in at the long scratch marks. They started halfway up the wall.
How could a cat reach up that high?
How could one cat shred all four walls? And make such deep ruts?
“What happened to George?” I asked.
Marianna still had her eyes turned away. “Dad had to put the poor guy to sleep,” she replied. “We had no choice. He was just too crazy.”
She took my arm. “Come on, Heidi. I came to bring you down to dinner.” She smiled for the first time. “A miracle is taking place tonight.”
“Huh? A miracle?” I asked, following her down the stairs. “What miracle?”
“Dad is actually joining us. He usually works right through dinner. But tonight, in your honor—”
I stopped her at the bottom of the stairs. “I said something wrong when I saw him,” I told her. “I think I got him angry at me.”
She raised her dark eyebrows. “Angry? Dad?”
I nodded. “I met a boy at the bus station. His name is Aaron Freidus. Do you know him?”
Marianna nodded. “He goes to my school.”
I glanced around the room to make sure Uncle Jekyll wasn’t around. “Aaron told me a weird story,” I whispered to Marianna. “A very frightening story. About a beast that’s been attacking the village.”
Marianna gasped and squeezed my arm. Her hand was suddenly ice-cold. “You mentioned that to my dad?”
I nodded. “And then he freaked out.”
“He’s very sensitive about that,” Marianna whispered. “Don’t worry. He wasn’t angry at you. He gets angry at the villagers. They give him a lot of trouble … about his work. He says they make up stories because they are ignorant.”
“So Aaron’s story isn’t true?” I asked.
She made a face. “Of course not.”
She let go of my arm and led the way to the dining room. Outside the front window, I saw a bright half moon rising over the bare trees. The tree branches bent and swayed. Wind rattled the old windowpanes.
The dining room was bright and cheerful. A crystal chandelier sent sparkly light down over the long, white-tableclothed table.
Uncle Jekyll was already seated at the head of the table. He had removed his lab coat. He wore a blue denim work shirt over khakis. His thick white hair had been slicked down.
He smiled as Marianna and I entered the room. Then he motioned with his big hands for us to take our seats across from each other. “Where were you? Heidi, I hope you didn’t get lost.”
“No. Marianna is a good guide,” I said. “But this house would be easy to get lost in,” I added.
He patted my hand. “Don’t worry. You’ll learn your way around quickly.”
Sylvia brought in steaming bowls of chowder.
“This is real New England clam chowder,” Uncle Jekyll said, lowering his head to the bowl and inhaling the steam. “Look at all those clams. Bet you didn’t have chowder like this in Springfield.”
I laughed. “No. Our chowder came from a can.”
My uncle’s good mood, the bright, sparkly room, and the wonderful aroma of the creamy, thick chowder were helping to cheer me up.
We had a very pleasant dinner. Uncle Jekyll did most of the talking. Marianna ate silently and only spoke when asked a question. But I was beginning to feel a lot more comfortable, a lot more welcome.
As we ate dessert—warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream—Uncle Jekyll recalled my last visit. He told once again the story of how I asked him if he was Frankenstein.
He and I laughed all over again. Marianna ate her dessert silently, eyes lowered.
“You thought I was a mad scientist even then,” he said, grinning, his silvery-gray eyes sparkling in the chandelier light. “And, of course, you were right!” he joked.
“If your name is Jekyll, you have no choice,” my uncle continued, swallowing a big spoonful of ice cream. “You have to be a mad scientist. People expect it of you. I guess if I wasn’t a scientist—”
“Dad, please—” Marianna interrupted. Bright pink circles had erupted on her cheeks. She appeared embarrassed by what he was saying.
Uncle Jekyll ignored her. He waved his spoon in the air. “I think the original Dr. Jekyll got a bum rap,” he continued. “Everyone thought he was a villain. But Dr. Jekyll was actually a brilliant scientist.”
I laughed. “A brilliant scientist? I thought he drank stuff that turned him into an evil beast.”
Uncle Jekyll nodded. “But you have to be brilliant to invent a formula that will change a person so completely. Can you imagine finding such an exciting formula?”
“Dad—please!” Marianna begged. “Do we really have to talk about this?”
“Of course we have pills today that change people,” he continued. “We have pills to make you sleepy, pills to make you calm. But imagine if someone invented something that totally changed your whole personality. That changed you into an entirely different creature! Wow!”
Across the table from me, Marianna gritted her teeth angrily. “Dad—if you don’t change the subject …”
“Okay, okay.” He raised his huge, bony hands in surrender. “But I still think the original Dr. Jekyll was misunderstood.”
Later that night, I thought about our dinner conversation as I got ready for bed. Why had it upset Marianna so much? I wondered.
At first, she had seemed embarrassed. Then she became angry.
