Just then, Morton charged into the open, still tugging at something strapped to his leg. Olive squinted, trying to see through the darkness. In Morton’s fist was the little flashlight Olive had brought him.
“Ta-DA!” he sang. He flicked on the light. A tiny, cheerful streak of gold bobbed around the clearing like a firefly.
But it was too late. Annabelle had spotted Olive.
“Hey, lady,” Morton shouted. “Over here! Look!” Morton pointed the flashlight toward the dark sky. The clouds swirled and broke, pulling away from its beam.
Annabelle ignored him. She turned toward Olive with a sickening smile and gestured with both hands. The trees around Olive sprang to life. Roots knotted around her ankles. Branches locked her arms tight against her sides. Another branch wrapped itself around her neck and began to squeeze. Olive felt her face start to tingle.
“The old man doesn’t like this! You’d better come over here and stop me!” she heard Morton shouting in the distance.
Olive couldn’t breathe. Little fireworks exploded in front of her eyes. Through them, she could see Annabelle moving closer, the spectacles glinting on their chain. In the distance, a little white shape darted forward. Something gleamed through the darkness.
“YAH!” Morton yowled, leaping forward and landing on Annabelle’s trailing skirts, pinning her to the ground. Annabelle whirled around. The beam of Morton’s flashlight struck her full in the face. Annabelle let out a shriek and raised her arms, shielding her eyes from the light.
All at once, the branches around Olive’s body loosened. With a wriggle, she slipped out of their grasp and charged through the trees into the clearing, throwing herself against Annabelle’s back. Morton still had the flashlight aimed at Annabelle’s eyes. “YAH!” he shouted again. Annabelle covered her face with one arm and flailed blindly at Morton with the other.
“Grandfather!” Annabelle yelled toward the sky.
Olive felt her fist close around the spectacles and yanked backward with all the strength in her body. The chain snapped. The spectacles were secure in her hand.
“Come on!” Olive shouted, grabbing Morton’s arm. They bolted down the path, the beam of Morton’s flashlight bobbing wildly over the ground in front of them. Its light was already getting weaker. “I think the batter is draining out!” gasped Morton.
Another pair of running footsteps joined the sound of their own. Olive glanced over her shoulder. Annabelle was after them, the dagger she had used to cut Morton clasped in her fist.
Olive put on the spectacles. “When we get to the frame,” she panted to Morton, “you go first. I’ll be right behind you.”
The small square of hallway light shone just a few steps in front of them. Olive pushed Morton ahead. He grabbed the bottom of the frame, Olive held him by the ankle, and Morton dove out into the hallway.
Annabelle lunged closer, her hands reaching out, her mouth forming a furious NO. Willing herself not to look back, Olive grasped the frame. She heaved her body over it, pushing her head and shoulders out into the gold light of the hallway. But she couldn’t get any farther. Annabelle’s hand was locked around her foot.
Olive kicked wildly, her legs hitting nothing but the cold, swirling air of the forest. Then there was a sudden tug, and the sensation of something slipping away. Her left sock was gone. Her foot was free of Annabelle’s grasp. Annabelle stumbled backward, still clutching Olive’s stripy sock, and Olive toppled out into the hallway.
She landed on her stomach on the hall carpet. Morton sat in exhausted silence beside her. Then his eyes grew wide. He looked at Olive. “We did it,” he said. He scrambled to his feet. “We did it! We did it!” he chanted, hopping up and down, waving the dead flashlight.
Something sharp was poking Olive in the ribs, but she didn’t seem to be bleeding, and she knew it wasn’t Annabelle’s knife. She felt around cautiously with one hand.
Broken glass.
Olive jerked upright, grasping the bent wire that still dangled from the chain around her neck. She had landed on the spectacles.
“Uh-oh,” said Morton softly.
“I know,” said Olive. “I broke them. I break everything.”
“Look,” whispered Morton.
