The Hanging Hill

by Chris Grabenstein

  “It’s me. Meghan. Zack? I know you’re in there. I can see your feet.”

  Zack glanced at the door and saw that there was a huge gap between its bottom and the floorboards, because the building was so old it sagged.

  “Oh, hi!” he said “I was just getting Zipper some water.”

  “Cool. Hey, how come you wear two different kinds of socks?”

  Zack looked at his feet: one red, one argyle. Another mismatched pair, courtesy of the sock gremlins.

  “Um …” He tried to think of a good explanation. “Uh.”

  There wasn’t one.

  “It’s a cool look,” said Meghan. “I mean, who says socks have to match? Why not wear a different one on each foot? Mind if I steal the idea and start mixing up my socks, too?”

  “Uh, no. Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Thanks. You going down to the table meeting?”

  “I dunno,” said Zack. “Are you?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m in the show, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  “You wanna head down with me?”

  “You mean together?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  Moment of truth. Admit that he was still slightly afraid of ghosts, especially any that dive-bombed down stairwells with nooses wrapped around their necks, or leave the room to be with a girl who might turn into a pretty neat new friend?

  “Okay,” said Zack. He rose from the bed. Patted Zipper on the head. The dog moaned slightly but he was sound asleep, nestled tight against the pillows.

  “We’d better hurry. My mom says I shouldn’t be late for my first day of work.”

  “Okay.” Zack walked toward the door.

  “Oh, by the way, the elevator’s still broken. We’ll have to take the stairs.”

  He hesitated. Ran through his options again. Hide under the bed? Hike down the steps with Meghan? He took in a long, deep breath.

  “Okay,” he said.

  27

  Meghan and Zack clomped down the stairs.

  “Did you know that the hill this theater is built on used to be called Hangman’s Hill?”

  Zack froze. “What?”

  “In the olden days, public hangings were spectacles. People would come from miles around to see a good execution.”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “This hill was the perfect spot to put on a show because you could see the gallows for about a mile in any direction!”

  “Whattaya know.” Zack tried to laugh. “Henh-henh-henh.”

  “You feeling okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t sound so hot.”

  “Motel vending machine food for dinner last night. Chili.”

  “Oh. Come on.”

  They started descending the steps again.

  “Anyway,” said Meghan, “my mom’s a history buff. Whenever we’re on the road or on location, she researches everything she can about the place we’re going to. That’s why they call this the Hanging Hill Playhouse. Well, first it was the Hanging Hill Publick House.”

  “Right,” said Zack. That was as far back as Judy’s theater history lesson had gone yesterday. She’d never made it all the way back to ye olde scaffold-and-noose days.

  “My mom’s heading back to the library today to learn more.”

  Zack thought about asking Meghan’s mom if she knew of any Pilgrims who had dangled from the gallows on Hangman’s Hill. Maybe they’d hanged juggling girls, too. Zack couldn’t figure out why anybody would do that. Mimes, maybe. But not jugglers.

  As they marched down the steps, the hard rubber heels of their running shoes thudded against the metal treads. The deep ringing sound reverberated off the stairwell walls.

  “Sounds like bells, hunh?” said Meghan.

  “Yeah,” said Zack. “Church bells.”

  “I think theaters are a lot like churches,” said Meghan.

  “Because of all the pageantry and costumes and stuff?”

  “That plus the big emotions trapped inside both buildings. In churches, you have the joy of weddings, the sadness of funerals.”

  “And in a theater,” said Zack, “you have comedies and tragedies.”

  “Exactly. The walls soak it all up. I figure that’s why so many churchyards and theaters are haunted.”

  Zack froze again. This time in midstep. “What?”

  “A lot of theaters attract ghosts, Zack. Every playhouse I’ve ever worked in had at least one.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. There was this theater where the balcony seats kept folding down all by themselves because a bunch of ghosts wanted to see our show.”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  They started walking down the steps again.

