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magic world around him, a nighttime world bewitched into seeming morning by the wizard moon. Annabelle stood silent at his feet, and then, all at once, the old dog stiffened and whined. Nudged in his trance, Egan bent to soothe her but she pulled away from his hand, her ears high. She whined again, moved forward, stopped with tilted head, listening. Then with a yelp she ran on into the mist and disappeared. From somewhere up ahead a low groan echoed and Egan, his stick in his hand, moved slowly after Annabelle, straight toward the very top of Kneeknock Rise.

    On the cliffside below, the rescuers paused.
    “The storm is over. Look, there’s the moon!” said one of the men. “And the Megrimum’s been quiet for quite a while now.”
    “Look here, Anson,” said another. “I think we should search around a bit. That boy of yours can’t have gone all the way up. He must be somewhere about.”
    “Perhaps,” said Uncle Anson. “We’ll divide up and look. But if we don’t find him, I’m going on to the top.”
    With swaying arcs of lantern light washing the dark, the men spread out among the trees along the side of the Rise. Below, in her garden behind the little house, Aunt Gertrude stood wringing her hands. She could hear, faintly, the tinkling of the bell, warning away the Megrimum, and heard as well the distant, muffled voice of her husband calling: “Egan! Egan! Where are you, Nephew? E-e-e-gan!”
    Out in the fields, the visitors knew something had happened.
    “A boy, you say?”
    “What? Climbing up the Rise?”
    “A terrible thing—terrible. It called the child, perhaps, called the child to climb.”
    “Where was the boy’s mother, then, to let him run away?”
    “They’re climbing up to find him. Look—see the lights of the lanterns.”
    “Brave men, brave men all.”
    “Never come down again, ever.”

    Egan, deep in the mist, heard nothing. He wandered up the final stony slope toward the top like a sleepwalker lost in dreams. The heavy air around him, tinted and dim and moist, was growing unaccountably warmer, and a faint, unpleasant smell he could not quite recognize crept into his nostrils. And then he stopped, chilled suddenly out of his trance. Just ahead there came a noise as of an animal thrashing about, and the low rumble of a voice.
    He crept forward, grasping the nearly forgotten stick tightly, and his heart pounded. The Megrimum! At last, the Megrimum! Slay it, perhaps—perhaps; but at least he would see it.
    More thrashing in the weeds ahead. “Owanna-ooowanna,” the voice seemed to murmur.
    Closer and closer crept Egan and then he saw it dimly, all flailing arms, rolling about on the ground.
    Another few cautious steps, and then:
    “Oh, Anna, Anna, dear old dog!” crooned the voice. There before him, sitting on the ground, was a wild-haired, laughing man who had to be his Uncle Ott, engulfed and struggling happily in the wriggling, wagging ecstasy of Annabelle.
    Egan stood with his mouth hanging open. The stick dropped from his hand, and at the sound the man and the dog paused in their greeting and looked toward him. Annabelle trotted over and beamed at him and then turned back.
    “Hallo there, boy. Who might you be?” said the man warily.
    Egan gulped. “Why, I’m your nephew. Sort of. That is, if you really are my Uncle Anson’s brother. Are you? Are you Uncle Ott?”

     

     
    “That’s right!” said Uncle Ott in great surprise. “And you—you must be Anson’s wife’s sister’s boy. I guess I’ve got that right. But what in the name of goodness are you doing up here?”
    “I came…” Egan paused. “Well, I came to kill the Megrimum.” He waited for his uncle to laugh or scold, but Ott did neither. He merely nodded as if it were all quite natural. “But where is the Megrimum?” asked Egan. “And why is it so awfully warm up here?”
    Uncle Ott stood up and brushed bits of twigs and leaves from his clothes.
    “The Megrimum. Yes. I came to find it, too.”