She definitely didn’t want her dad to talk about strange formulas that totally changed people. Why not? Because it frightened her?
Or because she knows a secret? A secret about her dad. About the mysterious work he is doing in his lab.
No, Heidi. I scolded myself again. Don’t jump to crazy conclusions. Forget about Aaron’s dumb story.
I shivered as I pulled on a flannel nightshirt. My room was cold and drafty. But I moved to the window and pulled it open a few inches.
Even in the winter I can’t sleep with the bed room window closed. I have to have fresh air.
A cold breeze fluttered the curtains around me. I backed away from them, turned off the lamp on my bed table, and climbed under the heavy quilt on my bed.
My first night in my new room.
The sheets felt scratchy. And the heavy quilt smelled of mothballs.
Shivering, I pulled the quilt up to my chin and waited to warm up. Silvery moonlight washed in through the window. The curtains fluttered softly.
I shut my eyes and tried to clear my mind.
So much had happened to me. So many changes. So much to think about.
I knew it would take me a long time to fall asleep. No matte
r how hard I tried, I couldn’t shut off my mind.
The faces of my friends back in Springfield floated in front of me. Then I saw my parents, looking so healthy, so happy. I saw my school … the house I grew up in …
I thought about my bus ride. About Aaron.
About Marianna’s strange, unfriendly greeting at the front door …
Faces … pictures … so many words …
I was just drifting off to sleep when the terrifying screams began.
I sat straight up, my heart pounding.
Another high, shrill scream.
From right outside my window?
I kicked off the heavy quilt and started to climb out of bed. My legs were tangled in the sheet, and I nearly fell.
The curtains fluttered over me as I dove to the open window and peered out. No one near the house.
The screams were coming from the village.
Gazing down the hill, I saw flashing lights in the town. I heard the wail of sirens, rising and falling. And I saw people running between the houses, running down the main street. Running in small groups.
Dogs barked. I heard a man shouting frantically through a loudspeaker, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“It’s like a bad dream,” I murmured out loud.
I shivered as the cold seeped through my nightshirt. Blown by the strong, steady breeze, the window curtains swirled behind me.
I backed away from the window, the screams and siren wails still in my ears. I hugged myself, trying to warm up.
What is going on down there? I wondered.
My first thought was that a fire had broken out. But I hadn’t seen any flames.
And then I remembered Aaron’s story. “We’re all afraid to go out at night,” he told me, his dark, serious eyes burning into mine.
The beast?
Was there really a beast out there?
Uncle Jekyll insisted that the beast didn’t exist. He had acted so strange, so angry when I mentioned it.
If there was no beast, no wild, evil creature that attacked the town—what was happening down there?
My mind spinning, I lurched to my closet. I searched in the dark for my robe.
I’m going downstairs and asking Uncle Jekyll to explain, I decided.
The sirens. The flashing lights. The screaming people running from their homes.
It really is like a bad dream. Except I know I’m awake.
“Aaaagh!” I let out a frustrated cry. I couldn’t find my robe. Had I unpacked it? This new room—this new closet—I didn’t know where anything was!
A sob escaped my throat. Will I ever feel at home here? I wondered.
How can I feel at home when there’s a horror movie going on outside my window?
I had tossed my jeans and sweatshirt on the chair beside my dresser. I pulled them on quickly, my hands trembling, and hurried into the hall.
A single ceiling light near Marianna’s room at the end of the hall cast a dim circle of light. Squinting until my eyes adjusted, I ran to Uncle Jekyll’s room.
The door stood half open. I knocked and called his name.
No answer.
I pushed the door open and peered inside. “Uncle Jekyll?”
No. Not there. The bed was still made. He hadn’t come up to sleep yet.
“He must still be in his lab,” I murmured to myself. Marianna said that he worked all hours of the night.
I turned and hurried down the stairs. Then I made my way along the back hall till I came to my uncle’s lab.
“Uncle Jekyll? Are you in there?”
The door stood open. Pale fluorescent light washed down from low ceiling lamps, making everything look an eerie green.
I poked my head in. “Uncle Jekyll?”
The equipment bubbled and churned. A row of small red lights on a machine in the corner blinked on and off.
I stepped into the lab. A sharp, sour aroma greeted my nose. On the long lab table, a thick green liquid dripped slowly—one drip at a time—from a high glass tube into a large glass beaker.
“Uncle Jekyll? Are you in here?”
I made my way along the table and peered into the little room behind the lab. No. No sign of him.
I turned to leave. But stopped when my eyes landed on the object at the edge of the table.
A drinking glass. Empty except for a little puddle on the bottom and a green film on the sides.
I swallowed hard and stepped up to examine the glass. I stared into it. Then I sniffed it. It smelled sharp and sour.
“Ugh.” I backed away.
