The Mysterious Messenger

by Gilbert Ford

  “But what does Kerouac or Ginsberg have to do with the Fishers?” asked Maria.

  “That I don’t know,” said the librarian.

  “Do you know who Jackson is with his paint in this riddle?” asked Maria.

  The librarian flattened the note and carefully read it. “It could be talking about Jackson Pollock,” he said. He tapped the note a few times. “He was considered an abstract expressionist and was from that time period.”

  “Where can we see his paintings?” asked Sebastian.

  The librarian paused to consider. “Probably the Museum of Modern Art. If you take a left out of the library and walk about ten blocks north, then take a left onto Fifty-Third, you’ll find it.”

  Sebastian pulled Maria aside. “Do you think we should go?”

  Maria shrugged. “I mean, have we found what we’re looking for here? There doesn’t seem to be any treasure or anything having to do with Mrs. Fisher in the collection.”

  “Beats me,” said Sebastian. “Get it? As in BEAT POET.”

  Maria groaned. The Vanguard had left them with one clue: Mrs. Fisher was friends with the poets. But there was nothing at the library about Mrs. Fisher or her treasure. It appeared that the next place to look would have to be the museum. And maybe there would be a clue in one of Jackson Pollock’s paintings. “Yeah,” Maria said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The Museum of Modern Art was jam-packed with visitors. A group of older people crowded the ticket counter while a baby cried by the bathroom. College kids sat around a bench with drawing pads. People speaking in all different languages passed Maria and Sebastian as they stood in line for their tickets.

  “Looks like we’re in luck,” said Sebastian, reading the sign. “Children under sixteen get in free.”

  After they got their passes and showed them to the guard, Sebastian and Maria climbed the first flight of stairs. They found a volunteer at the information desk by the escalators. “Can you tell us how to find a painting by Jackson Pollock?” asked Maria.

  “Of course,” said the woman wearing a geometric sweater. She pulled out a map and drew an X. “Go up to the permanent collection on the fourth floor.”

  The kids ascended the escalators and weaved through the galleries, passing an encaustic painting by Jasper Johns, a large pop art painting by Andy Warhol, and a giant comic panel by Roy Lichtenstein. After they asked a guard to point them in the direction of the Pollock painting, they found it—One: Number 31, 1950.

  The two of them stood motionless before the painting.

  Sebastian said nothing, He pursed his lips as if in deep concentration, taking in the rhythmic splatter of paint applied to the seventeen-foot canvas.

  “It’s a complete mess!” said Maria.

  “It looks like organisms under a microscope,” said Sebastian. “And look how big it is.”

  “I don’t believe it. This was our last hope!” said Maria. She pulled out the riddle and studied it for a second before looking up. “I was hoping it contained an image I would recognize from the poem. A clue. A map. SOMETHING that would lead to the treasure.” She sat down on a bench, exhausted. “I have to go back to Mrs. Fisher and tell her we’re at a dead end.”

  “Okay, I’m coming with you,” Sebastian said. But then he checked his phone. “Shoot. My mom texted an hour ago. I gotta go home. She’s wondering where I am.”

  Maria paused to consider how much trouble she was probably in, but she didn’t have a phone for anyone to tell her. What would another hour do to her if she visited Mrs. Fisher?

  They sprinted out of the museum and hurried onto the train. On the ride to Mrs. Fisher’s, something didn’t sit right with Maria. What was it that these artists all had in common? And why would Edward send her a riddle about artists, but have none of them lead her to treasure?

  13

  Automatic Writing

  Maria was breathless from climbing the stairs when she entered Mrs. Fisher’s apartment. She charged down the hallway to the living room and waited for Mrs. Fisher to return from the kitchen.

  “How was your day?” asked the voice of the widow, who was setting something heavy on a tray in the kitchen.

  “Looooong,” said Maria. Archimedes poked his head out from under the couch. Then Mrs. Fisher breezed into the living room with a tray and tea.

  “Did you find any clues at the Vanguard?” she asked while she poured Maria a fresh cup.

