Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

69

Zack dragged the steamer trunk out of the crawl space.

He bumped into a few support posts, tripped over a crusty pile of rubble, and fell backward into a mud puddle that left his butt feeling all kinds of squishy, but finally, he found the opening in the cinder block wall.

He heaved the antique case up and shoved it into the hallway.

More darkness.

Where was a glowing ghost when you needed one?

Zack pushed the trunk up the corridor, figuring it could bulldoze over anything blocking his path. He paused once to catch his breath and heard the skittering claws of what he hoped was just a rat.

Zack pushed faster and hoped he could outrace the rodent.

To the light up ahead!

It was faint and distant but it was, indeed, a light—glowing brightly just beyond the next brick archway.

70

Zack shoved the trunk into what looked like a costume storage room.

Rolling wardrobe racks jammed with clothes hanging in plastic bags ringed the floor. It looked sort of like a dry cleaning museum with a three-hundred-watt bulb burning in the ceiling.

And no rodents.

Zack saw a dressmaker’s mannequin wearing the Curiosity Cat suit being constructed for Tomasino Carrozza. It looked like a scarecrow standing guard.

Or, since it was a cat costume, a scare-rat.

Perfect.

Zack propped the steamer trunk up on its end, unsnapped the heavy clasps, and pushed open the lid. The trunk had a hanging rack on one side and a stack of drawers on the other. It was the sort of luggage people in history books packed when they sailed across the ocean.

Everything inside the trunk was musty. Zack riffled through the clothes. A black topcoat with tails, black woolen pants, a yellowing tuxedo shirt, and a shimmering black robe lined with red silk. He also found, hanging in a bag at the far end of the rod, a purple turban with an emerald green Egyptain beetle brooch pinned to its center.

“Cool.”

When he pulled out the turban to examine the jeweled scarab more closely, he saw a poster plastered to the back wall of the trunk: Professor Nicholas Nicodemus. World-Renowned Sorcerer and Necromancer!

Underneath the headline was an illustration depicting a snooty-looking man in topcoat and tails. His lacquered black hair glistened under the turban, and his arms were folded across his chest. He was wearing the costume inside the trunk!

Zack turned to the stack of drawers on the right and pulled open the biggest one, the one on the bottom.

It was filled with tubes of paper.

He pulled one out, unrolled it. It was a poster showing Professor Nicodemus staring at a human skull with hazy smoke swirling up out of its eye sockets. The curling wisps carried ghostly visions of floating dead people. Little red devils sat perched on the magician’s shoulders, assisting him as, apparently, he summoned dead souls up from the underworld to join him onstage.

Must’ve been some act.

Zack pulled another poster out of the bottom drawer. This one was printed on rough paper the color of a grocery sack and filled with shouting type.

COMING!

PROFESSOR NICHOLAS NICODEMUS

THE WORLD-RENOWNED SORCERER AND NECROMANCER APPEARING IN

“DO THE SPIRITS COME BACK?”

ORIGINAL AND MORE MARVELOUS ILLUSIONS

THAN EVER PERFORMED BY

THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, THE MYSTICAL PHOENICIANS ,

OR THE NECROMANCERS OF INDIA

• • • • •

SEE THE DEAD RISE FROM THEIR TOMBS!

• • • • •

GAZE IN AWE AS SPIRITS SOAR

ACROSS THE STAGE AT HIS COMMAND!

• • • • •

SPEAK TO YOUR DECEASED FAMILY AND FRIENDS

AS PROFESSOR NICODEMUS

UNLEASHES THE FULL POWERS OF RESURRECTION!

At the bottom of the broadside, just under the prices and performance times, was printed the name of the theater where Professor Nicodemus was to appear.

JULY & AUGUST, 1939

THE HANGING HILL PLAYHOUSE—CHATHAM, CONNECTICUT

A PANDEMONIUM PRODUCTION

Pandemonium.

There was that word again.

Zack had to find a dictionary.

Or talk to Meghan.

After all, she knew what “vicariously” meant. Maybe “pandemonium” was one of her vocabulary words, too.

71

All around him, actors were acting, singing, and laughing but Reginald Grimes wasn’t paying any attention.

It was nearly noon and he was thinking about his grandfather: Professor Nicholas Nicodemus. A brilliant man who had failed so miserably.

Hakeem had told him the story: how the great one had blundered when he’d attempted to throw open the doors to the underworld and had completed only half of the resurrection ritual before being hauled away by the authorities to live out the rest of his days in an insane asylum!

“From the top again?”

“Hmmm?”

“Would you like us to take it from the top again?” the composer asked from the piano bench.

“Yes. Again! From the top.”

He’d work the cast hard today. Wear them out. Exhaust them with vocal gymnastics and grueling dance routines. He’d run this rehearsal like an aerobics class in a sauna! He’d tell Hakeem to turn off the air-conditioning, let the room fill with the unrelenting humidity of August’s dog days. After six more hours of strenuous exercise, every bone-weary member of this cast and crew would be too exhausted to venture back to the theater tonight and interfere.

Meghan and Derek he would dismiss early, as there was no pressing need to fatigue or drain them. Besides, the boy needed time to work on his new lines.

It was Monday.

That meant the theater would be dark. There would be no performances of Bats in Her Belfry . No audience. No uninvited interlopers.

In just over seven hours, Reginald Grimes would succeed where his forefather had ultimately failed!

The music stopped. The singing ceased.

“Lunch break!” said the stage manager.

“What?” said Grimes, sounding half-asleep.

“Lunch break, sir. You said you wanted to take an hour break at noon?”

“I suppose I did. Meghan? Derek? You two are done for the day. Go work on your lines.”

“Yes, sir!” said Derek.

“I will see you again at seven,” said Grimes. “The rest of you, be back at one. We will begin to choreograph the dance numbers. Be sure to wear your gym clothes. I want to see you sweat!”

“That’s one hour for lunch!” said the stage manager.

The cast and crew shuffled out of the rehearsal room.

“Hakeem?”

“Yes, Exalted One?”

“Turn off the AC!”

72

So far, Judy wasn’t impressed with her brilliant director.

He didn’t even pay attention during the read-through. Jeff Woodman, the actor playing the father, kept calling Curiosity Cat “Monstrosity Cat” and Grimes hadn’t said a single word.

She approached the head table.

“Mr. Grimes?”

He didn’t look up. He was still completely engrossed in that big leather book, the one with Professor Nicholas Nicodemus embossed in gold letters on the cover.

“So who’s Professor Nicodemus?” she asked.

That got his attention.

He looked up. Stroked his mustache with a single finger.

“My grandfather. It was a stage name, of course. Professor Nicodemus was one of the greatest magicians who ever lived! He even performed here.”

“When?”

“During vaudeville. Back in the 1930s.”

“What’s in the book?”

“Secrets. Illusions.”

“I see.”