The Night of the Solstice (5 page)

Her hand fell away from the pen.

“I wrote the letter,” she whispered.

“I see,” said the policeman in a hateful, smug voice.

“But it's true—all the rest of it—everything we said!” The words came in a flood, like the tears that suddenly streamed down her cheeks uncontrollably. “It is, it
is
. We just didn't know how to make you believe us. We—”

“You wanted to be believed, so you forged this letter and lied. Is that it?”

“Yes—no—” Tears and confusion overcame her.

“Anyway, look at this place.” Charles had gotten his breath back and was now pointing to the burn the sky-bolt had made on the wall. “It's trashed. Isn't that evidence enough?”

“How'd it happen, son? Fireworks?”

For the first time since the police had entered, Janie spoke. “Have you ever seen a firework that could do
that
?”

“Mexican kind. Illegal.”

As Charles spun away in disgust, the tall policeman took Alys by the arm. In a very few minutes they were all outside.

“Now,” said the policeman, and as they stood on the paved courtyard in the moonlight he proceeded to tell them, in words they would never forget, just how little the Law was amused by this kind of practical joke.

“In fact,” he said, softly, “I think this goes further than a joke. I think whoever wrecked that house was attempting arson. There's been a lot of vandalism around here recently, most of it down by the schools, but some of it up as far as these hills. If I had a single scrap of evidence to connect you with what I saw in there you'd be on your way to Juvenile Hall right now. As it is, I'm giving you just one minute to get on your bikes and disappear. And I don't ever—and I repeat
ever
—want to see you within five hundred yards of this place again. Get it? Now, move!”

Charles pulled Alys toward their bikes. There was nothing else to do.

Don't cry, Al,” said Charles, when they had turned off onto the first side street from Morgana's. Alys was standing exactly where she'd come to rest, straddling her bicycle, her face buried in her hands. Charles looked away in embarrassment and addressed a bougainvillea bush across the street. “You did your best,” he told the bush. “You
tried
.”

Alys's shoulders heaved and she said nothing. Claudia leaned over to put a small, sweaty hand on her arm.

“Anyway,” said Charles, “it was a good idea.”

“It was a terrible idea,” said Janie. “Of course an expert graphologist would be able to tell she wrote it.”

These words accomplished what Charles's solace
and Claudia's sympathy had not. Alys raised her head.

“You knew that?” She looked at Janie through swollen eyelids and Janie exhaled sharply and looked away, lips compressed. “And you just stood by and let me go ahead?”

Janie turned back and met her gaze defiantly.

“Next time, don't tell me to shut up,” she said.

“You
crud
—” began Charles, but Alys broke in.

“Right, Miss Genius,” she said. “Well, while you were standing aside and having yourself a good laugh, did it ever occur to you that our only chance of help was disappearing forever? And that the solstice is only twelve days away? And that now it's up to
us
?” Alys shook her head hard, once, then turned to Charles and Claudia.

“Okay,” she said. “You were right and I was wrong. Let's go.”

“What?
Where?
” said Janie.

“Back to the old house, of course.”

“But what can we
do
?”

“I don't know,” said Alys. “But someone has got to do something.”

“And what about the police? They said we weren't supposed to go within five hundred yards of that house.”

Alys smiled faintly for the first time in a long while.

“Actually,” she said, “they said they didn't want to
find
us within five hundred yards of the house. And they won't. We'll see to that.”

“But—”

“No one,” said Alys, “is forcing you to come.”

But Janie did come, walking her bike slowly behind the others with an odd, set look on her face.

“The vixen said the spell for making the amulet is written down somewhere,” said Alys, when they were inside the house again.

“In a grimoire,” said Charles. “What
is
a grimoire, anyway?”

Claudia leaned a little closer to Alys. “Is it a big book?” she asked huskily. “A great big book on a stand with funny handwriting in it and a black cover?”

“Yes, very likely,” said Alys, turning back to
Charles. “It's a book of spells, and what we have to do—” She stopped. “What do you mean, ‘Is it a great big book on a stand with a black cover?'” she asked Claudia.

“I found one like that in a little room beside the kitchen,” said Claudia simply. “When Charles sent me there to wait. I didn't know what it was.”

Janie was looking at Alys with unconcealed horror. “And so we're just going to whip up a spell on our own, is that it? As if it were a recipe for banana bread?”

“We don't have any choice. You saw to that.”

The grimoire turned out to be the largest book they had ever seen, with pages made of parchment illuminated with tracery, and it was open to a page thickly covered with elegant, intricate writing. The problem was they couldn't read the writing.

“Latin?” said Alys doubtfully, once they had carried the book between them to the kitchen table where there was light. The script was fine and beautiful but so crowded together it was impossible to distinguish individual words.

“Why Latin?” said Charles. “If you want old, there's plenty of languages older than that. It could be, uh, Greek, or Babylonian, or Egyptian hieroglyphs.”

Claudia was dismayed. “You mean we can't do the spell?”

They all stared at the book unhappily.

“I hate to say this,” said Charles, “but those letters don't even look like our alphabet to me.”

“I know,” said Alys. “Well, maybe it
is
Greek. Or Russian. Russian's in another alphabet, Cyrillic or something, isn't it, Janie? Janie?”

Janie had been gazing at the writing as intently as the others, but now she gave a little start and blinked. “It's not Cyrillic,” she murmured and abruptly got up and went to stand by the window.

Alys gave her an exasperated glare and returned to the page. The words didn't look Greek to her; they looked even stranger, more alien and unreadable. Yet they also had an air of mocking familiarity, and she felt she would be able to read them if she only looked at them the right way.