Olive glanced up, following Morton’s eyes. In the frame where the painted forest should have been, a black cloud was pouring out into the hallway. It ran over the bottom edge of the frame like a dark waterfall. It gathered into a pool, and then the pool began to grow higher, thicker, larger, until it was a pillar that nearly reached the ceiling. There was a body in the pillar. A tall, gaunt body, with a rigid face, and deep pits where eyes should have been. It towered over them in a whirl of ashes. The pits of the eyes stared down at Morton and Olive. Then the air turned to ice, and the lights went out.
20
OLIVE HUDDLED, SHIVERING, in the darkness.
She couldn’t see Morton cowering beside her. She couldn’t even see her hands when she waved them in front of her face. The windows at the end of the hall were dark, without a single tiny star poking through the night. Once, Olive had visited a cave on a school field trip. The tour guide had stopped them in one narrow little chamber, deep underground, and turned out the lights. In that moment, Olive had felt just what she felt now—absolute darkness, icy, damp, and complete.
Something brushed her arm. Olive jumped.
“Olive?” said a very tiny whisper.
“I’m here,” Olive whispered back.
Morton groped for her hand. “I just thought you might be scared.”
“I’m going to find the light switch,” said Olive as bravely as she could.
With Morton beside her, Olive groped along the hallway walls until her fingers brushed the switch. She flicked it up and down. Nothing happened.
“Let’s try another one,” said Olive stubbornly. She reached through her own bedroom door, running her palm up and down the wall. She clicked the switch. Nothing.
Olive’s teeth were starting to chatter. The air was as cold as the inside of a refrigerator.
“I’m going to find some candles,” she told Morton. “Keep right next to me.”
“You keep right next to me,” said Morton.
Her body pressed to the wall, Olive sidled toward one of the upstairs bathrooms. There on the countertop were two scented candles in little glass jars. Olive ran her hands over the counter until she found the matchbook. She struck a match. A bright yellow flame flared in her hand, and in the bathroom mirror, her own reflection stared back above another bobbing yellow flame. The darkness pulled back, very slightly, but she could feel something icy breathing on her neck—something that didn’t like the light.
Olive and Morton each carried a lit candle out into the hallway. Olive could see her breath in the air. Her clothes, still damp from the lake, were now freezing. Olive held her candle up to the paintings along the hall. They had all turned black, as though someone had doused the canvases with dark paint.
Moving very carefully down the stairs, holding up her cinnamon-scented candle, Olive could feel the darkness close around them. She could hear it breathing. It lifted the strands of her hair and tugged on the cuffs of her jeans. Olive shuddered. There was something in the darkness—something with a human shape, but something that hadn’t been human for more than a hundred years.
She reached the foot of the stairs, with Morton right behind her. Something that felt like long, cold fingers trailed across the back of her neck.
“Was that you, Morton?” she breathed.
“Was that me what?” Morton whispered back.
“Olive . . .” murmured a voice in the darkness.
“Olive?” said a very different voice.
The darkness pulled back a little more. The air thawed by a few degrees. Olive glanced around. Three pairs of bright green eyes glittered in the light of her candle.
“Horatio! Leopold! Harvey!” Olive felt as if she might collapse from relief. The cats encircled her feet, staring out protectively int
o the darkness like three feline gargoyles. “What happened to the dog?” she whispered.
Horatio jerked his head toward the basement door, where there was the sound of petulant whining and scratching. “Good old Baltus,” said Horatio sarcastically.
“Old Man Mc—I mean Aldous McMartin,” Olive stammered, “Aldous McMartin is here. He got out.”
“Affirmative,” said Leopold. “We know.”
“He wants to get rid of you, Olive,” said Horatio.
“You mean—?”
“Kill you. Yes. Or trap you.” Horatio turned to look up into Olive’s face. “The sooner the better, as far as he’s concerned. He wants his house back. He and Annabelle were the last of the McMartins, and they won’t let their legacy end so easily.”
Olive’s candle sputtered. “What will he do to me?” she whispered.
“Well,” said Horatio, “the easiest way would be to put you into a painting and leave you there forever, like your friend there.”
Olive heard Morton suck in his breath.
“Or he might do something quicker, more permanent. Like he did to Albert,” said Leopold.
