Chapter 2

Chapter Two IN WHICH Several Things Are Taken, Including a Test Thimbletack sprinted across the lawn, hopping from shadow to shadow. Mallory was still fencing against the wall of the old carriage house, her back to where Simon had been. Jared walked up behind her and tugged the headphones off her ears by the cord. She turned, foil pointing at his chest. "What?" "Simon's been grabbed by goblins!"

Mallory's eyes narrowed. She looked around the lawn. "Goblins?" "Must make haste." Thimbletack's voice was as shrill as a bird's. "No time to waste." "Come on." Jared gestured toward the carriage house where the little brownie was waiting. "Before they get us." "SIMON!" Mallory shouted. "Shut up." Jared took her arm and yanked her into the carriage house, closing the door after them. "They're going to hear you." "Who is going to hear me?" Mallory demanded. "Goblins?" Jared ignored her. Neither one of them had been inside the building before. It smelled of gasoline and mildew. A tarp covered an old black car. Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with metal tins and mason jars half-filled with brown and yellow liquids. There were even stalls where horses must have been stabled long ago. A stack of boxes and leather trunks occupied one corner.

Thimbletack hopped up on a can of paint and pointed toward the boxes. "Hurry! Hurry! If they come, we must scurry!" "If Simon got grabbed by goblins, why are we rooting through garbage?" Mallory asked. "Here," Jared said, holding out the book and pointing to the picture of the stone. "We're looking for this." "Oh, great," she said. "It'll be so easy to find in this mess." "Just hurry," said Jared. The first trunk contained a saddle, a few bridles, some combs, and other equipment for taking care of horses. Simon would have been fascinated. Jared and Mallory opened the next box together. It was full of old, rusted tools. Then they found a few boxes stuffed with tableware wrapped in dirty towels. "Aunt Lucinda must have never thrown out anything," Jared said. "Here's another one." Mallory sighed as she dragged a small wooden crate over to her brother.

The top slid open in a dusty groove, revealing wadded up newspapers. "Look how old these are," Mallory said. "This one says 1910." "I didn't even think there were newspapers in 1910," said Jared. Inside each crumpled piece of paper was a different item. Jared unrolled one to discover a pair of metal binoculars. In another he found a

magnifying glass. The print below it was made huge. "This one's from 1927. They're all different." Jared picked up another page. "Girl drowns in empty well.' Weird." "Hey, look at this." Mallory straightened one of the sheets. "1885. 'Local boy lost.' Says he was eaten by a bear. Look at the surviving brother's name! 'Arthur Spiderwick.' "There it is! This is his!" Thimbletack said, climbing into the box. When he resurfaced, he held the strangest eyepiece Jared had ever seen.

It covered only a single eye and attached to the face with an adjustable nose clip as well as two leather straps and a chain. Backed in stiff, brown leather, four metal clamps waited to hold a lens of some kind. But the strangest thing about the device was the series of magnifying lenses on movable metal arms. The strangest eyepiece