The Black Heart Crypt

by Chris Grabenstein

“We three declare it so, the uninvited visitor must now go,” said Azalea with a shrug, because, Zack could tell, she had no idea why she had committed such nonsense to memory.

  But she kept on going. “Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.”

  Since they didn’t have a cat, Zack gave Zipper the hand command for “Speak.”

  Zip howled.

  Zack tucked the tiny black heart into his shirt pocket and motioned for Malik to move closer, for Azalea to take a step to her left.

  The three friends were forming a circle around the frozen highwayman.

  “Round the dybbuk now we go,” chanted Azalea, doing the whole thing from memory. “Leave this body by the toe. Spirit, under cold stone lie; you have had your chance to die.”

  “Sprinkle the powder,” Zack said to Malik, who flung the whole sparkling contents of his open jar at the back of the bandit’s head. Glittery clumps landed in the gullies on all three sides of his hat.

  Zack stretched out his hands. Malik and Azalea understood. They linked hands with Zack and each other and started circling Jack the Lantern, ring-around-the-rosy style.

  “Eye of newt and hoof of cow,” Azalea said dramatically, nearing her big finish. “Leave this body, leave it now!”

  Zack pulled out the tiny tin party horn and blew sour trumpet blasts like it was a World Cup soccer match.

  “Is that really necessary?” asked Azalea, scrunching up her shoulders in an attempt to cover her ears.

  “Yeah. The sour notes jar the soul out of the body.”

  “Look!” said Malik.

  Jack the Lantern started to quiver.

  And shimmy.

  And shake.

  His body slumped to the floor.

  A purple mist seeped up out of his crumpled form.

  The violet cloud quickly took shape.

  The ghost of Barnabas Ickleby rose beside the body of Norman Ickes.

  “I need a hammer or something!” Zack shouted.

  He’d forgotten to look for one in the carpetbag.

  “Foolish children,” snarled the demonic ghost.

  Zack raced back to the bag.

  “You have done nothing but set my spirit free from this mortal coil. I shall return again—in a new body, a stronger body. I have other descendants. I shall find them.”

  Maybe you will, Zack thought, because he couldn’t find anything to whack the stone with.

  “And when I do, you three shall pay for what you tried to do to me.”

  Zack at least found a sage candle!

  He sparked the tip.

  Tossed it at Ickleby’s feet.

  “What?” The ghost laughed. “You cannot stun me into submission. My spirit is far too strong for such tricks. Don’t waste your sage, boy!”

  “What’s going on, Zack?” asked Azalea. “Why are you tossing road flares around the room?”

  “There’s probably a ghost in here, right, Zack?” said Malik.

  “Yeah. The spirit that possessed Norman Ickes.”

  “For real?” said Azalea. “Where is he?”

  “Probably in the smoke,” said Malik.

  “No. Way!” Azalea fanned the air. Tried to see the spirit. Couldn’t.

  Zipper nudged Zack in the back with his snout.

  “Not now, boy.” Zack was pulling everything out of the carpetbag. The sage didn’t immobilize Barnabas the way it had the other Icklebys.

  Maybe the demon was right.

  Maybe his spirit was too twisted for the sage to touch it.

  Zack tore through the bag in a flurry. He tossed out a spice jar, a bundle of dried herbs tied with twine, more candles, a roll of breath mints, a pair of tongs—everything except what he needed.

  Zipper nudged him harder.

  Zack whipped around. “What is it, Zip?”

  His trusty dog held something in his mouth like a bone.

  A rock hammer!

  “Good boy! You guys?”

  Malik and Azalea crouched down to join Zack around the small black heart. While Ickleby ranted and Zipper snarled, Zack quickly consulted with his two friends.

  “Shall we three send this soul straight to the underworld?” asked Zack.

  “Yeah!” said Malik.

  “Whatever,” said Azalea.

  “We three agree?” asked Zack.

  And all three friends said it together: “We three agree!”

  Zack smashed the hammer down hard.