“Hwwwckkk,” said Harvey helpfully, running one paw across his throat.
“He will try to control you, Olive,” said Horatio.
“He’s been watching you. He knows you. He’ll use the things you want and the things you fear. He will threaten whatever you care about most.”
Olive swallowed hard. She glanced around at the dark rooms full of her parents’ books and shoes and papers, at the three cats staring up at her expectantly, at Morton’s pale form wavering in the dim light, and she could feel it all slipping away from her. She had wanted these things to be hers. She had even started to believe that she belonged here, and that the house belonged to her family, and that they would stay in one spot for good. But this house wasn’t hers. She was going to be turned away again.
“I deserve this,” Olive whispered. “This is all my fault anyway. I found the necklace. I let Annabelle out. I put everybody in danger.”
“Do not think it, my lady!” Harvey dismissed Olive’s words with a grand wave of his paw. “It would have happened with or without you.”
“For once, he’s right,” said Horatio. “They used you. You were necessary, for a while. Now . . . you are only in the way.” His eyes flicked to the nightshirt-draped figure behind her. “Like Morton was, once. Like Mr. McMartin’s son. Like his neighbors.”
“Like us,” added Leopold softly.
Realization washed over Olive like a cold tide. Of course. Aldous McMartin would punish the cats for betraying him. He would have plans for Morton, too—that was certain. And tomorrow morning, when her parents came home . . . Olive shook her head violently, forcing these visions away.
And then, in her chest, something flared to life, like a match touching a candle’s wick. Suddenly Olive wasn’t scared. She was angry.
Olive squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Her exhalation made a long gold plume of smoke. She looked around at the walls of the house, flickering with shadows and fragile light. She looked down at the cats’ glittering green eyes. If she could stop him—when she stopped him—Old Man McMartin could never have power over any of them again.
“I’m not going to let the McMartins get rid of us,” she said slowly. “I’m going to get rid of them.”
Harvey let out a whoop and performed a triumphant jig on the steps. Leopold gave a military nod so sharp it could have cut a steak, and Horatio actually rubbed his head against Olive’s ankles and began to purr, before he caught himself.
“So, what do we do?” Olive asked.
Horatio, Leopold, and Harvey looked at one another, and then up at Olive, their green eyes glowing like small flames. Horatio said slowly, “To get rid of the shadows, you’ll need to bring the light.”
“Morton will help, too. Won’t you, Morton?”
But there was no answer. Morton wasn’t there.
21
OLIVE RAIDED THE kitchen cupboards for matches, flashlights, and camping lanterns. Her hands shook with fear, which made them even clumsier than usual. “I think you hurt Morton’s feelings, talking about what Aldous McMartin might do,” Olive fumed at the cats, knocking down an old coffeepot that nearly landed on Harvey’s head. “‘Stick you in a painting and leave you there forever.’ Very sensitive, guys. Now he could be anywhere in the house—if Old Man McMartin hasn’t trapped him somewhere already.” Olive bit her lip, picturing Morton lost inside some strange painting, all alone once again.
“We’ll find him, miss,” Leopold declared. “But we must proceed with caution. A soldier doesn’t run into battle unarmed.”
Olive huffed and turned back to the kitchen shelves. It was dark, chilly work, and her fingers were growing numb. Patches of her damp clothes were covered with frost. The cats, who could see in the dark and who didn’t seem to be bothered by the temperature, stayed close to Olive’s feet, their bright eyes scanning the darkness.
The shadows and the cold and her worry for Morton were wearing Olive down. Her arms and legs felt heavy; her toes had apparently disappeared. Her eyelids were so, so heavy. All she wanted was to lie down on the floor and go to sleep. Sleep would be warm and comfortable, and safe . . .
Something sharp dug into her ankle.
Olive looked down to see Horatio glaring up. “Don’t close your eyes,” he said sternly. “Keep moving.”
Olive stuck a spare flashlight into her pocket. She hung the large camping lantern over her arm and clutched one more flashlight in her free hand.