  Maria fell onto the sofa and sighed. “No.” She stretched her arms over the cushions. “We saw the Beats at the library—Jack Kerouac. And then we trekked up to the museum to see a painting by Jackson Pollock, but it was just splattered paint.” She pulled herself upright and grabbed the tea, deciding to cradle it in her lap. “I saw a younger version of you with the Beats in a photo at the Vanguard,” she said. “But I don’t see what it has to do with buried treasure in your apartment.”

  Mrs. Fisher took a sip of tea. “Robert and I were friends with them. They were Beat poets, to be precise,” Mrs. Fisher added. “Although they hated being labeled beatniks once it became popular.”

  Maria nodded. “I know they were Beat poets. I read about it in the library: Jack’s giant scrolls of writing.”

  Archimedes jumped on the sofa with Maria, and she brushed her fingers through his fur. Then the cat pawed her and hopped off.

  “After we were married, my husband ran a small press called the Hungry Ghost, publishing artists and poets with limited printings.”

  “Like it says in the poem?” Maria uncrumpled Edward’s message and read, “Your husband dined with us and served all on his menu.”

  Archimedes strutted up to the dining room table and jumped onto a chair before settling onto the books lying on the table.

  “Correct,” said Mrs. Fisher. “They all sat at this table you see before you. Even then it was covered in books. We lived here in the Village back when the neighborhood was thriving with all kinds of artists. I’d step out for an espresso and bump into the writers William Burroughs, Carl Solomon, Neal Cassady, or Frank O’Hara.” The widow paused and smiled. “There were musicians like Charlie Parker, and the artists like Larry Rivers or illustrators like William Steig. And I’d wear my black turtlenecks and leotards. We stayed up all night discussing art, poetry, politics—everything. My husband taught at the university nearby. Over the years, he’d surround himself with his students and continue the tradition long after the Beat movement ended.”

  “Wait,” said Maria. “Come with me!” She led Mrs. Fisher down the hall to the entrance and pointed at a picture of Mrs. Fisher surrounded by people in a cafe. “Are these your friends? The poets.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Fisher. “The poem is written by a poet, but not one of the Beats mentioned. I don’t know who. We had student poets over well into the late 1990s, just before my husband’s death. That’s why I asked you his last name. He MUST be someone I knew from over the years.”

  “What about the painter, then?” asked Maria, “Did you know him, too? The splatter paint guy?”

  “Jackson Pollock? Not personally,” said Mrs. Fisher, guiding Maria back to the living room. “But, you see—” She placed her tea on the trunk and reached for an art book on the table. “You have to train your eye.” She opened the book and sat down next to Maria on the sofa. Then she thumbed through it until she found a painting. “Remember that wild melody you heard me playing by Dizzy this morning?”

  Maria vaguely remembered the whirring of a trumpet on the scratchy record. “Yeah, it was wild. I get why they called him Dizzy.”

  “And look at the way the paint is applied to Pollock’s canvas.”

  Maria stared at the rhythmic swoops of paint. It flowed and splattered. It dripped and meandered. It DID kind of resemble jazz. “Okay, I think I get it,” she said. “But if all of these artists were related somehow, what do they have to do with buried treasure?”

  “That I don’t know. Maybe your friend was some kind of artist and knew them?” Mrs. Fisher
stood up and clapped her hands. “Archimedes! Down!”

  The cat replied with a grumpy meow. Then he hopped off the table.

  Maria shook her head. “But I don’t know who Edward was before he di—” Maria stopped and looked at her shoes.

  “Was?” Mrs. Fisher asked quickly. “Before he … what?”

  Archimedes’s tail knocked over an empty cup from the trunk.

  “Dear Lord, you’re talking to a … ghost, aren’t you?” Mrs. Fisher grabbed the cup and placed it upright. Then she brushed the cat aside.

  Maria looked away.

  Mrs. Fisher walked around the sofa and shut the window. Then she returned to her seat next to Maria, rubbing her arms as if she was cold. “I’ve been trying to contact Robert through psychics and mediums for many years,” she said. “Sometimes they seem to channel him, but it’s always vague. I’ve relied on faith that he was watching over me. But none of these mediums ever supplied me with as much proof of him as you.”