  “There’s this theater in Ohio that’s haunted by a wealthy woman whose husband shot her when he found out she had, like, a major crush on the show’s leading man. You can still see her up in the balcony, waiting for her handsome hero to make his next entrance, which, of course, he never does, so she just sits there and sighs forlornly.”

  They clunked down to the second floor.

  “Meghan,” said Zack tentatively, “do you really believe in ghosts? Do you really see them?”

  “Well, duh. Don’t you?”

  “What about this theater? Is it haunted?”

  “Uh, I think so.” She pointed down the steps. “That girl down there? Come on. She has to be a ghost. Nobody would wear a dress like that unless they were dead.”

  Zack whipped around just in time to see the little girl disappear.

  This time she was juggling bowling pins.

  28

  This was so cool!

  Meghan McKenna was a kindred spirit. A fellow Ghost Seer!

  “Not everyone can see them,” Zack said as they raced across the lobby and headed for the curving staircase leading down to the rehearsal room.

  “I know,” said Meghan. “Especially not adults!”

  “Yeah. Except at night. Just about everybody can see ghosts at night.”

  “Only if the ghosts want to be seen.”

  “Or if the living person really wants to see the ghost. Like at a séance, or something.”

  “True,” said Meghan. “And even when you can’t see ’em, you can usually hear ’em—if they want to be heard.”

  “Exactly!” said Zack.

  “You can sort of feel ’em, too,” said Meghan. “Wind, chills, goose bumps.”

  “I know! I felt the Pilgrim walk right through me!”

  “What Pilgrim?”

  “Oh, he’s this guy who hangs himself in the stairwell.”

  “Neat. Must’ve been one of the original stars here at the Hanging Hill. Guess he’s stuck here.”

  “Yeah. They keep him on a short leash.”

  Meghan laughed.

  “I think Juggler Girl is afraid of him.”

  “How come?”

  “She said some stuff that made me think she and the Pilgrim weren’t playing on the same team.”

  “Like what?”

  Zack did his best Juggler Girl impression: “Don’t listen to that one. He’s one of the others. Whooo-oooh!”

  “Wow! What did she mean? One of the others?”

  Zack shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well… we need to find out.”

  “We do?”

  “Definitely. Aren’t you curious?”

  “I guess.”

  “Come on, Zack. Curiosity helps us see just how lively life can be!”

  “Hey, that’s from Curiosity Cat!”

  “I know. I sing it in the first act! Best number in the whole show!”

  They entered the rehearsal room.

  The cast, including a gangly guy with googly eyes and a goofy face—Zack recognized him immediately as Tomasino Carrozza—sat around cafeteria-type tables set up in a horseshoe.

  A ghoulish-looking man with a mustache as thin as an eraser smudge sat in the center of the middle table. Zack figured he must be Reginald Grime
s, the world-famous director. A dark-skinned man wearing a red hat that resembled an upside-down sand bucket with a tassel on top sat next to him.

  Judy was at the first table to the left. Zack gave her a nervous wave and found a chair in the back of the room, near the coffeepot.

  “Sorry I’m late,” said Meghan as she hurried to an empty chair at a table full of actors. “The elevator’s still broken.”

  Then nobody said anything.

  A few adults coughed or cleared their throats.

  Some nibbled on baked goods. Meghan chomped into a doughnut, which was a good thing as far as Zack was concerned. Meant his new friend wasn’t a ghost. The spooks he’d met in North Chester never ate anything, not even the chubby ones!

  Everybody kept waiting for the director to speak.

  Only, the director wasn’t speaking. He was sitting at that center table, eyes glued to the pages of some musty old book that wasn’t the script to Curiosity Cat. It was too thick, the size of the New York City Yellow Pages.

  “Sir?” said the company manager.

  Nothing.

  “Mr. Grimes?”

  It seemed as if Mr. Grimes couldn’t hear her. It also looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

  “Reginald?”

  “Hmmm?”

