Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

He’d left the book behind.

It was sitting in the middle of the head table.

Judy tiptoed over. She wasn’t exactly sure why she was tiptoeing. It just felt like she was snooping.

The book had a crinkled leather cover. A frightening image of a snorting bull had been scorched into the center with a branding iron.

Library of Professor Nicholas Nicodemus was embossed in chipped gold letters in the lower right corner.

Judy reached out to open the book.

She snapped back her hand as soon as she heard the door swing open behind her.

The man named Hakeem, Grimes’s assistant, scurried into the rehearsal room.

“Ah! There it is!” he said. “Just where Mr. Grimes left it.”

He snatched the big book off the table, turned on his heel, and hurried out the door before Judy could ask him anything.

Like Who the heck is Professor Nicholas Nicodemus?

36

Zack and Meghan stood mesmerized by what they saw shimmering on the far wall.

“Cool,” said Meghan.

“Yeah,” Zack agreed.

It was a young girl and boy, both wearing costumes that sort of made them look like that sailor on the front of a Cracker Jack box.

Both juggling fruit.

“They’re pretty good,” whispered Zack. He didn’t recognize the boy, but the girl sure looked familiar. She was the one he and Meghan had seen juggling in the stairwell. Only, she wasn’t.

“She’s not real,” said Zack.

“That’s her,” said Meghan.

“Yeah. Only it’s not really her. She’s—I don’t know—too flat.” Zack held a finger to his lips. “Hear it?”

“Yeah,” said Meghan.

The faint whir of a movie projector.

Zack took a top hat off a Styrofoam head and blew away the dust rimming its brim. Soon tiny flecks were sparkling in the movie projector’s narrow funnel of light.

Zipper made his way to where the beacon disappeared through the costumes hanging on a wardrobe rack, and Zack thought about that scene in The Wizard of Oz where Toto pulls open the curtains to reveal the humbug pretending to be a wizard. Today it was Zipper’s turn. He chomped into a gown and yanked it sideways.

Meghan lunged at the rack with a rubber-tipped tomahawk, another prop from another show.

“Hiyah!” She attacked the empty clothes. “Hiyah!”

“Meghan?”

“Nothing,” she reported. “Nobody.”

Zack peered through the opening and saw an unattended movie projector unspooling a reel of film.

“Somebody set this up,” he said. “Hung that sheet against the wall to make a movie screen.”

“Why?”

Zack shrugged. “Maybe they like old juggler movies.”

“Yeah, you don’t see many of those at the multiplex anymore.”

All of a sudden, they heard the sharp swick-swickswick of a swishing sword.

“‘A hit, a very palpable hit!’”

Zipper dropped to his belly, assumed his pounce position.

Zack and Meghan pushed apart the costumes and peered out at a dashing young man in tights, a tunic, and what looked like balloon-legged shorts. He was flicking his rapier back and forth, fencing with an unseen enemy.

“‘Another hit; what say you?’ ‘A touch, a touch, I do confess!’”

“That’s the swordfight scene from Hamlet,” Meghan whispered. “He’s doing all the parts!”

The guy was fit and trim, with long dark hair that swept back over the puffy shoulders of his costume. He waggled his blade with one hand while the other remained heroically cocked at his hip. Zack figured he must’ve been a leading man or a movie star. Maybe both.

“‘O villainy!’ Ho!” He clutched his chest. “‘Thou hast slain me!’” He staggered forward. “‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant ne’er taste of death but once.’” He dropped to his knees. “I … am … done … for.”

And then he vanished

“He’s a ghost,” said Zack. “A real one!”

“He’s also a ham,” said Meghan. “I’ve never seen anybody chew that much scenery in one bite.”

“Help!”

“That’s Derek!” said Zack.

“Help! It’s a giant! A giant monster!”

Zack and Meghan looked at each other.

“Cool!”

They’d track down the missing projectionist later. Right now they had to go rescue Derek Stone from some sort of Giant Monster!

No wonder Kimble didn’t want kids in the basement. It was more fun than Disney World!

37

“You bolted the doors?” Hakeem asked his two associates.

They nodded.

“The janitor?”

“Working elsewhere.”

Hakeem now turned to Grimes. “When is your next scheduled performance?”

“This afternoon. Three p.m.”

“Good. We have time. Several hours.”

“For what?”

“Your audition, Exalted One. Please. Let us form a circle.”

The three Tunisian men held hands.

Great , Grimes thought, they want me to play ring-around-the-rosy. Right here at center stage. On the darkened set of Dracula’s castle .

“Please, Exalted One. Take our hands. Form a circle with us around this lamp. We must be positioned over the portal.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Grimes reached out with his right hand and clutched the extended left hand of the giant named Badir.

While he did, Hakeem reached over and took hold of Grimes’s left. Elevated his crippled arm. The pain washed up through the shoulder socket, then drifted away.

“Tighten the circle, gentlemen,” Hakeem said, and the four men shuffled closer to the ghost light. The caged bulb was exceedingly bright. At least five hundred watts. Grimes feared it might fry a permanent dot onto his retina.

“Tell me, Exalted One,” said Hakeem, “have you ever sensed that you might possess the power to bring back the spirit of one long since departed? To summon forth the souls of the dead?”

Grimes shook his head. Answered honestly. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Think hard.”

“No. I never …”

Jinx!

The cat. Yesterday. Had he brought back the spirit of his long-dead friend simply by wishing for it?

“My cat,” he whispered. “Maybe.”

The other men sighed and nodded.

“This is good,” said Hakeem. “Very good. You might, indeed, be blessed with your grandfather’s gifts.”

Hearing that caused Grimes to stand a little taller, his chest to swell. “Well, I suppose it’s possible. Maybe a little.”

“We shall see. Badir? Anoint the ground!”

The big man broke the circle so he could reach into a pouch he carried slung over his shoulder. He started to sprinkle dirt at their feet.

“What’s that?” Grimes asked.

“Earth. From a graveyard. Jamal?”

Now Jamal let go of the hands he was holding and produced a cloth sack.

“Eat!” he said, presenting Grimes with a stale slice of black bread.

Grimes ate. It was dry and tasteless.

“Drink!” Out came a small corked vial containing purple liquid.

“What is it?” Grimes asked.

“Unfermented grape juice,” answered Hakeem.

Grimes drank. The juice was sour. Needed sugar.

Now Jamal unwrapped a sheet of butcher paper from around a slab of gray meat resembling jerky.

“Am I to eat this as well?” Grimes asked.

“Yes,” said Hakeem. “It is the final course.”

Grimes took the meat from Jamal. “What is the meaning behind all this?”

“These are all food items associated with the underworld. The realm of the dead.”

Grimes nodded. Chewed on the tough, stringy meat.

“Unleavened black bread!” Hakeem declared. “With out yeast, it is lifeless and black like the shroud of death. Grape juice! To honor Dionysus, the Greek god of the vine. One of the few ancient deities able to ferry dead souls up from the underworld!”