by Rucker Moses
Veronica says, “Yeah, he’d, like, bury himself alive, and days later be dug up. Then he’d lead a crowd to the local theater and do a show.”
“Okay, not bad,” says Tall. “Think he’d charge for the burial and the show, like, sell two separate tickets?”
Veronica scoffs. “Probably. In between, he’d even go to nearby towns and be buried alive there, too. Then he’d just keep it going. He’d tour the whole country. Think that was the deal with the whole Returns Every Seven Years thing. Took a while to get around back then.”
“Sure, maybe that’s it,” I say. “But everything we learned about magic, we learned before we knew that magic was real. Maybe those stories aren’t so straightforward.”
“You think he really died and came back to life?” V says with a sarcastic grin.
“I’m just saying, we don’t know anything, for real. I mean, was he from Virginia, like history says? Or was he born in a town in West Africa, like his book says?”
“Um, I’m gonna go with what history says, King,” says V with a chuckle. “That book is full of nonsense so he could make money. Like you really think he went to Egypt, India, China, and Paris? Pfft. If there was anything magic about that guy, it was how he could turn a profit. Even after he died, they sold tickets to see his body.”
“Well, he faked his death for most of his career. No one believed it when he actually died.”
Too Tall nods, impressed. “You two really know a lot about this guy, huh?”
“Sure,” says V. “In a house like ours, full of Black magicians? Black Herman is like the Black Houdini, only no one’s heard of him.”
“He was a good man, too, Tall. He supported his community. He’d give loans to Black businesses, scholarships to students, and do free performances to help struggling churches. He never turned his back on his people.”
“And what was the other name on there?” asks Tall.
This one I’m less sure about. “It was Henry Brown. Some old magician, I guess. Don’t remember his act.”
“Henry ‘Box’ Brown,” says Veronica. “Was a slave, in Virginia. He mailed himself north, to Philadelphia, and freedom.” She taps my backpack, knuckle rapping the wood of the Magician’s Lost and Found. “In a small wooden box.”
We walk in silence for a while, and I wonder if this small wooden box can help free my pops, wherever he may be.
Turns out “Graveyard Gate” isn’t a graveyard, exactly, but a mural of one. The painting runs half the length of an Echo City block on the forgotten wall of an abandoned car wash. There’s a ladder propped up against the wall. Sol is standing toward the top of the ladder, painting something.
Veronica, Too Tall, and I shrug all at once. Sol doesn’t seem to notice us, and we don’t want to disturb him. He’s so focused on his craft, it feels wrong.
We take in the mural. The painted gates are the first thing I notice. The bars are black and high, curling into spirals at the top. There’s a hill at the center of the mural and there’s a mausoleum at the summit. Sol is painting something inside the mausoleum. Something very small that I can’t see.
Gravestones line the way along the sloping hill. Some stand tall and proud with names and phrases declared in bold letters, but none I can actually read. Some are small like rocks, and a couple are made of wood. I try to get close enough to read the names, but the closer I get, the less sense the letters make, like trying to read in a dream.
Sol slides down the ladder with ease and looks at us like he knew we were there all this time.
“Hey, Sol. Where’s your sister?” I ask.
He has his dry-erase board hanging on a chain around his neck. He writes something in marker:
The more you look the less you see.
“This kid sure is expert with the cryptic scribbles,” says Too Tall, reading the board.
Sol just looks at me and nods, like it all makes perfect sense.
“He’s amazing,” says Veronica, gazing at the graveyard mural with awe. “How long did this take you?”
Sol shrugs.
He’s looking at my backpack now with that eerie glare of his. He touches the box through the canvas.
“Um, yeah,” I say, very confused. What do I tell him? I think he’s trying to help me. In fact, I’m pretty sure if Sula had her way, he wouldn’t be here with us now.
“I’ve got the Lost and Found,” I tell him.
The kid’s eyes go round and wide and he nods.
“You want me to take it out?”
He nods some more.
I take the Lost and Found out of my backpack. I open it up, check around the edges, and press against the felt lining. There’s nothing there.
Sol’s eyes widen when he sees the box. I let him hold it.
I point to the mural. “Which one of these is Black Herman’s grave?” I ask him.
He glances at me, and then returns his attention to the box like I never said a word. He runs his fingers around its edges carefully, like he’s memorizing every detail.
“Hey,” I say, pointing to a stone in the mural. “You painted these, right? Well, I can’t read the names on the gravestones. Which one is Black Herman’s?”
Not that I’d have a clue what to do next.
He takes me by the hand and steps up to the graveyard gates. He takes the box and sets it against where the handle is painted.
“You want me to put my hand in there?” I ask.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” says Veronica.
Sol shakes his head.
“That kid don’t look like he’s joking,” says Tall.
Sol waves me to come closer, and nods in a way that says, It’s okay. Trust me.
I let him take me by the wrist of my gloved hand and guide it toward the box.
“Okay, I think I get it,” I say.
I open the lid of the box and feel a waft of cold air.
