The Curse of the Blue Figurine (12 page)

When Johnny got to the park, it was deserted. There was an old-fashioned streetlamp in the middle of the park, and a bench under it, but there was no one sitting on the bench. Once again Johnny's heart sank. He had walked as fast as he could. Now what was he going to do? With a dejected sigh he slumped on into the park and sat down on the bench by the lamp. He glanced at his watch. It was getting on toward nine. He didn't dare stay too long—Gramma would be worried about him. He decided that he would wait for exactly ten minutes and then get up and leave.

Minutes passed. Johnny hummed to himself and looked aimlessly this way and that. He looked at the greenish bronze statue that held a tomahawk poised over his head. He peered across the street at the Unitarian church, with its six white Corinthian pillars and its tall graceful colonial spire. Now as he watched he saw somebody step out of the darkness next to the church. The figure moved forward quickly into the light. It was Mr. Beard. Pausing briefly at the curb, he started to cross the street. Mr. Beard was wearing his black coat and a kind of black hat called a homburg. When he saw Johnny,
he glanced impatiently at him. Mr. Beard did not seem to be in a good mood.

"Well," he said snappishly as he sat down on the bench, "you certainly took your time about getting here." He glared at Johnny, and his large black eyes seemed mean and hard.

Johnny was utterly confused by this remark. What was Mr. Beard talking about? He sounded as if he and Johnny had made a date to meet at some certain time. Johnny felt hurt, and there was also something in Mr. Beard's manner that frightened him. He wanted to get up and leave. But Mr. Beard's great dark eyes fascinated him. He stayed where he was.

Mr. Beard smiled, but it was a crooked, lopsided smile. "And what is on your mind, pray tell?"

Johnny held out his hand. "The... the ring..." he stammered. "It... it's..."

"Magical?" said Mr. Beard in a cold, mocking voice. "Magical? Of course it is. Does that bother you? Eh? Eh?"

Johnny was stunned. So Mr. Beard had known all along that the ring was magic! A vague, shapeless fear began to form in Johnny's mind. What else did Mr. Beard know? And why, why on earth, had he given him this ring?

Mr. Beard took off his hat and laid it on the bench. His well-combed grayish-white hair seemed to glimmer and sparkle in the lamplight. It made Johnny think of snow.

And now Johnny noticed something else. Although he looked neat and well cared for, there was a faint musty odor about Mr. Beard. As if, perhaps, his overcoat had been kept in a damp, dark closet too long. Again Johnny had an overwhelming urge to jump up and run for home. But Mr. Beard's enormous eyes held him riveted to his seat.

"So the ring bothers you. Well, that's too bad," crooned Mr. Beard. His smile was cold and pitiless. "Yes, that is very, very sad. Perhaps this will help."

Mr. Beard raised his left hand. And suddenly Johnny felt as if his whole left arm was on fire. Pain shot up toward his shoulder, and the ring pinched, pinched horribly, far more painfully than Eddie's scissors had pinched. It felt as if red-hot pincers were squeezing his finger to the bone. Johnny's breath was taken away by the suddenness of this attack. He writhed to and fro and gasped,
"Stop! Stop! Please stop!"

Mr. Beard lowered his hand, and the pain stopped.

"There now," he said, grinning evilly, "isn't that better? Of course it is. But I'm afraid you can't take the ring off. That is not part of my little plan. This should teach you to be careful about accepting gifts from strangers. You can never tell what the gift may turn out to be. But you accepted my ring, my little friend, and you will have to accept the consequences."

Mr. Beard chuckled. It was a low, weird chuckle that raised the hairs on the back of Johnny's neck. Johnny's 
face was pale and haggard. Sweat was streaming down his cheeks and stood in beads on his forehead. He felt like some small frightened animal caught in a trap.

Mr. Beard went on grinning. It was a goblinish grin, a grin that seemed to change the features of his face. "Haven't you guessed yet who I am?" he asked suddenly.
"Haven't you guessed?"