  Maria wasn’t sure whether she should confirm or stay silent. She decided to say nothing.

  “Behind a mask. You said this morning. You never see him, yet he knows so much about my past. How are you talking to him?” Mrs. Fisher placed her hand on Maria’s shoulder. “Please show me.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Please, Maria,” said Mrs. Fisher. Her voice was soft and low, full of yearning. “Tell me how you’ve come across my dear Robert.”

  Maria lifted her head. She knew what yearning felt like—the need to connect with someone. She often felt that way about Edward. And there was a time she’d felt that way for her mother, long ago. Perhaps it was okay to tell just one person her secret. Maria sighed. She wasn’t getting anywhere helping the widow find her treasure by being vague. Maria leveled her gaze, meeting Mrs. Fisher’s blue eyes. “Promise you won’t tell a soul?”

  “You have my word.”

  “May I have a fresh sheet of paper and a pen?”

  “Certainly.” Mrs. Fisher opened a cupboard and pulled out a thin sheet of notebook paper. Then she fumbled around on the table until she found a pen that worked. “Will this do?”

  Maria nodded and slid the books across the dining room table to make a space for her paper. Then she placed the pen between her knuckles and waited. “Edward?” she said. To her relief, the air grew cool around her. “Mrs. Fisher wants to speak with you. Can you tell her something she needs to hear?”

  Mrs. Fisher cleared her throat, placing her hand on the back of Maria’s chair.

  Maria felt the cool touch of Edward’s hand. She shut her eyes, tilted her head back, and let her pen do the magic.

  * * *

  Maria opened her eyes again. The pen lay flat on the table, and the warmth had returned to her hand, but the paper was gone. She turned around.

  Mrs. Fisher was clutching the message, her eyes watery and her mouth moving. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “Automatic writing.”

  “Auto-what?” Maria asked, shaking her head to clear it.

  “Your method is called automatic writing. The spiritualists used it in the nineteenth century.” The paper trembled in Mrs. Fisher’s hand. “They channeled ghosts through the method that you just showed me.”

  “Okay, but what did Edward tell you?”

  Mrs. Fisher ignored her and studied the paper once again, adjusting her glasses. “The Surrealists later practiced it to tap into their unconscious. And yes, Kerouac wrote from a stream of consciousness on his scroll. And back in my jazz days, some musicians believed they were channeling the divine through improvisations, which is a musical stream of consciousness.”

  Maria pondered the possibility that maybe these artists were all talking to their own Edwards. It was possible. But what did they have to do with gold and jewels? Maria reached for the piece of paper. “What does it say?”

  Mrs. Fisher pulled it away and smiled. “It contains specific directions to me. I must go to the kitchen and see about your snack.”

  “What?” Maria asked. Edward had never talked about snacks with her before.

  “See for yourself.” Mrs. Fisher handed the paper to Maria and then drifted down the hall.

  “Meow!” Archimedes tilted his head at Maria.

  She snatched the paper from the table and rubbed her free hand along the cat’s back. She was beginning to like Archimedes.

  Then Maria read the message:

  Maria is passionate

  for midday snacks.

  Search the cabinets

  For gingersnaps.

  Maria felt her cheeks burn. Edward was making fun of her! And what were gingersnaps anyway?

  Some glass and heavy objects slapped hard surfaces in the other room.

  Maria dashed down the long hallway. When she found the kitchen, Mrs. Fisher was kneeling on the floor, surrounded by boxes and jars of food. Finally, the widow pulled a box of gingersnaps covered in cobwebs and dust from the back of the pantry.

  “Good Lord!” Mrs. Fisher exclaimed, laughing. “Oh, Maria, I hope you didn’t want these gingersnaps!”

  “Why?” Maria asked peering at the box.

  “By the look of it, they’ve been buried in my pantry for over thirty years! They’re no good!”

  Maria scrunched up her face.

  Mrs. Fisher playfully shook the box at Maria’s feet. “Hungry?”

