They were on their way home when -- for no reason that Lewis could see -- Jonathan stopped the car. He turned off the motor and sat there staring at the row of green dashboard lights.
"What's wrong, Uncle Jonathan?" asked Lewis.
"I keep imagining that I hear a car somewhere," said Jonathan. "Do you hear it, Florence?"
"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Zimmermann, giving him a puzzled look. "But what's so odd about that? They do let people drive these roads at night, you know."
"Do they?" said Jonathan in a strange voice. He opened the car door and stepped out onto the gravel. "Stay here," he said to them. He walked up the road a little ways and stood there, listening. Even with the car door open, Lewis could hear nothing but the wind in the roadside trees and the clattering of a tin sign a barbed-wire fence. The car was parked near the top of a high hill, and now Lewis could see see headlights rising out of a gully and then dipping into the next one.
Jonathan came running back to the car. He slammed the door and started the motor. With a squealing of tires, he turned the car around and headed back the way they had come.
Lewis was frightened. "What's wrong, Uncle Jonathan?" he asked.
"Ask me later, Lewis. Florence, what's the best way -- other way -- back to New Zebedee?"
"Take the next side road to your right. That's Twelve Mile Road, and it runs into the Wilder Creek Road. And step on it. They're gaining."
Many times, when he had been out riding with his father and mother, Lewis had pretended that they were being followed by some car or other. It was a good game to pass the time on long dull evening rides, and he remembered how he had always felt disappointed when the mystery car turned away into a side street or a driveway. But tonight the game was for real.
Around sharp curves they went, lurching dangerously far over and squeling the tires. Up hills, down hills, then seventy or eighty miles an hour on the straightaway, which was never straight for long on these winding country roads. Lewis had never seen Jonathan drive so fast, or so recklessly. But no matter how fast he drove, the two gold circles of light still burned in his rear-view mirror.
Both Mrs. Zimmermann and Uncle Jonathan seemed to know who or what was in the car behind them -- or at least they seemed to know that it was someone that had the power to do harm. But they said as little as possible, except to confer now and then about directions. So Lewis just sat there, trying to feel comforted by the green dashboard lights and the warm breath of the heater on his knees. Of course, he also felt comforted by the two wizards, whose warm friendly bodies pressed against his in the furry darkness. But he knew that they were scared, and that made him twice as scared.
