by Ed Masessa
“Well, there’s a lot of history here. After the yellow fever epidemic in 1822, which took the life of my older sister, Mary Claire”—Molly paused briefly to utter a blessing—“the city banned traditional earth burials south of Canal Street. Later, they extended the ban, first to Fourteenth Street and then all the way to Eighty-Sixth Street. But they still allowed burials in private family vaults like these.”
“Is your sister buried here?” asked Brianna.
“No. We were very poor and couldn’t afford a private burial. And so many people were dying from the fever.” Molly dabbed the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. “Poor Mary Claire joined the thousands that were buried in a potter’s field that is now called Washington Square Park.”
An ethereal voice sounded from next to Henry. “Oh, how I love hearing a true historian,” it said.
“Ahh!” Henry ducked and ran, tripped, and sprawled into a damp, slimy wall. “Who’s there? Who was that?” He looked all around, but couldn’t find the source of the voice.
“Don’t worry,” Molly whispered softly in Henry’s ear. “Most of them are friendly.”
“Most of who … ?”
“What are you babbling on about?” Coralis hissed.
“Oh, it’s just an unexpected visit from John,” Molly said lightly.
“Wh-h-ho’s John?” Henry stuttered.
“He’s a dentist and a mean one!” snapped Coralis. “And he loves to pull children’s teeth. Now can we stop this incessant chatter and get moving? There are urgent matters to attend to!”
“Coralis, please! You’re scaring them. Do you want them to be afraid of all spirits?” Molly pleaded.
“Nonsense,” he said dismissively. “John Greenwood! Show yourself.”
A fuzzy apparition materialized between Molly and Coralis, gradually taking the shape of a middle-aged man in a finely tailored suit. His eyes were downcast, as if he had just received a scolding from a teacher. “I didn’t mean to frighten anyone. You know how I love guests, and it’s been so long since any children visited.”
A tiny squeal of alarm peeped out from Henry’s pocket as Brianna shivered.
“Henry, Brianna, meet John Greenwood, dentist to George Washington,” Molly announced.
“G-G-G-eorge Washington … as in the first president?” Henry asked.
“The one and only!” said John. “I was a bit of a master with ivory, if I do say so myself. And George was so generous with his praise after I made the most exquisite set of teeth for him.” He pulled a letter from his jacket pocket. “January 6, 1799. And I quote, ‘His prices are very moderate, as no person can excel him in facility and neatness of performance.’ Naturally, I raised my rates after that.” He winked at them.
Henry couldn’t help but like the man. “So who else is buried here?”
“Oh, I have lots of friends. Let’s see … There’s Cornelius DuBois, and Benjamin Wright—but don’t get him started about that canal of his or you’ll never get to leave. ‘Erie Canal’ this and ‘Erie Canal’ that. If you ever get caught by him, just start talking about the Panama Canal. That will shut him up.” He laughed.
“I heard that, Greenwood!” a disembodied voice boomed nearby.
“Oops! Time to go.” He faded away as if he had never been there.
“Wow,” Henry whispered. “That was really a ghost, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t call them ghosts,” Molly confided. “They prefer to be thought of as people. Use their real names.”
“Are you just going to stand there all day?” Coralis thundered from up the tunnel.
They resumed their walk, passing vaults on either side. “Do they haunt people?” Brianna whispered, popping her head out.
“No,” Molly answered in a whisper of her own. “The walls of the vaults are inlaid with phantom quartz crystals, which calm the spirits of the dead. Only restless spirits haunt people.”
At the end of the tunnel, they entered the open vault on the right. It was bigger than Henry had imagined, and it was also empty. Now what? He watched Coralis walk to the back of the vault and withdraw a small yellow wand from the folds of his coat, which he used to trace the rectangular outline of a door onto the wall. Then with a slight tap of the wand to the exact center, the solid rock swung outward. They stepped through, and the pitch-darkness on the other side seemed to absorb some of Henry’s glow. He couldn’t see far, but he could sense the spaciousness of the room they’d entered.
