Читать книгу The Longest Halloween, Book Two - Frank Wood - Страница 7

“Here?” Dreyfuss asked as Joel led them into the foreboding home of Eliezer Grubb. “This is where your friend lives?” Dreyfuss clarified, freezing in his footsteps.

Overhead, Berethia sailed triumphantly and came to rest on a gnarled tree branch. Back at the farm, the bubbles of Mrs. McClafferty’s cauldron seemed to part, leaving in their wake a picture of a large, sinister-looking home located towards the end of town.

“Aha,” McClafferty said, “Grubb Mansion! Aaron, you might want to alert your brother!”

Joel could see why Eliezer Grubb’s mansion was a source of concern for Dreyfuss and for Jasper. It was here that the goblin Googamond had established his headquarters when he tried to take over Portersville and Halloween last year. Googamond had made Jasper and Dreyfuss his servants on that fateful night, turning them into gargoyles.

“Maybe Renee’s dad wasn’t a bad idea after all,” Dreyfuss told Jasper.

“It’s all right, Dreyf, Grubb’s a lot different these days,” Jasper tried unconvincingly to calm his friend. “Right, Joel?”

“You guys need to man up,” Joel said.

“But we’re not men,” Jasper returned.

Joel led the two younger boys through the rusty gate and up to the wooden door, which opened before Joel could knock. “Mr. Grubb,” Joel greeted the older man.

“Come on in,” Grubb roughly ordered, “and wipe your feet!” He clutched his beloved but never-loaded rifle, which he called Elizabeth. As the boys entered, Grubb put Elizabeth in the adjacent closet and closed the entry door behind them.

“Sorry to drop in like this, Mr. Grubb. Mr. Greene sent me with your grub, get it?” Joel joked, laughing a bit. Grubb’s eyes narrowed in return. Joel set the groceries down. “And my brother’s stumbled onto something that I think you can help us with.”

“That so?” Grubb peered down quizzically at Jasper and Dreyfuss. “You’re good for stumbling into things, aren’t ye?”

“It’s a special skill set I guess,” Jasper stammered, still not quite sure how much he could trust this reformed Eliezer Grubb.

“Show him the map, Jasper,” Joel ordered. Jasper produced the old sheet of paper and unfurled it carefully.

“Come on in here,” Grubb said, taking the map and leading the boys into the parlor. He clicked on a table lamp and made a spot for the map on the busy table. Grubb wasn’t much for housekeeping and the room was filled with stuff that was probably older than all of the boys’ ages combined. He fit a pair of spectacles to his face and looked down at the map.

Berethia found a perch on a nearby window and peered into Grubb’s parlor. ”Looks like he’s got some company,” McClafferty said, stirring slowly. “Can’t quite make out who it is, though,” she murmured. “I’d better alert the boys that they might need to be ready for battle,” she concluded, stepping away from the cauldron.

Elsewhere, Josiah Scroggins and Gribbett Keith were making a hurried exit from the middle school. On his phone, Scroggins snapped, ”Well, did you find it?”

“It was headed north before the signal started to fade,” came the young voice on the other end.

“Here,” Scroggins barked to Gribbett, tossing him a set of keys, “you drive!”

“Yes!” Gribbett chortled; he loved to drive. “Where to?”

“Head north!” Scroggins barked, tossing his bag in the backseat of the car. As he turned to get into the passenger side, Elijah Peterson appeared in front of him.

“Hey Mister Scroggins, is that your car?” the boy asked, pushing up his glasses.

“What of it, Mr. Peterson?” Scroggins snapped.

“Oh, nothing.” Elijah shuffled his feet and pulled out a wrinkled slip of paper. “Can you sign this for me, please? I forgot to ask you during class.”

“Can’t this wait?” Scroggins barked.

“Mrs. English says that if I don’t get all my teachers to sign, then I’ll be de … delin … delin …” he stumbled.

“Delinquent!” Scroggins impatiently finished, “how you children can mangle the Queen’s English! Give it to me!” he ordered, snatching the paper and hastily signing it. “Now on with you, Mr. Peterson, have a good weekened!” he fairly shouted.

“Thanks, Mister Scroggins!” Elijah called.

“Let’s be on!” Scroggins told Gribbett, folding his seven-foot body into the car, “and watch your speed! This is still a parking lot … tons of rug rats running around!”

“Do you think it’s real?” Jasper asked. “Mr. Grubb?”

“Give me a minute,” Grubb snapped back. “That’s the problem with you kids today, you want to know everything yesterday.”

“This map looks like Portersville,” Joel said, studying it.

“That’s because it is Portersville,” Grubb replied, “only about twice the size as it is today! That part’s odd.”

“Did Portersville shrink?” Joel asked.

“Hard to say, but this is authentic, that’s for sure,” Grubb answered. “Look at these watermarks right along here. I haven’t seen this kind of paper since my old mechanical drawing class years ago. They don’t make that kind of paper anymore.”

“So it is real?” Dreyfuss excitedly gushed.

“Oh, agewise, this is real all right,” Grubb said. “Where’d you kids get this?”

“Jasper found it in our school lost and found,” Dreyfuss replied.

“After ninety days, it’s up for grabs to anyone who claims it,” Jasper said.

“Still sounds like ya stole it to me,” Grubb shot back.

“We’re no thieves!” Jasper retorted, impressing the older man with his spirit and in so doing knocking over a vase filled with water.

“Watch out, Jasper!” Joel cried but it was too late; the water trickled onto the map. Grubb pulled the now-moistened parchment from under the vase and dabbed it dry.

“Good job, butterfingers,” Joel chided his brother. “Sorry, Mr. Grubb. We can clean that up for you.”