Mr. Beard's voice sounded strange and wavery now. It was like the sound you get when a radio is not tuned in quite right.
Haven't you guessed? Haven't you guessed?
The question seemed to echo endlessly in Johnny's brain. And now the air around him was shimmering, wavering like water. And Mr. Beard's face changed, changed slowly, to the face of an old man with an overhanging forehead, a jutting chin, a hawkish nose, and deep-set, burning eyes. Instead of an overcoat he wore a heavy black woolen cape, and around his neck was a stiff white collar, the collar of a Catholic priest.

Johnny stared. He felt as if his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. His forehead throbbed, and he was afraid that he might faint. Meanwhile across the street a shadowy figure was watching. It was the professor. He was crouched behind a large evergreen bush in somebody's front yard. What he saw was Johnny sitting on a bench that was bathed in the pale light of the street lamp. Johnny was staring hard at something, but the professor could not figure out what that something was. As far as he could tell, the bench—except for Johnny—was empty and bare.

The Sessions clock on the Dixons' sideboard was striking ten as Johnny opened the front door and stumbled in. Johnny felt numb and unbelievably tired. Every bone in his body ached. He felt as if he had stayed up three nights in a row without sleep. Was he awake or asleep now? It was hard to tell. He had seen the ghost of Father Baart. And the ghost had given him orders that in seven days he must return to Duston Park. He had to return at midnight next Friday, and he had to bring the blue figurine with him. He did not know why he had to do this, but he had been given very strict orders. He had to do this or he would die. The ring could kill him—this he had been told. He had also been told that the ring would be taken from him that night. He would be set 
free then, and nothing bad would happen to him. His life would be his own to live. But if he told anyone about the midnight meeting, or if he failed to show up, then he would die—he would die in horrible torment.

Dully, mechanically, Johnny unzipped his suede jacket and hung it on the coat-tree. He gazed blearily around at the friendly hall furniture. At the china umbrella stand, and the old pictures, and the deer head that was missing a glass eye. These things failed to comfort him. Was Grampa still up? The door of the living room was open, and a narrow bar of light shone out into the dark hall. Johnny heard a chair creak, and then he heard Grampa's voice.

"Johnny? That you?"

"Yeah, Grampa," Johnny answered wearily. He shuffled to the open doorway and stopped. "I'm sorry I was out so late."

Grampa shrugged. "It's okay. Your gramma's the worrier in this family, but she's gone to bed. I'm headed that way too, the way I feel." Grampa paused and looked at Johnny in a guarded way. "Do a lot o' prayin', did you?"

"Uh-huh. Well, g'night, Grampa."

"G'night, Johnny. Sleep tight."

Johnny stood in the doorway a moment longer, staring in at Grampa. He had an overwhelming urge to rush in and fall down on his knees at the old man's feet and tell him everything that had happened. But he was scared. He was scared, and he felt cut off from the rest 
of the world, like a prisoner in a dark, windowless dungeon. Still, he had to pretend that everything was all right. So he merely smiled wanly, turned, and began climbing the creaky oak staircase toward his bedroom.

Grampa Dixon rocked back and forth in his rocking chair. He looked thoughtful, and also tense. Suddenly he got up and walked across the room to the doorway that opened into the hall. He stood there a few minutes, peering up at the dark staircase. From the bathroom came the sound of running water. Grampa stepped back into the living room and pulled the sliding door shut. Then he walked over to his smoking stand and picked up the chipped green glass ashtray. He turned it this way and that in the lamplight and examined it as if it were a rare museum object. Then he set the ashtray down and began to pace back and forth on the rug, limping slightly because of his arthritis.

Tap, tap.
What was that? Grampa turned toward the bay window and looked. There in the lower part of the window, his nose pressed to the glass, was the professor. He looked like a crabby sort of ghost, peering in. Grampa grinned. He had been expecting the professor to make an appearance. Quickly Grampa limped across the room and pulled back the door. Once more he glanced up at the dark staircase. No sound. Johnny must be in bed now and—probably—sound asleep. Grampa went to the front door and opened it. There stood the professor. He looked as if he had been wading through deep, wet underbrush. The knees of his pants were soiled, and 
there were sprigs of juniper decorating his coat here and there. His tennis shoes were soaked and caked with mud.