  Finally.

  “Everybody’s here, sir.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Everyone’s assembled for the table meeting.”

  Grimes sighed. Seemed perturbed.

  He stood up and traced a finger across both eyebrows and his mustache, maybe to make sure they were lined up just the way he liked them. Zack noticed that Mr. Grimes never used his left arm. It looked paralyzed, cocked at a slight angle by his side.

  “Welcome to the Hanging Hill Playhouse,” the director mumbled quickly. “Hakeem?” Grimes sat down, returned to his book. The even scarier man in the red hat stood up.

  “Greetings. I am Hakeem. I will be assisting Mr. Grimes on this, his most glorious production ever.”

  The actors applauded.

  Grimes’s eyes remained glued to the big book. He flipped forward a page.

  “While our esteemed director studies his production notes,” said Hakeem, “let us all read the script out loud.”

  Grimes slammed the book, sending up a puffy cloud of dust. Derek Stone sneezed.

  “Finished!” said Grimes.

  “Excellent,” said Hakeem. “We are about to read out loud from the script.”

  “Read?” said Grimes. He glared at the cast. “Haven’t you people memorized your parts?”

  Now Zack heard Derek wheeze.

  Grimes turned toward the adult actor who would be playing the children’s father. “Mr. Woodman?”

  “Well, uh, my agent just sent me the script. Last week. Friday, actually.”

  “And?” inquired Grimes, his left eyebrow arching up nearly to the tip of his pointy hairline.

  “Well, I, uh, I haven’t really had time to …”

  “To do your job?”

  The actor looked down at his lap.

  “What about you?” Grimes snarled at Judy.

  “Me?”

  “Did you fix those insipid song lyrics?”

  “Excuse me? I don’t remember you having a problem with any lyrics.”

  “Then perhaps you weren’t listening!”

  Zack was ready to whip out his iron fist, but Judy gave him the slightest head shake to let him know she was okay.

  “Where exactly do you have a problem, Mr. Grimes?” Judy asked calmly.

  He fumbled through his script. “Here. This song. The one Claire sings. Bah! These lyrics need work.”

  “What kind of work?” asked Judy, refusing to let Grimes bully her, her voice steady and strong.

  Grimes narrowed his beady black eyes and looked like he might start hissing steam out both ears like a double-cappuccino machine. “The kind of work that will make it better. Fix it, Mrs. Jennings! I’m sorry if you thought you were coming here on vacation! You are here to work. Maybe you should send your stepson home so you can concentrate on your job!”

  Great. Grimes knew Zack existed. Knew he was in town.

  “The rest of you? Go home and memorize your lines! All of them!”

  Grimes stood up and stormed out of the room. The man named Hakeem followed him.

  Apparently, the table meeting was over.

  Zack had intended to tell Judy about the juggling ghost he and Meghan had just bumped into in the stairwell, but from the look on her face, Judy had bigger things to worry about right now.

  Like a psycho director who looked ready to explode.

  29

  “I’m not sending you home, Zack,” Judy said as they waited in the lobby for the elevator, which was working again. “But I am sorry we won’t be able to spend as much time together as I thought we would.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll just hang out with Zipper and Meghan.”

  “You guys are friends already?”

  “Yeah. She’s neat. Oh, by the way—she loves that song the crazy man just asked you to change.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. I think Mr. Grimes is just showing off. Acting tough on the first day so everybody will know he’s the boss. But this theater wasn’t the only one that wanted to do the world premiere of Curiosity Cat! There was a bidding war, remember?”

  Judy smiled. “So tell me, Zack—how come you always know exactly what to say?”

  “I dunno. Maybe I learned it hanging out with you.”

  The elevator arrived. The sour-faced janitor was riding it. He slid open the accordion cage door.

  “Is it working?” Judy asked.

  “Aya.” The creepy old man stood there and worked his lips around in slow circles like he was gumming a banana. “But you can’t take it to the basement.”

