Free The House with a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs Page A

climb: New Zebedee children went up and down it every day during the summer. But to Lewis, who was scared of heights, it might as well have been Mount Everest.
    Lewis looked up at the dark hill, and he swallowed a couple of times. Maybe if he took the long way around . . . no, he was already late, and Tarby might get bored and go home. The last thing Lewis wanted was to be in the cemetery alone at this time of night. He got a tight grip on his flashlight and started to climb.
    At the first landing, Lewis stopped. He was breathing hard, and the front of his jacket was soaked through.There were black smudges on the knees of his trousers, and there was a twig in his shoe. Two more stages. Lewis gritted his teeth and went on.
    At the top of the hill, he dropped to his knees and crossed himself several times. The sweat was running down his face, and he could feel his heart thumping. Well, he had done it. It was no great triumph because Tarby had probably scaled the ridge in a tenth of the time it had taken him. But at least he had done it.
    Lewis looked around. He was standing at the edge of a long avenue lined with willow trees. The bare strings of the willows swayed in the wind, and Lewis shivered. He felt very cold and very alone. At the far end of the avenue, the gray gate of the cemetery glimmered. Lewis started to walk toward it.
    The cemetery gate was a heavy arch of stone covered with elaborate carving. On the lintel were inscribed these words:
    THE TRUMPET SHALL SOUND
    AND
    THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED
    Lewis pushed open the squeaky iron gate and walked quickly past the rows of white headstones. The mausoleum was on the other side of Cemetery Hill, the side that looked out across the deep valley beyond the town. A little narrow path led down to the stone platform in front of the tomb door. Where was Tarby?
    As Lewis looked around, someone said, “Boo!” Lewis almost fainted. It was Tarby, of course, hiding in the shadow of the stone arch on the front of the mausoleum.
    “Hi! You sure took long enough,” said Tarby. “Where were you?”
    “It was hard work climbing,” said Lewis, staring sadly down at his wet and dirty trousers.
    “It’s always hard climbing for fatsoes,” said Tarby. “Whyncha lose some weight?”
    “Come on, let’s do what we’re supposed to be doing,” said Lewis. He felt depressed.
    The cracked and mossy stone slab that lay at the doorstep of the tomb was in the shadow of the hillside now. Everything around it lay in bright moonlight. Lewis turned on the flashlight and played the pale beam over the ugly iron doors. A heavy chain held the doors together, and it was fastened by a large, heart-shaped padlock. Lewis flashed the beam up. There was the strange-looking
O
on the cornice. The wind had died down. Everything was quiet. Lewis handed the flashlight to Tarby and knelt down. Out came the scrap of paper and the chalk. He drew a big circle and then a smaller one within it, like this:

    As Tarby held the flashlight steady, Lewis filled in the border of the magic circle with symbols from the piece of paper. When he had chalked in the last strange sign, there was still a blank space in the border. Lewis had read in Jonathan’s book that you were supposed to fill in the space with the name of the dead person. But he didn’t know the name.
    “Well,” said Tarby, “I don’t see any dead people.”
    “It’s not finished,” said Lewis. “We’ve got to put in the name.”
    Tarby looked disgusted. “You mean you don’t know it?”
    “No, I don’t,” sighed Lewis. “Maybe if we sit here for a minute or two it will come to us.”
    They knelt silently at the door of the tomb. A sudden gust of wind rattled the dead leaves on an oak tree that grew nearby. Minutes passed. Lewis’s mind was completely blank. Then, for some reason, he picked up the chalk.
    “Hold the flashlight down here,” he said.
    Slowly, carefully, he spelled out a name. The funny thing was that he was not thinking