Free The Dark Secret of Weatherend by John Bellairs Page A

quartz. In one corner of the map was a label inside a fancy Victorian engraved border. The label said:
    The Country Estate of
    WEATHEREND
    Formerly the residence of the noted industrialist Jorgen Knut Borkman, Esq.
    Near the map was a stack of dark old engravings. The one on top showed a ring of standing stones in a field of long, rank grass. The caption identified the site as The Weird Sisters, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
    Emerson Eells took a swig from the beer bottle in his hand. Then he gave the picture of the standing stones to Anthony. "Those stones," he said, tapping the edge of the picture with the bottle, "were involved in a case of witchcraft that might be similar to the one we're dealing with. Somebody drilled holes in them and inserted little packets of beeswax wrapped in paper. Imbedded in the wax were clots of human blood, fingernail parings, snippets of hair, and little pieces of bone that—"
    "Hey!" said Anthony, interrupting. "I bet it was Borkman that stole all those altar stones from the churches around here! They've got bones in 'em, and—"
    "I'm way ahead of you," said Emerson with a superior smile. "Myra told me about the altar stones over the phone earlier, and I'll get to them in good time. But to return to the Carmarthenshire case, the packets were inserted in the stones to set up magical lines of force, influences stronger than the strongest electrical field.
    Then, I imagine, some rather picturesque rituals were performed, and incantations were chanted. The result was that certain things started to happen."
    Anthony had been studying the picture. Now he looked up. "Things?" he said in a puzzled tone. "What kind of things?"
    Emerson shrugged carelessly. "That part of Carmarthenshire started having the most wild and woolly weather that anyone can remember. Hail and winds violent enough to blow the roofs off houses. Blizzards in places where there hadn't been any for over four hundred years. And colored lightning and mysterious underground rumblings. People later claimed that the ghosts of dead friends and relatives had been seen wandering the streets and pressing their noses against people's windows in the middle of the night."
    Emerson paused. "I mention all this," he went on, "because I think the same sort of thing is going on here. In the case of the Weird Sisters of Carmarthenshire the disturbances stopped after the angry townsfolk tipped over the stones, extracted the little packets, and burned them. Now, here's what we have to do."
    Miss Eells and Anthony crowded in close to the table. Taking a pencil that was stuck behind his ear, Emerson pointed at the snaky line that ran up the middle of the map.
    "This is the driveway that runs from the entrance of the estate right up to the circular carriage drive outside the front door of the mansion," Emerson said. "Down here, not far from the entrance, is an unused tennis court and some dilapidated buildings that used to contain showers and dressing rooms. There's an old dried-up ornamental fountain too, and—"
    "Wait just a minute," said Miss Eells, interrupting. "How come you know so darned much about the Borkman estate? You're giving us information that you could never have gotten from just studying this forty-year-old map."
    Emerson smirked. "My dear sister, do you think I spend all my time sitting up in my room in St. Cloud, making cats' cradles with yarn? Do you remember when I came down to visit you early last summer? Well, on my way out of town I stopped by Weatherend to poke around. I had heard about its sinister reputation from some friends of mine, and I was curious. Fortunately young Borkman had not repaired the wall around the estate then, so I was able to sneak in. But back to the business at hand. Near the tennis court and the fountain is a small grove of cedar trees, and inside that are the four statues that we are concerned with. Now, what I propose to do is this. I have an old paneled truck with doors on the back. I'll have it painted so