  The tiny black heart exploded with a sharp bang like he had smacked a roll of cap gun caps. Then it burst into a puff of violet smoke, which vanished in a flash of purple light.

  The room was quiet.

  Until, behind them, Norman Ickes began to moan.

  Judy heard a small explosion, like a firecracker.

  Or another pistol shot!

  The crowd gathered around the base of the clock tower looked up in horror.

  The big black horse bolted free from the distracted police officer holding its reins and trotted up Main Street.

  A black raven circled overhead, like a vulture hungry for carrion it could peck to pieces.

  And then Zack stuck his head out the hole in the clock, waving Jack the Lantern’s tricornered hat.

  “We’re okay. Norman just surrendered.”

  The crowd cheered!

  “What was that noise, Zachary?” shouted Aunt Hannah.

  “His heart breaking!” shouted Zack. Aunt Hannah, Aunt Sophie, and Judy smiled. They knew what Zack meant.

  “You sure you’re okay, Zack?” shouted Sheriff Hargrove.

  “Yeah. We’re all fine.”

  “You kids did good, Zack.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Hang tight up there. We’re coming in.” The sheriff turned to two of his deputies. “Go grab the battering ram. We’re breaking down that darn door!”

  Norman Ickes stumbled to his feet.

  His legs were a little wobbly.

  “What happened? Where am I?”

  “We’re in the top of the town clock tower,” said Zack. “The police should be up here soon.”

  “They’re going to arrest me, aren’t they?”

  Malik and Azalea both looked at Zack.

  “Maybe,” said Zack. “See, some pretty strange stuff happened.”

  Norman made his way toward the clock face.

  “Take it easy,” suggested Azalea. “You’ll probably feel a little dizzy for a while. I know I did after I got possessed.”

  “A ghost took you out for a joyride, Norman,” added Malik.

  “My dad’s a lawyer,” said Zack. “I think he can help you. Maybe you can plead temporary insanity or something.”

  Norman peered through a hole in the clock face.

  “My father is down there. And Stephen Snertz is still alive? Why is everybody helping him into that ambulance?”

  “I’m not really sure,” said Zack. “You see, Malik and I—”

  “I hate my father,” said Norman, who wasn’t really listening to anything Zack said. “He’s a weakling. And that Snertz? He’s a bully.”

  “I know. They all are. But like I was saying, my dad—”

  “I should’ve killed them both,” said Norman, “when I had the chance!”

  “Excuse me?” said Malik.

  “I liked being evil, Malik! You would, too! Having the rage of my wicked ancestors burning inside my body. I felt strong. Nobody could stop me. Not that Stephen Snertz, that’s for sure. Why did you three take that away from me?”

  “You were possessed by an evil spirit,” said Zack, trying to explain.

  “I wasn’t possessed,” said Norman. “I was fulfilled! I invited the demon into my body to make me the man I always dreamed I could be. And now I’m just Norman Ickes again?”

  “You’re a good guy,” said Malik.

  “A good guy?” He spat out the words. “A good guy. You mean a nerd and a geek. I don’t want to live like that again.”

  “Take it easy,” said Zack.

 
“You ruined me!”

  “No, we …”

  Norman didn’t listen.

  He turned to the giant clock face and pounded the glass with both balled-up fists.

  The whole clock face crackled like thin ice and fell out of its frame in sheets of angled glass.

  All that was left were the black scrolled hands.

  “Stand and deliver!” Norman shouted to the crowd below, sweeping his arms out wide. “I am Jack the Lantern!”

  A diving raven swooped past the wide-open circle that used to be a clock.

  And Norman Ickes leapt from his perch to soar after it.

  The next weekend, Zack, Azalea, and Malik went to Norman Ickes’s funeral.

  Stephen Snertz did not make it. He was in traction at the hospital, suspended upside down with his fractured fanny in a plaster cast.

  Ebony, the black stallion possessed by Satan, had been captured near Spratling Manor and taken back to Stansbury Stables, where he was spending the weekend under the watchful eye of an expert animal psychologist.

