TWELVE
The next time Robert opened his eyes, Ethugu was gone. So was the study. He found himself sitting on a chair in a windowless room not much bigger than a closet.
Sitting across from him was a giant insect, five feet tall, with the abdomen of a beetle and the head of a giant fly.
Robert leapt up, teetered for a moment, and then fell back into his seat. His ankles were bound to the legs of his chair with several coils of rope.
The shaggai waved its limbs, gesturing for Robert to remain still. Its mandibles clacked open and shut, producing a loud rat-tat-tat that sounded like an old-fashioned typewriter.
Robert strained to untie the ropes, but the knots were just out of reach. He glanced around the room, looking for a knife or something sharp. The walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were filled with dozens of brass and silver urns. Otherwise the room was empty.
The creature kept clacking its jaws until a figure opened the door. “Good, you’re awake,” said Howard Mergler. “We can get started.”
“What time is it?” Robert asked.
“In your world, it is almost eleven o’clock.”
“I’ve missed three classes. The teachers will notice I’m not there. They’re going to come looking for me.”
“You’ll be back in class soon enough,” Howard promised. “The extraction takes only a few minutes.” He removed a silver urn from the shelf and used a dark marker to write Robert’s name on the side. “The silver ones have more space than the bronze. An extra inch or two may not seem like much, but you’ll appreciate it later.”
“Later?”
“After you’ve surrendered your vessel. My brother will wear it so that he can join me in your world. He’s the same height as you, so it ought to be a perfect fit. We’re both very excited.”
The shaggai clapped its forelimbs together; it seemed to be applauding. Robert was less excited. He understood that his spirit, or whatever was left of it, would be going into that urn, where it would be trapped for hundreds, or even thousands, of years.
“You’re very lucky,” Howard continued. “Master is going to perform the extraction himself. He’s anxious to meet you. But before you take your place on the shelf, we must get some information. We need to know why you were snooping in Master’s office.”
“I wasn’t snooping—”
“You were looking for a key. How did you know about the Locke?”
Robert knew that every minute he played dumb would be another minute he spent in his own body. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did Master’s sister help you?”
“No,” Robert said.
“She must have!”
“I swear, she didn’t. Ms. Lavinia didn’t say anything.”
The shaggai twitched its antennae and its jaws produced another clacking noise. It sounded like it was laughing.
“I see,” Howard said, smiling. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, and yet you know exactly whom I mean when I say ‘Master’s sister.’ ”
Robert cringed as he realized his mistake.
“What else has she told you?”
“Nothing.”
“She’s helping you, isn’t she? She and her husband—that so-called scientist. They’re trying to thwart Master’s plans!”
“I don’t know anything,” Robert insisted.
The conversation went back and forth for several minutes until Howard finally gave up. “If you won’t tell me, you’ll definitely tell Master,” he sighed. “He’s not as patient as I am.” And with that he left the room.
Robert found himself alone with the shaggai. How long would he have until Howard returned with Tillinghast? Two minutes? Three?
What could he do with three minutes?
Robert emptied his coat pockets, searching for anything that might help him escape. He had a dollar in change, a pencil, the chocolate bar (now half melted), and his house key. He tried rubbing the key against the rope; it started to fray the outer fibers, and he sawed faster, back and forth. He had seen this trick in an old movie, but he soon realized it wouldn’t work in real life. There simply wasn’t enough time. After a minute of furious slicing, he had barely made a mark in the rope.
The shaggai again clacked its jaws. Robert glanced up and realized the creature was observing him. “Don’t worry,” he muttered, “I’m not going anywhere.” The shaggai shook its head and then extended one of its six segmented limbs. It seemed to be pointing at something in Robert’s lap.
The chocolate bar.
“You want this?” Robert asked.
The shaggai nodded and its antennae twitched wildly, as if the simple promise of chocolate made it giddy with pleasure. Flies love sweets, Miss Lynch had told the students. Anything with lots of sugar.
Robert had an idea. He peeled off the wrapper and pressed the chocolate bar into the ropes binding his ankles.
“Go ahead,” he whispered.
The beast stood up and tottered over, intrigued. It seemed cautious, as if Robert’s invitation was somehow too good to be true.
“It’s all yours,” Robert assured it. “Eat up.”
The shaggai knelt on the floor. Its mandibles parted, and a hideous proboscis emerged, like a long glistening black tongue. It sniffed all around Robert’s ankles before discovering the chocolate and spraying it with a greasy black oil.
The digestive enzymes immediately melted the candy and kept right on working, dissolving the rope’s fibers until Robert was finally able to shake his ankles free. The shaggai didn’t even notice. It was still down on the floor, slurping up the liquefied chocolate, seemingly intoxicated with pleasure.
“Thanks,” Robert said. “Bon appétit.”
