Brooklyn Knight

by null

  As the professor drove along one of the winding roads leading farther inside, he told his companion;

  “Here’s a hopefully interesting fact. Green-Wood was among the first ‘rural’ cemeteries to be created within the city. By that I mean it was a business—a thing not attached to any particular church. The place covers nearly five hundred acres. Astounding to find something like this in the middle of a major city.”

  “And we’re here because you need a cemetery to perform magic?” Bridget’s tone betrayed the slightest bit of trepidation on the redhead’s part. “What? We’re going to be collecting graveyard dirt, or robbing tombs?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” responded Knight. He did not look at his assistant as he spoke, for the roads within the cemetery were twisting affairs and, with the sun rapidly setting, it was best for any drivers there to keep their eyes focused on where they were going. Still, he told her;

  “No, truthfully we could have gone to any of a hundred different places. I chose here because it’s private and quiet. For what we’re about to do we don’t need any spectators. Security—as I mentioned before.”

  Finding the spot he wanted, the professor stopped his car, then hopped out quickly to move around to the other side and open Bridget’s door. He extended his hand to help the redhead from the car because he had been forced to park on an uphill grade and the angle would be a trifle tricky for one exiting from the passenger side of any vehicle. As they made their way carefully across the well-kept lawn covering most of the area, Knight said;

  “This has been, as you might have guessed from the size and grandeur of some of the mausoleums, the place to be put to rest in Brooklyn for quite some time—almost one hundred and fifty years now, I believe. Many a famous sort under the sod here—the engravers Currier and Ives are here somewhere, Boss Tweed, Horace Greeley, oh, C. L. Tiffany, and his son, Louis. Oh, and the fantasy illustrator Roy Krenkel, the fellow whose paperback cover paintings were responsible for the big Edgar Rice Burroughs revival back in the fifties, he’s here. And then there’s—”

  The professor broke off his lecture suddenly, however, as he came to a somewhat boxy tombstone, one carved as if to resemble a child’s idea of a house. In a circle carved into what would be the roof’s peak were three words: “Jane, My Wife.” Below, the bas-relief carved into the front of the headstone showed a man leaving his home, presumably on his way to work, leaning on his gate. His gaze appeared to be directed toward a woman standing at the front door to the home, a small dog sitting on the steps to her left. After Bridget and Knight had stood silently before the headstone for a long moment, the redhead broke the silence.

  “All right, this is what you wanted me to see, I’m guessing. Am I supposed to also guess why?”

  “No,” answered Knight quietly. “Jane and Charles Griffith are buried here. The sculpture represents the last time Charles saw his wife alive. When he returned home that evening after work, he discovered his bride had died of heart disease. He had this monument erected, and then proceeded to visit her every week for the next quarter of a century until his own death, in the early 1880s, I believe, at which point he was interred here next to her.”

  “Touching, but the importance of all this is … ?”

  Knight involuntarily dropped his head several inches, taking a deep breath at the same time. Although he had honestly meant to go through with revealing the secret behind his abilities to the young woman, a part of him reached out, flogging him with hesitation, throwing up all the familiar warning beacons it had at hand. It reminded him of the disasters he had created for himself in the past on those occasions when he had done with others as he was about to do with Bridget.

  Calming his paranoid streak, reminding himself that there had been tremendous successes as well when he had done such over the years, he reached out and touched the tombstone, beginning his explanation as he did so.

  “The first thing anyone must realize is that there is a vast difference between ‘knowing’ that magic is real—actually understanding it—and ‘believing’ it is real. My easiest example would be yourself. You now ‘know’ magic, what most people would label as magic, actually does exist. You’ve seen it in operation. But, even though you know magic is possible, deep inside you there is a part of you that still keeps you from really believing it.”

  Continuing to touch the tombstone, Knight closed his eyes. Although it was obvious he was attempting to keep his voice steady, his tone clear and unemotional, it was equally obvious that something was happening to him. As his assistant watched him, the professor seemed to grow straighter, taller, stronger. His entire body appeared to be vibrating, not the jerking, uncontrolled spasms of someone attempting to stay awake all night from ingesting too many energy drinks, but instead the steady, humming vibration of a well-oiled machine.

  “As I said earlier, we can both handle the same objects, speak the same words, perform the identical rituals, whatever, and I will be able to produce a result whereas you will not. Even though we do everything exactly the same, even though you know that magic works because you’ve seen it with your own eyes, you will not be able to make anything work.”

  Releasing the tombstone, taking a backward step at the same time, Knight opened his eyes once more. His face was split apart in a full and infectious smile, one that appeared to have planted itself upon him of its own volition. Brimming with a sudden vitality, he announced;

  “This is what has protected those we have labeled as magicians throughout history. We know a secret the rest of you do not. This is the reason the grand majority of people can read spell books, play with Ouija boards and the such, and nothing happens. It takes energy to perform magic, just as it does to do anything else.”

  “But not the kind generated by steam power, or electricity, I’m guessing.”