Then he tugs the fabric of my white glove and shakes his head.
“No good?” I ask.
He shakes his head some more.
“Sure thing, I gotcha.” I take off the glove.
I’m still not quite used to having no visible hand. Even as I wiggle my invisible fingers, I expect to see them.
Sol’s smile is full of tiny teeth. He sets his feet and holds the box steady like a catcher who just called a pitch.
I reach my hand through the box.
And my hand keeps going. Past the bottom of the box, past where the wall should be, until I feel the hard metal of a handle in my palm, cool to the touch.
My expression must be crazy because Sol just smiles at me like, See?
He nods.
Keep going.
My heart is beating a million miles an hour. There’s no visible explanation for what’s happening. My hand is through the box and through the wall somehow.
And now I’m holding the handle to a painted gate, and the handle is cool and hard as iron.
I turn the handle and feel its rusty creak.
Nervous laughter bursts through my teeth.
There’s a rush of cold air.
“This is ama—”
Fog consumes me. Thick, gushing fog that fills my mouth and throat and surprises the breath out of me. I’m blinded by the cool gray like I’ve just walked into a cloud.
“V? Tall?” I say, but my voice is muffled by the fog. “Hello? Sol? Anyone?” But the words bounce right back.
The fog clears in front of me. I see the bars of the gates to the graveyard. The handle is still in my hand. But the painted grass behind it is . . . actual grass.
Where in holy Houdini am I?
I push the gate open and the metal scrapes the earth. My heart is pounding so hard it rattles my chest. I look behind me, but there’s a wall of fog so thick it might as well be made of cement. Ver
onica, Tall, and Sol are gone.
It’s just me, the graveyard, and the box.
I let go of the handle once I’m in the gates, and I take the box in both hands and press it close to my chest. I’m hoping it’ll keep the bad things away.
When I look down, I notice something shocking.
I have two visible hands.
Amazed, I hold my left hand up in front of me. I take in every little detail, every line in my palm.
Where am I? I wonder again. Am I in the Realm?
Seems there’s nowhere to go but forward, so that’s where I go. One step after the next in the chilly, wet grass.
A shiver runs down my spine, and it’s not just from wearing short sleeves in the sudden cold. It’s the blackout darkness of the sky. The fog breaking like waves over the edges of gravestones. The stone monuments and statues of people in frock coats with blank eyes. The brambles and bushes cluttered on top of one another.
“The more you look the less you see,” I hum to myself.
I stop at each stone to look at the names. I can read them now. One stone slab that’s half buried in fallen leaves reads, Doctor Peter. Next to that are a few prickly plants, like cedars and yuccas. A collection of seashells marks another grave. Some graves are marked by workers’ objects like an iron pipe and a slab of maybe railroad iron. There’s a large statue of a man, carved head to toe in dark bronze. He’s wearing a tuxedo jacket with tails and a bow tie and he’s holding a skull in his hands. He stands on a platform with the words In Memory of the Celebrated Ventriloquist Who Died Sept. 20, 1825. I realize it’s Richard Potter, America’s first Black magician.
“He wasn’t just the first Black magician, you know,” says a voice.
“Who’s there?”
I snap my head right and left, up and down, my heart racing.
But I don’t see anyone.
“He was America’s first magician, full stop,” the voice continues.
“Who’s talking?” I say, my own voice shaking. “Come out!”
“Oh. Sorry. Wait for it,” he says—I can’t see him yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s a he. His voice wobbles like a preacher-performer.
The black clouds drift apart and a moonbeam cuts through the darkness.
A man emerges in the moonbeam like a spotlight. He’s like a sketch, only half drawn. He’s made up of shades and shadows and empty space and pale light. He smiles and winks like he made the clouds move and the moon shine all by himself. He’s tall and handsome, and he wears a pyramid-shaped medallion and a Prince Albert coat.
“You . . . you’re—no, it’s not possible.”
“Ah, but my boy, I specialize in the impossible.”
“I saw you. Back at the Mercury. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed it was.”
I can see his face clearer than ever before. He looks just like he does in the old magic posters.
“You’re Black Herman,” I say.
He grins as though he’s pleased to be recognized. “I go by a lot of names. I’m most proud of the Great Black Herman, Master of Legerdemain.”
I blink and blink to adjust to the strange way he appears in the moonlight, like a hologram of a black-and-white photo. As he moves, some parts of him vanish, like the outline of his strong jawline, or the lapels of his coat. The parts of him that would be in shadow just simply aren’t there. “But what happened to the rest of you?” I ask him. “Are you some kinda ghost?”
“Not exactly. But I don’t mind if you call me a ghost, if a ghost is how you see me. But I never did die. At least, not in the normal sense. I took too many trips to the Realm. Just didn’t quite make it back in one piece.”
“I don’t understand. Are we in the Realm?”
“Well, I’m not sure we are anywhere.”
“What do you mean? Is this the Realm?” I ask.
“My own little corner of it, yes.”
“I thought the Realm was just echoes of reality.”
