The stone child by Dan Poblocki

Author:Dan Poblocki [Dan Poblocki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jeunesse
ISBN: 9780375842559
Published: 2010-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

Eddie was sitting at his desk to distract himself with math homework, a task he expected would be nearly impossible after the evening’s events, when his mother knocked on his bedroom door. She’d reheated his dinner and brought it up to him, along with the cordless phone.

“It’s for you,” she said, resting the large antique silver platter on the comforter folded at the end of his bed.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said. She kissed his cheek before heading into the hallway and closing his bedroom door.

“Hey!” Harris said. He sounded exhausted. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. How ‘bout you?”

“Freaked out,” said Harris. “Those things were scarier than the dogs from the lake. Scarier than the gremlin.”

Eddie silently noticed that he didn’t include the Woman in Black. Despite the horror of meeting the Watchers, he knew they both understood that meeting her would be worse.

“Where did they come from?” said Eddie.

“I’m not sure,” said Harris. “In The Witch’s Doom, the old woman tells Gertie that legend during the town meeting, remember? She says the Watchers haunt the woods once the sun goes down.”

“Right,” said Eddie. “Maybe the same thing happens up at the Olmstead estate.”

Harris was quiet. Eddie could hear him breathing over the phone.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asked.

“I was just thinking … if those things live in Nathaniel Olmstead’s woods now,” said Harris, “did they arrive before or after he left?”

Eddie shook his head. “Let’s not think about that,” he said, changing the subject. “I feel like we’re closer than ever. Did you get a chance to look at the code in the new book? I think it was different from the code in The Enigmatic Manuscript. Why don’t you check?”

Harris paused before answering. “I don’t have the books. You have the books.”

“Oh right,” said Eddie. “I forgot.” He grabbed his open book bag and dug through his notebooks and folders.

The books! Where were the books?

A terrible thought flickered through Eddie’s head. When he’d dropped his bag, had he lost the books? Everything had happened so quickly, it was difficult to remember if the bag had seemed lighter when he’d retrieved it from the pile of leaves. He’d been so concerned with trying to escape those things.

He imagined the books sitting in the middle of Nathaniel Olmstead’s driveway—a place he had hoped to avoid for quite some time.

“Uh …,” he struggled to say. His face began to sting. He emptied the bag, but the only thing remaining was the big hammer at the bottom, which he quietly shoved in the back of his desk drawer.

“Eddie? Are you there?”

“Yeah,” Eddie whispered. “I’m here … but the books are gone.”

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