Click.
Henry closed his eyes against the sudden brightness. When he could see again, he saw Coralis standing near a wall switch, grinning somberly beneath a series of wall sconces. Henry couldn’t disguise his disappointment. He had been hoping for something much more magical than electricity.
Coralis must have been able to read his expression. “I hope you haven’t been completely corrupted by misguided notions of ‘wizardry,’ boy. Now come here. We have much to do and little time to do it.”
Henry examined the cavernous room as he approached Coralis, soaking up every detail. Light glittered and danced as it reflected off the tiny quartz crystals embedded in the ceiling. They look like stars, thought Henry. As he focused on an area directly overhead, it hit him. “They are stars,” he whispered in wonder.
“Stars?” Brianna poked her nose out to see what her brother was talking about.
“The quartz in the walls. It’s been arranged to look like the constellations!” He spun in a circle. “There’s the archer, Sagittarius, and the Gemini twins. Oh! And there’s the southern hemisphere!” Henry pointed to another set of constellations across the room. “This is amazing!”
“Very perceptive,” Coralis said, and Henry thought he caught a hint of genuine admiration in the Wand Master’s voice, but it was gone just as quickly. “Now stop babbling like a disturbed child and get over here. Mr. Osborne!” Coralis boomed, and Henry turned to see the spirit of another well-dressed man on the far side of the room. The man cringed and began to dissolve into the wall.
“Not so fast!” Coralis hurried over and took a small parcel from the spirit. He opened it to reveal several sparkling gemstones, which he brought to a cabinet. Henry caught only a glimpse inside, but the cabinet appeared to contain a gemologist’s dream selection of minerals from around the world—some of which he’d never seen before, even in books.
“Your days as a mercantile agent are long over, William,” Coralis said, returning the gemstones to their proper place. “And the market for these is well beyond your reach.”
“I am sorry, sir.” Mr. Osborne’s voice was full and deep. Henry could easily imagine him bellowing from a podium. “I was simply … cleaning them for you. Are you certain you don’t need to have any of these fine samples appraised?”
“I am quite certain.”
“Very well, then. Good day to you all.”
“That’s the problem with these old haunts,” Coralis grumbled as the spirit faded from view. “Too many temptations for the poor bored souls left behind.” He opened a small drawer in the cabinet and selected a clear quartz ring that fit him perfectly. He then led Henry to a large ebony desk, the top of which was inlaid with swirls of iridescent opal. “Give your sister to Molly.”
Henry reluctantly handed Brianna over. He hadn’t realized how much he depended on having her with him. He suddenly felt very alone as he faced the scowling Wand Master.
“Take off your coat and give me your hands.” Henry did as directed, and Coralis roughly grabbed his wrists and placed his palms directly on the center of the desk. The opal coursed with energy, rippling through a dazzling display of color that ranged from orange to purple to brilliant blue.
“Good,” said Coralis. “We still have time.” He released Henry’s hands and the opal’s colors diminished, settling on a warm amber infused with blue highlights.
“Still have time for what?” Henry asked nervously.
“Don’t worry, my boy.” Coralis looked at Henry, kindness seeping into the creases of his fr
own and softening the edges. “What Bella told you about the bad moon … ”
“Bella?”
Coralis chuckled. “I almost forgot. You know her as ‘The Amazing Zeppo.’ Did you have any idea what she meant by ‘bad moon’?”
“No, sir.”
“There will be time for explanations later. For now, let’s deal with the immediate problem.”
Coralis reached into a desk drawer and took out a large leather-bound book, covered in runes and fastened together with clawlike hinges that bit firmly into all four corners. He whispered a phrase in Latin. Several of the runes shifted and joined together, forming the shape of a keyhole. He placed his index finger over the shape and pressed firmly. The book gave a barely noticeable sigh. The hinges relaxed their grip and the rigid edges of parchment rippled, almost with relief, as he reverently opened the book.
He once again gripped Henry’s hands, but gently this time. His eyes danced with anticipation. “Let us begin.”