  “Correct.” Taking Bridget’s hand, Knight pulled her down to the ground as he himself suddenly sat down, his back coming to rest against the Griffiths’ headstone. As Bridget settled herself against it as well, the professor continued, telling her;

  “No. It takes human energy, emotional energy—elemental energy. The Empire State Building, to give us a familiar point of reference for instance, fills up with the stuff all the time. Can’t help it. Millions of people every day, they look at it, they think, ‘Tallest building in the city.’ As they do, their awe, their respect, their fear of heights, admiration for accomplishment, love of art deco design—all of it—it pours into the building, waiting for some magician or another to come along and drain it out.”

  “I guess you did so yesterday?”

  “Well, one always checks, but that’s the problem with big, splashy landmarks. All the wannabes, the amateurs, the slop artists, they’re constantly hovering over such sites, gorging themselves, fighting over the crumbs. The World Trade Center memorial site, or the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Times Square, the vultures haunt these places. But something like this,” he said, patting the gravestone gently, “these are the places that get overlooked. The story of the Griffiths is well-known, appears in plenty of the guidebooks. Green-Wood is itself a tourist attraction, but not the kind that attracts the sorts of erstwhile magicians who can only think of unlimited power.”

  Then, pulling the Disc of the Winds from a pocket on the inside of his sport coat, the professor held it out between himself and Bridget, telling her softly, “It’s the kind I prefer, softer, quieter—pure. Undiluted. And, when gathered properly, it’s, well …”

  Reaching out with his other hand, Knight gently took Bridget’s hand and closed her fingers over the disc.

  “It’s magic.”

  And so saying, the pair began to levitate upward into the darkness that had begun to fill the cemetery. The professor did not allow them to travel more than a few feet upward. First, he could not take the chance they might be spotted by someone else despite both the growing gloom and the fact that the graveyard was closed to the general public at that time. Second, he did not want to take a
chance of Bridget losing her grip and suddenly falling to the ground. There seemed little chance of the latter happening, however. Clutching on to the disc with an almost desperate grip, the redhead exclaimed;

  “Professor, we’re flying!”

  “Well, we’re floating at any rate, but essentially, yes, at the very least we are giving that appearance. Now, do you think you understand?”

  As the couple settled back to the ground, Knight replaced the disc within his jacket while Bridget attempted to regain her composure. Not able to do so sitting, she rose in a single, bounding motion. The pain in her aching feet forgotten, she began pacing back and forth before the professor, her hands in constant, somewhat comical animation. Waving them both frantically to emphasize her points, she said;

  “My God, oh my God, it was unbelievable; it was like in a dream. I was floating, levitating, whatever you want to call it—it was magic! Just like you said … and we were off the ground … we were—”

  And, just as suddenly as the young woman had risen and become practically a blur of random activity, she then stopped, frozen, her attention completely removed to a point outside herself. Studying her quickly, Knight could tell that something new had entered the picture, something so riveting that it had immediately commanded all of his assistant’s focus. The professor got no sense of uncontrollable fear or terror from Bridget, but still, the extremely heightened sense of agitation he was getting filled him with concern.

  Perhaps, he told himself, it might be best to discover exactly what it is that’s stolen our young friend’s attention.

  Rising from the ground, Knight turned so that he would be able to scan the cemetery in the same direction as Bridget.

  When he did so, he was able to see the same shimmering, spectral apparition floating across the graveyard lawn toward them that she had. Sighing, unable to fathom what exactly he had done to deserve such a never-ending series of out-of-the-ordinary events, he muttered;

  “I’ve got to start praying to a better class of gods.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Is, is,” the redhead stammered slightly, her frightened amazement stumbling her tongue, “is that a ghost?”

  “I don’t think,” answered the professor, “there is a much better word for that which, considering your question, I assume you are seeing as well.” As Knight studied the shape in the distance before them, eyes fastened to the undulating contours of the thing, examining the structure of the gliding wraith as best he could, Bridget asked;

  “This, this is a cemetery. Are there … ghosts, um, like always running around in these places normally?”

  “Well, more so than on your average street corner, I would suppose,” answered the professor absently, his concentration fixed primarily on the glowing shape still approaching their position. “I mean, reasonably, if you decide you want grapes, and you go to a fruit stand, you have a much better chance of finding some there than, say, at an auto dealership. But—”

  “I get the idea,” answered Bridget curtly.

  By this point the young woman had moved completely behind Knight. Eyes wide, unblinking, pulse running rapidly, she stared with a horrified fascination as the silent form continued drifting slowly onward toward them. Part of Bridget’s mind was working desperately to calm her increasingly jangled nerves. It whispered to her that she should not have anything to worry about, reminding the young woman that if the specter actually posed any sort of real danger the professor would have at least said something to her by then, if not removed her from the area.

