Will knows somehow that this mask will help him defeat the Dark, though, so he makes sure to hide it from the Rider.

On Christmas the Rider comes knocking right after Will gets a weird carnival mask from his brother Stephen. the Rider) knows his dad and visits their house. That is until Will figures out that the head honcho of the Dark (a.k.a. Will goes home and hangs out with his family-who have been frozen in time-and most things go back to normal. It turns out Old Ones can travel through time and space, so the old lady can escape them. They take the old lady Merriman gets annoyed but tells Will that she's okay. Will's messing around with his magic when the Dark comes knocking. Before Will can play around with his new trick, he's told that he must go on a quest for Signs. He doesn't believe at first, but sure enough, he thinks of a fire and then one appears in the fireplace. Say what? Will's confused, but it all starts making sense when they tell Will to think of something and make it happen. he has secret powers and can live forever. They explain to him that he's an Old One, a.k.a. He goes inside the doors, where he meets an old lady and a man named Merriman. Will knows something fishy is happening, too-it isn't just us. Then Will is given a horse, which takes him to a random set of doors in the woods. Will's hungry but he's also suspicious, so he doesn't take it. Before long, a mysterious woman comes up to him and offers him bread. There's no time to sort this out, though, because Will notices snow outside, and lots of it, too, so he starts playing outside. When he wakes up, though, something weird has happened: Will can see all of his family members… but they can't see or hear him. He goes about his daily chores on the farm and then goes to bed, hoping for snow. You'd think the fact that his birthday is right around the corner would make him happy, but the guy's annoyed-all he wants for his birthday is for it to snow, and he's pretty sure that won't happen. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Susan cooper's the dark is rising