Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

But in his performance at Chatham’s Hanging Hill Playhouse, the self-proclaimed necromancer (one who communes with the dead), who wears a turban suggestive of the exotic East, was anything but innocent.

After some mildly amusing hypnotism and mind reading antics with willing volunteers from the audience, the “professor” proceeded to summon forth “those foul spirits who traipse between this world and the next.”

The spirits first summoned were harmless enough: a skeleton playing a banjo, a green goblin with a violin, and a waifish young woman surrounded by a flock of fluttering doves.

It was in the second half of his act that Nicodemus crossed the line from innocent entertainer to treacherous sorcerer as he pretended to call forth the souls of Connecticut’s most notorious criminals.

He summoned William Bampfield, a Pilgrim sent to the gallows in 1636 after he killed his wife and three young daughters. Next came the most egregious example of Professor Nicodemus’s ill-considered conjuring, Lilly Pruett, the psycho path who terrorized Hartford in the late 1890s. She swooped across the stage, brandishing her bloody hatchet, the one made infamous in the jump rope rhyme “Lilly Pruett said she didn’t do it.”

It was at this point in the evening’s proceedings that this reporter vacated the theater. I am pleased to report that I wasn’t the only gentleman in attendance who chose to walk out on Professor Nicodemus’s misguided shenanigans. Pretending to dabble in spirituality for the audience’s amusement is one thing. Terrorizing your spectators with foul visitations from the lower depths is quite another!

This reviewer has no idea how the “necromancy” illusions were engineered and, frankly, has no desire to find out. It was, in my professional opinion, tasteless and tawdry gimcrackery of the worst sort!

“Wow,” said Judy. “Sounds like Mr. Grimes’s grandfather put on a pretty twisted show.”

“Mr. Grimes’s grandfather?” said Mrs. McKenna.

“Professor Nicodemus was his stage name.”

“Wait a minute,” said Mrs. McKenna. “I heard Grimes was an orphan.”

“Really?”

“I asked about his crippled arm and the company manager told me Grimes injured it in an accident at an orphanage when he was very young.”

“Okay,” said Judy, sitting back from the table. “Guess you guys will have plenty to talk about at that party tonight.”

80

Meghan and Zack, with Zipper on his leash, bounded down the steps of the Hanging Hill’s front porch just as their mothers walked up the winding footpath from the street.

“Hey, Mom!” said Zack and Meghan at the same time.

The two mothers laughed.

“Where are you guys headed?” asked Judy.

“Taking Zipper for a walk,” said Zack.

“Good idea. I have to head back inside for more rehearsal.”

“I don’t!” said Meghan.

“Lucky you,” said Judy.

“Meghan?” Mrs. McKenna said.

“Yes, Mom?”

“Don’t forget—we still have schoolwork to do.”

“I know.”

“And you have to dress for the party.”

“Really?”

“He’s your director, sweetie. I think a nice pair of pants and a clean shirt would be appropriate. Be back by two, okay?”

“Okay!”

Zack glanced at his watch. They had about an hour to figure out why the Pandemonium Players were called that and why ghosts were telling him to beware of pandemonium.

Zipper led the way as they strolled along the sidewalk and headed for the library.

“Your mom’s pretty cool,” said Zack.

“Yours, too,” said Meghan.

“Yeah. I guess I got lucky the second time around.”

“What do you mean?”

Zack figured he might as well go ahead and tell Meghan the truth. “My real mom never liked me.”

“How come?”

Zack shrugged. “I dunno. She said I ruined her life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Judy’s a great stepmom!”

“Yeah,” said Zack, feeling weirdly guilty the instant he said it.

“They close at one?” said Meghan, sounding surprised as she read a sign in front of the Chatham Public Library.

“August hours,” said a lady wearing red reading glasses and standing on the stoop outside the library’s front doors. “No air-conditioning.”

“We just want to look up one word,” said Zack.

The lady, who was probably the librarian, started hyperventilating. “You’re Meghan McKenna!”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m—”

“In town doing that new musical.”

“Yes. It’s called Curiosity —”

“Cat! I can’t believe you’re really you!”

Meghan shrugged. “I’m me, all right.”

“Meghan McKenna!”

“Yep.”

“I’m Doris Ann Norris. Town librarian. Is that your dog?”

“Well, actually …”

“Oh, where are my manners? Won’t you children please come in?”

“I thought you were closed,” said Zack.

“Not when a movie star needs a book!”

Meghan scooped up Zipper. “Is it okay if …?”

“Of course. Come in! Come in!”

Zack followed Meghan and Zipper into the building.

The librarian peered at him over the tops of her half-moon spectacles. “Are you somebody, too?”

“No. Not really.”

“He’s Zack Jennings,” said Meghan. “His stepmom is Judy Magruder Jennings.”

The librarian gasped. “She was just here! Just a few minutes ago! Oh, my! Famous authors! Movie stars! What an exciting day this has turned out to be!”

And the librarian hadn’t even been chased by a crazy lady swinging a bloody hatchet.

“Does the word ‘pandemonium’ mean anything besides, you know, the usual stuff?” Zack asked once Meghan had signed a few autographs for various members of the librarian’s family.

“Oh, yes.” She led them to a short bookcase filled with encyclopedias and pulled out the volume marked “M.”

Zack had always thought it was spelled with a P.

“Here we go,” said the librarian. “Are you familiar with John Milton?”

“Not really,” said Zack.

“Milton was an English poet in the 1600s most famous for his epic Paradise Lost . In it, he called the capital city of Hell ‘Pandemonium.’ It’s Greek for ‘all demons.’ In Book IV, all hell breaks loose—literally. The demons scatter across the earth, creating chaos. The city’s name, therefore, has become synonymous with disorder.”

“Beware Pandemonium,” Zack mumbled.

“Indeed. If such a city truly existed, I certainly wouldn’t want to live there or visit it!”

“Can I ask another question? Why is the resident acting company at the Hanging Hill Playhouse called the Pandemonium Players?”

81

The librarian escorted Meghan and Zack into the rare books room, where their mothers had just been.

“These are the playbills from every show presented at the Hanging Hill Playhouse over the past forty years. Maybe in one, we’ll find a producer’s note explaining the acting company’s name choice.” She gave Meghan the 1970s and Zack the 1980s. “I’ll tackle the sixties myself. You two would find the hairstyles far too amusing.”

For half an hour, Zipper snoozed under the table while the three of them flipped through magazine pages.

Zack worked through the shows done between 1980 and 1985. Put On Your Shoes. County Fair! My Man Stan . Still nothing about why they were called the Pandemonium Players.

He opened the program for a musical called Flipperty Gibbet . He scanned the title page and the cast list, then moved on to the cast biographies—short paragraphs of theatrical credits, tucked around yearbook-sized photographs of the actors in the show.