“There are so many little realms in what we call the Realm. Most of them are echoes. ’Cause the folks that made them didn’t have any idea what they was doing. But young man, I am the Master of Legerdemain and this here is my own little realm within the Realm, gloomy though it may be. I made this. And I made it to my liking.”
“You . . . made this place?”
“That I did. Welcome to ‘Black Herman’s Private Graveyard.’ A place for all us Black magicians to rest. Honor us the way we’d want to be honored—each in our own way. Those plants right there are for the old Obeah doctors and healers, straight from West Africa. You see Richard Potter got himself a nice fancy statue—he did well for himself, so he got a right to enjoy it. That there is Isaac Willis—the Great Boomsky—”
I see where he’s pointing and look at the gravestone. The letters read:
The More You Look the Less You See.
So that’s why Sol wrote those words when I was trying to read the stones on the mural.
“This one here is Professor J. Herman Moore, the Prince of Mystery. Did you know I was—”
“His assistant?”
Black Herman smiles and looks astonished.
I nod and play it cool. Not every day you surprise a two-hundred-year-old legendary ghost. Or Realm spirit. Or whatever he is.
“Well, I’ll be. Didn’t think folks still spoke about me nowadays.”
“My dad told me all about you. You’re his hero.”
“Well, heroes are funny things. Wait a minute,” he says, and drifts closer, examining me. “Heh, well, look at that. You favor him, you know. I know your dad. He came here.”
“He did?” I nearly shriek.
“He sure did. More than once. In fact, last visit he paid me was just a short while ago.”
“So I just missed him?”
“Only just.”
“Wait, so if he walked in here, and I walked in here, can’t he come back and meet me? Can’t he just leave with me?”
“Leave with you?” Black Herman repeats with a hefty chuckle. “Son, what makes you think you’re actually here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Hate to break it to you, but you are not, as it were, here.”
“I’m not here? But you’re like a ghost—you’re not here!”
“Far as I can tell, I am here for the foreseeable. No, if you really were in this place, you’d have a heck of a time getting back. Look for yourself. You cast a shadow?”
I look down and realize no, there’s no shadow at all. I wave my hand in the moonlight and look at where it strikes the grass, but there’s nothing.
“Then how can you be here, if you don’t cast a shadow?” he asks.
“But I feel the cold,” I say, wondering how this is possible, how I could be here but not here. “The wet grass and the rocky ground.”
“The mind is a powerful trickster. To me, you’re about as real as I am to you.”
“So I’m imagining all of this?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that. You must have seen this place somewhere in your world, am I right? It’s about reflections and gates.”
“Reflections?”
“Yeah. That’s how I discovered the Realm for the first time. Your pops, too. Reflections are magic, young man.”
“They make the world into more worlds,” I say.
“Quite handsomely put.”
“My friend painted this graveyard. It was a huge mural. That’s how I found it.”
“Interesting. Your friend can bring reflections to life, then. I saw my first glimpse of the Realm in a stained-glass window in a small church in Louisville. Your father told me he saw this graveyard in a reflection in a pool of rainwater by a gutter when Brooklyn got flooded one time.”
“And I saw you in the reflection in the glass at the Mercur
y,” I say, realizing I actually saw the Realm without realizing.
“I suppose so. But actually, physically being here? That’s something different. First time your daddy came, he was dream-visiting, just like you. Eventually, he figured out how to receive some gifts I left for him. This last visit, he came for real. Rode the echoes and showed up in person. Imagine my surprise when he returned those gifts for safekeeping.” I remember the note Pops left for Long Fingers. The elements await you in Black Herman’s grave. The “gifts” Black Herman is talking about must be the elements. “He left them somewhere—those gifts?”
“He did,” Black Herman says with a cryptic look. “What brings you here?”
“My dad. I’m here to find my dad. To bring him back home.”
He looks me up and down. “Some folks aren’t meant to walk in just one world.”
“But if he can walk into your world, he can walk back into mine.”
He grins like I’m not quite following him. “I wasn’t talking about your daddy.”
“Me?”
“You got the look. You got faraway lands on the mind. And you’re ready and willing to go places, no matter what the risk.”
“I’m just here ’cause I want to find my pops.”
“Sure, that’s how it starts. Then you find you need to keep moving. Being in one world don’t feel quite right. You start to feel stuck. You know the places you dream about be real and that knowledge be calling to you. Next thing you know, you riding echoes.”
“Riding echoes?”
“That’s how you get from place to place in the Realm. That’s how I was born in Virginia. Then it was the jungles of West Africa. Then I made it to Egypt. India. ’Cause each trip was like I was born again.”
“The Great Black Herman Returns Every Seven Years,” I say.
“That’s right. I used to say that at every show. I’d always find my way back, you see. I set this place to give me someplace to go once I was done with it all. Faked my death one last time, and slipped out here. I let the clock run out, the portal shut, and now I don’t leave here, not anymore.”
“Wow,” I say, thinking about how Dad might get trapped in his echo. “That sounds rough.”