The thick green liquid clung to the sides. Was it the same liquid dripping from the glass tube?
Did my uncle drink that stuff?
Did he drink that foul liquid and turn himself into a creature, a wild beast? Was he down in the village now, attacking people, terrifying everyone?
“That’s crazy!” I cried. My voice echoed shrilly off the walls of the lab.
The red lights blinked on and off. And the DRIP DRIP DRIP of the thick green liquid into the glass beaker seemed to grow louder.
I don’t want to live in a horror movie! I told myself.
I covered my ears with my hands. I couldn’t stand the blinking lights, the bubbling, churning, and dripping.
I ran out of the lab. Down the back hall, searching every room for him. The kitchen. The dining room. A den I hadn’t seen yet. The living room.
Dark. All dark.
No sign of Uncle Jekyll.
If he wasn’t down in the village, terrorizing everyone, where was he?
I stopped at the front stairs, breathing hard. I leaned on the smooth wood of the banister, waiting to catch my breath.
And then my entire body went cold—and I froze in fright as the heavy front door creaked and swung open.
I gripped the banister and gaped in silence as Uncle Jekyll staggered into the house.
His white hair shot out wildly around his head, as if it had been shocked with electricity. His pale eyes bulged. His face was smeared with dirt.
He didn’t see me. He shut his eyes tight as if he were in pain. He uttered a low groan as he bumped the door closed with his shoulder.
The sleeve of his black overcoat was ripped at the shoulder. His blue work shirt had come untucked from his pants. Long, muddy smears ran down the front of the shirt. Most of the buttons were missing.
Wheezing loudly, Uncle Jekyll lurched across the front entryway. His boots left a trail of muddy prints on the floor. The legs of his pants were stained, one knee torn.
I gripped the banister tighter. I wanted to disappear. I didn’t want him to see me there. I didn’t want him to explain where he had been or what he had done.
I didn’t want to know.
It was all too terrifying.
“Heidi—”
I shuddered when he rasped my name. I squeezed the banister so hard my hand ached.
“Heidi? What are you doing down here?” he demanded, moving closer, eyeing me warily.
“I—I couldn’t sleep,” I choked out. “I heard noises. Screams and things.”
He tried to push down his hair, but it remained wild and standing straight up. His pale gray eyes searched my face, as if trying to see inside me, to find out what I knew. What I suspected.
“Uncle Jekyll—” I said in a trembling voice. “Where did you go?”
“For a walk,” he answered quickly. He scratched his cheek. “I like the air late at night. I often take a long walk around the hill when I have finished my work.”
“But your clothes—” I started to protest. “Your face—”
“I fell,” he answered quickly. A strange smile spread over his mud-smeared face. “I must look a sight. Sorry if I frightened you, Heidi.”
“You … fell?” My eyes went to the missing buttons on his shirt, the tear at the knee of his pants.
He nodded. “The tall grass is so slick after a heavy frost,” he said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. I was foolish. I usually
bring my flashlight, but tonight I forgot it.”
“And you fell? Are you hurt?” I asked.
He sighed. “Not too bad. My head hit a low branch. I couldn’t see it in the dark.” He rubbed his forehead. “I was so startled, I slipped and rolled halfway down the hill.”
“That’s awful,” I declared.
Did I believe him?
I wanted to. I really wanted to.
But I didn’t.
He rubbed his forehead some more. His eyes remained locked on me. “Next time I’ll remember the flashlight,” he said. “I could have broken my neck.”
“I—I heard screams,” I stammered. “From the village. I saw lights and heard sirens. I—”
“I don’t know what that is,” he replied sharply.
“Something bad—” I started. “People were running and—”
“I didn’t see anything,” he interrupted. “I was walking in the woods. I couldn’t see the village. I didn’t hear anything.”
“It was so frightening,” I told him. “The screams woke me up.”
He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured. The tenderness in his voice took me by surprise.
“It’s your first day here,” he continued. “I know how hard this is for you. I know your whole life has been turned upside down, Heidi.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I lowered my head so he couldn’t see the tears brimming in my eyes.
“Give yourself time to adjust,” Uncle Jekyll advised, speaking in a whisper. “These tiny New England villages can be a little strange. Try not to pay attention. Try to let things slide for a while. You’ll be a lot happier if you do.”
Let things slide?
Don’t pay attention?
What was he saying? That I should ignore the screams and sirens and people running wildly through the town?
I stared hard at him, trying to understand.
He said I’d be a lot happier if I ignored what I heard and saw.
Was that advice from a caring uncle?
Or a threat?
It took a long time to get back to sleep. The excitement had ended down in the town. No more sirens or screams. A few dogs continued to bark. But all else was silent.
I pulled the quilt up high and stared at the ceiling. My mind spun with thoughts of all that had happened.