Dai She arrived in Mexico City on the Nightmare Flight. What was supposed to be a four-hour, nonstop flight had encountered bad weather and an endless series of mechanical problems.
Three forced landings and seventeen hours later, Dai She finally emerged into an overcrowded airport terminal to the stares of hundreds of people who had apparently never before encountered a quasi-albino—a short, round one at that.
Dai She had always been round. He’d always been very, very pale. But the feature that drew the most attention was the large orange birthmark that covered his entire nose. As a child, he’d suffered the incessant teasing of his peers. Their cries of “Frosty the Snowman” had haunted his nightmares for years.
Already in the foulest of moods, he glared at a young girl who stood staring at him, openmouthed in wide-eyed wonder. “It’s not polite to stare, little girl!” he snapped at her.
The fact that she didn’t understand English didn’t keep her from running to her equally frightened mother, screaming all the way.
Dai She had grown to expect people to gawk at his condition over the years, which is why he seldom ventured out of his secluded estate. But the fuss from these people was beyond rude. Perhaps, he thought as he walked into a restroom, ivory-white skin and facial birthmarks were even rarer in Mexico.
And then he looked in the mirror.
He nearly screamed! His face was blotchy with swollen hives. The second he touched one, it began to itch. There was only one thing he knew of that could cause this reaction—rodents! Among all the other maladies he suffered through his childhood was a severe allergy to rodents—mice, rats, squirrels, hamsters, gerbils, even the dog-sized capybara.
As he hurried out of the restroom to find a pharmacy, he nearly collided with a man he recognized from the flight who was carrying a small crate. A tiny pink snout with white fur and pale whiskers wiggled through a breathing hole—mocking him, albino to albino.
“Ahh!” He screamed in horror and roughly shoved the unwary man out of his way. The crate clattered to the ground, and a hinge broke free upon impact.
One of the interesting facts about rats is that they can squeeze through openings no bigger than a half-dollar coin. The gap in the crate was slightly larger than that. Fleeing its smashed cage, the rat skittered behind the nearest large object—the leg of Dai She. The sound of a grown man screaming in fright was too much for the poor rat to take.
It, too, screamed.
The high-pitched squeal doubled in intensity as the dancing trunk of a leg stomped down heavily, catching the tip of the long pink tail.
Irrational terror gripped both large man and small beast as they simultaneously lunged for the safety of the restroom. Dai She ran blindly ahead until he was stopped by a wall, at which point he turned and fell, nearly breathless, into a stall, where he sat blubbering like a fool, holding the broken door closed with his feet.
The rat took a different path. It turned left and hugged the base of the wall, squeezing through the gaps between the stalls until it arrived at the last one, where it hid behind a toilet occupied by a large man. Its rapid rodent breath was masked by the sound of whimpering sobs.
“Gigi,” called the man with the crate. “Oh, Gigi.”
The rat, upon hearing its name, stepped cautiously from behind the toilet. It almost made it out of the stall unnoticed—but then Dai She saw it out of the corner of his eye.
“Aiii!”
Dai She jumped straight up, stomping wildly until one foot landed squarely in the unflushed-by-the-previous-occupant toilet bowl.
Gigi spotted her broken cage, along with the familiar face of her owner, and raced to safety, happily leaving the blotchy man with the smelly, wet feet behind.
An hour later, his face smeared with anti-itch cream and his shoes still damp, a somewhat composed Dai She warily left the confines of the restroom. And just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, he arrived at the baggage claim only to find that his suitcase had been lost.
Viktor, meanwhile, was having troubles of his own. Airlines will allow many types of pets to travel with their owners, but for some reason Dai She did not understand, the no-fly list includes vultures. Unable to travel with his master, Viktor was left to his instincts to find his way to Dai She’s destination. For several hours he hugged the coastline, soaring on wind currents that enabled him to cover maximum distance with minimal effort.
Vultures are best known as scavengers, but their diet extends beyond roadkill. As Viktor flew, he kept an eye out for potential meals along the cliffs. He could hardly believe his luck when he spotted an abandoned nest with two large bluish-white eggs.
