Chapter 6

Mickey was at odds with himself. Pipwolf had his head in the clouds and there were many peculiarities in this mystery that didn't add up, but there was something else. Something that his fierce rationality couldn't explain. But he was too involved now to back out.

At least they had got off that wretched bike!

“What are we doing here?” he asked Pipwolf curiously, finding himself in front of the door of a house.

“Let's ring the bell.” Pipwolf replied, annoyed by such a trivial question.

A lady greeted them with a friendly smile. Pipwolf asked if he could come in, and without waiting for a reply, he made his way in. The woman called out to her husband, who didn't even lift his gaze from his newspaper. It was only then that Mickey had a horrible suspicion that Pipwolf didn't know the owners.

Mickey tried to apologize, but Pipwolf dragged him along, counting three steps to the right and two to the left, as if it were some kind of treasure hunt. Between Mickey's embarrassment, the lady's astonishment, and the indifference of both the husband and Pipwolf, the two uninvited guests locked themselves in the living room.

Mickey was shaken. Not so much from the absurd situation in which he found himself, but because he felt that shiver down his spine once again. He had felt it when he found the face reflected in the mirror; it had warned him when the menacing shadow emerged from the fog; and now it tormented him while Pipwolf tinkered with an old grandfather clock in the living room of an unknown house. After all this time, Mickey thought that he should follow his instincts. This thought crossed his mind just before he saw the clock pendulum... distort.

The room began to spin and the clock became a whirl of color. Leaving would have been the logical thing to do but Pipwolf slipped straight into the vortex that appeared, disappearing inside. Mickey was agog. Then, Pipwolf's arm reappeared; the werewolf gestured for him to follow.

And against his better judgement, Mickey accepted the invitation, and the shiver down his spine was more intense than ever.

He slipped into the vortex and disappeared into thin air.

At first, he felt himself falling. Then Mickey seemed to be flying but at the same time he felt dizzy. He saw images of the recent past—Minnie crossing the park with him, Toppersby boasting about the junk in his shop, and Marzabar, who reminded him that using reason to judge the world around us wasn't enough. But what can you put your faith in if not reason? A voice replied, “The shiver, Mickey! Trust the shiver!”

An arm brandishing a carpet beater advanced into the living room. It was the lady of the house, who was checking up on the two intruders. Too bad that there was no trace of them. She was still scratching her head and peering under the sofa when the doorbell rang again. Bewildered, she went to open it. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck and the carpet beater fell from her hand at the mere sight of the stranger that appeared in the doorway. She didn't cry out but merely pointed to the door of the living room. Then she sat down at the table without saying a word, looking pale and terrified, in front of her husband, who was sitting in his dressing gown, undaunted and undisturbed from his reading. EXr6287u6NNVz+GYLY+7SBsrcqIjTEksQl6hvkLhtOzogwUEg6k7NKkMkEKPp6LyPax8lT9VnO+uJTeQipvxVw==