The Figure In the Shadows by John Bellairs & Mercer Mayer

Author:John Bellairs & Mercer Mayer [Bellairs, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101659694
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2004-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

That night Lewis lay wide awake in his bed, listening to his heart beat. His closet door was open, and he could see the clothes hanging in a shadowy row. Were they moving? Was something there, behind them?

Lewis thrashed up into a sitting position and frantically fumbled for the switch on his bedside lamp. He felt all over the lamp before he found it, but finally the light came on. There was nothing there. There were no dark shapes waiting to jump at him. None that he could see, at any rate. It was a long time before he could bring himself to get out of bed and look in the closet. Finally, though, he did. There was nothing behind the clothes. Nothing but plaster and wood and dust and his old shoes. Lewis went back to bed. He thought that maybe he would try to sleep with the light on, tonight.

Lewis tossed and turned. He rolled over to one side and then to the other. It was no good. He wasn’t going to sleep. Well, if he wasn’t going to sleep, he might as well think. He didn’t have to think very hard. Lewis knew very well what was behind all the weird things that had been happening to him lately. The amulet. All his logical explanations had evaporated, and he was left with one thought: the amulet was haunted. It was haunted, and he had better get rid of it. So what if it had helped him beat up on Woody Mingo? So what if it did give him that wonderful pirate-movie feeling? Lewis thought about how he had felt when his hand closed around the amulet and the dark figure leaped at him. He shuddered. He just had to get rid of it.

Lewis raised his hands to his neck. But when they were a few inches away from the chain, they stopped. He grunted and pushed, but he couldn’t force them to go any farther. His hands trembled. They shook like the hands of an old man who has the palsy. But they just would not close around the chain so that Lewis could take the amulet off.

Lewis sat up, panting. His pajama top was soaked with sweat. He looked at his hands. Didn’t they belong to him any more? Lewis was scared. Thoroughly scared. And he felt helpless. What would he do if he couldn’t take it off? He imagined the amulet and chain growing into his body as he got older and older until there was just a looped line and a bump on his skin to show where they were. Lewis’s fear was close to panic now. He jumped out of bed and started pacing up and down the room. He would have to calm down before he could decide what to do.

He looked toward the fireplace, and he smiled. Every room in this enormous old mansion had a fireplace in it. Lewis’s own personal fireplace was made of black marble, and there was a fire laid in it, though it was not lit.

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