Just as he approached the rocky ledge, however, the wind shifted. Instead of making a graceful (by vulture standards) landing, he slammed headlong into the cliff.
Viktor fell beside the nest in an unconscious heap.
Dai She had previously arranged to have a private jet take him a few hours north to Chihuahua City, where he had a car waiting for the next leg of his journey. But because of his excessive travel delays, the jet took off without him. What little Spanish he knew allowed him to successfully negotiate new transportation with the seedy owners of a small propeller-driven aircraft. (Calling it a plane, he decided, would be giving it too much credit.)
He finally settled into the open-cockpit backseat of what he surmised to be a crop duster, which held only enough fuel to take him to Los Mochis on the Mexican coast. The aircraft’s name was stenciled on its side. An hour into the flight, Dai She puzzled out the rough translation: Smoke and Choke. And that it did.
Exhaustion had left him weak. He hadn’t eaten in almost a day and wouldn’t dare drink the water. On a trip through Mexico many years earlier he had learned a lifelong lesson when tiny parasites in the water gave him a severe case of diarrhea—or as it was best known, Montezuma’s revenge.
Despite his physical and mental fatigue, he managed to find his way to the Los Mochis train station, where he caught his first break. The Copper Canyon train was just about to depart for Chihuahua City. His spirits soared when he saw that the train also stopped in Cuauhtémoc. The promise of rest, relaxation, and a good meal occupied his thoughts as the train rumbled out of the station.
Six separate canyons make up what is commonly known as the Copper Canyon. Formed by a half-dozen rivers, it is more than six times larger than the Grand Canyon and offers some of the most breathtaking scenery in the world. The railway had taken nearly a hundred years to build, and it featured three dozen canyon-spanning bridges and close to one hundred tunnels.
Dai She didn’t care about any of this. Things of beauty were lost on him. Feats of engineering left him indifferent. He did, however, happen to glance out the window as the train passed over an exceptionally deep gorge. The power of nature was something he could appreciate, and water was one of its most impressive forces. Water had shaped the rock over the centuries, as if the rock were nothing.
Finding a way to harness nature’s power to do his bidding had consumed him f
or his entire life.
Power was all that mattered. Power meant control.
Turning a blind eye to the stares of tourists who packed the train, he closed his eyes and slept.
When Viktor awoke, he wasn’t alone. A very large, very angry giant condor was perched in the nest, glaring at him.
The condor is in fact a relative of the vulture—but this was not to be a happy family reunion. Viktor barely had time to clear the cobwebs from his tiny brain before he was unceremoniously grabbed by the neck, throttled soundly, and thrown from the ledge.
Fortunately, instinct took over. He spread his wings wide and let the currents lift him along until his head cleared. Many miles later, he realized the cliff face was on his left instead of his right.
He was going in the wrong direction.
A jarring stop woke Dai She from his slumber and the inspiring dreams of world domination. A raucous commotion filled the car as dozens of tourists gathered their luggage in their haste to disembark at the town of Creel. Gay laughter and excitement permeated the air, and Dai She was jolted back to reality.
Thoroughly disgusted at the frivolity and with many more hours of travel ahead of him, he elected to remain in a state of mock hibernation until the train got moving again and the annoying happiness settled back into a quiet calm. But within moments he sensed a presence in his personal space, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself looking into the face of a wide-eyed child, leaning over the seat in front of him. The young boy smiled, which did nothing to improve Dai She’s disposition.
The boy’s father was preoccupied with his phone, littering the train car with colorful language directed at a lack of cell service. “Sit down, Charlie. It’s rude to stare at … ” The father finally looked up from his phone into the blotchy face of the passenger behind him. He smiled nervously as he tugged on Charlie’s shirt. “Just sit,” he whispered.
“Can I have the window seat?” Charlie jumped like a boy with a spring-loaded butt.
“No.” His father began snapping pictures with his phone, slyly adjusting the angle to get a photo of Dai She in the seat behind him.