“What we need,” said Charles lugubriously, “is a what-do-you-call-it, a person who studies languages.”

“Um.” Alys's eyes hurt from staring. When she absently raised her head to blink at him, something caught her attention. “What on earth did you do to your T-shirt?”

“Turned it inside out. You said …”

“I know. But I can still read the slogan.”

Charles tucked his chin under to look. “You can?”

“Yes.” The black letters were plainly visible through the thin white cotton. “It's just backward—” Alys broke off, her eyes widening. “Backward!” she exclaimed, snapping her head down to look at the page. “Backward!”

“What?”

“It's English! The spell! It's English
backward
!”

“Not backward,” said Janie quietly, turning. “It's reversed. A mirror image.”

Alys stared at her in disbelief. When she spoke, her voice matched Janie's quiet tone. “So you knew that, Janie.
Why
didn't you tell us?”

“Because,” said Janie, holding her gaze, “I have some very serious reservations about this whole business.”

Charles and Claudia were bent over the grimoire, Charles trying to spell out the turned-around letters which ran from right to left. “‘For … the … uh … T-r-a-v … For the Travels …'”

“‘For the Traversal of the Mirrors,'” said Janie, still engaged in a stare-down with Alys.

“Hey, that's right! This is the one!” Charles began spelling out the next line, but Alys interrupted him. “We need a mirror, so we can look at the reflection of this writing in it. Claude, try to find a small one; I'll get a pencil.”

Halfway through copying the spell Alys stopped and stared, checking her writing several times against the mirror reflection. The grim look did not leave her face even when she finished the copying and put down the pencil.

“What's the matter?” said Charles.

“You'll see. Read it.”

Charles took the sheet of paper covered with Alys's own neat round handwriting, and read:

“That's it,” said Charles. “Then there's just a list of ingredients. So what's wrong?”

“Read the ingredients,” said Alys.

“Oh. Okay. It says we need, uh, dwaleberry and red wulfenite, quicksilver and peacock coal, hornblende
and wild elephant's ear, stinking smut and bladderwort, flyclub and phoenix feather and sunfish scales and falcon's tooth and …” He broke off, looking unhappy. “It says—a shard of human bone.”

“What's a shard?” asked Claudia.

“A little piece,” said Janie. “Like a splinter.”

“Jeez, Alys, are you sure you transcribed this right? I mean
human
bone? How're we going to get hold of that?”

“Oh, well,” said Janie, suddenly cheerful. “There's always the obvious solution.”

“Which is?”

“Well, we all have bones, don't we? It would only take a little one. Like this.” Janie grabbed Claudia's pinky finger. “This is a nice little bone, just the size of a shard,” she said ghoulishly.

“Janie!”

“You wouldn't mind, would you, Claude? Maybe Mom would give you some anesthetic. It would be over in a minute.”

Janie leaned forward, smiling madly at the cowering Claudia.

“Janie, shut up!”

“I told you not to—”

“About the other ingredients,” said Charles, placing himself and the list between his sisters. “Some of these sound just as bad.”

“I know. The first thing is to find out what they are. Remember, these are old-fashioned names. We'll divide the list up and each research a part. Once we know what we're looking for we can figure out how to get it.”

So the list was divided, and because Claudia wanted to help out, Alys gave her the top ingredient, dwaleberry, and had Janie copy the next four for herself. Janie did this without expression, but as she rose to leave she wiggled her fingers under Claudia's nose.

“Don't forget, Claude,” she said. “I mean, it's not as if you were ever going to play piano or anything.”

“Do I have to copy this?” Charles said as she left the kitchen. “Or can I just tear it in half?”

“Copy,” said Alys positively, standing up. “Just a sec.” She caught up with Janie at the back door.

“Now, Alys,” said Janie, looking at her speculatively, “I hope you're going to keep your sense of humor. I hope you're not going to say—”

“I've got only one thing to say,” said Alys. “And it's this. If you don't lay off Claudia at once and forevermore I am going to knock your head off.”

Janie's mouth fell open.

“I may not be a genius,” Alys continued, “but if there's one thing I know about it's teamwork. And you have to decide right now whether or not you're on our team. If you don't want to help us, if you're scared, that's fine. But if you plan on working with us, you're going to act like one of us. You're going to
try
to help, and if you have any bright ideas you're going to tell us right away. Because if you don't I am going to pull your brains out through your nostrils. Understand?”

Janie's mouth opened and shut like a fish's.

“Good. Off you go, then.” Alys turned on her heel and marched back into the house.

The next afternoon they gathered in the kitchen once more. They'd done well with their research: Even
Claudia had found out that dwaleberry was another name for deadly nightshade, or
atropa belladonna
. They now knew that quicksilver was mercury, that red wulfenite, peacock coal, and hornblende were all minerals, that wild elephant's ear, bladderwort, and stinking smut were plants, and that sunfish scales, flyclub, and phoenix feather were parts of animals. But, as Charles said, knowing and getting were two different things.

“I called that big nursery on Tustin where Dad bought his sago palm,” he told Alys, “and they don't even have any of these plants. The guy just laughed when I asked about bladderwort and elephant's ear, and when I got to stinking smut he hung up. And about the other ingredients—how many do you really think we can get hold of, three or four? Much less the human bone.”

At the mention of the bone everyone looked quickly at Janie, but she seemed to be studying her own list intently. “I'll tell you something else,” she said without looking up. “I got a book on witchcraft, and according to it witches gather their own herbs. By moonlight. Naked.”

“Naked!” said Charles.

“Skyclad, they call it. And there may be special incantations to be said… . Alys, you're not paying attention.”