  Judy smiled. “No problem. Our rooms, which, by the way, we do indeed have, are up on the fifth floor.”

  “Elevator doesn’t go to the basement.” Now the grizzled old geezer squinted so hard you’d need a topographical map to trace all the craggy lines on his face. “Basement’s dark. Scary.”

  “Right,” said Judy. “We’re going up to five.”

  “Young person might think he could have all sorts of exciting adventures in the cellar, what with all the costumes and props stored down there. But that young person would be wrong!”

  “We’re sort of in a hurry,” Judy said as sweetly as she could.

  “I need to take our dog out for a walk,” added Zack.

  The janitor waggled a finger. “Don’t take your dog to the basement, boy!”

  Zack rolled his eyes. “Right. The basement is off-limits. Got it.”

  Finally, Mr. Kimble stepped off the elevator. Zack and Judy climbed in. She closed the sliding door while Zack punched the button for the fifth floor.

  “Going up!” Judy said when they started their smooth ascent.

  The janitor stood in the lobby watching them.

  “Boy,” said Judy. “He must be hiding something pretty incredible down there in the basement!”

  30

  “Do you have your key?” Grimes asked Hakeem as they hurried through the subterranean labyrinth of interconnected storage rooms in the basement.

  “Of course, Exalted One.”

  They reached the open door to the room where the antique theatrical trunk had been stored.

  “Give it to me!” Grimes demanded.

  “Not yet.”

  “What?”

  “You are not quite ready to receive it.”

  “What? I read the book. All of it. I am the direct descendant of the high priest of Ba’al. You shall do as I command!”

  Badir and Jamal, the two Tunisian strongmen, stepped into the doorway. Blocked it.

  “You are not quite ready,” Hakeem repeated, much too serenely for Grimes’s taste. “Please …” Hakeem gestured toward the door. “Step into the room and learn what is required of you next.”

  The two
musclemen stepped aside, but Grimes could tell they were eyeing him warily.

  “No!” he said. “I want you to open that final compartment! Now! You are my servant. You will do as I say!”

  Hakeem bent his head in reverence. “I will, Exalted One.” He raised his head and glared into Grimes’s eyes. “Once you prove that Professor Nicodemus’s royal blood truly flows through your veins! That you inherited his natural talents!”

  “Who?”

  “Professor Nicholas Nicodemus.”

  “The name embossed on the cover of the book!”

  “Indeed. And your grandfather. The world’s finest necromancer!”

  Grimes had heard the word before. Wasn’t quite sure what it meant. For the first time in a long while, he swallowed his pride.

  “Necromancer?” he asked as casually as he could.

  Hakeem grinned. His eyes twinkled. “One who communicates with the spirits of the dead in order to predict or influence the future.”

  Badir and Jamal were grinning now, too.

  Then the three men started to laugh.

  A soft and low, devious and menacing chuckle.

  It wasn’t long before Grimes was grinning and chuckling with them.

  31

  “Let’s go see what’s down there!” said Meghan as soon as Zack told her the janitor’s dire warnings about the basement.

  They were walking Zipper along the river behind the theater. The little dog was having a great time cataloging all the new scents in this part of Connecticut. He seemed to particularly enjoy Chatham’s dandelions.

  “Let’s go check it out right now!” said Meghan.

  “I dunno,” said Zack. “He sounded pretty serious.”

  “Grown-ups always try to scare kids away from stuff they want to keep secret.”

  “Don’t you guys have rehearsal?”

  “Nope. Not until tomorrow. I’ve already memorized all my lines and songs. Come on, Zack. It’ll be fun.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  Zack couldn’t think, thanks to something very loud racing up behind him, making the most annoying sound he’d ever heard. A high-pitched nasal drone. Like a mosquito with a microphone.

  Then something hard and pointed and fast slammed into his ankles.

  He tripped forward. Scraped his palms when he broke his fall and tumbled sideways.