“Wait,” Grubb commanded, examining the map again. They all saw it. With the water on the map, a new overlay was revealed: a set of dotted lines and arrows that led to a partially formed ‘X’ in the center of the map, where nothing but water was documented. Underneath the partial X were the words “Sebastian Silverbeard’s Trough.”

“Who’s Sebastian Silverbeard?” Joel asked.

“And what’s a trough?” Dreyfuss asked.

“Trough means property or treasure,” Joel said.

“Ye’re right,” Grub said, his voice rising sharply, “and Sebastian Silverbeard was a notorious pirate who spent his last days here in Portersville, many years ago.”

“Portersville had pirates? Cool,” Dreyfuss said.

“Portersville was a big asylum for buccaneers,” Grubb continued. “Silverbeard was one of many who moored here to escape the authorities of the day. Legend also has it that he carried with him a tremendous treasure. It was supposed to have been lost at sea, but others say he buried here in Portersville.”

“Do you think this map shows where he buried it?” Joel asked.

“Quite possibly,” Grubb said. “Though where this marking is makes no sense.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, there’s nothing to be found there …” Grubb trailed off.

“But you said it was a hunnert … I mean a hundred years old,” Jasper said. “Couldn’t things have changed since then?”

“Of course they would have,” Grubb said, “but not that much! Come with me.”

The boys followed Eliezer into a huge room filled with books that stretched all the way up the walls. Grubb had Joel mount a tall rolling ladder that could reach the higher shelves.

“That’s the one, right there, with the brown backing,” Grubb said as Joel pulled out the oversized book in a cloud of dust. He carefully made it down the ladder and laid the book on the island table in the center of the room. “My grandfather was this town’s first surveyor,” Grubb said. “These are all of his original drawings.”

“What’s a surveyor?” Dreyfuss asked.

“Don’t they teach ye anythin’ at that school?” Grubb asked, then explained, “A surveyor lays the land, divides the counties, says who gets what.” He fumbled through the pages until he reached a relief map of Portersville and wiped it free of dust. “Hand me that map,” he ordered. A rare smile spread over Eliezer Grubb’s wizened face as he glanced back and forth between the map in the book and the map in his hand.

“This looks interesting,” Grubb murmured almost to himself, pointing from page to map and back again, “see that?”

“Not really,” Joel admitted.

“It’s all there in black and white, Joel,” Grubb said. “It’ll take some time to account for how things might have shifted from a century ago, but you young’uns may have just found the location of Sebastian Silverbeard’s hidden treasure!”

“Cooollll,” Dreyfuss whispered.

Too soon, one of the clocks in the Grubb library chimed the fourth hour of the afternoon. “We’d better go,” Joel said, “Ma’ll be home soon and she’ll want the two of you as tucked in as soon as possible.”

“Awww, Joel,” Jasper said, “just when things were getting good!”

“I know, right?” Dreyfuss agreed.

“Meet me back here tomorrow,” Eliezer Grubb told the boys, “and we’ll plot out our next steps. Whatever ye do, don’t let anythin’ happen to that map!”

“We won’t, Mr. Grubb,” Jasper called back, “and thanks for everything!”

Eliezer Grubb allowed the smallest trace of a smile to cross his weathered lips. He was so lost in thought that he nearly didn’t hear the heavy footsteps carelessly enter his front yard.

“The trail’s leaving Grubb mansion, Mister Scroggins!” Mitchell Allister called out over the phone. “It’s headed back to the city!”

“All right, we need to turn around,” Scroggins told Gribbett. “Head back to town!”

Peering through the window, Grubb could make out the form of a heavily shouldered male in a tight-fitting silver windbreaker with thick, dark hair crowning his head who ordered his companions about in a voice deep and menacing. The others were also male and not dressed half as nattily. “Search the home,” the voice said, “leave nothing unturned. Bring me that map!”

Eliezer Grubb swiftly moved to his closet and retrieved his rifle. “Looks like we might have some visitors tonight, Elizabeth.”

Grubb recoiled as the silver windbreaker turned and the face of a wolf with a snout, snarling teeth and sinister eyes greeted him.

“Of the lupine variety,” he added, and got himself into position right outside of the front door.

“Things are coming together, my love,” McClafferty was saying, back at the farmhouse. “The schoolteacher’s got his followers circling, that’s for sure, but they won’t take away what was promised to us. Let’s see … the boys chased his bandits to just outside the middle school last night; my poor Barnabas took bit of a blow but he’s rallying already and I’ve sent Berethia into the game. She won’t fail us, Lucius. As for you, my darling,” she walked to the huge sleeping form in the corner, “Ian’s new girlfriend will do just fine for the waking recipe I’ve got brewing for you. He’ll need to prepare her a bit more but he’ll be successful in that, mark my word—and then you and I shall reclaim what should have been ours from the start! The dream is not over, lover, just delayed a bit. And those who would have tried to stop us will pay.” She leaned in and kissed the forehead of the large, shadowy form reposing in her bedroom.

“Pull over here,” Scroggins ordered Gribbett as they made it back to town, his attention suddenly taken by something. Scroggins moved to get out of the vehicle. “Wait here,” he said, snatching what looked like a sack from the backseat.

The kestrel Berethia wouldn’t know what had befallen it, and the small burlap sack would obscure its most valued asset—its vision. She was firmly scooped up and tossed unceremoniously into a larger bag before her ultimate placement in a cage, hidden deeply away from its mistress.

“That’s one less looky-look for you, Beverly,” Scroggins muttered, tossing the sack containing the squawking bird into the backseat of the car. “We need to drop the bird off at the Adeline May,” he told Gribbett. “And then we need to find out just where those kids are headed!”

“All right!” Gribbett replied.

“Watch your speed,” Scroggins said.