“Is he going to hurt us?” asked Scarlett.
“I don’t think so,” said Bod. Then, to the Indigo Man, he said, as he had been taught, “I have the Freedom of the Graveyard and I may walk where I choose.”
There was no reaction to this by the Indigo Man, which puzzled Bod even more because even the most irritable inhabitants of the graveyard had been calmed by this statement. Bod said, “Scarlett, can you see him?”
“Of course I can see him. He’s a big scary tattooey man and he wants to kill us. Bod, make him go away!”
Bod looked at the remains of the gentleman in the brown coat. There was a lamp beside him, broken on the rocky floor. “He ran away,” said Bod aloud. “He ran because he was scared. And he slipped or he tripped on the stairs and he fell off.”
“Who did?”
“The man on the floor.”
Scarlett sounded irritated now, as well as puzzled and scared. “What man on the floor? It’s too dark. The only man I can see is the tattooey man.”
And then, as if to make quite sure that they knew that he was there, the Indigo Man threw back his head and let out a series of yodeling screams, a full-throated ululation that made Scarlett grip Bod’s hand so tightly that her fingernails pressed into his flesh.
Bod was no longer scared, though.
“I’m sorry I said they were imaginary,” said Scarlett. “I believe now. They’re real.”
The Indigo Man raised something over his head. It looked like a sharp stone blade. “All who invade this place will die!” he shouted, in his gutteral speech. Bod thought about the man whose hair had turned white after he had discovered the chamber, how he would never return to the graveyard or speak of what he had seen.
“No,” said Bod. “I think you’re right. I think this one is.”
“Is what?”
“Imaginary.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Scarlett. “I can see it.”
“Yes,” said Bod. “And you can’t see dead people.” He looked around the chamber. “You can stop now,” he said. “We know it’s not real.”
“I will feast on your liver!” screamed the Indigo Man.
“No, you won’t,” said Scarlett, with a huge sigh. “Bod’s right.” Then she said, “I think maybe it’s a scarecrow.”
“What’s a scarecrow?” asked Bod.
“It’s a thing farmers put in fields to scare crows.”
“Why would they do that?” Bod quite liked crows. He thought they were funny, and he liked the way they helped to keep the graveyard tidy.
“I don’t know exactly. I’ll ask Mummy. But I saw one from a train and I asked what it was. Crows think it’s a real person. It’s just a made-up thing, that looks like a person, but it’s not. It’s just to scare the crows away.”
Bod looked around the chamber. He said, “Whoever you are, it isn’t working. It doesn’t scare us. We know it isn’t real. Just stop.”
The Indigo Man stopped. It walked over to the rock slab and it lay down on it. Then it was gone.
For Scarlett the chamber was once more swallowed by the darkness. But in the darkness, she could hear the twining sound again, getting louder and louder, as if something were circling the round room.
Something said, WE ARE THE SLEER.
The hairs on the back of Bod’s neck began to prickle. The voice in his head was something very old and very dry, like the scraping of a dead twig against the window of the chapel, and it seemed to Bod that there was more than one voice there, that they were talking in unison.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Scarlett.
“I didn’t hear anything, just a slithery noise. It made me feel strange. All prickly in my tummy. Like something horrible is going to happen.”
“Nothing horrible is going to happen,” said Bod. Then, to the chamber, he said, “What are you?”
WE ARE THE SLEER. WE GUARD AND WE PROTECT.
“What do you protect?”
THE RESTING PLACE OF THE MASTER. THIS IS THE HOLIEST OF ALL HOLY PLACES, AND IT IS GUARDED BY THE SLEER. “You can’t touch us,” said Bod. “All you can do is scare.”
The twining voices sounded petulant. FEAR IS A WEAPON OF THE SLEER.
Bod looked down at the ledge. “Are those the treasures of your master? An old brooch, a cup, and a little stone knife? They don’t look like much.”
THE SLEER GUARDS THE TREASURES. THE BROOCH, THE GOBLET, THE KNIFE. WE GUARD THEM FOR THE MASTER, WHEN HE RETURNS. IT COMES BACK. IT ALWAYS COMES BACK. “How many of you are there?”
But the Sleer said nothing. The inside of Bod’s head felt as if it were filled with cobwebs, and he shook it, trying to clear it. Then he squeezed Scarlett’s hand. “We should go,” he said.