The Mansion in the Mist Read Online Free PDF Page B

Emerson, as he gazed thoughtfully out across the darkening lake. "In fact, I believe you so much that I'd like to go have a look at this mansion myself."
    Anthony's mouth dropped open. "What did you say?"
    Emerson calmly flicked a piece of lint off his shirt. "I said, I'd like to take a look at the place myself. I mean, it isn't every day that you get a chance to visit another world. Besides, if those characters are up to something, I'd like to know what it is."
    Anthony was flabbergasted. Here was Emerson talking about visiting the strange and frightening world of the mansion, and he was talking calmly! He might have been getting ready to go visit his cousin Hattie in Bemidji, or something like that.
    Anthony's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Finally he found his voice. "Mr. Eells!" he gasped. "Aren't you scared?"
    Emerson gave Anthony an odd look. "Of course I am. But scientific curiosity overcomes my fear—I just want to see what that place looks like!"
    Later that evening, as the three of them sat playing cards in the lamplit parlor of the cottage, Emerson and Anthony talked about the chest to Miss Eells. She was very relieved to know that Anthony was not losing his mind, but she was thoroughly alarmed at the idea that Emerson was planning to go and spy on those evil black-robed plotters.
    "Em, are you out of your mind?" exclaimed Miss Eells as she pitched a card onto the table. "They almost caught Anthony, and they might catch you. You might be tortured or killed or... or anything!"
    "Oh, I don't know about that," said Emerson calmly. "I have ways of protecting myself. By the way, Myra, you can't play a heart till hearts have been broken."
    Miss Eells snatched the card back and threw out a spade. "Don't try to change the subject, Em. What on earth do you mean by protection?"
    Emerson grinned. "I mean my amulet collection. Surely there's something in there that will help."
    Anthony's mouth dropped open. He knew what Emerson was talking about: Emerson was a lawyer by profession, but his hobby was magic. The study of his home in St. Cloud was crammed with books on magic and the occult, and on the shelves and the library table were cases containing objects that were supposed to be magic. Emerson had brought some of them with him to the cottage, in a mahogany case that had once held silverware. Many times in the last two weeks Anthony had seen Emerson with the case open in his lap. He was poring over his treasures, peering at them through a magnifying glass. The amulets were indeed an odd collection: There was a glass tube full of sand from the Gobi desert—it had been blessed by a Tibetan monk. There was a medieval German coin hanging from a chain of bronze links. A flat glass case containing a scrap of paper that had been found on the body of a bishop after he died. Turkish coins with mystical inscriptions on them, miniature Russian icons in gold frames, cloth scapulars with pictures of obscure saints on them. Gold-mounted teeth from the skulls of long-dead wizards, and brass medals and tiny ivory statuettes that glowed in the dark. All the amulets were fitted with chains or stout leather straps so that they could be worn to ward off evil.
    After an awkward silence, Miss Eells spoke up. She was just as skeptical as ever, besides being angry and frightened. "Look here, Em," she began in a severe tone, "do you really think these trinkets will keep you from being grabbed by those weird-looking nuts in the mansion? Good heavens, you've never tested these things! For all you know, they wouldn't ward off a gnat! And here you are, ready to risk your life with this kind of idiotic protection. It's insane, Em, utterly and totally insane!"
    "You may think so, Myra," said Emerson frostily, "but I am of another opinion. All of these amulets came to me with documents that proved their reliability—at least, they proved it to me. I know, I know... documents sometimes lie. But these are signed by famous sorcerers, and