Free The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs

real bug about sleep. She was convinced that nine tenths of the things that were wrong with people were caused by lack of sleep.
    "I won't," said Johnny.
    "And please put on your sweater," Gramma added. "It's cold out there tonight. Remember, it's not summer yet."
    "Uh-huh," said Johnny.
    He walked out to the coat-tree in the front hall and took his sweater off the hook. As he put it on he found that strange images were floating around in his head. In his mind's eye he saw himself standing before the altar in the church, staring up at the gilded figures. Then he saw himself standing across the street from the church in the wintertime. Snow was blowing past, and somebody was standing on the steps of the church, waiting for him, but he couldn't tell who it was. Johnny shook his head. The images were gone. With a thoughtful look on his  face he went to the door, opened it, and stepped outside.
    It was a chilly April night. It had rained earlier, and the sidewalks glistened. Johnny walked across the porch and clumped down the steps. He stood for a moment, looking across at the professor's house. The lights were on in the study upstairs. But now that he was out here, Johnny realized that he did not have the faintest desire to go talk to his friend. He wanted to go someplace else instead. Suddenly he swung into motion. He trotted down the sidewalk, turned right, and kept on going.
    A few minutes later Johnny was standing across the street from St. Michael's Church. He stared up at its massive dark shadow, and he realized that he was actually in the picture that he had seen in his mind a few minutes earlier. Only it wasn't wintertime, and there was no dark figure waiting for him on the steps. Still, Johnny couldn't shake the feeling that he had stepped into a dream. He felt strange, weirdly calm. Quickly he crossed the street. He mounted the steps and tugged at the iron ring. The door swung open, and he was inside, in the dimly lit vestibule. Johnny pushed the inner door open and stepped into the church.
    At first he just stood there in the back, in the darkness under the choir loft. He drank in the musty, incensy, waxy smell. Two of the overhead lights were on. They cast a dim yellowish light in the cavernous interior of the church. Up in the sanctuary Johnny could see the gesturing, staring figures on the altarpiece. In its bracket on the sanctuary wall the red lamp flickered. Rows of  empty pews stretched away before Johnny. Empty? Well, no... not quite. Somebody was sitting up in the front pew. Just sitting quietly and staring up at the altarpiece. The light was bad, but the person seemed to be a short, gray-haired man in a black overcoat. Johnny felt a sudden chill. He thought about the ghost of Father Baart. Then, in the next instant, Johnny realized that his imagination was running away with him again. He had been thinking all day about Eddie's broken arm and the figurine, and it had made him edgy. Lots of old people came to the church to pray, especially in the evening. It was nothing to get all worked up about.
    Johnny slipped into a pew, knelt down, and made the sign of the cross. He stared up at the golden door of the tabernacle. Johnny wanted to get rid of his guilty feelings. He wanted to get rid of the feeling that he was the one who had broken Eddie's arm. He knew it was silly to think that a souvenir of Cairo, Illinois, was magic. But his guilt wouldn't go away. Now he wanted to say a prayer that would make him feel peaceful and happy again. Silently, his lips just barely moving, Johnny said the Act of Contrition:
    Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because of thy just punishments. But most of all because I have offended thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.
    After he had said this prayer, Johnny knelt, silent, his chin resting on his folded