By Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
Chapter Twelve "When the Moon Melts"
The dwarf's hideous face retreated from the basement window, an array of grimy grey whiskers and a radish nose.
"When the moon melts And the Gods of Autumn roam Evil and good are equally felt And nothing certain is known,"
Chanted Mr. Plimsoul and the lady together. Wild shadows flickered around them, and they gestured toward the shut box, black and shiny as a beetle's back. They seemed to be trying to compel the box to open or spontaneously erupt in flame...or something.
"Casket of Augersaal, I command you: open!" Mr. Plimsoul shouted, making a weird gesture at the box.
"By Neamiahas' eye, by Qyudditch's kin, I say: unfasten!" the lady hissed, her boa and her long arms gesturing in the flickering light of the braziers.
The casket hopped on the sawhorses once, as if a person inside were being tickled or kicked, and then was still. A thin jet of purple smoke sizzled from one end of the casket and then stopped.
Mr. Plimsoul and the elegant, scary lady stopped in their tracks. Their shoulders unhunched, and their arms dropped back down from their gestures of invocation. Mr. Hecatomb and the dwarf continued to solemnly circle the pair of practitioners, bearing their braziers before them. Mr. Hecatomb, tall and fat in his red Ridgefield vest, holding his brazier in front of his out-sized belly, and the dwarf, a sock cap on his wiry head, holding his brazier above him on the tips of his dirty fingers.
"Put those down, you fools," snapped Mr. Plimsoul. "There's no more to be done with this tonight."
Mr. Hecatomb and the dwarf stopped like clockwork automatons. Mr. Hecatomb heaved a great sigh of relief. The dwarf pulled a half-chewed cheroot from under his hat and began chewing it meditatively.
"Dash our luck!" Mr. Plimsoul cursed. "This was the optimum hour for the task."
"Perhaps it was not our luck, but our skill that was wanting."
At this the basement filled with instant tension. Even those outside could feel it, and tensed up. The dwarf stopped nibbling at his cheroot in mid-chew, and even Mr. Hecatomb stood up straighter.
Mr. Plimsoul let the comment pass, but his face darkened, and he looked as though he had been slapped in the face.
"Perhaps," he managed.
"Well, Simon," said the lady soothingly. "At least the gods are roused. The town will have much news of them, and much to-do because of them."
"The Gods of Autumn," Mr. Plimsoul countered, "are utterly uncontrollable. They were not even a part of our original plan. They are beyond our scope, and beyond our power to manipulate."
"We must take such comfort in their chaos as we can."
The woman could see there was no consoling Mr. Plimsoul, and she had very little interest in doing so in any case. She turned away from him and lit a cigarette.
"Eva, I'm sorry. Its just that everything is so nearly in place for our ultimate triumph."
"Do not speak of triumph," Eva hissed, clearly disturbed at his words. "It is not in our power to either grant or deny."
"Yes, Eva. You're right, of course." And then he seemed to speak into the air: "It is the powers that move through us, and not we who command them."
That's how Granny Pansy often spoke, Sarah thought. It also reminded her of how the workers on the inlet discussed the treacherous rip currents that course just inches beneath the water's black surface. Sarah was absorbed in watching Eva make her cigarette smoke into the shape of asps which fought and struck at each other before dissipating. Sarah was already closest to the opening, and now inched just a smidgen closer. She could have easily thrust her hand through the open window.
The dwarf was chewing his cheroot again, and Mr. Hecatomb seemed to be casting about for something to fidget with besides his pocket watch.
"Cover those braziers," ordered Mr. Plimsoul absent-mindedly.
The dwarf, quicker than Mr. Hecatomb by a long chalk, covered the braziers with a pair of bronzen lids. And as quick as that, the room was plunged in utter darkness.
Those outside could hear footsteps tromping up the basement stairs. Were they all coming up? Would they be headed back to their cars? Or were one or two still down in the dark of the basement? If they tried to move away from the house and made any noise, they might well get caught out. And then what would happen?
Barnabas made a commando gesture for the children to roll away from the house and back down the hill to the wall. Abbey and Shelly, farthest from the house, began to move at once, and Barnabas followed them. They were out of earshot of the house just in time to hear the front door slam. One of the cars started up and a pair of headlights pulled away from the hill, down the opposite side from where they were gathered at the wall.
Barnabas kept the children on the same side of the wall as the house. Abbey almost protested to ask why they weren't walking back up the road right away when she heard a car vroom down the roadway they'd been strolling when they had come to the overturned turtle. Headlights blazing, the car squealed around a corner and was gone. Barnabas and the two girls hopped over the wall and dusted themselves off, ready to head back the half mile or so to the Tones' home.
"Where's Sarah?" asked Barnabas in a whisper.
"Missy's missing too," noted Shelly.
"This inna good," drawled Barnabas Burrbuckle.
He looked desperately back up the slope to see if he could spot the two girls. But there was nothing to be seen on the dark swaths of night grass. Barnabas could see some evidence of their passage down the hill, but counted only three trails from the house to the wall. He squinted at the basement. It was difficult to tell if Sarah and Missy were still by the house. The hole of the basement window seemed as large as a maw.
"You two stay right here," Barnabas began. "I'm goin' back up there."
But just then, the lights in the main part of the house all came on at once. There was no way someone as noticeable as Barnabas could make his way up to the house across an open field without being spotted. He plopped back down anxiously, leaning his great back against the wall heavily.
"We mun wait and see what happens," he said resignedly, his face looking as sad as a punished dog's.
Meanwhile, back at the house, when Abbey and the others had begun rolling down the hill, Sarah had waited until they were all partly away from the basement window, and then she had squirmed through the opening. If Missy Quicknass hadn't seen Sarah's foot disappearing into the basement, she would have kept rolling down the hill with Barnabas and the rest. Instead, she stopped herself in mid-roll and then elbowed her way right back to the window. She held her breath and tried to peer into the midnight opening. It was no use. There were some sounds coming from the basement, but Missy couldn't tell what they were, or how many people might still be in there. There were no voices, she was sure. But that's all that she was sure of.
Missy looked over her shoulder back down the hill. When it seemed that Abbey, Barnabas, and Shelly were all down by the wall, Missy pried the basement window back open, which Sarah's foot had helped snap shut as she went through. Missy strained for more information, some recognizable sound, anything. Nothing came out of the basement but more clouds of the horrendous dead rattlesnake incense. So, Missy held her nose, and plunged into the dark.
END OF CHAPTER TWELVE