  At the funeral services, Norman’s father announced that his son’s coffin would not be buried in the Ickleby family crypt or anywhere near the Haddam Hill Cemetery.

  “The cycle of evil and violence that has plagued my family all these years must stop,” he told the mourners. “It must end with my son.”

  Zack totally agreed.

  * * *

  On Sunday afternoon, Zack and his dad drove the three aunts and their cats to the airport for their return flight to Florida while Judy stayed at home with Zipper, who almost wagged his tail off saying “buh-bye” to his departing kitty kin.

  Aunt Ginny was bandaged but recovering nicely from her gunshot wound.

  Thanks to Aunt Sophie’s wide load, Aunt Ginny and Zack were, once again, scrunched up together in the backseat of the family van.

  “You did good, Zack,” Aunt Ginny said, patting him on the knee.

  “Thanks. You too.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We forgot to go to the Hedge Pig Emporium and order you that chocolate milk shake.”

  “That’s okay, Aunt Ginny. Maybe next time you come visit.”

  “Are you sure? Because we can change our flight. Fly back tomorrow.”

  “Aunt Ginny, can I ask you a question?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Is the chocolate milk shake only on the kids’ menu?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would it work on you? Could you drink one and stop seeing ghosts?”

  “What? And miss out on all the fun?”

  “I’m serious.”

  Aunt Ginny sighed and thought about her answer. “Yes, Zack. I could. But I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, dear, I think that those of us who can see and stop evil need to protect those who cannot.”

  “Yeah. That’s kind of what I think, too.”

  “I know.” She winked at him. “It runs in the family.”

  THANK YOU …

  In my school visits, I have fun improvising a ghost story based on suggestions from the assembled students to teach about story structure, protagonists, and antagonists. So I am eternally grateful to the fifth grader who, when prompted for a good name for a bad guy, shouted out,

  “Ickleby!”

  I’d also like to thank all those who made generous contributions to the Artemis Project animal rescue group in New York for a chance to name one of the aunts’ cats. Pyewacket, Mister Cookiepants, and Mystic were the winners, along with all the strays the Artemis Project helps here in New York City.

  Thank you also to R. Schuyler Hooke, the best editor on this metaphysical plane or any other; Nicole de las Heras, who makes my many-chaptered books look so good; Scott Altmann, who has made the last three covers so creepy; Lisa McClatchy from Kids @ Random House, who helps me organize all my school visits; Emily Pourciau, who tells the world about Zack and Judy; the copy editors, who have taught me things about colons I never realized; and everybody else at Random House Children’s Books, who has been so terrific to me and my stories.

  Thanks as always to my agent, Eric R. Myers, who in six short years has shepherded seventeen of my stories to publication.

  And to all the teachers, students, librarians, and parents who have told other teachers, students, librarians, and parents about the Haunted Mystery series.

  Finally, all the cats in the book would like to thank Jeanette, Parker, and Tiger Lilly—the three cats who allow me to share their office space when I write.

  CHRIS GRABENSTEIN’S first three books for younger readers—The Crossroads, The Hanging Hill, and The Smoky Corridor—have won a bunch of accolades and awards, including two Agathas and one Anthony.

  Born in Buffalo, New York (where sometimes it snows on Halloween), and raised in Tennessee (which is why Davy talks the way he does), Chris moved to New York City many years ago to become an actor and a writer. He did improvisational comedy in a Greenwich Village basement with some of the city’s funniest performers, including this one guy named Bruce Willis. He used to write TV and radio commercials, cowrote the made-for-TV movie The Christmas Gift, starring John Denver, and even wrote for the Muppets.

  Chris is also a New York Times bestselling author of such award-winning mysteries and thrillers for adults as Tilt-A-Whirl, Rolling Thunder, and Slay Ride.

  Chris and his wife, the actress J. J. Myers, live in New York City with three cats and a dog named Fred, who has the best credits in the family: Fred starred on Broadway in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You can visit Chris (plus Fred and the cats) at ChrisGrabenstein.com. Chris loves hearing from readers. His email address is author@ChrisGrabenstein.com.