Mansion in the Mist, The by Bellairs John

Author:Bellairs, John [Bellairs, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Juvenile
Publisher: Unofficial e-book edition
Published: 1992-01-01T02:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

A few minutes later Emerson awoke. Anthony had placed a folded jacket under his head for a pillow, and Miss Eells was waving a bottle of smelling salts under his nose. Emerson coughed and sputtered and glanced blearily around. He was not the fainting type—or so he thought—so his present situation really embarrassed him.

"I... I seem to have collapsed," said Emerson vaguely. He struggled to his feet. "So our nasty enemy is gone," he muttered, as he brushed lint off his sleeves. "Let us hope that..."

Suddenly there was a sound of glass breaking. In a flash Emerson guessed. So did Anthony and Miss Eells.

"Good God!" exclaimed Emerson, clapping his hand to his mouth. "You don't suppose..."

Without another word Emerson, Miss Eells, and Anthony dashed up the front stairs and down the narrow hall. They stopped in front of the door of the room where the chest sometimes appeared. From a small table in the hall Emerson snatched a candle, and after a little scrabbling in a drawer he found some matches and lit it. Into the room he stepped, followed by the other two. Emerson walked straight toward the window and raised his candle high. What everyone expected turned out to be true—the purple pane was shattered. Pieces of violet colored glass lay on the floor of the room. And there was the small rock that had done the damage. The magic chest would never return to this room, no matter how brightly Arcturus shone. This pathway to another world was blocked forever.

Emerson was trembling with rage. He stood there silently staring at the broken windowpane. The candle shook in his clenched fist, and his shoulders hunched up as his whole body grew tense. Then Emerson let all his anger out in one long, shuddering sigh. He stooped and picked up one of the broken glass fragments.

"Well, I guess that's about it," he said. Letting the glass shard fall back to the floor, Emerson turned back to his friends. "I suppose we could glue the pieces together," he said glumly. "But I have always heard that the magic flows out of an enchanted object once it has been broken. We may as well pack up and head for Hoosac. I was getting tired of this vacation anyway."

Miss Eells stepped forward and touched her brother sympathetically on the arm. "Maybe it's all for the best, Em," she said softly. "You've cheated the odds twice by going to that place. Anthony has cheated them three times. But eventually the law of averages would have caught up to us. We would probably all have been killed before we found that Whatchamajigger Cube."

"Logos Cube," said Emerson, who hated to hear people use the wrong names to identify things.

"I think Miss Eells is right," Anthony put in. "And anyway, I don't really think those creeps can take over our world. They'll have to stay where they are."

Emerson glanced at Anthony, and he looked as if he was about to say something, but then he changed his mind and led the way out of the room.

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