Upon opening the door, he found himself in a twisting hallway lined with rooms. He heard footsteps coming from one direction, and so he ran the other way. He had to find a gate, fast.
Among the many weird things about Tillinghast Mansion was that it seemed bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside. The building had more rooms than a small hotel, but the doors were all identical and unnumbered, so there was no way to tell them apart. Hallways coiled around corridors and then abruptly dead-ended, like paths of a labyrinth. Robert began to fear that he was running in circles, passing by the same rooms again and again.
He tried a different direction, turning a corner and running straight into the school nurse, Miss Mandis.
She seemed to have come out of nowhere. Robert struck her so hard that they nearly fell to the floor.
“Robert Arthur?” she asked. “Is that you? Where are we? What is this place?”
“You don’t know?” he asked.
She looked frightened and confused. “Five minutes ago, I was in my office. I was getting some cotton balls from the storeroom. I used a stepladder to reach the top shelf, just like I always do, only this time something happened …” She looked around in astonishment. “Next thing I know, I’m in this weird hotel.”
“You crossed over,” Robert explained.
“Crossed over? What do you mean?”
It would take too long to convince her of the truth. “I can explain after we cross back.” He spied a door leading to the outside at the end of the hallway. “Right now we need to get out of here.”
“But where is here?”
“Please,” he insisted. “Just follow me, and keep as quiet as you can.”
They exited the mansion and descended a creaky wooden staircase to the back lawn. The grass was covered with red, orange, and mustard-colored leaves. Miss Mandis glanced about in awe. “I don’t understand,” she kept saying. “What happened to Lovecraft Middle School?”
“Please, keep your voice down,” Robert said, glancing around anxiously. They were alone for the moment, but surely Howard had discovered his escape by now. In another few minutes, everyone in the mansion would be searching for him.
“Why do I need to keep my voice down? Whose house is this anyway?”
Miss Mandis wouldn’t stop talking, so Robert walked faster, leading her to the small pond on the side of the mansion. It was only a few feet across and surrounded by weeds. The surface was covered with a skin of bright green algae.
“All right,” Robert said, taking a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy, but we need to jump in this water.”
Miss Mandis laughed. “Very funny, Robert.”
“I’m serious. There’s a gate at the bottom of this pond. A sort of portal. We need to swim through it to get back to the school.” He had used the gate only once before—and nearly drowned in the process—but if it still worked, they would emerge to find themselves in the school’s indoor swimming pool.
“You’re crazy!” Miss Mandis exclaimed. “I’m not jumping into that filthy water.” She pointed to the driveway. “Let’s just walk back.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Robert insisted.
“Better yet, I’ll call my sister. She can pick us up.” Miss Mandis whipped out her cell phone and punched in a number. She was dismayed to find it didn’t work. “That’s weird. I can usually get a signal anywhere …”
“There’s no service here,” Robert explained. “We’re not in our world anymore.”
Across the lawn, the front door of the house opened and Howard Mergler stepped outside. Miss Mandis saw him and exhaled a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness. I’m sure Howard will know what to do.” She waved to him. “Over here, Howard!”
“We need to jump,” Robert insisted.
“Don’t be silly. Howard will help us. He’s always so thoughtful and considerate.”
Howard walked swiftly in their direction. He moved so much more quickly without the forearm crutches. Robert realized he had no time to convince Miss Mandis; he would have to return to Lovecraft alone.
“I’ll come back,” he promised. “I’ll try to rescue you before they perform the extraction.”
She laughed. “Rescue me? What do you mean?”
“I’m really sorry, Miss Mandis. I have to go.”
Robert turned to leap into the pond but she grabbed his arm. Her eyes flickered green and bulged outward, tripling in size. “You’re not going anywhere!” she shrieked. “Master has questions for you!”
Two long feelers burst through her forehead and rose twelve inches above her hair. Flesh fell away from her face in dry, flaky strips; she was shedding her vessel the way a snake molts its skin. Robert realized that Miss Mandis had been fooling him all along, speaking loudly so that Howard would hear and come to her aid.
He tried shaking off her grip. When that didn’t work, he lunged toward the pond, dragging Miss Mandis with him, and together they toppled into the water. She shrieked and flailed about, unable to swim.
Robert didn’t stick around to help. Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the pond, propelling himself deeper and deeper until he felt the unmistakable sensation of crossing over. Then the light in the water changed, and Robert knew it was safe to head for the surface. Swimming in his clothes was difficult, but having done it once before, he knew he could do it again. He kicked his feet and paddled his arms until he crested the surface.
As expected, he had arrived in Lovecraft Middle School’s natatorium—an indoor Olympic-size swimming pool with ten lanes, three diving platforms, and bleachers to hold a crowd of hundreds.
What he did not expect to see was his old friend Glenn Torkells, sitting in the front row of the bleachers and munching on a bag of gummy worms.
“Now that was a real dumb move,” Glenn said.