"Come on outside," whispered the professor hoarsely. He pointed back over his left shoulder toward the front yard. "I can't talk in the house. I'd be afraid Johnny would be listening down the hot-air vent or something."

Grampa followed the professor out across the front porch and down the steps. Halfway down the sidewalk the professor turned.

"Okay, this is fine," he hissed. He dug his hand into one of his coat pockets and pulled out a box of Balkan Sobranie cigarettes. Opening it, he took one out and lit it.

"Something is very wrong, Henry," he began as he puffed at his cigarette. "Very wrong indeed. I followed John down to the church, and then from there over across the river to Duston Park."

Grampa's mouth dropped open. "Holy God! What the heck'd he want to go over
there
for?"

The professor grimaced. "Your guess is as good as mine, Henry. But the most disturbing part is yet to come. When he got there, he sat down on a bench. Well, for a while then he just sat there. But all of a sudden he looked up, as if he saw somebody coming. And then, I swear to God, he sat there and had a conversation with somebody who
was not there!"
The professor paused and stared grimly at the ground. "Make something of
that,
if you can!"

Grampa was at a loss for words. He glanced up at the 
dark window of Johnny's bedroom, and he shook his head. "My Lord!" he said in a low, somber voice. "What the devil do you think is wrong with him?"

The professor puffed some more at his cigarette, and he made little
hem! hem!
noises in his throat. This meant that he was thinking. "Henry," he said at last, "how long ago was it that his mother died?"

Grampa thought a bit. "It was... well, in July of last year. Almost a year ago now."

The professor nodded. "Mm-hmm. And then, right after that, his dad got hauled back into the Air Force, and Johnny got shipped up here to a strange new place, to new surroundings and new... new everything."

Grampa looked puzzled. He put his hands on his hips and peered down at the professor over the tops of his glasses. "Rod, what the heck are you tryin' to say?"

The professor gave Grampa a dirty look. "Don't call me Rod. But to answer your question, what I'm trying to say is just this: I think Johnny may be suffering— suffering mentally—because too many bad and upsetting things happened to him in too short a space of time."

Grampa wrinkled up his forehead. He looked very concerned. "You mean... you mean you think Johnny's gone
crazy?"

"No, no,
no!"
snapped the professor, waving his hand impatiently. "I didn't say that! I didn't say that at all!" He heaved a deep sigh and, with an effort, controlled his temper. "What I am
trying
to say," he went on 
through clenched teeth, "is merely that people—even reasonable, sane people like you and me—can go off our trolleys temporarily if bad things happen to us. I don't mean that Johnny is ready for a straitjacket. But he
is
acting a mite peculiar, and he seems to be pretty unhappy. And so I think we'd better get him some help, and get it quick."

"Help?" said Grampa, still mystified. "What kind of help?"

The professor looked exasperated. "Mental help. Henry, you are living in the twentieth century, whether you like it or not. I know that psychiatrists aren't terribly popular yet in America, but I will venture to predict that in ten or twenty years there'll be hordes of them all over the country, making money hand over fist by solving people's problems. But all this is beside the point. We need to do something for Johnny right now. What's the name of your family doctor?"

"Doc Schermerhorn. You know him, don't you?"

The professor frowned. "Hmm. Yes, I know him. He's the one who diagnosed my cousin Bea's brain tumor as bad teeth, shortly after which she died. But I suppose he'll do. Any port in a storm, as they say. All right then: Why don't you get Johnny an appointment with good old Doc Schermerhorn? Explain the problem to the doctor, but don't tell Johnny why you're making him see the doctor. Tell him... well, why don't you tell him that you think he needs a checkup. Yes. That's it—a 
checkup. Meanwhile I'll see if I can figure out something else that might be done. All right?"

Grampa nodded. "All right. And thanks a lot for your help, Rod. You're a real good friend to Johnny."

"Don't mention it. Eventually John may need to see a real psychiatrist. I wish I could recommend one, but I know only one personally, and I wouldn't use him as a shield in a mud-ball fight. See you tomorrow. By the way, if you keep calling me Rod, I'll start calling you Hank. How about that, huh?"