The Black Tower Read Free

the exact same house, only he’d never been inside the house so he had to make up the rooms. They’re all crazy.”
    Meat didn’t doubt that.
    â€œAnd from the first day, Meat, the house was struck by tragedy.”
    Meat didn’t doubt that, either.
    As Meat had gotten closer, he had seen the tower. He had known there would be one. Herculeah had told him that and had said, “Guess what it’s called.”
    â€œI can’t.”
    â€œShivers Tower.”
    Well, it made him shiver, all right.
    â€œBut the tower’s been locked up,” she had said, “because there was some terrible tragedy there. My mom claims she doesn’t know what the tragedy was, but I’m going to find out. And, Meat, there’s supposed to be money hidden somewhere in the house. Old man Hunt didn’t trust banks so all the millions and millions are in the walls or the secret room or the tower.”
    â€œCan we change the subject?” Meat asked.
    â€œYes, but guess what happened today?” Herculeah said as they started for home down the long drive.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhen I was reading to Mr. Hunt—”
    Something cold seemed to touch Meat’s neck, and he glanced over his shoulder. He gasped with fright.
    In one of the upstairs windows, a face was framed, a face in a tangle of wild hair. The eyes stared down at him with a look of such wildness that it froze his blood.
    He stopped. He couldn’t move. He closed his eyes.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Herculeah asked. She had continued on a few steps and now turned to look at him.
    â€œA face,” he managed to say.
    â€œWhat face?”
    â€œIn the window.”
    As he spoke, he saw the face again in his mind, and he felt the image was there permanently, the way looking at the sun can leave the eye scarred with the image.
    â€œWhich window?”
    He pointed a trembling finger.
    Herculeah shaded her eyes from the setting sun. “I don’t see anything.”
    He forced himself to look. Of course there was nothing there now.
    â€œIt was a face—I don’t know how to describe it—an evil face. There was a lot of wild hair—”
    â€œLike mine?” she asked, grinning and fluffing her hair.
    Herculeah wouldn’t be serious. “No. No! This was hair that hadn’t been combed in years—maybe never—and the face, well, it was like, like a bird of prey, and I was the prey. And the fingers were like talons and—”
    â€œYou saw the hands, too?”
    â€œNo, but those were the kind of terrible hands that would go with the face...”
    Herculeah smiled.
    â€œIt really isn’t amusing,” Meat said.
    â€œI know. I was smiling at myself. It’s just that this is the kind of house that makes you think you see things, makes you think you hear things. When I was reading about the girl going up the tower steps, I actually imaged I was the girl and—”
    â€œThis wasn’t my imagination.”
    â€œAll right.” She looked thoughtful. “I think Mr. Hunt does have a couple of sisters. I don’t even know if one of them lives in this house, but if she does, maybe that was who you saw.”
    â€œWhat I saw is more like it. That face might not even have been human.”
    She looked at him closely. His face was as pale as if he had seen a ghost.
    â€œLet’s go home.”
    â€œGladly.”
    They walked through the open gates. On either gate, the figure of a lion was worked into the wrought iron. One paw was raised as if, Meat thought, to menace visitors as they passed through.
    â€œAnd the owner, Lionus Hunt,” Herculeah said, speaking as if she were reading from a guide book, “had these gates made in his likeness to guard the house. He wanted visitors to know the house was his and that they entered at their own peril.”
    â€œDid you read that somewhere?”
    â€œNo, just made it up.”
    â€œWell,