  Archimedes pawed at the box and cocked his head.

  “Go on! Eat it! I dare you,” said Maria.

  Archimedes sniffed the box, then darted from the kitchen and down the hall.

  Mrs. Fisher laughed and rose stiffly from the floor. She steadied herself on the kitchen island and dropped the box of cookies into the trash can. “You know, I’m a terrible homemaker. But before you return, I promise to have done some spring cleaning!”

  Maria smiled and bent to replace boxes of spaghetti, cans of tomatoes, and packages of black-eyed peas back in the pantry.

  “I don’t know if there is buried treasure in my home,” said Mrs. Fisher. “Perhaps the treasure is this talent you have for writing. You seem to share it with all the other artists on the list.”

  Archimedes poked his head back in the kitchen as if to see if it was safe to return.

  Maria thought for a moment about whether she did possess a rare talent that was worth something. Automatic writing couldn’t be very lucrative, could it? But she remembered something the librarian had said about the missing books by Jack Kerouac and other poets. Could those books be worth something? “Hey. Where would you go to find old, rare, or missing books in this town?” asked Maria.

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Fisher. She strummed her fingers on the counter. “Maybe the rare book room at the Strand?”

  “The Strand?” asked Maria.

  “It’s the largest used bookstore in the city,” Mrs. Fisher said.

  The afternoon sunlight moved gently over the copper teakettle and the checkered linoleum floor. Maria knew she would definitely come back after she checked out the Strand.

  Mrs. Fisher gently stroked the cat and smiled.

  Maria decided right then and there that Mrs. Fisher could be trusted.

  She might even be her friend.

  14

  Mutiny

  Maria jumped up the stairs and departed the subway station. The sky had faded from a fair day to a purple bruise. One by one, lights flicked on inside the apartments and mansion windows lining Clinton Avenue. Maria turned a corner and ran up her block, but then she stopped in front of her brownstone.

  The upstairs windows beamed a warm yellow. Lively shadows of heads moved inside the glow. She wondered if any of them belonged to Sebastian.

  Sighing, she turned the cold knob of her front door, but it resisted. The parlor windows stared back at her, dark and solemn. The heavy curtains inside were purple and swollen, blocking out any sign of life inside.

  Maria rang the doorbell and waited. An autumn chill crept inside her hoodie. She shivered and pulled the zipper up to he
r chin. Footsteps pounded inside, growing louder until they stopped at the entrance.

  The door slowly cracked open, and two eyes stared down on Maria.

  “Where were you? The library is closed,” said Madame Destine, her pale face resembling one of Mrs. Fisher’s masks in the moonlight.

  “I was at the library, but—”

  “Get inside!” Madame Destine grabbed Maria by the arm and pulled her into the apartment. She released Maria and deadbolted the door. Then she parted the heavy curtains and jerked her head left and right. “Who you been talking to?”

  Maria rubbed her arm. “No one, I told you.”

  Madame Destine slowly turned around to face Maria and narrowed her eyes. “You weren’t at the library, I checked.” Her red lips formed an eerie smile. “Now, tell me the truth!”

  Maria tried to calm her shaky fingers. She unzipped her hoodie and forced herself to breathe naturally. Quickly, she came up with an excuse. “I was there … but after a while, I went for a walk around Fort Greene Park. I sat on the steps of the monument and read until it got too cold, then I returned the book in the drop box because the library was closed.”

  Maria smiled to herself. She was proud of her lie. It was unlikely that Madame Destine walked all the way to the park to look for her.

  “Who did you talk to in the park?” Madame Destine pried, folding her arms over her chest.

  “No one.”

  “No one … was following you?”

  “Not that I know of.” Maria said with a shrug. She knew she needed to get away from her mom’s questions, so she backed into the master bedroom and opened the door to her closet.

  But Madame Destine blocked the entrance. “Oh, we’re not done!” she said, and grabbed Maria by the wrist, pushing her in the opposite direction. “Go to the kitchen!”

  Maria stumbled into the kitchen and blinked in the bright light.