  At least, Bridget told herself, she hoped he would. Swallowing hard, the young woman made a fist of her left hand, squeezing until her fingernails were digging sharply into her palm. Biting at her lower lip, she concentrated on the pain in her hand as a distraction from her fear. Then, when finally she felt she could speak without stammering, she asked;

  “So, okay—now what? What does this damn thing want from us? I mean, is it after us? Is it coming to us, or is it just flying around? Since you’re staying so calm, I’m thinking that you’ve seen ghosts before—yes? Were they like this one? Can you tell I’m rambling because I’m scared out of my mind?”

  “You do an admirable job of covering it, my dear,” answered Knight in a vague, distracted voice.

  The professor realized that Bridget certainly must be frightened to a great extent—not that he held such against her. Unless she had encountered some kind or another of spectral phenomena previously, which apparently she had not, it was only natural for her to be unnerved by the sudden arrival of such a figure now.

  The only question I have for you, my spectral friend, the professor asked himself, is are you something out of the blue, unrelated to everything else we’ve been forced to survive lately, which would only prove that God is a bastard who does play dice with the universe, or are you yet another piece to the ever-widening puzzle we’re being encouraged by Fate to solve?

  It took a moment for the pair of observers to realize the glowing form had slowed its approach drastically, to the point where it barely seemed to be moving at all. Knight felt he might know the reason why. Ghosts, at least those specters that represented the life force of some departed human being, were for the most part nothing like they were portrayed in legend or by the various entertainment mediums.

  Thinking he might have uncovered a clue as to why the shape had slowed its advance, Knight turned to his assistant. Taking her by the shoulders, he stole her attention by staring directly into her eyes, forcing her to look away from the wraith and at him instead. Feeling the tremors racing throughout her body vibrating within his palms, the professor told her;

  “Listen to me: I don’t believe there is any reason for alarm in this. But I do believe your, ah, ‘apprehension’ might be the reason it’s stopped moving. Your fear might actually be acute enough to keep it at bay.”

  “Is, is,” Bridget stammered, her teeth chattering as she spoke. Stopping, she dug her nails into her palm once more, forcing herself to focus, then said smoothly, “Is that a good thing, or am I messing things up?”

  “Sadly, there’s no way for me to know without making contact,” Knight told her honestly. “So, that’s what I’m going to do. But, I want you to stay here. I’m going to go out to it, try to, anyway, just to see what happens.” As the young woman’s eyes went slightly wide, despite her best efforts to control her reactions, the professor added;

  “Don’t worry, I’m really quite certain there’s no danger to either of us in my doing so. What I’m afraid of is that this might have something to do with everything else that’s been crashing down all around us.” Moving one of his hands to her chin, he touched it lightly, saying;

  “I simply can’t take the chance of losing a clue that might tell us what the devil’s going on around us.”

  Bridget nodded, smiling briefly at Knight’s touch. As he removed his hand from her chin, beginning to turn away, the redhead touched him on the arm, halting him for a moment. As his head swung back, she told him;

  “Just so you know, despite everything that’s been happening, I’m not sorry I left Montana.”

  Giving her a comically leering smile, one meant to amuse her, he shifted his tone to one that was a fair approximation of Groucho Marx’s voice and said;

  “And, just so you know, I’m not at all sorry you left Montana, either.”

  After that, Knight turned back toward the still-hovering specter, focusing all his attention on the freestanding apparition. The thing had taken up a position some sixty to seventy feet away from the pair. Moving slowly, the professor took a step in the wraith’s direction, holding his palms out toward the entity. He understood that human energy was released through the eyes and palms. If the thing waiting across the manicured cemetery lawn still possessed any level of consciousness, Knight wanted it to be able to read his intentions, to understand that he neither feared it nor meant it any harm.

  “Whatever it is you want,” he whispered to the wind, hoping the
words could somehow reach the thing glimmering before him, “I want you to have it. So please, stay there now—wait for me. I’m here to help you.”

  As Bridget watched she unconsciously began moving forward, returning to the Griffiths’ tomb. Grabbing hold of it, she bent low, unaware she was hugging the solid block as a shield. From the imagined safety of her position she then scanned the scene before her with fearful fascination as Knight continued onward, taking one smoothly measured step after another. The redhead was no Scully to his Muldar, at least not yet—but she was ready to make the effort.

  Continuing her observations, Bridget noted that Knight moved carefully, never rushing, making certain to keep all his movements uniform. Shifting her gaze from the professor to the apparition, Bridget began studying the thing as well, trying to get some sense of exactly what it might be—or what it might want.

  She had heard the term “ectoplasm” over the years when various sources had spoken of parapsychology and ghosts, but she had little idea of what it might physically consist. Besides, if she remembered correctly, ectoplasm was something that was created when the spirit world came in contact with a human host, such as a medium in contact with some beyond force or another. But this thing hanging in the air before them, it was not even connected to the ground, let alone in contact with anything living. Forcing herself to blink, Bridget ran her tongue over her teeth, working to generate some spittle in her fear-dried mouth. As she did, she asked herself;

  So, is this what you had in mind when you told everyone you were looking forward to all the new experiences New York City had to offer?