“I’m not sure how long these batteries will last,” said Olive, turning on the first flashlight.
“We will have to work quickly,” agreed Horatio.
“The longer he is here, in his house, the stronger he grows.”
“We’ll search each room, starting on the first floor,” commanded Leopold, clearly in his element. “Don’t waste the batteries. Wait until you have gotten a clear look at him before you hit him with the beam.”
Harvey, Horatio, and Olive nodded.
“Forward march!” Leopold announced.
By the glow of Olive’s small flashlight, they set out along the hall.
The shadows that slid away from them were not ordinary household shadows. They looked like silhouettes—distorted, enlarged outlines of people scuttling across the dim walls. “Morton?” Olive called. No one answered. Olive and the cats’ own shadows moved tentatively through the hall, trailing wisps of steam in the chilly air.
In the library, Olive ran her flashlight over the bookshelves. The beam of dim light glinted as it struck the embossed covers and the intricate swirls of the chandelier, cutting a muted hole in the darkness. It reminded Olive of the movies she had seen of explorers searching through sunken ships. With the icy cold and the solid dark, the house could have been a mile deep under the ocean.
“The old man is here,” whispered Horatio. Something moved past them in the darkness. Olive felt it brush the bare skin of her arm. It felt wet, and cold, and dead—like an eel, or a strip of seaweed, or like a bedsheet that has been left hanging in the freezing rain. Olive tried to trace it with the flashlight. It was too late; already the figure in the darkness had slipped past them, out the library door.
There was a sudden, high-pitched scream from above.
“Morton!” gasped Olive.
Olive and the cats clambered toward the stairs, Harvey and Leopold racing with each other to see who would go protectively in the lead.
“Three o’clock, men!” shouted Leopold.
“If you mean it came from the right, just say so,” snapped Horatio.
Harvey was the first to make it through the door to Olive’s bedroom, with Leopold tripping over him, and Olive tripping over them both.
The scent of candle smoke hung in the air. Olive tightened her grip on the flashlight. “Morton?”
There was no answer. She swept the beam across the room. On her bed, the sheets lay i
n a twisted tangle, the covers had slipped to one side, and one of the pillows had fallen to the floor. Hershel lay on his back in the center of the bed, looking stunned.
“Morton? Are you here?” whispered Olive.
“Down here,” said Horatio, his tail poking out from beneath the dust ruffle.
Olive got down on her hands and knees and aimed the flashlight under the bed. Morton was curled up beneath the mattresses in his usual defense position: a tight, nightshirt-swaddled ball. He blinked, wide-eyed, into the light.
“Olive?” he whispered. “That light hurts my eyes.”
“Sorry,” said Olive, aiming the flashlight away. “Are you all right?”
“I came up here to fight him,” said Morton, in the toughest voice a boy hiding under a bed can manage.
“By yourself?”
“I’m strong. I can do it. See?” Morton made a fist and rolled up the sleeve over one spaghetti noodleish arm. There was a moment of silence. Then Olive nudged Harvey and Leopold, who made impressed, supportive noises.
Morton wiggled to the side of the bed. “He was in here,” Morton said. “He put out the candle. It got so dark, and he came after me. Then he told me to close my eyes and go to sleep. I didn’t want to do it. But he was making me do it. Just like—just like before.” He looked at them and swallowed. “And then it got even darker, and I screamed, and then you came.”
Morton looked up at Olive, his breath making puffs of steam in the dark air. “I want to go home,” he said. “My REAL home.” His lip wobbled precariously.
“I know,” said Olive. “We’re trying,” she added, because trying was all she could promise. She brushed a small dust bunny off Morton’s sleeve.
“Whither did the villain go?” snarled Harvey, running one claw demonstratively over the leg of the bed. “Let me see but his shadow, and I will show you a duel that time will not soon forget!”
“You can’t see anything but his shadow, you nitwit,” snapped Horatio.
“Men, this is no time for quarreling.” Leopold hopped up onto the bed and marched along the edge of the mattress, gazing down at his troops. “This is a time for action. The first question is: Where did he go?”