The Longest Halloween, Book Two. Frank Wood

      “Now you’re a believer, are you?” Scroggins said smugly.

      “Uh, Mr. Scroggins?” a voice suddenly came from behind them. The school’s administrative assistant, Felicia Hartmann, said smartly, “I certainly hope you and your young charge plan to clean up the mess that you’ve created here.”

      “Ms. Hartmann,” Scroggins said through gritted teeth, “we were just getting around to that.”

      “I should think so,” Ms. Hartmann sniffed, and turned away.

      He fumed for a moment while watching the woman clip away, then turned to Gribbett, who had been replacing the clothes in the lost and found box. “We need to find that map! I’ve not come all this way to be stopped now!” The tall teacher whirled, sensing that he was not alone, to see Renee Atherton standing at the door to the office, visibly shaking and upset.

      “Miss Atherton,” he said, glowering down at the girl, his cultured and controlled voice returned. “What are you doing here?”

      “I forgot my pencil box,” she said, her voice tremulous.

      “You left your pencil box at the lost and found?” Scroggins queried her.

      “Yeah, I was just retracing my steps,” she said. “Did you lose something, Mr. Scroggins? I’m pretty sure none of those clothes would fit you,” she observed.

      “We ain’t looking for no clothes, girl, why don’t you run along?” Gribbett growled.

      “Be quiet, you,” Scroggins snapped, “and clean this area up!”

      “If you’re not looking for clothes, then what else could you be looking for?” Renee asked, a bit of a stammer escaping in her voice.

      “My, but you’re inquisitive,” Scroggins said. “I thought you said you were missing your pencil box?”

      “That’s right,” Renee said, “and I haven’t checked my locker yet! I think that’s what I’ll do right now.” She hoped her nerves weren’t getting the best of her.

      “Well, that you should, Miss Atherton,” Scroggins smiled coldly. “How will you ever get your homework done without your pencil box?”

      “Yes sir,” she agreed, then rapidly dashed out of the room, heaving deep breaths. She had clearly heard part of Scroggins’s conversation … enough to know that the map Jasper Franklin had in his possession was the real deal after all. She had to let him know as soon as possible.

      “You think she knows something?” Gribbett asked.

      “I think she’s all that we can go on now,” Scroggins said. “If she was here, perhaps she saw something or someone else who also frequented the vicinity. Follow her,” Scroggins ordered Keith, “and let me know exactly where she goes. Do you think you can do that without screwing it up?”

      “Course I can!” he said.

      “See to it that you do,” Scroggins said. “I have a feeling that she knows more than she’s letting on.”

      As Gribbett made his quick exit from the scene, he caught the interest of the same young man in the hoodie who had followed him to the elementary school—and who had almost been food for the gang of wolves last evening.

      “Thanks, Ian,” Polly said as he pulled his silver car to a stop in front of her home. “Want to come in?”

      “I’d better not,” he replied. “It’s late, and I’ve got practice in the morning.”

      “Sure, call me later then,” she said.

      “I will,” Ian grinned. “What better way to end my night? Farewell, sweet lamb, may the time until we speak again pass as quckly as the years of servitude Jacob endured for Rachel.” He took her hand in his huge hand and kissed it gently.

      Polly giggled and took her hand back. She skipped into the house, where she found her mother waiting at the window.

      “So that’s him?”

      “Oh, hi Mom,” Polly said.

      “He’s very handsome,” her mother remarked.

      “It’s strange,” Polly said. “I didn’t think he’s my type at all—I always thought I would end up with someone like Joel, more cerebral and all, you know, but Ian’s actually really deep once you get to know him.”

      “I think it’s too early for you to ‘get to know’ anyone at this point,” Polly’s mother said.

      “Oh Mom, you know what I mean,” Polly said.

      “I just want you to be careful is all,” Polly’s mother replied.

      “I will, Mom,” she said, “and right now I want to wash my hair. I’m going to meet him at football practice tomorrow.”

      As Polly went to tend to her hair, her grandmother, watching at the window above, met Ian’s eyes in the car below. In a flash just before he peeled away, his face became wolfen. The older woman jerked back in her chair, surprised and shocked. “The sign of the wolf!”

      Back at the McClafferty farm, a curious scene was unfolding in the basement of the home. ”Will he be all right?” Aaron asked his mother as they looked down at the wounded kestrel on the table before them. Mrs. McClafferty was feeding the bird a concoction made with the ingredients that Ian had brought.

      “It will take a while, it looks like he’s molted a bit,” McClafferty said.

      “What’s that mean?” Aaron asked.

      “It means that I won’t be able to see what he knows for a while yet, not until he’s started healing,” she said.

      “I could crush those bandits for what they’ve done to Barnabas!” Aaron growled, crushing a plank in his hand.

      “Careful, son,” McClafferty said, “it’s important to save your energy for when it’s really needed. And besides,” she said, getting to her feet and going to the pen in the corner where more kestrels awaited, “this is why we raise them in flocks.”

      “Berethia,” she smiled, calling out to a wicked-looking kestrel with sharp, evilly gleaming eyes, “you’ll pick up the trail where your brother left off! Find me that map, darling bird!”

      She quickly plucked a feather from the bird’s tail and tossed it into a bubbling cauldron in the center of the room, then let the bird out onto the porch of the farmhouse. Turning her attention back to the cauldron, where some elements were congealing with the bird’s feather, she gave the contents a slow stir and added artifacts that she had been carrying in her apron, muttering to herself. She tossed in some of the nutmeg that Ian had delivered, then cried out, “Now … show me the map!”

      Return to Grubb Mansion

      “Here?” Dreyfuss asked as Joel led them into the foreboding home of Eliezer Grubb. “This is where your friend lives?” Dreyfuss clarified, freezing in his footsteps.

      Overhead, Berethia sailed triumphantly and came to rest on a gnarled tree branch. Back at the farm, the bubbles of Mrs. McClafferty’s cauldron seemed to part, leaving in their wake a picture of a large, sinister-looking home located towards the end of town.

      “Aha,” McClafferty said, “Grubb Mansion! Aaron, you might want to alert your brother!”

      Joel could see why Eliezer Grubb’s mansion was a source of concern for Dreyfuss and for Jasper. It was here that the goblin Googamond had established his headquarters when he tried to take over Portersville and Halloween last year. Googamond had made Jasper and Dreyfuss his servants on that fateful night, turning them into gargoyles.

      “Maybe