The Key

“It sounds like the cry of a newborn demon ready to destroy all peace and love!” Dietmar said. “But I believe it is merely a bagpipe.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mack said. “A bagpipe. I was going to guess that.”

“So, who is going to be the diversion?” Jarrah asked after Mack described his plan, which wasn’t really much of a plan.

“You know . . . ,” Mack said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Something just occurred to me: maybe the door isn’t locked. I mean, it’s not like he gets many visitors up here. Why would he lock a door no one has come to in a thousand years?”

So they crept forward in single file with Mack in the lead. The bagpipe did not play again. There was a deep silence everywhere and the stars were beginning to blink on in the dark blue sky overhead.

The door was about ten feet tall, maybe eight feet wide, and made of wood that looked like it could be two feet thick. It was the kind of door Mack wished he had on his room. Maybe without the skulls grinning down. That was a little too much.

There wasn’t a handle, really, or a knocker or a bell. So Mack simply pushed on the wood where a handle might have been.

Instantly the bagpipe screeched, and this time that horrifying sound was joined by a chorus of shrill, high-pitched voices. It sounded like a church choir of toddlers cranked up on soda and Smarties trying to sing along with a howling devil.

“Interesting doorbell, eh?” Jarrah said. She was acting tough, but the noise had scared them all. All except Stefan, who yelled, “Hey, shut up!”

The chorus was instantly silenced. The door moved on its own, slowly widening the gap.

Mack was pretty sure duty required him to be the first one through, but fortunately Stefan pushed ahead. Stefan wasn’t good at fear. He just didn’t seem to get it. Even when he couldn’t see anything but the night sky.

Mack was right behind him, shoulder to shoulder with Jarrah, with Dietmar and Xiao following closely. They formed a little knot of scared kids.

The door slammed behind them.

They found themselves in a dark courtyard. Only the faint starlight revealed tall, crenellated walls and arches, with hard-on-the-feet cobblestones underfoot.

“Hey! I can see it now,” Stefan said. The spell of invisibility only worked on the exterior of the castle, like a coat of camouflage.

“Um . . . ,” Mack said.

Before he could finish his thought (and we’ll never know what it was), a torch burst into wild orange flame. It was about eye level on the wall to their right.

Then a second torch. Another. Another.

A line of torches moved from right to left, turned the corner to cross the facing wall, then came around to trace the left wall.

The torches whipped frantically as though they were in a strong wind, but it was perfectly still in the courtyard.

In the flickering orange glow they could see quite clearly. Yes, there were tall walls all around. And gloomy arches outlined in gleaming white skulls. Mack noticed—because Mack noticed things—that not all of the skulls were human. There were some that were too small to be human. There were others too large, far too large, and with teeth where teeth had no business being.

Against the facing wall, flanked on both sides by shadowed arches, a rough-hewn throne sat atop a platform. And on that throne sat a man. He was wearing a skirt. And every one of the Magnifica and Stefan had the identical thought: I hope that dude keeps his legs crossed.

The man was built as wide as he was tall, but he was still plenty tall. He had extravagant red hair pushing out from beneath a too-small cap. His massive hands gripped the arms of the throne as if he would—and could—rip them right off at any moment.

He stared with eyes that glittered from deep, torch-cast shadows.

“I am the MacGuffin,” he announced in a heavily accented speech. “Wha urr ye, ’n’ how have you come ’ere uninvited?”

The stones seemed to shake when he spoke. Or maybe it was just that Mack shook. Mack was not fond of beards. In fact, he suffered from pogonophobia—an irrational fear of beards, which only distance could keep under control.

“We’re, um . . . ,” Mack began, before faltering. He glanced aside and happened to see Dietmar. Somehow now Dietmar wasn’t all that interested in taking the lead. “We’re, um, hikers. Is this Urquhart Castle? Because that’s . . . that’s where we . . . um . . .”

“Urquhart Castle, is it?” MacGuffin demanded, and gnashed his teeth. “Di ah keek lik’ a Durward?”

“A what?”

“A Durward!” MacGuffin shouted.

“What’s a Durward?”

“Th’ Durwards ur th’ family that runs Urquhart Castle, ye ninny.”

Dietmar got a crafty look on his face. “Shouldn’t Urquhart Castle be run by a family named Urquhart?”

“Na, you great eejit!”

Dietmar did not like being called a “great eejit” so soon after suffering the indignity of being transformed into a sunflower. And, as Mack noticed grudgingly, Dietmar had some spine. The German boy was not a wimp, and he was getting ready to say something forceful to MacGuffin.

But there was something crazy in MacGuffin’s eyes, which perfectly reflected the light of the torches from under bushy eyebrows, and Dietmar chose to do the wise thing and fall silent.

MacGuffin leaned forward and glared at Mack. “Ah ken how come yer ’ere. Ye huv come tae steal mah key.”

“Key?” Mack said disingenuously. “What key?”

“Dinnae tak’ me fur a gowk. Ye huv th’ enlightened puissance or ye wouldn’t be ’ere. Ah ken th’ Pale Queen rises, wee jimmy. Ah ken wha ’n’ whit yer.”

Or, in regular English, “Don’t take me for a fool. You have the enlightened puissance or you wouldn’t be here. I know the Pale Queen rises, boy. I know who and what you are.”

And it was at that heart-stopping moment that Mack’s phone made an eerie sound. The sound of an incoming text message.

Slowly . . . slooooowly . . . cautiously . . . Mack drew out his iPhone.

MacGuffin stared at the oblong object in Mack’s hand. Stared at it as if he was seeing a ghost.

“Whit’s that black magic?” MacGuffin demanded in cringing horror.

See, that’s the problem with being stuck in an invisible castle for a thousand years: you miss out on a lot of new technology.

Mack did the thing that really should have saved his life. “This!” he cried, holding up the phone and glancing at the message—which was from the golem, and which said, “Pocket lint is tasty”—“Is the mighty iMagic of . . . of Appletonia! If you harm me or my friends, I will use it to destroy you!”

(#ulink_81d57d19-663f-5451-ad0a-6a156e7e0b07)

Meanwhile, at Richard Gere Middle School10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Thousands of miles away, Mack’s golem was eating lint from his pocket and growing larger. The lint happened to be mostly blue because he was wearing blue jeans, but there was some white as well. For variety. And it had a lingering flavor of garlic because, while Mack’s mom had washed these jeans after the golem misunderstood the name Hot Pockets and stuffed a microwaved pizza-flavored Hot Pocket into his pocket, some of that flavor had survived.

When Grimluk tapped Mack to go off and save the world, he gave him the golem to fill in for him at home. The golem now looked exactly like Mack, albeit somewhat muddier, and quite a bit less, um, how to put this gently?